#Injected Metal Assembly.

[punk-in-docs]

🕷️ Girlfriend is Better 🕷️

Eddie Munson x reader

10.9k words

Summary: Eddie x Pencils hit a bit of a hurdle in their early relationship. But she puts it to rights - and then hits the sweet metal head with an offer he can’t refuse- tw violence, past assault: in this chap folks - sorry its taken so long to get this done - enjoy

Eddie can feel their eyes on him.

He feels it’s undeserved and let’s be honest, a little odd. It’s not as if he’s not doing anything out of the ordinary here. He’s just being- normal.

His version at least. His wheelhouse batshit normal. Eddie-like.

They’re looking at him like he’s grown a new head.

Munson Motor mouth, rabbiting on its usual mile a minute as Motörhead shreds through the van speakers with Lemmy’s choppy and tasty riffs.

Early morning cigarette that he lit before he hopped in the van for the drive to school, curling smoke held between two fingers.

He’s batting the saggy steering wheel in time to the song. Ba-da-da with his other open palm to coincide with drum clashes that pound through like falling rocks and crashing thunder.

He still takes the corners way too fast like a coked up maniac. Some things will never change.

He looks the same. Smiles the same. But there’s a new breed of manic warping his usual calamity of a nature.

He’s not grumbling about this morning. Or a test or pop quiz he had coming up. No miserable sluggishness. Toothpaste breath. Not slumped and still yawning. With nothing but a weak instant coffee, two sugars, as his one and only source of breakfast. Gritty coffee that still catches the grounds between his back teeth.

Hair that mushed dry state that’s hard to tell if it’s met with a brush or not yet. Possibly this morning. It’s a maybe. It’s a not really.

Leather and battle vest showed up for duty on his lanky torso as per usual. Hellfire shirt of course. The ripped jeans. The wallet chain that swings and jingles and clatters to denim when he walks and makes him sound like a jangling six foot cat with a little tinkling bell on its collar. It’s all there. The jangly jacketed freak is all assembled.

But there’s this newness to the way he’s smiling.

So wide it dimples his cheeks. Creases the corner of those intimidating wells of eyes. It’s like someone’s fuel injected him with something to make him wilder. More swirly. Practically floating. Any higher he’d be in the big blue stratosphere. Sun grazed and heady. Icarus soaring too close to the sun. Not yet plunged to earth. Melting gold spattered on milk white swan feathers as he tumbled to earth.

Jeff makes a joke about him toking up before school. Eddie reached over and ruffled his hair. Making that demons smile. Rings flashing from his fingers in the meagre sun. “Man, I wish.”

“Got new pills from Rick or something?”

Eddie frowned. “Hell no. Besides. Wouldn’t be wasting those beauties right before first period English class.” He scoffs.

Dustin and Mike share a furtive glance that begs to know what’s up. Dustin mumbles What the shit, man?

He’s finally cracked. I’m calling it.

He didn’t have far to go.

He judders the van along the lot at school. Rumbling tyres over the loose gravel. Head bobbing to the metal as he lurches the wheel and swings into a space.

“Be seeing you. Little hellions. Be free. Give em hell.” He chuckles. Lumping the van into park. Watching them open doors and frown. Scurrying away to class. Gathered close and whispering. Hiking backpack straps up their shoulders and clutching chunky math books and still regarding him like more of an oddity than he actually is.

Of course there is a reason for the golden sunshine visibly sneaking out his pores, and bouncing the soles of his happy feet today. And it’s his wonderful secret.

Eddie shakes his head, and shoulders all his jagged chips and hatred for this place.

The amount of chips he’s got shelved there, worn on his shoulders, about this stunning educational penitentiary, frankly, he could very realistically wear like scales at this point.

He puts a cigarette to his lips and slips around the corner of the lot, jacket and wallet chain clinking as he goes, sneaking to the smokers spot.

A balding patch of grass skimmed to mud, and a graffitied brick wall, snugly hidden around the side of the squat building where some go to steal a quick smoke before class. He usually occupies the spot alone and has to haul ass like a frightened racoon if a teach clocks him.

No sooner had he come within an inch of the corner, cig almost to his lips, and he is yanked around it by a sturdy hand yanking him fully out of view - by his wallet chain. He feels the tug on the denim around his hip, pulling taut.

He wants to yowl and start squirming away from the grip, slinging fists into faces at this ambush. When really he wants to turn tail and leg it in the opposite direction. Flight not fight.

His back collided with graffiti breeze block and before he could turn out his pockets, show them holding lint and nothing else save for a quarter and a D20, screechily proclaim his dispensary is clean out man, back off-

Then some warm lips mould to his.

A gentle artists hand, faded blue polish on the nails, knuckles scraping bricks, is cupping the back of his wild mane and cupping him for a kiss he slowly melts too.

He honest-to-god goes fully boneless with the way you kiss him. The scrappy fight and shock slowly leeches out those gangly poky limbs. Sparks shoot to his fingertips.

He smiles. You can feel his dimples and a cold leathered arm comes folding around your back. The bracelet and the jangle of those zips up his wrists. Settling at the dip of your waist and his fingers slide into the back of belt loop of your jeans.

When you pull back for breath that you’re not sure you want more than him, he has the dopiest grin skated on his face.

“Morning.” You beam finally.

Because that kiss seemed way more important. You can’t help the feeling he instills. Feels like your belly is birthing a wild jungle crammed with winking wings of butterflies. Brilliant blue. Wicked electric yellow. Gossamer pink. They all shimmer.

“Hey hot stuff.” He smiles. Not restraining himself whatsoever.

Oh, they shimmer even more to the sight of that. Mad. Wild. Unhinged.

His cheeks kissed a little pink. He doesn’t even care that he dropped his cigarette in the mud. He’d rather chase the taste of your lips and let that sustain him all morning. Better than pills and nicotine. This static-fizzy-starburst feeling he gets big lungfuls of when around you.

“Didn’t mean to grab you like that. But I must admit that chain is certainly a handy hook.” You flick a fingertip to it. Sway that lolling chain into his thigh. Biting your lower lip in a smile.

He cups one side your face. If anyone got to chew that lip, it’s gonna be him. Leans in to gently smooch you again.

“Goddamn. I was reaching for my attack whistle there, pencils.” He rubs his hand over your hip. Rings chafe against your denim waistband.

“Maybe I was overzealous. But I do have a stunning defence.”

You lean up on tiptoes to smash a polite smooch back to his mouth. He mumbled a curious sound into your lips.

“Which is?” He seeks. Lips chasing yours for more. Even through speaking. Insanity catches.

“I missed you like crazy and it’s been barely 12 hours since I last saw you, and kissed you. And etcetera…” You flirt.

He can see these little delighted pips in your eyes. Like sowed little seeds of pride. The etcetera being all the dirty things you finally got to indulge in last night. Threaded in moonlight at skull rock.

No regrets. He doesn’t see any tint of regret in you.

Seeing that kicks his rocker heart right up to the moon, and sailing on over it. Like those old songs. Moonbeams and old soft tinkling pianos. Ladies with gardenias in their hair crooning about moondance, love and seeing stars.

He gets it now. He totally gets all of that sappy shit.

“I hereby decree that is far too long, and way too stupid of us, actually.” He finishes your thoughts for you. They were symmetrical to his own after all.

“So stupid. We’re just like, a complete pair of morons right now.” You concur. Linking your fingers into his. Standing toe to toe and just drinking in how it feels to be near again.

“So I’m thinking, we should cease all impending stupidity and uh y’know, catch a movie tonight or, grab a bite at Benny’s. Something like that. Anything.” He says. Smile all limned in excitement.

Shaking that big moppish mane of hair as a grin splits his mouth when he speaks, makes him look like an out and out excited little kid.

Fidgeting with your hands and immersing himself in the tactile deliciousness of your hands being held in his. Little touches that stayed with him all night.

Kept bugging him even in dreams he’s sure thoughts of you crept at the oil slick lining of his mind like wing tips of persistent gentle moths. The dusty old ones the colour of sour grey milk. Ones that they get flapping around the trailer porch light at night in balmy summer. The soft blink as they hit the glass shade.

“Burgers at Benny’s sounds so good.” You grin. “Loaded chilli fries?”

He scoffs. “Naturally. I’m not an animal.”

You run your hands through his wild hair. Listen to him talk. Heart entirely bloated with love of this boy. You swear it’s knocking all giddy up against your ribs like some deformed roaming creature seeking release.

“Shall we head out after class? I’ll drive.” He offers. His stomach zig-zags in vicious excitement.

“Catch you after class, handsome.” You grin.

“Ohh, whoa. I never said I was done with you yet.” His eyes flicker with something you think is cheekiness.

Swooping in to slow kiss you for a beat too long. An embrace that makes him hum softly. Makes you mewl. Right at he back of his throat. Lips roaming gentle and soft and your bodies rock together. Gets him cupping your back to keep you near.

“Fuckk gimme another one of those, pencils. I’m not below begging.” Cups your face again. He wants another kiss. Eyes wide as bourbon brown saucers

Chuckling in the muggy space between your smiles, cheeks fired all warm, sharing the same breath, you lean in and give it to him. Giving him the deep messy kiss you’d been craving.

When it’s time to pull back to guzzle air and maybe some reality again, Eddie chases your retreat with his mouth. His lips bruised a stunning cupid pink. Taking a breath that he’s not sure he needs more than he does you.

“Jesus H Christ. How the hell am I gonna even attempt to concentrate today-“ He asks. Voice all raspy and slow gravel.

“What usually stops you?” You sass him. He bites his lip all naughty and softly jabs you right in the stomach; a move designed to tickle.

“Blasphemy. Dear one. I mean, how dare you.” He grins. Chocolate drop eyes all crinkled at their corners. You cover his hand on your stomach, with your own. He likes the soft warm pouch of you there.

It’s tactile. It’s touch. It shoots right to the roof of Eddie’s brain and does something so funky to him he can’t even describe it in words. Actions maybe - Beer on an empty stomach. The first hit of some really silky smooth strain Rick gives him to try. The home made warm sugary scent of that peach cobbler Wayne makes him on his birthday.

They haven’t designed or discovered enough appropriate words to put to this feeling. None that even his whip smart nature can grasp at.

“I’ll soothe that wounded ego and buy you a chocolate shake later if it pleases.” You offer. Tilting your head. Offer placed on the table.

“An ego bruise is a problem I will gladly allow you to throw chocolate and ice cream at.” His fingers worm their way through yours. Knuckles locked. You could do this all day.

“Can be swayed with chocolate. Good to know.”

“And candy. Pizza rolls are good too.”

“Noted.” You beam. Snuggling to his front. Hands still joined. Fused as one.

The sound of the bell ringing for first period is a rude interjection into a morning that’s shaping up to be stellar.

Eddie didn’t seem best pleased by this. Judging by the way he takes advantage of that split second of your distraction hearing the bell, to snatch his hands at your shoulders and loop you round so your back is to the wall instead of his. Sneak attack.

His arm is a leather band over the back of your waist and he gently cups your chin and deepens a silky melting kiss that is, just, so many elements of perfect it should be outlawed that just kissing can be this good.

The plush of his deeply plump lips, with the scraping push of some stubble on his upper lip. It’s delicious. The way he kisses is better than any hit off any joint. You don’t care what he says. Better than purple haze. Better than fucking anything. Backed by sheer dopey sized crushes that take you both, head to toe. Crushes taking on a life of their own. Wearing your skins whole and making you desperate. Make you ache.

You kiss him back. Desperately. Drenched in want. But also knowing that you should be hot-footing it to your first class lest you get a tardy slip. To turn up late, with a very very kiss worn mouth like that would be about as obvious as the nose on your face.

“Eddiii-mmmmm.” You plead to his bewitching mouth. Smoky minty breath and the faintness of his morning coffee on your tastebuds. He’s cupping your face like your some sacred relic he has to handle gently. As if he had corrosive fingertips. Strychnine laced touch.

When he pulls back. Hands two big gangly paws holding your neck, there’s this sweet dazed look all over his expression. Drugged on you. The way you kissed him like his tongue is made out of cherry candy and you only want more- oh lord.

How’s that for irony. The Hawkins High school dealer and here he is getting a huge hit, from kissing you. Nothing that comes pre rolled in a baggie making his mind fuzz like hot molasses, or circled into a wild little chalky pill that makes his head all bright and fuzzy sharp like cotton candy.

