#NO PRICE!!! HOLDING IT IN DOESNT DO ANYTHING!!!! except I think that’s actually literally what you do with a cigar

[guhbwuh]

Hi Bwuh !!! If you're taking requests and if you are willing, I would die for a Price chibi in your artstyle 👉​👈​ Give him a little cigar for enrichment ,,,

An itty bitty price… 🤏

[yersina]

okay, hear me out: blacksmith!jaskier.

like, maybe he’s the owner of his own shop (smithy? forge?), maybe he’s apprenticed to someone else—either way, he works in a little town, proooobably somewhere close to kaer morhen?

(sina, you may be saying that this point, jaskier loves to travel! he likes to see new things and meet new people and cause trouble! how could he stand to stay in one place his whole life? not a problem! shopkeepers aren’t confined to their shops, are they? especially if he’s an apprentice. i propose that he takes semi-annual journeys to travel to more far away towns and sell his wares there and maybe chase a few skirts while he’s at it)

so anyway, blacksmith!jaskier. he’s actually more of a jeweler sort of person—he likes beauty, likes art, and while he can see and appreciate the skill it takes to create a sword or a kitchen knife, he doesn’t really find his calling in creating chamberpots. but alas, see: small town, so this is the best place for something approaching an apprenticeship that he can find.

one day, he’s minding his own business in the back of the shop (smithy??), re-sharpening a knife for a nice old lady who dropped it off a day or so ago, when the master blacksmith storms in and gestures for him to get out. jaskier has long since learned that the master blacksmith is a man of few words, so he troops out to the front with no small amount of exasperation and confusion.

and lo and behold, there stands a witcher in his entrance.

“fix it,” he grunts (bc jaskier is, of course, cursed to work only around people who can’t be bothered to string together more than five syllables at once) and drops the literally shattered remains of a sword on the counter.

jaskier stares. dented swords, he’s seen. they’re close enough to a big city that they’ve occasionally gotten the odd knight looking for a cheaper alternative to city-internal smithies. but shattered? and in so many pieces? “i’d really just advise you buy a new sword at this point, good sir,” jaskier says slowly. “i could use this as scrap metal and make you a new one, but it won’t be the same sword.”

the witcher grunts. jaskier waits expectantly for any more input, but only several seconds of silence follow. “great,” jaskier chirps, injecting as much false cheer into his voice as he can. “i’ll just... take that as a yes.”

so he gets the witcher a new sword (a softer alloy this time, and one that hopefully won’t shatter at low temperatures like this one did), deducts the price of the scrap metal from the asking price of the sword, and sees the witcher on his merry (sullen, silent) way.

except the witcher keeps coming back.

jaskier has no idea why—it’s not like they offer services that any other smithy doesnt. all he does is sell the witcher (geralt of rivia, he eventually learns from town gossip) swords, the witcher grunts through jaskier’s admittedly meaningless chatter, and then he leaves. occasionally, he shows up twice in one month (once before a hunt to get his sword repaired, and then once after for the same), and then he leaves.

it’s utterly baffling.

but then theodore moore, the cheapskate bandit who passes through twice a year in order to spend all of his illegitimate money, drowns in the river while he’s stumbling through the forest drunk.

and then people start disappearing.

it takes until the little girl from down the road disappears while she’s picking flowers in the forest for the townspeople to seriously consider the idea of hunkering down and waiting for someone to take care of the problem. jaskier even rides to the nearby city and posts a request for help. maybe geralt will see it.

they spend half a year avoiding the river like the plague, but then people start disappearing from the town square—next to the fountain. then there’s talk of killing the beast themselves, but none of them know what it’s weak to.

when geralt shows up in the smithy one afternoon, white hair brown with dirt and skin smeared with mud, jaskier nearly cries. “thank god you’re here,” he says, and he’d laugh at geralt’s look of confusion if it weren’t for the circumstances. “we have a job for you.”

if he’d thought geralt was a wall to talk to before, it’s nothing when compared to how quickly geralt stiffens and closes off. jaskier didn’t even know that geralt had been slowly relaxing around him until right then, and a pang of regret echoes through him. “what is it,” he says flatly.