Making out before class he can gladly get hooked on. He thinks he’s there already. DT-Ing for more. Make him shake and rattle on all fours like a rabid dog.

“One for the road…” He explains inbetween raspy pants for breath. A silly smile all yours for the keeping.

You pat his chest. He could honestly whimper at the tactile feel of your hand resting on the meat of his pectoral. So dangerously close to skin on skin.

“I better go.” You sigh. A drop kick to your mood to leave him. You take a step back.

He can’t allow that. He whines like a kicked puppy. Button eyes all round and shiny with whatever amount of sadness it would take to root you here, with him.

“Don’t. Pencils. Stay here. Stay uneducated and stupid with me and let’s just make out, all day.” He waggles some filthy intentioned brows at you. Pleading threaded onto his voice. Trying his best to yank you back.

“You could easily tempt me to play hooky any day, Munson. But I’ve been studying for this test all week.” You point out.

“Well. I can’t deny that dorky chicks turn me on.” He sighs nicely. You can’t help smiling.

“Really? I figured tiny pleated little cheerleader skirts and peppy bouncy pom-poms turned you on.” You tease. Voice all sultry.

He leans in and smacks a kiss to the end of your nose.

“Nuh-uh. I like em’ covered in paint and jeans and artsy, and working in record shops with old hippies. And hopelessly in all consuming love with me.” He grins.

“Kiss ass.” You smirk. Smacking a kiss to his cheek. Stepping back. His hand slithers to find yours again. Links fingers. His rings glitter. They’re all warm where he’s been holding hands with you. On you.

“Hey, my girlfriend is a damn fox. This is a hill I’ll die on.”

You bring your joined hands up and kiss the back of his for that.

“Class beckons.” You roll your eyes. Shouldering your bag. Unwilling to unlink hands until you absolutely had too.

“See you at lunch?” You ask. His brows creased. Makes him look like an upset puppy.

“Can’t. Got a drop to make in the woods.”

“Parking lot after school?” He counter offers.

“You bet.” You agree. And you cannot even handle the wait.

You walk away around the corner. Eddies eyes trail over you as you go.

“Enjoy the smoke.” You turn over your shoulder and call back.

He saluted you with a flicking motion, with that million dollar grin pleasured all over his face.

“Brutal babe. You know what I’d enjoy more…” his inflection at the end of his words lets you know what he’s referring too.

“Down boy.” You play as you head off. Smile all secret and wide for him. Grin so wide it makes his heart pulse.

He’s grasping a hand over his mad heart as you slip away. One knee bent up. Sneakered foot flat to the wall behind him.

He reaches for that cigarette and his lighter. Though he doubts this little stick will do any damn thing that kissing you didn’t. He lights up. Grinning. You left his heart thrashing about and kicking inside the shell of his denim and leather like a damn drum in a cramps song.

Way, way across the field, sat high up on the bleachers with some of the girls on the cheer squad. In full view of the back brick wall where you had just been. Supposedly around the corner and concealed from view-

Linda snapped her binder shut. Eyes packed in venom. Huffing as she picked up her books.

Lipsticked lips pursed together in a grim hot pink line. Annoyance fills her chest and rams up against her ribs. Sour in her stomach. Nastiness curdled up on her tongue. She’d seen enough.

You and the freak. Just like Jonny said.

No fucking way.

~

Eddie bapped along to some rock that had been trapped in the lining of his crazy head since this morning. Head bumping as he hummed along, sang under his breath to Rattlehead. That mane flicking every which way.

Metal lunchbox swings from his hand and clatters as he bounced along the familiar route. Feet trained for the way. Leaves cushion his rustling step. He drags his eyes over the foliage spread high above.

Dappled with gold sunshine of the afternoon that chips down. The odd scurry of a bird flapping around the treetops. Nature and the soothing crash of wind lacing through wide apple-green leaves. He darts his eyes around, seeking and searching for the shape of anyone to come crashing through the trees.

He arrived at his little decaying stoop in the woods. The table that’s so carved and scarred with crude drawings and initials it’s chipped and falling to bits. Cig butts littered everywhere and Eddie shamefully admits some of them are most likely his. His place of business is well reputed.

Swinging his leg over the bench seat and slinking himself up onto the table to take a pew. Sneakers resting on the seat. Cause when has he ever approached anything normally, or fallen into doing anything that comes into the category of usual.

He throws the lunchbox lid open with no gilding the lily, and braces his scattered mind into this deal. Shoves through the bags to find the semi-decent stuff. Wave of heady green hits him in the nose as he rummaged and carried on humming to himself.

Though really for the preppy guy who propositioned this drop, he’s tempted to charge way too much for a thin little roll of ditchweed.

Alas, his reputation is too important. One bad sale and he’d never touch profits on it again. He will unwillingly part with some decent sativa for the knucklehead.

He thumbs through his papers and rustling bags and makes a note of exactly what he’ll put his fistful of measly dollars from the sale towards; another date with you.

He’s heard of this great alt store a couple towns over. Super your style. Record store in back, cool clothing, apparantly a rock n roll kinda vibe that you would appreciate. Posters, merch, jewellery, you name it.

He can’t think of a better place to take you for a date. He’s keeping it under wraps even though, god knows, his blabber mouth which runs and rants away from itself, wanted to yell and shriek about it to you nonstop.

How he wanted to scrape together some dollars to buy you something. A handful of punk style patches, a tee, a poster for your bedroom door that needed some anarchy or some goth Siouxsie. Maybe a little Joan and some Blackhearts action.

He’s heard you crank them up on your headphones to blaring when you’re trying to concentrate on a sketch. Like the loudness lifts you out your mind and transcends into the paint.

How he wanted to make a mixtape for you, of all the metal songs - and to his embarrassment some of the less tacky love ballads - that bring you to the forefront of his mind when he hears them. Even some older crooning songs that Wayne likes.

The stuff he was drip-fed on in his early days, sweet and crooning, like slow gold honey melting into his ears. Listening to them and snatching pieces of melody that breezed through the trailer. Warm and sunny to listen to. Softly swaying Don Henley, Woodie Guthrie, and Jim Croce. Even some Ella or some Julie London and her smokiness.

He smiles to himself as he comes to Rattlehead’s chorus. Toes tapping the rotten old bench and creaking the wood, as he scrunches bags aside this way and that to find the pre-rolls. Fingers drum the beats off the side of the tin. Clacking out into the woods.

The brutal snap of a twig makes him peer around.

Eddie swims his eyes through the trees and eventually drags them to find a Jock with his hands shoved in his pockets.

It’s not someone he’s on a first name basis with. He’s lost amongst a sea of sensible jeans and varsity two tones. Sea green and blinding white with the lion gold yellow Hawkins H proudly blazoned on his front.

Crazy how differently they wear their allegiances.

He’s the anti-thesis of Eddies style. Shirt tucked in. Sensible white sneakers that aren’t beat up to shit. Preppy. Hair brushed. Some square jawed Ryan or Chad or whomever, pads towards him.

The look in his eyes twists Eddie’s gut like wet flannel. Scathing.

He’s seen hatred and distain before. Of course. It’s poured very freely his way.

Thats nothing new to him. Distaste. Eye rolls louder than claps of thunder and tutts coming stabbed under breath peppered with nasty words.

This is that crowd at its ugliest. The tribe this guy is happily a part of. Supposed fuckin’ Normalcy. They scar the word ‘Freak’ into him over and over again. Stomp it into his messy maned head over and over with their feet.

Finally he got tired of the brutal raining down kicks and just took it. Weened the power of it. Stole it from them and flipped it. Made it his shield. Propped it up with that DIO patch on his back. Let their hatred sink into that and roll away useless.

Let them know it doesn’t sink down to places where they want it to hurt.

Eddie swallows. Throat suddenly a sticky chasm. Tried to soften the blow and put away whatever the fuck this guy was trying to scowl and throw at him.

“Hey, man. You’re my 1 o’clock right?” He asks. Tapping his knee still and fiddling with his hands.

The guy swerved his jaw before he spoke. “Yeah.” Spine held poker rigid as he answered. Like it offended him to have to be here and talk.

He came into the clearing. Sneakers rustling leaves. Something feels sour about this whole thing.

“Okay. Well- um.” He awkwardly clears his throat. Reaches into the box that he gently sets beside himself. Grabs the joint and fidgets with it for a second.

“It’s uh, it’s twenty bucks for a pre-roll.” Eddie tells him.

“Great.” He watches the guy nod. Curt. His expression steely. Eyes glassy in a way that’s beyond unsettling.

“Ohhhkay.” Eddie nods. Eyes a fraction too pinched at the corners. Concerned frown dragging down his brows. Wondering what the stitch up is. His eyes dart around. Bordering on panic.

He stands to get off the bench, the guy doesn’t so much a muscle to reach across and take the joint off him. Hands still shoved deep in his pockets.

Eddie holds the joint. The guy doesn’t even move to take it.

“It won’t bite man. Smooth as silk and just, hits you like a cool wave when you smoke that puppy. Trust me.”

Something flickers like a sneer across the guys mouth. He looks at the innocuous rolled joint Eddie’s holding out to him. Looks at the brown paper all rolled in his palm.

Eddie shrugs. Wide open. Leather crinkles over the jutting movement of his shoulders.

“You want it or not?” A razor edge starting to creep into his tone.

If this is someone who hasn’t made their mind up, he’s got other places to be. Better times to be had. Than waiting on whether or not the preppy jerk is gonna take the goods off his hands. Or use more than two syllables.

“If you don’t want it. I’ll go right now. Forget it. No hard feelings.” He takes the edge off for him.

Despite the fact that actually a little simmering front of annoyance bubbles at his belly for the guy wasting his free period he could have used to kiss you senseless with wandering hands, right up against the side of his van.

He turns around and throws the joint back into the box. Shaking his head. Making his hair do that wild kicky thing it usually does.

“Maybe you should go. Freak.” Comes spat his way. Drawn in a snarl.

“Whatever, dude.” Eddie puts his back to him. Folds his product back into his box.

More snaps. More rustled leaves. Eddie drifts his eyes up and sees three more guys coming through the woods to the clearing. Walking slowly, picking over nature to come to the bench all menacingly slow. Like he was a deer they were in danger of spooking.

All wearing Hawkins letterman jackets. Sneers writ on all their faces. Intimidation carved into every step they take. They look way too happy to see him here alone.

Suddenly Eddie feels small. Feels like he’s right back in middle school. Being tossed around and bashed up by the bullies. Coming home with stinging scraped knees and a cheek that feels swollen hot, itchy like bloated meat. The crust of dried rust scabbing under his nose.

This feels exactly like that. Some things never change.

“The fuck?” He asks. He won’t lie. His voice wobbles to a croak. Set on shaking sands.

“Where you goin’ loser?” One of them huffs out. Eddie turns his head.

Strutting towards him like the bullshit cover of macho magazine. Or J-Crew, is Barbies boyfriend. The blonde ape.

One of them he doesn’t recognise proudly comes up and slaps the lunchbox out his hands.

Eddie flinches back. Shrinks away. Puts distance between every step they eat up eagerly to come towards him. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want whatever’s coming barrelling his way. He hasn’t done anything except sell some reefer.

“Alright. Alright-“ Eddie stumbles back from the table. Hands high and empty. Voice jittery. His head and gut yell in sync - telling him to run the hell outta there.

“Clearly you guys have some sort of agenda I’m not aware of so why don’t we all just-“ His smile is all tremulous and shaky.

A fist drags his collar into a yank. A curled up punch swings into his face and knocks him clean to the ground before he can chew out his next words. His jaw snaps together. Hot pennies comes flooding his tongue where his teeth cut his cheek.

Stars and bursting black galaxies accompany his artless tumble to the ground.

And then some more fists come raining down. A sneakered foot planting square into his side to kick the wind clean out of him.

They leave him crumpled on the ground. Cushioned by rotting dry leaves. Smeared in mud, blood leaking from two places in his face. Spotting down to his dark shirt.

As a parting gift one of them empties his lunchbox over the floor and stomps its contents into the dirt.

He knows the feeling only all too well.

~

You clatter into the bathroom after your last class.

Let the bustle of crowds fall far behind you as everyone rushes to the lot to leave. Afternoon summer sun stripes its sneaking glory across the halls and slants the window ledges in gold.

You cross to the sinks and set your sketchbook crammed with new drawings on the side. Leafs of the paper and all the dried paint crinkling, as it’s wedged partially open by the sheer number of crammed pages all skated on dusty pencil or charcoal.

You’d need to buy another pretty soon. One with thick cloth like paper pages for you to fill up.

You go through new books like running water. Never stop sketching. You’d wanted to take Eddie to the funky art shop you grab your supplies from. You’ve a feeling he’d love seeing the paint sets and the sheer number of spray paints they got.

Creativity seemed to flourish from him. His imagination permanently running wild. Could never stop it. One of your favourite things about him in fact.

He would talk about your sketches. Ask you about them. Ask you what the best paint would be for decorating some new figurines he’s got.

He’d twirl the pen you’re using out your hand and tell you all about the way he’d sit in the library for hours drawing fantasy maps for his campaigns on graft paper. Drawing rolling green islands. Mountain caves with trolls. Boggy muggy swamps with draping trees and hidden dangers. Vast seas with coily sea serpents hiding in the waves.

He’d chat to you about your ideas. The ones you’re struggling with for art class. The things you need to study and learn about. The theory of colours. The use of them all dotted in a Poussin or swirled in a Van Gogh.

You could talk to Eddie about anything. For hours and hours. The mere fact of going to grab a huge greasy meaty junk fest of a dinner with him has you walking on clouds.

You want your evening with him already. It can’t come fast enough. You want salty loaded fries and a cold shake and relentless plush Eddie kisses. You wanna climb into the comfy ratty seat in that tired old van that you love. Listen to whatever blasting metal cassette he’s been humming along to all day.

Hell- even just seeing his whole face light up with a smile as you saunter up to his van. The way he’d look at you - the way he always looks at you - with those big shining brown eyes all haloed in golden sun. Brimming with mirth. Cheeks split wide and crow-eyes all bunched up at the corners in glee.

He burns so bright to see you, it’s like he’s swallowed the sun and stars combined. You feel so lucky to have that.

The way he links his fingers with yours. Lopes your fingers together as one and doesn’t even mind if your all paint spattered or your hands are too dry. Palms all hard from scrubbing off acrylic smudges.

He kisses your fingers and acts like you’re draped in diamonds.

Acts like you weren’t wearing a ribbed worn Henley. A large - borrowed - Berkeley blue varsity sweater knotted around your waist, or your straight worn baggy jeans, cuffed up hems and patched at the knees that you mended. And your truly awful red sneakers that are so beat up with age they’re almost a sad faded pink.

He still looks at you like you’re a holy revelation. Each time.

You heap your bag next to the sinks and scrub the last of the charcoal off your hands. Sticky pink soap making a lot of lather around your fingers as you washed the smudgy grey away from the creases in your knuckles. Watch the way it circles down the drain.

You pull up and dry them with the crinkly paper tissues sat on the side.

Take a second to look back to the mirror. Centred all around the ugly squiggles of old sharpie doodles etched on the walls. Contemplate your reflection.

You smooth the hair away from your forehead. Attempt to neaten some of the crazy fluffy bits that kink down around your ears. Fuss with it for a minute or two. Smudge the charcoal away off your cheek.

“Who you trying to look so nice for-“ Comes a cutting tone from behind you. Tone dredged through revulsion and back out again.

A twist over your shoulder reveals Linda. Stood there in her oversized acid wash denim jacket and too-short purple skirt. Hair all bunched up and piled on her head in a half up style wound with a magenta scrunchie. She stands with one hip cocked. And her eyes are frosty daggers.

Heat licks your spine in the shame that you’d been caught preening. “No one.” You say too quick.

Try and inflect some humour on your voice. “You know I don’t exactly have anyone to preen for.” You lie.

Looking down at your hands as you dry them. Scrubbing water away with damp paper. Crush it into a fist and ball it in the bin when you’re done.

You can feel her stare embedding itself into your skull. Like an engraving. Sharp. Scratch of a knife on hollow bone.

“I saw you with him. So don’t try and come at me with your bullshit.” She spits. Words tired and clipped.

You turn over your shoulder. She stands there seething. Looking as bitchy as she usually does. Pink lips pursed.

“Saw me…” you check.

“Yeah. You and Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson?” She poses the words like they’re offensive. Mocking.

Anger furred the back of your tongue. Like feasting on too much sugar. Or a chalky jagged pill lodging itself in your throat.

“Look. I know you’re like, a lonely little virgin or whatever, and you wanna pop your cherry and all, but there’s way better guys out there to screw-”

Your venom stops her words dead.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” You bite.

You see her face fall into shock at your tone. Snappy and sudden. She looked stunned. As if you’d wheeled around 360 and slapped her.

“Oh my god. Don’t tell me you actually like him? Are you serious?” She gapes like it’s illogical.

“He’s a loser with ratty hair who sells weed and lives in a shit hole trailer park.”

“I do like him. I more than like him. We’re dating.” You tell her with steel. “We’re going out tonight as it happens.”

“I knew you had a screw loose but this is just another level of low. Even for you.” Linda bitches.

“How do you never get tiredwith that constant tirade of shit that spills out your mouth Linda.” You snipe.

She rallies to respond. Scanning you with hard eyes backed with new levels of poison.

“I’m not the one dating the King of the freaks.” She hits at you, real low.

“No. You’re dating a two-bit jockstrap who doesn’t even like you, unless you blow him. At least Eddie wants me for more than my pussy.” You point out.

She swallowed. Eyes glimmer. You know that one bit deep.

“Don’t come crying to me when that trailer park asshole dumps you like a cup of cold poison.”

You shake your head and try to remember how to breathe. Snickering cracks of bones in your throat as you swallow. You want to fly into rage and slam your textbook into her stupid scathing face until it dents one of her precious cheekbones.

“You don’t even know him. None of you do. You don’t even know the first two things about him.” You defend loud.

“I know he’s weird as shit and sells skunk. What a catch.”

You bite your tongue. Plenty of insults about Jonny come crawling to mind.

“How long have you two been-“ She sniffs.

“Couple of weeks now. Since Kyle’s party.” You hurl at her furiously.

Her face fills with an expression you can’t read as everything comes to make sense. Falls into place. Puzzle pieces clicking.

“You’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“Yeah. And you’re so self centred look how long it’s taken you to even notice or give a shit about what’s happening to me or my life.” You finally say all the things you should have voiced long ago.

“You’re only interested now because you care what other people are gonna say on Monday, and what they’ll gossip about.”

“He’s trouble, and he’s gonna get you hurt. Probably gonna give you a filthy rash or something too.” She sneers. “Lord knows what he’s riddled with.”

“You’re such a fucking bitch.” You grit your teeth. Emotion gets the better of your voice. Tears bubble at your lash line. Red hot.

“Not gonna be my problem to have you trailing round after me anymore. Cause by the way, we are no longer friends.” Linda spits. Eyes narrow to slits.

You nod. Resigned. Tears of anger prick the corners of your eyes. You’re too angry to let them loose.

“What a goddamn relief.” You hit back. Chew your lower lip.

“I’ve had to listen to you bitch at me, and whine and snipe, and moan, for years. I’ve had to endure your tantrums and your cutting comments, and every play-by-play of every unsatisfying Friday night screw around, with your shitty dirtbag of a boyfriend who treats you like garbage. And who you run back to each time he fucks you over. And I’m so sick of you.” Your voice comes out raw.

“So yeah. You’re right. We’re not friends anymore. I don’t think we’ve been that for a very long time.”

You put your back to her and grab your books.

“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Freak.” She sideswipes nastily as you shoulder your way past her.

Catching her on purpose. Shoving her with your shoulder to catch her teetering in those heels.

“Have fun with your trailer trash.” She snips.

“Word of advice. Make sure Jonny wraps it first. Word is he’s been screwing Tina on the cheer squad behind your back every Wednesday.“

You watch her saunter up past you to get to the mirror and touch up her lipstick. Ignore ignore ignore.

Her too sweet Revlon perfume making your stomach roil. She looks at her reflection. The thing she loved most. It’s amazing you ever got a look in. She scrunches up sections of her hair to make it bounce. An indifferent mask on her face.

Trying to ignore you already so the tears don’t come. So what else is new.

You pause at the door. Hand on the handle. Books piled on your arms.

“Sad thing is. I never expected you to act any different when you found out. Turns out you’re just that shallow vain bully I always suspected you to be.”

She pretends not to hear as you slip out the door. You’re sure to slam it as loudly as you can.

Coming out into the partially empty hall. Quickly skating a hand down your cheek. Taking a gulp of a deep breath. Starting down the hallway to come to the doors at the end.

Letting the distance to that girls restroom salvage some of your anger. Let it ebb away and let the savage venom words roll down your skin like blunt razors.

You wait to see if they feel like they’ve drawn any blood.

Maybe just a raking deep black bruise. Perhaps the confrontation has lifted a rock solid weight off your chest. Cut your ties to something corrosive.

You storm to the doors at the end, and push your way out. Into the midsummer air. Afternoon sun washing over you as it creeps it’s golden-fiery way by. Slanting ochre across the parking lot.

A gaggle of people clutched around one of the sticky lunch tables stops you dead in your tracks.

That weight comes crashing back with all the subtle tact and grace of a tank storming a building.

It’s Hellfire. The crowd. It’s Gareth, Mike, Jeff and Henderson. They’re all clutched around someone sat on the bench seat. Someone who is leaning forwards with his elbows resting on his knees. One hand held up to his head.

Your mood plunges even more. There’s a sour shift as some of them twist to look at you.

Big childlike eyes full of something that approaches wariness. Sadness dashed with insecurity. The kid-like uncertainty of how to deal with this very gruesome and very real situation.

A cold can of tab, now warm, for the crescent bruise taking shape around his eye socket.

One of them fishing around in the bottom of their bag for crumpled blue band aids. Anything to help.

A wad of crinkly and loveless paper towels snatched from the boy’s restroom and wadded into a wet lump for the blood pouring under his nose. The fresh red that’s staining his tee like big gruesome poppy petals.

His free hand is wrapped around his side for the bruise he can already feel like a dark cloud of cherry red and blue cobwebbing up his skin and over each slat of his ribs on his left side.

They shuffle away from the table and you finally get to see what they all look so grim about.

Eddie is hunched over with a black eye and a bloodied face and nose. He’s muddy and dirty and scratched up and when he meets your gaze, your world shudders on its axis, to a grinding halt.

The way he’s looking at you shatters your damn heart into huge glassy shards. Diamonds and sprinkles of it, sharp and chunky, cut into your chest. Daggering.

He’s hurt.

He swallows and keeps eye contact. Looks at you with such fear and sorrow emanating from those big round bourbon eyes. You see the apprehension in his body.

It doesn’t get any better when he winced and tries to stand. Body bowing as he slowly eased himself off the bench seat. Hand cupping his ribs as he inched his way to a full stand. You hear him groan.

You see as pain flickers across his face. The usual springy frolicking gait is muted. It’s etched with pain and writ with ache.

He wishes he could read your expression right now. As it is he’s struggling to sort it into one emotion.

You look hurt, tear stained, livid and clenched rigid with something that could only be bone deep anger. Venomous, mind numbing, anger. And it was just bubbling and clawing it’s way to a fever pitch.

“Pencils-“ He wets his lips. Looks meek as he watches you carefully. Tenderness in his voice.

You dump your books where you stand and turn on your heel. Sketchbook cast to the floor and heaped atop your bag. You slam back through the doors and into the school - mind set on one salient thing.

The doors slam not seconds after you. The creaking jolt as the metal crunches back into place. Footprints scatter after you on the lino. The squeak of muddy sneakers. The gusting air of a sigh bred with a wince.

Eddie chases after you with all his might. Hooks his hand to your elbow. Tries his best to stop you.

“Hey. Pencils. Babe. Please, let’s get outta here. Let’s just forget this. I don’t know who it was- I didn’t see them.”

He’s really a terrible liar.

“With all due respect Eddie. I know who did it.” You explain bitterly, as you wander along. His touch turns to a tug on your elbow. Pulling at your shirt.

“Because he’s not smart enough to juggle two thoughts at once, much less try and hide the fact he beat you up. And second his jagged pill of a girlfriend just tore me to strips in the girls restroom for finding out.” You say. Possibly louder than you intended.