“a man drowned in the river last year,” jaskier explains. “and now six people are dead.” when geralt turns around without another word, jaskier has to scramble around the counter and tug him back. “wait, you can’t just leave—people are dying.”

geralt stares at him, unimpressed. “do you want me to kill it from in here?”

oh. jaskier laughs weakly. “of course, how could i have doubted you, master witcher.”

geralt turns to leave again and actually looks a bit annoyed when jaskier holds him fast. “what is it now?”

“i’m coming with you,” jaskier says firmly.

at least geralt doesn’t laugh in his face. “no.”

“look,” jaskier begins, and swears that he sees geralt roll his eyes. “i’m not—trained in combat, per se, but i can strike a few blows. i work with swords for a living! i can be backup?”

“this isn’t a game.” the furrow between geralt’s eyebrows grows the slightest bit deeper, like the world’s tiniest frown. “you could die.”

“i’ll keep out of the way,” jaskier throws in cajolingly. he’s not sure why he’s fighting so hard to join in on an expedition that will very likely lead to his death, but now that he’s started, he may as well go all in.

geralt just grunts and pulls his arm out of jaskier’s grasp, but he doesn’t do anything to stop jaskier when he grabs a sword and a scabbard and follows on his heels.

(this is where geralt wows jaskier with his fancy silver sword, and jaskier hardly needs to do anything other than gape on the sidelines as geralt dispatches theodore moore—a drowner now, he reminds himself—with brutal efficiency)

jaskier ends up arguing for higher pay for geralt bc of course he does, and manages to get geralt to sit down for a pint of ale in the tavern. jaskier travels but he doesn’t travel, and although geralt isn’t the best conversationalist, he does have some tales.

this ends with jaskier puzzling his way around making a silver sword and maybe getting a mage to imbue it with some magical runes or whatever it is that they do in their ivory towers, and he presents it to geralt the next time he comes by. geralt, being geralt, doesn’t do much else than take it with him while he’s leaving, but jaskier sees it strapped to his back the next time he stops by in the town, and geralt actually asks him to repair it at some point (!!) which is not smth that he’s ever done before.

geralt also starts bringing jaskier things which jaskier is utterly delighted by because it means that geralt has been paying attention while jaskier rambles at him the few times that they manage to sit down in the tavern together. this continues on for years and years and jaskier steadily grows fonder and fonder until he has a Realization one day when he’s looking at a sunflower and thinking abt how it matches the color of geralt’s eyes that goddamn he’s in love with a witcher.

(my Actual Prose runs out here but i’m envisioning jaskier putting those jeweler skills to use in fashioning geralt useful but also pretty pieces of jewelry as courting gifts until one day jaskier is just like “god you’re so fucking dumb” and just kisses him happily ever after the end)

[prose-for-hire]

Silver bullets have nothing on you

Pairing: Cordelia Chase x fem!werewolf!reader

Request: thank you! could i please have one where reader is Cordy’s ex and she transfers to sunnydale. buffy doesnt like her because she thinks shes a Vamp but actually secretly shes a werewolf! Thank you! i love ur work

Warning: Violence. Buffy doesn’t really get on with reader. Reader is ashamed of being a werewolf. Blood mention.

A/N: Reader is Cordy’s ex but there are feelings still there. A little angst but hopeful at the end. Another fic in honour of Cordelia Chase Appreciation week !! 💖

You had transferred to Sunnydale, unaware that the ex you were still hung up on basically ran the school. You had met her one summer, her father had a business meeting in your town and they had stayed for a long weekend. You had tried to stay in touch, keep things long-distance but she had broken things off with you when she thought you started to become distant with her. She thought you had gone off her and she was really hurt by it, having to coldly break up with you to make herself feel better than the rejection she felt.

But, you weren’t pulling away from her because you wanted to. You had a secret. You loved this girl too much to inflict it on her. It was a lot to take in. Most people didn’t believe in demons and you didn’t want her to have to find out if she didn’t need to.

 The first evening you arrived, you bumped into a blonde girl. You managed to bump into her several times, always in the dark, since then. The girl, who happened to be a slayer, took an instant dislike to you. She was suspicious. You weren’t quite human, something inside her told her this. You shied away from her when you heard whispers of slayer in your mind. Something within, call it self-preservation or animal instinct told you to avoid her as much as you could.