His face falls.

“Hey, hey…” He says softly.

You turn back. Tears springing down your cheeks. His hands are all over you. Cupping your neck. Your shoulders. You can smell the blood coming off him. Sour pennies. Desperation laced his voice. Comes off him in waves.

Desperate for you not to to this.

“This isn’t stupid shit to me Eddie. This is not okay. Not something I’m gonna let get brushed under the rug-“ your lip wobbles. You shake your head. You rub your nose. Chase the tickling tears away.

He mimics you. Shaking his own head so his hair flicks out. Eyes wide and terror stroked words pour out his mouth.

“Don’t go getting into trouble for me. I don’t want that for you.” He begs. His eyes are wide with it.

“Good thing I want it then.” You resolve.

He looks apprehensive. Choked by it. Scared by your resolve. He doesn’t want to let you do this. This is a doomsday territory.

“Pencils-“

You continue down the hall. He follows. Still doing everything in his power to convince you, or try to stop you. Credit to him, his list of reasons are pretty excellent.

Babe. Please. It doesn’t have to be a thing.

You’re on track. You have your grades. You got Indie state in your future to think of. I don’t want you jeopardising that for me.

I don’t want you going and getting in trouble for this.

He doesn’t stop you from making your way to the gym. But he is right there at your back as you push open the doors, shove your way inside and you don’t care if your entrance is loud.

The idiot jocks practice in the gym after school. Basketball mostly. Some dotted in the bleechers. Long suffering girlfriends sat with bubblegum pink coloured files, shaping their nails to the side and chatting and trying not to look too bored whilst the guys play. Linda sits chattering to one of the cheerleaders.

You wrinkle your nose at the stench. Whole place smells like musty sweat, floor polish and old socks.

Jonny has his back to you as he dribbled the ball. The ricochet of it pangs across the court.

You race across the floor to him like a hell fury. Fists clenched at your side. Eddie still trying in vain to get between you and your stubborn brain. To try and talk you out of this before it’s way too late.

Your entrance with him hot on your heels and whispering pleas at you, draws laughter and sniggering sneers from some of his dirtbag friends. Shouts come aimed your way.

Hey, look who it is. It’s the freaks.

Closed practice, morons.

Jonny doesn’t turn back but you make your presence known.

“Hey. You dumb fuck stain.”

You march right up to his sweaty back and shove him hard with both hands. Wrinkle that goddamn white basketball jersey.

The guys around him make mocking noises. Chorus of awes and exclamations.

The room slowly dawns quieter. The squeak of shoes muffled. Everyone’s eyes centre court where you stand seething. Panting for breath and trying to look as livid as you felt.

He turns back to you all slow and condescending. Like he’s some golden haired Apollo flouncing down from Mount Olympus to grace you with his presence. He’s limned in sweat and dissects you both with conceited arrogance.

“What’s your damage?” He sarcs. Looking down at you like you’re an ant. Or a mangy mongrel.

He flicks his eyes across and landing on Eddie.

“Munson. How’s them ribs.” He sneers.

You’re about ready to topple over the edge and spit nails. Anger gently creeps to a boil.

“Just peachy, thanks for asking.” Eddie answers. Mouth is a grim line. And his eyes look stern coal black. He turns his attention back to you.

“Pencils please. Let’s just let it go. There’s no point…” He whispers. Standing with his hand gently cupping your forearm.

“What do you want? Teams full. We don’t accept weirdos anyway.” Jonny pushes at the both of you.

“I’m not leaving this spot until you tell me why you attacked my boyfriend.” You steel. Voice low and even.

You can feel Eddie’s eyes on you like lasers. Burning holes in the back of your head.

His mouth gapes a little. If it weren’t for the fact he’s terrified off his ass stood here, his heart would flutter like a fledgling baby birds wings, to hear those words admitted aloud.

“No reason. Just don’t like him.” He shrugs all honesty. Passing the ball over to his friend. Standing with his hands on his hips.

“Careful hefting those big thoughts around. You might hurt yourself.” You fire out.

Your fight with Linda left sharp scalpel words on your tongue and now you ache to use them to their fullest.

He doesn’t look happy. Dark gold hair beading sweat down into his cenote blue eyes. Rigid anger on his frown as he glares at you.

“Linda didn’t like the idea of him being around you. She told us we were teaching him a lesson. To stay away from you. We were protecting you, moron.” He says like it should be obvious.

“How fucking considerate. Your girlfriend couldn’t think her way out of a damn paper bag if she had a map, Jonny.”

You feel Linda’s scowl all the way across the room. The weight those slitted eyes and a bitchy scoff. You know those echoing words found their target. Slammed right into bullseye red making their mark. You hope it truly hurts. As much as she hurt you

“She didn’t reserve the right to presume any fucking thing about me. And not one thing gave you not the right to hurt Eddie. Not under the guise of some macho-stupid ‘protecting-you’ crap.” You snarl.

He bounces the ball. You slam forwards and bat it out scathingly out his hand. Send it rolling away.

More chorus of noises scattered around you both as you stepped toe to toe with the guy who almost towered over you.

“You acted out of pure hatred. So don’t try and dress it up at something else. You useless. shithead.” You insult.

“And what are you going to do about it, freak, huh?” He jabbed. Nostrils flaring. Lips pressed together unattractively thin. Looks like a provoked silverback in his enclosure. About the beat his chest.

He turns to guffaw laughter and sneer with his friends.

When you speak it’s so reed thin it even makes a shiver run up Eddie’s spine. Slices of jagged metal.

And he’s not even on the receiving end of this frightening ire of yours. The one that’s bursting out of you like raw lightning. Like it can’t fathomably contain you. Love and fierce packed rage tight in situ.

“This…” You remark with a clenched fist. Thumb wrapped over your knuckles.

Your nail polish glints blue in the light like steely-inky beetle wings. Your eyes barely smother down live-wires. Danger, danger.

You thought about how they would’ve laughed at him.

Kicked him into the dirt like wet leaves and muck that drifts off the trees in fall.

How they would have laid into him and left him there. On the floor. Blood soaked.

Shown the freak who’s in charge.

It flashes when you rear your arm back. Putting full force into your right shoulder, feet taking a firm stance. You channel everything you have into this fearsome right hook;

You swing your fist straight into Jonnys face.

It’s powerful enough to hear a loud crack, you feel the blow shudder into bone. Catching his nose, which spurts blood.

He recoils and staggers. Knocked off balance. Sound punctured out his mouth. Clutching his bleeding face as red streams drip on his pretty white shoes. Stains his pristine uniform. Good.

Try explaining that one to mommy and daddy dearest.

You don’t even let him swing back around. You grab the shoulder of his disgusting sopping jersey and ball it in your hand. Using that as leverage to drive your knee high - hard - into his balls.

Before you let him slump to the floor in a bleeding pile of sweat glazed limbs. You mutter words just for him to take caution of.

“Come near me or Eddie again, and believe me I will break your goddamn jaw, Lopez.”

You let him crumple this time. Flag to the floor in a heap of collapsing bones and sweaty jock uniform.

He looks up at you, trembling. Blood skirting down his arms and past his cupped palm. Tears streak down his cheeks. You step back and let him crumple.

He’s spitting and snarling crude insults in between wails of pain, and a sticky mouthful that smears his teeth red, and stains his tongue with metal.

“You broke my nose, you crazy fuckin’ bitch.” He spits. It sounds wet. Words sluiced in crimson.

“Finally. A nickname I can warm too.” You scathe.

When you look up, guys around him flinched back a good few paces in case they fell into the category of your rage. Wariness edging their expression. Eyes wide and mouths caught suspended open, like brain dead guppies at feeding time.

Eddie stepped forwards and gently laid his hand on your shaking arm. His fingers urge you closer. Get you following him to haul ass outta there.

You scan the room and find Linda gaping at you just as dumbly as everyone else. She’s risen to a stand. Face like she’s just swallowed a painful poison pill. Apparently in no rush whatsoever to get to her boyfriend.

“It’s ok. I’m done here.” You tell him. Gritting your teeth. Meeting Linda’s eyes.

You turn and walk away. Back to this whole affair Amazed how scarily easy it is. Leaving your supposed friendship in the dust. Bleeding crumpled on that floor.

You feel an enormous sense of relief walking out that gym.

Your hand killing you. No doubt about it. Shooting mad red hot fireworks up and down your forearm. Your knuckles feel like hell. Sparking furious with pain.

You reach for Eddie’s hand anyway. Screw the pain. You slip your fingers into his. Turn and catch his eyes.

He’s watching you with so much cautionary care and concern.

You breathe. Lungs shivering around new calm air. Words come easy but you feel shaky with them.

“C’mon. Let’s go get you something for that eye.”

He agrees with a nod. Then that hopping spark that’s truly skated in usual Munson mischief, comes springing back full force into his eyes. Lovely happy bourbon again.

“Wouldn’t dare refuse you, Pencils. Not after seeing what you’re capable of.” He grins. Nudging you with a shoulder to get a smile out of you.

“Damn right. Those idiots just cost us a date night. He deserved all that and more.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” He smiles. Eyes still stuck on your face.

He lopes alongside you. Hand clutched in yours. Shoulder rolling to yours. It feels whole. It feels like trust.

~

You sit in Eddie’s van in the parking lot of the Fair Mart. Despite your protestations, he fully insisted he was fine to drive. He rolled into park out front just about as the sun began to set.

The night started to pull in. All lilac and periwinkle skies, soft as a vintage eiderdown that made you think of bluebirds feathers as you watched that solemn shade of blue overtake the sky.

Making the all too yellow lights within the dingy place stand out proud. Blinking a little. Humming along with the huge freezers inside. All the twee touches of home made signs telling you about the canned goods on offer. Written on card with flicky show-manly italics. Some easy friendly music sparkles out the speakers.

The plump clerk is smiling and jolly and bubbly bright, even when you unload for a whole armful of some medical supplies on the counter. Eyeing your now purpling knuckles with sparky perception. Ringing things up, you throw in a bag of jolly ranchers and a couple of ice cold cans - they suggest a rattling jar of aspirin.

“Take away the sting, honey.” He wafts a knowing hand. “That’ll be $11.90.”

You pay with a watery smile and walk out with a paper bag full. It crinkles in your arms as you go back to Eddie. Who’s sat with his legs dangling out the driver side of his van. Fidgeting with his rings all skittish. Legs swinging to an invisible tune. Still Rattlehead, actually.

You’re the only people in the place. Talk about lulled and sleepy Hawkins. This clearly isn’t a place for two teenagers on a Friday night. They’re all off sucking face at the quarry or skull rock. Or gathering at the arcade.

You come back and get to work cleaning him up.

Lump the bag down beside him, close to his hip, and you stand between his spread legs. Hand fiddling with your belt loop so carefully. He feels you gently brush sweeps of his bangs off his forehead to get at his skin and smudge away a bit of dirt. He lets you. Sat there and losing himself in his gazing.

He winced a little when you gently dabbed some antiseptic cream on the cut at his cheek.

“There’s Jolly ranchers in there you know.” You supply.

“Is that a bribe for me to sit still?” He checks. “Cause it will definitely work.” He dives his hand into the crinkly paper and searches for the candy. He finds one and holds it in his palm until you’re done.

“Who, um.” He swallows. Looking too intently at his ripped jean kneecap. “Who taught you how to—“

You draw back and let him find his words. Let him come to you with it.

“Who taught me how to throw a punch?” You smile.

Still dabbing his cheek. Fingers slipped under his chin and tilting his head up to you. When he could stay still enough.

“My sister. She bought me self defence lessons after-“ The words die and wither up all grey and ashen in your mouth.

You break eye contact for a second and rub at your brow.

It slowly creeps over his head like some dreadful tide. After what?-

Eddie knows he doesn’t like the look settling over your features. One bit. He doesn’t care for it at all.

“It was the summer before junior year. Around the time Linda and Jonny started dating. We went to this party. She didn’t want to go alone so I was roped in. Dressed me in one of her stupid mini skirts, planned to set me up with one of his buddies, Alex.” You pause and chew over the words.

“It was stupid as shit, looking back now, but we got so stupid drunk. Teen freedoms and lite beer. We thought we were so cool. So much so I didn’t notice that my drink was spiked with something. I don’t even know what. All I can remember is just, blackness, and then waking up with Alex sliding his hand up my skirt.”

Eddie blinks. Shuts his eyes for a second. His voice sounds so far away. “Shit. Pencils.” He rasps. Upset and angry on your behalf. He looks more hurt than all those bruises scattering his face.

“Nothing else happened. I screamed blue murder, and shoved him off me and just turned tail and got the hell out of dodge. Walked miles home in heels til I got blisters all over. Charlie was so so pissed. First time I’ve ever seen my Mom go full apocalyptic angry.” You explain.

“She wanted to bring charges but Alex’s family lived on Loch Nora, and his dad was a bigwig in local council so naturally he just chalked it up to underage kids having too much drink and touting it around town that a ‘misunderstanding’ occurred. Transferred their golden boy to a private school. And it just got, quietly swept away.” You accept.

All the pieces slowly floated and formed together to clarity in Eddie’s head.

“Linda stayed with Jonny even after all that shit you went through…” He asks. You nod.

“Stuck like glue.” You infer.

He can’t stand it any longer. wraps his arms around you fully and tugs you into a bold hug. Burying his face in your chest. Listening to the tick of your heart, and feeling you hold him back. Smiling and pressing a kiss to the wild nest of his hair. He smelled like sour-sweet green apple shampoo and earthy papery leaves.

“I’m so sorry.” He rumbled into your arm. His hug says so much more than that.

I’m here and I’m not leaving. Whatever you need - I’ll give it. Carve it out of my chest because you own every piece of me - in full.

“Not your fault, Eddie. I stopped being mad a while ago.” You tell him. Pressing another kiss to his head.

That’s why he’d been so unsuccessful in being able to stop you today. Because you’d let one bout of assault go, like hell were you about to let that happen all over again. And not to him. Drew some blood of your own to partially settle an old debt. To quiet some old violent ghosts.

He lets go of you and plonks the red wrapped jolly rancher in your right hand.

“I think you need and deserve this more than I do. And I’ll keep on being mad on your behalf - if that’s ok.” He says honestly. Fingers slithering through yours. He twists your hand over and sees the bruises wrapping around your knuckles.

You smile.

“I’ll take that.” You answer in reply to his offer. “The candy and that kind offer.”

Cause this is exactly what you need. Him. Him in all his unusual and funky glory.

Metal head with a heart so pure you’re actually certain it is made of solid gold. He whom proclaims to the world he’s nothing but a devil worshipping Satanist, made up of cynical death metal, and pot smoke.

Yet, he’s the guy who puts wrapped candy in your hand. Plies you with kisses and tried to hard to keep you out of tumbling headlong into trouble for his sake. Wanted to take you for a greasy burger and just share every silent soaked moment with you. No matter what you’re doing as long as you’re shoulder to shoulder.

He’s springing up before you can stop him. Sits you in the seat he occupied and told you firmly to ‘wait here, toots.’

Then, he’s scampering across the grocery store lot all jangly jacket and mad frizzy rocker hair bouncing as he goes. The soft pad of his feet on the doormat and the swish of the door he pushes open.

He drifts around the aisle for a few minutes before you see the top of his head bounce as he jaunts to the checkout and pay with a load of coins and a crumpled bill dug out his pocket.

He’s out the doors and whirling back to you in no time at all.

Hand on his ribs as he winced and realised that moving around all silly like he normally does would have its consequences. Ode to a bruise.

He comes over and crouched in front of you. Proudly showing you his purchases. He holds them up like he’s won an award.

bag of frozen peas and a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

“For you, my most dangerous slash badass weirdo.” He grins. Even under that black eye, and the cut limned with purple across the bridge of that nose, his brightness and joy is infectious.

He takes your hand and you smile as he settles the peas on it. Settles his hand on top of it and stays crouched. Looking up at you with literal stars in his eyes.

You’re hit with such a fierce wave of love it shocks you from the inside out. Punching into your ribs and mangling and mashing your heart and lungs together with something that burns all mean like static. Words trip off your tongue like a smudge of sugar. You feel drunk on them; fever and maddening realisation in a shockwave.

You put your hand over his. Ice cold and shifting crunch on the bag.

“Eddie, you’re free tonight right?”

“Well the beauty pageant will have to take a hike with these shiners.” He plays. Tilts his head.

“What would you say if I asked you to spend the night?” You check.

His brain seems to crunch and churn through the cogs to answer.

“The night?” His eyebrows almost swoop up and disappear into his bangs.

“Not sure your mom would be too wild about that.” He says.

“She’s in San Francisco. Short haul. Not back til Monday.”

“Oh.” Eddie nods. And then it hits him.

“O h.”

You keep eye contact and smile. “I'm game. What’s say you, Munson?”

“Holy shit. Pencils.” He wets his lips. Grinning.

~

T A G S darlings

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Open Circuits

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet that picks up where the old, good internet left off. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Every trip to Defcon – the massive annual hacker-con in Las Vegas – is a delight. Partly it's the familiar – seeing old friends, getting updates on hacks of years gone by. But mostly, it's the surprises, the things you never anticipated. Defcon never fails to surprise.

I got back from Vegas yesterday and I've just unpacking my suitcase, and with it, the tangible evidence of Defcon's cave of wonders. My gear bag has a new essential: Hak5's malicious cable detector, a little USB gizmo that lights up if it detects surreptitious malicious activity, even as it interdicts those nasty payloads:

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/malicious-cable-detector-by-o-mg

(In case you're wondering if it's really possible to craft a malicious USB cable that injects badware into your computer and is visually indistinguishable from a regular cable, the answer is a resounding yes, and of course, Hak5 sells those cables, with a variety of USB tips:)

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/omg-cable

But merch is only a sideshow. The real action is in the conference rooms, where hackers update you on the pursuit of their obsessions. These are such beautiful weirdos who pursue knowledge to ridiculous extremes, untangling gnarly hairballs just to follow a thread to its origin point.

For the second year in a row, I caught a presentation from Joseph Gabay about his work on warshopping: slicing up shopping cart wheels and haunting shopping mall parking lots during resurfacing to figure out how the anti-theft mechanism that stops your cart from leaving the parking lot works:

https://www.begaydocrime.com/

And of course, I got to give one of those presentations, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," to a packed house. What a thrill! It was livestreamed, and if you missed it, you'll be able to catch it on Defcon's Youtube page as soon as they upload it (they've got a lot of uploading to do!):

https://www.youtube.com/@DEFCONConference/videos

After my talk, I went back to the No Starch Press booth for a book signing – which was amazing, so many beautiful hackers, plus I got to share a signing table with Micah Lee. As I was leaving, Bill Pollock slipped me a giant hardcover art-book, and said, "You're gonna love this."

I did. The book is Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, by Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer, and it is a drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished:

The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall.

But peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex. Inside these blobs of resin are snips of wire, plugs of wax, simple screws, fine sheets of metal in stacks, wafers of plain ceramic, springs and screws.

Truly, quantity has a quality all its own. Miniaturize these assemblies and produce them at unimaginable scale and the simple, legible components turn into mystical black boxes that only the most dedicated study can reveal. Like every magician's trick, the unfathomable effect is built up through the precise repetition of something very simple.

A prolonged study of Open Circuits reveals something important about the hacker aesthetic, a collection of graphic design, fashion and industrial design conventions that begins with this realization: that the crisp lines of digital logic can be decomposed into blobby, probabilistic lumps of metal, plastic, and even wax.

It reminds me of George Dyson's brilliant memoir/history of computing, Turing's Cathedral, where he describes how he and the other children of the scientists building the first digital computers at the Princeton Institute spent their summers in the basement, hand-winding cores for the early colossi their parents were building on the floors above them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/03/12/george-dysons-history-of-the-computer-turings-cathedral/

You can see my hacker aesthetic photos in my Defcon 31 photo set:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=defcon31&user_id=37996580417%40N01&view_all=1

In this video, Eric Schlaepfer illustrates the painstaking work that went into decomposing these tiny, precise components into their messy, analog subcomponents. It's pure hacker aesthetic, and it's mesmerizing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKyJ0b04Lo

But Open Circuits isn't just an aesthetic journey, it's a technical one. After all, Oskay is co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Labs, one of the defining places where hardware hackers gather to tear down, pick apart, mod, improve and destroy electronics. The accompanying text is a masterclass in the simple machines that combine together to make complex assemblies:

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/

Defcon is a reminder that the world only seems hermetically sealed and legible to authorized parties with clearance to crack open the box. From shopping cart wheels to thermal fuses, that illegibility is only a few millimeters thick. Sand away the glossy outer layer and you will find yourself in a weird land of wax-blobs, rough approximations, expedient choices and endless opportunities for delight and terror, mischief and care.

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful

[wordsandrobots]

Jotting down a half-formed thought.

Some years ago, I went to an XML conference in Oxford (that makes it sound fancy but off-season college food is universally terrible) and one of the speakers was a gentleman who worked for Wikipedia. And one of the things he said was that what he aspired to, with Wikipedia, was something akin to the ship's computer in Star Trek, where you could go, "Computer tell me about pottery on Bronze Age Cyprus," and it would return all the information you could want. An aspirational idea, to be sure, and not an aim I object to, but an example of how fiction shapes what we want out of technology.

A couple of weeks ago, my workplace held one of our semi-regular informal meetings about so-called 'AI' and the impact on our industry, which I generally avoid because I am an avowed Luddite when it comes to this latest round of 'wonderful new technologies' being promoted at break-neck pace by investment capital. My contributions to the meetings when I do go are generally of a wet-blanket kind and this time was little different even though we were talking about 'fears around AI', because a well-intentioned colleague started the discussion with Roko's Basilisk and the Paper-Clip Maximiser. Politely speaking, these are two rather implausible scenarios concerning the creation of general artificial intelligences, which do not have much bearing on the subject of large-language models and supposedly-assistive automation. I bit my tongue a lot, despite finding myself talking more than usual, mostly on account of thinking that focusing on these fantasies is a distracting waste of time when 'AI' tools are being deployed willy-nilly in efforts to devalue people's labour, to say nothing of exposing the tech sector's childish disregard for creativity as a part of human experience.

I fear the loss of skill and information at scale as a consequence of another capitalistic fool's gold-rush far more than I do hypothetical non-human intelligences we are not close to creating, and that would reside within extremely vulnerable infrastructure if we did.

Nevertheless, it got me thinking about Issac Asimov and the laws of robotics, his set of impossibly vague rules created to drive stories on the basis of finding all the ways they would go wrong.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

(Please appreciate how many philosophical concepts an AI would have to understand in order for these to be practicable.)

And that got me thinking about 'robot' stories in general, all the way back to Karel Čapek and Rossum's Universal Robots, which is of course not about thinking machines at all but rather the proletariat, 'robota' meaning as it does 'forced labour'. Decades later, Luke Skywalker and his uncle were buying slaves made from steel and gold to work on their farm. 'Robot' displaced 'automaton' in popular language, and injected its original, class-structure meaning into unthinking clockwork. Fictional metal robots become beings capable of thought. Alien, yes, yet in some measure conscious and subject to all sorts of ethical considerations and imagined horrors. We've largely left behind Čapek's conception of human-like beings assembled from separately grown organs, the production-line person, but his tale of a genocidal revolution persists.

Discussion around automation and 'AI' seems to me to be soaked in a morbid desire for a 'safe' intelligent servant. Science fiction has shaped how we hold those discussions, naturally, directing our concerns at 'robot uprisings' and being 'surpassed' in some way (or all ways). It goes without saying that a great deal of the fiction functions as metaphor. To pick an example I've just finished rereading, Ann Leckie's Ancillary books are as much commentary on real-world imperial practices as they are an exploration of personhood and how general AI might be implemented per se. Unavoidably so. Will we ever extract 'robot' from Čapek's work and the industrial models that shaped his writing?

Perhaps not, but this isn't really the question I'm concerned with here. No, what I'm grappling with is the appeal of having an intelligence serve our whims. From the simple humanisation of tools, both in the sense of 'prompts' and 'hints' taking a conversational tone, to the desire to supplant actual humans with pliable alternatives that has Elon Musk wheeling out a bloke in a leotard like he's restaging The Five Doctors, it's a thread that has become wrapped around how we engage with . . . well, with technology. With constructions meant to assist us, that more often than not cannot replace us (yet) and require us to assist them.

In reality, the ethical questions arising are blunt and ugly. Whose work do we value? By what criteria does society judge who it supports and who it discards? How is remote technology used to circumvent natural, negative human responses to violence? Did those companies pay for that data, and do we want them to be able to buy it at all?

Still the fantasy persists. "Computer, answer my question." "Robot, do my chores." "AI, you won't rise up and kill me, will you?"

This is not an original observation, to be sure. I am inclined to seek out analyses of these trends in discussion around new tech, although I fear it would mean going back to Frankenstein and working forward. It just struck me, forcibly, that the metaphors for labour discontent and slave uprisings have imposed their own logic on both the fears and the hype around 'AI', be it the real thing or the glorified spell-checkers used to pretend art can happen at the touch of a button.

I have nothing against automation as a tool for making life easier, just as I see no possibility of that promise being fulfilled while capitalistic priorities rule the world. We have to pivot to centring human good first, and that's the core of the struggle.

But I'm also beginning to think we need to seriously ask why we want our tools to be glorified. Why we would want, not just speech recognition as an assistive feature for those who can't type, but specifically something that can speak to us in Majel Barrett's voice and hold an intelligent conversation. Why we are sold objects intended to play-act being 'part of the family' and why those selling them consider it desirable.

I don't suppose the answer will be less depressing than 'owning people is the highest mark of prestige in the societies producing these discussions. Even so, it's probably worth unpicking.

[interdimensionalburnout]

>It's a video of, well, a half-skeletonized zombie, shot through with animated chunks of rusting iron and bent steel. There's several moving around in the distance, some human, some merely humanoid, some shaped like monstrous wildlife, all of them at various states of decay when they were embalmed. Because Hermes embalms the undead with machinery, figuring that her arcane tech could supply enough power and control to wrench some further, diminishing use from the corpses that seem to pile up wherever Saintworks goes.

>The thing moves with a mechanical pace and precision, this shambling partial skeleton with an arm made of scrap metal, itself held together more through the stuff Hermes injected into the corpse than through any proper design principles. Her "scrap-skeletons," her "skrels," stare on with a dull green light in their eyes, vacant of thoughts, but focused with purpose. On closer inspection, the zombie is dressed in a hi-vis vest, with (for some reason) a hard-hat attached to it's exposed scalp, as it works through the dangerous assembly of chemically-smoking parts at its station inside of the surrounding factory.

>As Hermes' camera wanders up to it, the skrel looks up at the camera and waves, before the lights in its eyes seem to suddenly flicker with distinctly people-like energy. The mechanical corpse looks sheepishly, side-to-side, before leaning away from Hermes and beckoning the camera to come see... something. As Hermes approaches, looking up over the skrel's shoulder, a second, gauntlet-wrapped skeletal hand is sticking through the belts, flipping Hermes off. The chattering sounds of robotic laughter end the video.

[storiednhappy]

Campfire Darkness

In partnership with @jaxsthugs

Chapter 2: The Experiment

Camp sat alone in the dimly lit workshop, the city’s neon glow seeping through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. The old man had introduced himself as Dr. Neuman, a former scientist whose experiments had pushed the boundaries of ethics and legality. Camp didn’t care about the man's past—he only cared about what Neuman could offer him now.

The air was thick with the smell of ozone and chemical solvents, a sharp reminder of the unconventional path he was about to tread. Camp’s eyes were fixed on the makeshift apparatus that Neuman had assembled: a crude amalgamation of wires, electrodes, and glowing vials filled with unknown substances. His heart pounded in his chest, a mix of anticipation and fear.

"Ready?" Neuman’s voice was a low, gravelly whisper that cut through the oppressive silence.

Camp nodded, his jaw set in grim determination. He stripped off his dirty shirt, revealing his lean, tattooed torso. His skin was marked not just with ink, but with the scars of a hard life. Each line, each curve of the tattoos seemed to pulse with his heartbeat.

Neuman began attaching electrodes to Camp's body, the cold metal pads biting into his skin. The wires snaked their way to the central device, which hummed with a menacing energy. “This will hurt,” Neuman warned, his eyes devoid of empathy.

Camp’s gaze was steely. “Do it.”

Neuman flipped a switch, and a surge of electricity tore through Camp’s body. Pain exploded in every nerve, white-hot and unrelenting. His muscles seized, his teeth grinding together to stifle a scream. He felt as though he was being ripped apart from the inside, each bolt of energy a new torment.

As the electricity coursed through him, Neuman injected the first of many syringes into Camp's arm. The liquid burned its way through his veins, a fiery accompaniment to the electric agony. His vision blurred, the edges of the room dissolving into a haze of light and shadow.

Hours seemed to stretch into eternity as Neuman continued his work, each injection a new wave of torment, each surge of electricity a fresh assault. Camp’s body convulsed violently, his mind teetering on the edge of madness. But through the pain, a dark resolve kept him grounded. He had nothing left to lose and everything to gain.

Finally, the torrent of electricity ceased, leaving Camp slumped in the chair, his body twitching uncontrollably. Neuman observed him with clinical detachment, noting the changes with a cold satisfaction.

Camp’s breathing was ragged, his chest heaving with the effort of drawing air. His muscles felt as if they were on fire, each movement a new agony. But beneath the pain, he could feel something else—power. Raw and untamed, it surged through his veins, a dark gift born of agony.

Neuman approached him, a syringe filled with a luminescent green liquid in hand. “The final injection,” he murmured. “This will stabilize the changes.”

Camp nodded weakly, his voice barely a whisper. “Do it.”

The liquid burned as it entered his bloodstream, but this time the pain was different. It was a cold fire, spreading through his body with an almost clinical precision. As it coursed through him, the agony began to recede, replaced by a growing sense of strength.

Camp forced himself to his feet, his body still trembling. He looked at his reflection in the cracked mirror, barely recognizing the figure that stared back at him. His once-lean frame was now a lattice of muscle and sinew, his eyes glowing with an unnatural intensity.

Neuman watched with a satisfied smile. “Welcome to your new reality,” he said softly. “You are no longer the man you were.”

Camp turned to face him, a cold fire burning in his eyes. “No,” he agreed. “I’m not.”

The transformation was complete, but the journey had just begun. Camp felt a dark resolve solidify within him. The power coursing through his veins was a tool—a weapon to carve out his place in this unforgiving world.

He stepped out into the night, the city’s lights casting long shadows across his path. The man he had been was gone, replaced by something new—something more. The struggle was far from over, but now he had the means to fight back, to take what he deserved.

And he would. No matter the cost.

[jerseyluck]

Justice League (2011) #1-6 Readthrough

Sometimes you want to read a bad comic. And spoilers, Geoff Johns’ Justice League does manage to meet that bar. It is a bad sign that this was flagship book for New 52, because it doesn’t sell you on the quality of the line.

The arc starts with an issue of Batman being hunted by the police while he chases after an alien criminal. And then Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) shows up because alien. The two heroes do not get along, and the alien uses a mysterious device to do a suicide bombing to stop the heroes. We then cut to Victor Stone, young football star, being sad. The two heroes go after Superman thinking that he can help with this mysterious alien situation.

And that is all that happens in Issue #1. You think that a launch of line would be big launch showing the power of heroes, but instead we get Green Lantern and Batman being dicks to each other, and a very paranoid DC universe to the new superheroes.

And Issue 2 manages to continue this weird paranoia from the citizens of the DCU by having The Flash (Barry Allen) being worried that the police are after him. But he doesn’t have time to worry because Superman is attacking Batman and Green Lantern. The fight is going poorly enough that Hal needed to phone a friend to get Supes to calm, and Flash goes quickly to calm everything down.

Better heads manage to prevail, and the group decides to hide away to discuss the mysterious alien attacks. Meanwhile, Victor Stone terrible day continues with him getting his father to admit that he does not want his son to play football. And when things start to advance, the mysterious boxes activate which leads Victor to be seriously injured.

Issue #3 starts with some Wonder Woman moments, and while these moments are one the highlights (especially the scene where Wonder Woman eats ice cream for the first time) it does seem to out of character for Wonder Women. Geoff Johns writes her more like Thor, as ancient being going to modern day but is hungry for battle. Anyway, the aliens come to attack Wonder Woman and Washington DC as well.

Victor’s dad goes to work to save his son’s life, while in Metropolis swarms of the aliens (they’re Parademons) attack Superman’s group. And weird complaint but heroes are a bit kill crazy for something that they don’t know if they are intelligent beings or not. Anyways, Wonder Woman shows up to join the group in battle. The heroes try to figure out what is going on with attack and the pinging devices when Aquaman shows up.

In the efforts to save his son, Victor’s dad has injected him with experimental nanotechnology. This has the side of almost entirely covering Victor’s body in metal, making him a cyborg. Thankfully this gives Victor the ability to talk to computers and use high-tech weaponry like a sonic cannon. Which comes in handy when Parademons attack.

Meanwhile, Aquaman makes a convincing argument that he should lead the group of heroes while also using his abilities to take out some more Parademons. But before much progress is made, the US military goes to attack both the Parademons and the assembled heroes. It does not go well for the military.

Cyborg is seen running from the stress of being more machine than man but the mysterious device teleports him to gathered heroes in Metropolis. And to make matters worse the pinging devices finally manage to accomplish their purpose. Darkseid is on Earth, and he is ready to conquer the planet.

Issue #5 starts with Darkseid quickly managing to capture Superman and have him beat the rest of the heroes. Green Lantern gets the worst of it with a badly broken arm. The moment seems hopeless for the world, so Batman steps up. Bats reveals to Hal that he is Bruce Wayne. Bruce says there is too much at stake, that Green Lantern has to step up and lead the rest of the heroes in battle against Darkseid. Batman has decided that his most goal will be to free Superman. That is harder than it seems for Bats because when searching for Superman he got transported to a hell planet.

Issue #6 starts with Darkseid walking through a wrecked Metropolis killing civilians. But then the Justice League work together and attack the evil god. Wonder Woman and Aquaman work together to stab Darkseid’s eye blinding him and stopping his Omega Beams from working. But Batman is having trouble freeing Superman from Darkseid’s henchmen.

Despite the injuries, Darkseid is still ready to fight the League. But the team gets good news when it turns out Cyborg can communicate with devices that brought Darkseid to Earth. He uses this connection to send the god and his army back to their home world. In the chaos of the arriving Darkseid, Batman frees Superman and the entire team fights Darkseid. With great effort Cyborg manages to close the portal and win the day for the heroes.

The seven heroes bask in their victory and are awarded honors by the president. They figure that might work together again, if only to keep the police away. Thus the Justice League was born…

But every great hero needs an opponent. We see some shadow figures say that with the rise of superheroes, supervillains will rise up to oppose them. And another mysterious figure, Pandora, talks to long-time DC figure Phantom Stranger saying that she can use these new heroes. Pandora will break her curse one way or another.

And that is the start of The New 52 Justice League. Boy, that was long disappointing story to start an entire new book, run, and universe. It took 6 whole issues but overall, there was very little story throughout. There are some decent characters moments but I think the team should have gotten together sooner. The paranoia against heroes is just not good starting place for the DC Universe.

But to give a nice mark, Jim Lee sures makes some pretty art for the book. But even the art has some problems. The breakdowns feel kinda bad for this book. And everything is glossy.

4/10

[once-was-muses]

[ oh fuckin hrhrhrjjrjr also. Forgored last night. The Blighted Cosmetics List™️. That I also forgored half the ideas of. It's Absolutely not complete and I've just copy-pasted it off the doc below the cut here so it's nothing fancied up, fairly disorganized (still has the symbol/numbers and cosmetic descriptions.) I am so sorry if it's impossible to read but this is what I have rn djdjdjdjjd ]

How Talbot captured each of the killers (in chronological order), and the numbers/symbols on their tags

Huntress (Copper, 2114-25; “This feral specimen was the first experiment of its kind.”): as the cosmetic’s description states, she was the first Talbot “captured” and experimented on- with the help of Vigo, the two hoping to find some way to turn the killers against their Master and/or find some way to use the blight to vanquish Her. Anna was easily lured by Vigo to where Talbot waited to drop onto the wild woman from his perch in a tree and jab the syringe into her.

Wraith (Copper, 2114-25; “A tortured prototype with a unique, otherworldly densely corrupted quality.”): the second killer-turned-victim of Talbot and Vigo’s experiments, the Wraith was the subject of a more coordinated plan. The pair waited until the Wraith was whisked away to a trial before descending on Autohaven, quickly and efficiently assembling the trap which Vigo designed, making use of the wreckage strewn about for parts. When the Wraith returned to the small building he dwelled most often in, he tripped a wire which sent a crudely made cage crashing down from the ceiling. While Talbot didn't hesitate in taking advantage of the killer's compromised state to inject him with the experimental serum, Vigo took notice of the Wraith's utter lack of struggling after the initial shock, rather cowering against the bars and flinching away from Talbot’s hands.

Trapper (Copper, 2114-25; “A cruel specimen injected with metalloids congealed at high temperatures.”): the plan was too simple to have gone so horribly wrong, but really they both should've seen the major flaw immediately. Once again sneaking into their target killer's domain, Talbot and Vigo carefully swiped two each of the cruel traps they'd seen many caught in- including themselves, and the very brute which utilized them. Creeping through the ruins of the MacMillan Estate, they again assessed the interior to determine the Trapper's favored space to reside in, setting the bear traps then hiding themselves. With no reason to suspect his own den to hold dangers, the Trapper almost immediately stepped into one of the inconspicuously placed sets of metal jaws, Vigo quickly snagging the old chain left in the workshop to attempt binding the killer. Quicker than anticipated, the Trapper abandoned prying himself free to instead snatch up the smaller man by the neck, retrieving his blade with the other. In a split second snap of apparent rage, Talbot hoisted one of the unsprung traps over his head and slammed it into the Trapper's side, forcing him to drop both machete and Vigo. The latter simply sat there stunned as Talbot quickly snatched up the machete himself and swung it into its owner's shoulder before driving the syringe in.

Hillbilly (Copper, 2114-25; “A particularly aggressive specimen following experimentation. Injected in multiple locations to yield faster results, which caused severe fluid-filled lumps.”): after the first three, Talbot felt it made sense to move on to one of the more dangerously armed "subjects," Vigo not outright disagreeing but no longer as enthusiastic as he had once been. Nevertheless, he continued to assist Talbot in using four of the many butcher hooks on Coldwind Farm to restrain the particularly brutal killer, looping them over beams in the old barn and using the cattle chute fencing as anchors. Once the Hillbilly was secured, Vigo left the area while Talbot carried out the experiment.

Doctor (Copper, 2114-25; “A relentless specimen with acute aggressive responses to experimentation. Physical restraints were used on both ankles.”): when Talbot suggested the Doctor as their next target, Vigo was beyond horrified- yet still laughed in his face in utter disbelief. He refused to even set foot within the cold walls where the Doctor dwelled, informing Talbot he could be tortured by himself if he was fool enough to carry this out- yet still, Vigo assisted Talbot in securing sedatives and, still, helped in acquiring proper restraints. The only reason they received comparatively minor voltage was the silent yet swift way Talbot moved (which seemed almost innate to the strange man), getting much closer to the hulking figure before lunging than Vigo ever expected could be possible. Of all their "subjects" so far, the Doctor fought them the hardest, and received the most grievous injury beside the injection site. Vigo would not speak to Talbot for a long while after their fifth experiment.

Nurse (Copper, 2114-25; “With foul serum still dripping from her wound, she broke free from her captor.”): Talbot didn't believe Vigo when he again refused to assist him any further. He continued to convey his plan to his partner in crime, choosing to interpret his empty silence as attentive listening. He was proven wrong when he was forced to make the trek to Crotus Penn on his own, forced to concoct a totally new plan. Cursing his so-called "partner" between ideas. Soon after setting foot in her domain, the lone survivor found himself being stalked through the grounds, screams echoing around him as the resident drew closer. With a hooked chain stolen from Coldwind in one hand and syringe in the other beneath his coat, Talbot fought to resist the icy fingers of dread as he lured her into a claustrophobic hallway. Despite his best efforts, without anyone to have his back he froze up when met with the Nurse, snapping out his daze once she was only an arm's breadth away. Ducking beneath the raised saw blade, he jabbed the hook into her chest and used that anchor to pin both her arms to her sides. Not wasting any time, Talbot jabbed the syringe in- only for the Nurse to react immediately, a godawful shriek leaving her as the hook tore itself free from her. Talbot scrambled to get away, electing to vault from a window rather than waste precious time afforded to him by the growing threat's struggle on taking the stairs.

True Blight (Agrilla [clay], 3412; “An extreme overdose of putrid serum culminated in a corruption like no other. Visceral cankers blossomed through his body, sprouting from his flesh and twisting out of nearly every orifice.”): occurred after Talbot was sent to the Void and later escaped, but not without the cost of losing pieces of himself. The Entity encouraged Talbot to continue his experiments on the killers only once he was thoroughly addicted to the very same serum. It took a long time for Talbot to realize this encouragement was for Her own gain, planning he would discover a way to rid Her of the annual blighting for good and force him to do so. Needless to say he's thus far yet to even concretely explain the cause nor origin.

-----

Hag (Putrefaction, 1227; “She escaped when a charm of strength buried within her was ignited by the serum.”): 

Clown (Aqua Vita (alcohol)?, 1130; “He took off when the substance provoked a profound hunger that made his belly swell with anticipation.”):

Plague (Vinegar-2 [distilled vinegar], 2330; “She emerged from confinement when the serum amplified the disease coursing through her blood.”):

Ghostface (Air, 2825; “A specimen who reacted strangely to the latest compounds, resulting in unexpected mutations that cannot yet be explained.”):

Spirit (Air, 2825; “She emerged from captivity when the serum sparked her ancestral rage, making her blood boil with fury.”):

Oni (???; “His overwhelming strength made him a priority candidate for testing. The searing pain of the experiment, more than anything, made his rage even more potent.”): the Oni’s strength and rage is infamous throughout the Fog, seemingly outmatched only by those that were not originally human at some point. While the mutation had rendered Talbot twisted and hunched over, the serum provided him unnatural strength and speed- but nothing to compete with the elder Yamaoka. How, then, did the Blight manage to capture such a fearsome target? By using the shreds of humanity left against him. His descendant was already undergoing her own experiment at the time Talbot used her hypothetical safety as distraction long enough to get close enough to lunge, grabbing on with the awful limbs that sprouted from his back, one hand gripping the fearsome mane while the other plunged the syringe into the muscular neck.

Legion (Putrefaction, 1227; “Repulsive. The serum has grafted the four specimens into a single creature, three of which are entrapped within the flesh of the host, ineffectually attempting to escape.”):

Nemesis (Zinc, 1823; “The putrid serum mixed with the Ne-a Type parasite to create a chimerical horror that not even The Blight could have anticipated.”): 

Pyramid Head (Zinc, 1825; “The putrid serum took hold of the creature born from a dark wish, rotting with putrid ways to punish the guilty.”): the Red God volunteered itself to be subjected to the serum, for what purposes Talbot did not dare risk angering it to find out. What he did discover, however, was that the Executioner required two full doses for any effects to take hold.

Wesker (probs Red Arsenic, possibly Regulus?, 1513-15; “Nobody could predict the complex interactions that would occur between the serum and Uroboros, but that didn’t stop him from testing it on himself.”): the Mastermind intercepted the Blight before he had even crafted a plan for him. Swiping a unique concoction, Wesker swiftly injected himself with it, leaving Talbot no choice but to witness and document the effects. And do his best to stay out of the path of destruction.

Sadako (???, 4020-68): 

Xenomorph (???): 

[t-top-apologist]

So here’s the deal. I’ve got a small block. Two barrel carb. Runs like a dream (read: recently upgraded to “doesn’t sound like a asthmatic raccoon rolling down a flight of stairs in a metal trash can” when you start it up). So naturally I want to throw off the entire equilibrium and mess with the fuel system.

Swapping fuel pumps is fine. Adding a metal fuel filter where the plastic one (imagine a water balloon filled with gasoline sitting directly next to the exhaust headers. Now imagine something less safe than that) sits right now is a good idea. Not what I’m going for. I want Hilborn fuel injection.

Just the name “Hilborn fuel injection” harkens back to a time when people put little beer kegs full of fuel on the front of their Chevy 210s—imagine slapping a water balloon full of gasoline on the bumper of the car you’re currently axle hopping nose-first into a concrete barrier—and called corvettes without carburetors “fuelies,” which is surprisingly not an Australian slur for gas station attendants.

Ignore all the talk about mechanical fuel delivery. I don’t own a diesel and therefore leave that sort of thing to the special breed of freak that owns an Alfa Romeo. All you need to know is that the unhinged assemblies of gears and ball valves required to do what God designed the carburetor for are really just a big excuse to run those shiny chromed intake trumpets on a car.

You know when BMW guys talk about ITBs? Has nothing to do with irritable bowels. It’s 100% an excuse to put intake trumpets on the side of their engine. It looks cool, just not as cool as eight of those trumpets strapped to the top of your V8 hate machine. And I want that. Except I’m lazy, and according to the niche forums I visit tuning mechanical fuel injection is as pleasant as sticking your hand in a rusty toaster when done right and will ensure you get your steps in on the walk home when done wrong.

Could I simply buy a $1500 carburetor replacement electronic fuel injection setup that requires five bolts and about as many brain cells to install? Sure. I could also live my life as a productive member of society. That would involve living a lifestyle where I pay someone to tune the MFI for me. Both of these things a blow to my personal reputation as “the local skinflint” and my personal devotion to making things harder for myself. So rather than shell out for vintage MFI setups, I turned to the world of EFI. Surely the modern fanatics for Fratzogs and Rat Fink memorabilia would have made enough ruckus for to spark a Hilborn EFI lookalike.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell they only built them for big blocks. My little hot rod’s factory small block is doomed never to host those shiny little intake trumpets. Sure I could swap in a big block, but when I sat this one next to my dilapidated street machine I began to consider the fact that this is a lot of effort for a lowly hot rod. At the heart of things I’m just as lazy as I am determined to make things harder for myself, and so I decided I need to find something else to put the big block in.

What was the question again? Oh, what am I going to do with the rolling chassis Lola T70 replica behind me?

[nervouswaltz]

why do you need to recast everything? surely there’s some type of way to make what you have work?

(im about the graduate with a metalsmithing degree in 2 weeks and am currently the ta for the advanced metals class that is coincidentally doing casting this semester too so i’ve been problem solving casting projects almost non stop this whole semester 😅)

LMAO first of all good luck with ur projects !!! but i’m making an interlocking cuff out of. worms. and i cast them all in u shapes but they’re basically 12 gauge wire and so when i try to bend them they either are TOTALLY uncooperative or they crack :/ so i am cutting my losses and redoing my wax injections and i’m gonna manipulate them and then cast them straighter (building the cuff in wax basically) and then assemble from there. we have an AWESOME casting machine that my prof used to cast white gold fuckoff tiny earrings today so literally anything is possible :3 also i Might be able to use some of my already cast pieces!! but it’s probably gonna be less than half and doing injections and casting is rlly just a scheduling issue. burnout cycles. grimaces.

[bolesolutions]

Rapid Prototyping Services Revolutionizes Innovation

Rapid prototyping is a process that uses three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) data to quickly produce a scale replica of a physical item or assembly. The intention is to provide engineers and designers the opportunity to assess a design's shape, fit, and functionality before mass production. The procedure allows for rapid prototype, which cuts down on the development cycle's duration and expense.

Important Elements of Services for Rapid Prototyping

3D Manufacturing

3D printing is one of the most popular methods for fast prototyping. It entails the layer-by-layer deposition of material from a computer design to produce a tangible item. The versatility of materials, such as metals, ceramics, and plastics, allows for the flexible prototyping of a wide range of items.

CNC Machining: CNC machining is a type of subtractive manufacturing in which a machine tool controlled by a computer removes material from a solid block to mold it into the desired shape. Prototypes may be made with this technique using a variety of materials, including metals and polymers.

Molding by Injection

High-volume prototypes are produced by the rapid prototyping manufacturer using injection molding. The prototype is created by pouring molten material into a mold cavity, where it hardens. Larger production runs result in lower per-unit costs, notwithstanding the greater initial tooling cost.

Advantages of Services for Rapid Prototyping

Accelerated Product Development: From concept to final design, the time it takes to produce a product is greatly decreased by rapid prototyping. Businesses can gain a competitive edge by bringing items to market faster because of this speed.

Savings: When adjustments are needed, traditional prototyping techniques may be costly. Quick modifications are made possible by rapid prototyping, which lowers tooling costs and development costs overall.

Iterative Design Process: An iterative design process is supported by the capacity to swiftly create and test prototypes. Designers can quickly retest, make changes, and get feedback, which results in a better and more optimized final product.

Customization & Complexity: Using Chinese rapid prototyping services makes it feasible to produce extremely intricate and personalized designs that would be difficult or impossible to produce using conventional manufacturing techniques. In sectors including consumer electronics, healthcare, and aerospace, this capacity is very useful.

[grprototypes]

What Is Injection Molding Process?

Have you ever held a plastic bottle or marveled at the sleek design of your television remote? If so, you've likely come into contact with products shaped by an incredible yet often overlooked process: injection molding. This fascinating technique is responsible for creating countless items we use daily, from packaging materials to intricate components in high-tech devices. Understanding injection molding isn't just a technical pursuit; it's like peeling back the layers of our modern existence and revealing how commonplace objects are brought to life through engineering ingenuity.

As industries evolve and consumer demands shift, the importance of knowing about different types, materials, and applications of this process becomes increasingly vital. Whether you're a manufacturer looking to optimize production or simply someone curious about everyday objects' origins, grasping the fundamentals of injection molding can open up new perspectives on innovation and efficiency in manufacturing. Let’s dive deep into what makes injection molding such a pivotal aspect of modern production—and discover how it shapes both our lives and the world around us.

Overview Of The Injection Molding Process

Did you know that about 30% of all manufactured plastic products go through the injection molding process? It’s a method that's both efficient and versatile, allowing us to create complex shapes with remarkable precision. Essentially, this process involves melting plastic pellets until they are malleable and then injecting them into a mold where they solidify to form a part or product. As we move from the heating phase to filling the mold, various factors such as temperature and pressure come into play, influencing the final outcome significantly. Once cooled, these molded parts can be easily removed from the molds for further use or assembly in other applications. Given its adaptability and effectiveness, understanding the different techniques is crucial for anyone looking to leverage injection molding's potential fully. So let's explore the types of injection molding techniques available today!

Types Of Injection Molding Techniques

Imagine a skilled artist, deftly crafting sculptures from clay on a potter's wheel; that’s how injection molding works in the world of manufacturing. Now, as we dive into the types of injection molding techniques, it's essential to understand that each technique serves its unique purpose like brushes in an artist's toolkit. For instance, traditional injection molding is akin to creating stable and structural masterpieces, while gas-assisted or foam-injected methods are designed for lightweight creations with hollow interiors. Another fascinating approach is multi-material injection molding, which allows designers to blend different materials seamlessly, producing items with varied textures and colors all at once! Each method has its strengths tailored to specific applications across numerous industries. As we've seen how these diverse techniques operate like various strokes of creativity, exploring common materials used in this process will unveil their significance and versatility in bringing those artistic visions to life.

Common Materials Used And Their Applications

When it comes to the materials used in injection molding, several options are popular due to their unique properties and applications. For instance, thermoplastics like ABS and polycarbonate are frequently chosen because they offer excellent durability and can be easily molded into intricate designs. On the other hand, thermosetting plastics such as epoxy resins provide enhanced heat resistance, making them ideal for applications requiring electrical insulation or high temperature stability. Additionally, metals like aluminum and zinc are sometimes utilized in a process known as metal injection molding (MIM), allowing for strong and lightweight components in industries like automotive and aerospace. As you can see, each material serves distinct purposes based on its characteristics, ensuring that manufacturers select the right option depending on their specific needs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the injection molding process is like a sculptor shaping clay; it allows us to craft intricate designs and durable products from raw materials. By understanding the various types of techniques and their unique applications, we can appreciate how this method transforms ideas into tangible goods that impact our daily lives.

Moreover, when we consider the diverse range of materials used in injection molding, it's clear that innovation thrives within this industry. As we embrace these advancements, we're not just creating objects—we're building bridges between creativity and functionality, meeting consumer needs while pushing the boundaries of design.

[jingbang1]

Knob processing flow

1、 Raw material procurement

The first step in the production process of the knob factory is the procurement of raw materials. The commonly used raw materials are plastic, metal, or rubber. Manufacturers need to select suitable materials according to customer requirements and conduct quality inspections. Only by ensuring the quality of raw materials can high-quality knob products be produced.

2、 Processing

After the procurement of raw materials is completed, the knob manufacturer will carry out processing. Processing usually includes injection molding, die casting, stamping and other processes. Different materials require different processing methods, and manufacturers need to determine the corresponding processing technology based on the selected raw materials. After processing, surface treatment such as spraying, electroplating, etc. is required to ensure the appearance quality of the knob.

3、 Assembly

The third step in the production process of the knob factory is assembly. Assemble the processed knobs into the final product. Attention should be paid to the direction and position of the knob during assembly to ensure that it can operate normally. After assembly, quality inspection is required to ensure the quality of the product.

4、 Inspection

Inspection is a very important step in the production process of knob factories. Manufacturers need to conduct multiple inspections on the already assembled knobs, such as visual inspection, functional testing, durability testing, etc. Only through strict inspection can the quality of the product be guaranteed.

[batesmachineonline]

CNC Machine Shop Medical Device Manufacturing

CNC Machine Shop Medical Device Manufacturing

Medical device manufacturing is an intensely iterative process. Even if a product makes it through the initial development and design stage, it still needs to pass compliance standards before making it to the market. To do this, companies must follow strict ISO and FDA guidelines. These often include specialized technologies and processes, such as plastic welding or 3D printing of medical-grade polymers.

CNC Machine Shop

Medical device manufacturing creates state-of-the-art tools and implants for monitoring, diagnostics, and therapeutics. As a vital industry, it requires precision, safety, and compliance with regulatory guidelines. Often, this involves partnering with contract CNC manufacturers like Bates Machine nad Manufacturing in Farmersville, Texas who specialize in a wide range of high-precision manufacturing processes.

When engineers look at a bill of materials for any given medical device, they often find components with names like "bracket," "stand," or "adapter." These types of parts typically require sheet metal fabrication processes and/or welding. Moreover, their design must adhere to the medical grade specifications for each of the metals used. For example, springs and wire form material must be made from a special type of metal alloy known as Elgiloy. Injection molding is ideal for many medical devices because it provides a cost-effective alternative to fabrication and machining. However, injection molds can be expensive to produce, especially if they are required for a high volume of production. To avoid this, some companies opt to use 3D printing for low-volume, customized parts.

Plastic Injection Molding

Injection molding involves heating plastic materials until they liquefy, then injecting them into a pre-designed mold. The molten plastic takes on the shape of the mold, creating a finished product. Injection molding is a simple and cost-effective method of shaping raw materials into complex parts, and it can be used for both large and small production runs. The medical industry uses injection molding for electronics that need to be durable and able to withstand sterilization procedures. Many medical devices also require specialized plastics that resist contaminants and can stand up to radiation, chemical exposure, and other harsh environmental conditions. Injection molding is used for plastic components of electronic devices, such as housings that protect and insulate the internal parts. It is also often used to create the plastics that comprise medical instruments and parts for implantable devices. Plastic injection molding services can provide products in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. They can also handle high press tonnage and provide prototyping and low to high-volume production runs.

Assembly

Medical devices need to be manufactured with precision and quality, as well as a high degree of safety. They also need to comply with regulatory standards, which can add a significant amount of cost and time to the manufacturing process. Depending on the device being developed, there may be a number of different assembly processes required to bring it to market. Whether it’s a tongue depressor or an MRI machine, it is important that design engineers understand the various production methods and how they can be used for each specific device in order to optimize the manufacturing process. Medical device contract assembly services can help companies focus on their core competency of designing life-saving medical devices while outsourcing the assembly aspect to a trusted partner. This can help reduce risk, lower costs and reduce the time it takes to get medical devices to market. It is also an effective way to test prototypes and develop new models with the help of a trusted partner.

Testing

A manufacturer that is in the business of assembling and testing medical devices uses a wide range of test equipment. Some tests are highly specialized, while others are more standard in nature. The method of manufacturing for a new device needs to be considered early on in the design phase. This can help the engineering team understand the impact their design decisions will have on production cost. While actual cost modeling may not be possible until the prototype is complete, it’s a good idea to begin putting some numbers down so that the design process can be better focused. The manufacturing process can quickly put the product team over budget if it’s not managed efficiently. An effective test strategy can reduce costs without sacrificing quality and help engineers get their devices to market at speed. LSI’s MES solutions are designed specifically to meet the needs of the medical device industry. They enable manufacturers to simultaneously increase revenues and decrease costs — boosting profit margins. Read the full article

[darkmaga-returns]

Ana Maria Mihalcea, MD, PhD

Oct 11, 2024

Geo-engineering Watch Director Dane Wigington Exposes The Federal Government’s Secret Weather Weapons System Now Targeting All Life on Earth

Dane Wigington has been working overtime to alert and inform the public and government officials regarding the recent weather warfare operations against their states. Here is his interview on Infowars, explaining that he has briefed Senators and Government officials from North Carolina that their state was just attacked ( in an act of war).

While the storms are horrific - what has been happening with Helene and Milton and other hurricanes in Acapulco, may be what is needed to open people’s eyes to the fact that the military industrial complex is waging war against the people of this earth and the entire biosphere. Eventually this will lead to uncovering what they are spraying, the biological warfare against humanity that I and others have been documenting - all of this is part of technocratic transhumansim agenda - including spraying polymer filaments, smart dust, toxic heavy metals, engineered pathogens not just for weather warfare but also to sicken the entire population. They know they are killing people and that has been admitted by officials in previous history.

The link to the changes in the blood and the COVID19 injections as the end stage of transforming humans into cyborgs and complete technological surveillance will be revealed - it is inevitable. The coverup of these operations is beyond pathetic at this time, when we have documents from 50 years ago that acknowledge the reality of weather warfare by the Department of Defense. In other words, your taxpayer dollars have been paying for you getting poisoned from the skies, the devastating weather events that have routinely happened and the subsequent diseases that these liars have accused the innocent sufferers to be called delusional - while people have complained of synthetic fibers, microchips, insect like structures and other self assembly nanotechnology that would come out of their skin. As always, the doctors have turned a blind eye, as it was too inconvenient for their paycheck to pay attention to this phenomenon.

Weather modification document 1974

[syyds]

Fastening connection function:

In mechanical equipment: used to connect two or more mechanical parts to ensure the stable operation of the equipment. For example, in some small transmission devices, instruments and other equipment, circular knurled nuts can firmly connect different parts together, withstand a certain vibration and tension, and prevent parts from loosening or separation.

In the field of construction: It can be used to connect various components in the building structure, such as in steel structure buildings, round knurled nuts can be connected to steel beams, steel columns and other components to ensure the stability and safety of the building structure.

Easy to manually operate and adjust: The pattern on the surface of the knurled nut can increase the friction, and it is convenient for people to directly twist the nut by hand without the help of other tools, which is very practical in some occasions that need to be adjusted or disassembled frequently. For example, on some equipment that requires frequent adjustment of height or Angle, the use of circular knurled nuts can be easily adjusted manually.

For injection molding and embedding process: In the injection molding process of plastic products or other materials, the round knurled nut is pre-buried in the mold, and then the injection molding is carried out to make the nut and the plastic part tightly. This can form a strong threaded connection structure on the plastic products, which is convenient for subsequent assembly and use. For example, in the shell of electronic equipment, auto parts, toys and other plastic products, this kind of embedded round knurled nut is often used.

As a connector for thin plate connection: in the connection of some metal sheets, such as in the manufacture of chassis, cabinets, metal furniture, etc., round knurled nuts can be used with the pull riveting process. The nut is fixed on the thin plate by the rivet gun to realize the connection between the thin plate, which is both firm and beautiful, and can avoid welding or tapping operations on the thin plate, and reduce the damage to the thin plate.

In furniture manufacturing: used for the assembly and connection of furniture, such as the frame connecting tables and chairs, the panel fixing furniture, etc. The appearance of the knurled nut can be selected according to the design requirements of the furniture, which meets the functional requirements of the connection without affecting the aesthetics of the furniture.