This was hard, however because she appeared when you least expected her - always after dark as if she was waiting for you to grow fur and start gnawing on the nearest teenager. It made you paranoid, the condition already hard enough to prepare for when a full moon was coming let alone feeling like the Slayer was ready to pounce on you.

One night, you were at the bronze. You were sitting alone, as you had been most evenings with very little to do in town. Your thoughts cast back to her. Cordelia. The most beautiful and kindest person you had ever met. You had hoped you might catch a glimpse of her (you knew she lived in Sunnydale, after all) buy knew it was probably the best thing for her that you hadn’t. You were relieved she had broken up with you in some way, because it meant she had saved herself from the possibility of you hurting her in some way.

You didn’t realise that on the other side of the Bronze, there was someone in the same predicament. Her. She was thinking about you, staring into space and sighing. She missed your touch. The way your lips felt against her skin. The conversations you would have that often ended in uncontrollable laughter. She wanted you back. She had even started to come out to the Scoobies and people she was closest to because she wanted to be long term with you.

But now she was mad at you. For avoiding her. Ignoring her calls. But mostly she just wanted you back. Her heart was in pieces and no amount of popular guys her superficial friends set her up with could compare to you. You were the girl of her dreams. Literally - she kept having these dreams. Dreams that you were back together again and she was holding you against her. Inhaling your scent. Whispering such intimate things. 

You had transferred to Sunnydale High school and had started your classes (when you managed to find the correct rooms) but Buffy Summers had only ever seen you at night - leading her to confirm her own suspicions based on this. She thought you were a vampire. She made you uncomfortable and she always appeared to be glaring at you, no matter where either of you were in the room.

Tonight, there was a man sat beside you. His complexion porcelain white and he dressed like he was stuck in the 1970s. He suddenly slung his arm around you and you scowled, pulling away. But he whispered something persuading you to walk away with him. You had no choice, he was very strong. He had a strong hand on your arm and he was telling you to act normal as he walked you through the crowd and swiftly out of the door.

Buffy caught your eye, missing your pleading look. Instead seeing the kind of person you spent time with and decided this was one battle that wasn’t worth fighting tonight. She wanted some time off she would deal with you and your friend later. This meant that you were alone, with a vampire, that wanted to sire you. Your brain was rattling against your skull, wanting to jump ship before the inevitable. Death.

When he was satisfied he had found somewhere you wouldn’t be interrupted, he slammed you against the wall and held you in place. You shivered and it wasn’t the cold. You were scared. You had so many things you wanted to do with your life. You wanted to graduate. You wanted to be the first person to discover the cure for being a werewolf. You wanted to cling to the idea that you and Cordy would get back together one day.

But all of these hopes were draining out of your brain, quicker than the blood would be drained from your neck. Instead, only fear remained. You cursed yourself, not wanting this to be the last thing you felt before death. Wasn’t your life supposed to flash before you? All you could think was that you wanted to see Cordy’s face one last time before you died. You would take any moment, so long as it was her.

The vampire grinned at you, toying with you and giving you the impression you had room to struggle. But he had you exactly where he wanted you. You were struggling until he stilled you, pinning your arms by your side. He moved to get a better view of your neck, his face shifted and you braced yourself as he moved in to bite.

You finally saw it. Her face. You could die happy, having seen her face again. Your vision started to go fuzzy, but the picture of her was now imprinted in your brain. You desperately tried to cling onto the image as you felt the fangs retract from your neck and ignore the pain that was coursing through you.

“Urgh!” He spluttered, starting to spit out the blood that had been oozing from your neck, “What is that - you taste like... dog” he started to wipe his mouth off in disgust. It snapped you out of your submission especially as the face you had seen wasn’t something your brain had conjured up. It really was her.

She had been looking for some kind of weapon to use ever so quietly as he took the first bite. She had since grabbed a metal pipe and as forcefully as she could, hit him over the head with it. She instantly dropped it, her fierceness appearing because it was you. Because she couldn’t bear to see anything happen to you. She appeared to be running on adrenaline.

“Pack up, princess” the vampire warned, baring his teeth and trying to get her to leave. You clutched at the wound on your neck as you watched the exchange.

“Leave. Now. I’m the biggest bitch that Sunnydale high has ever seen and that means a whole lot of pain for you” She said, but her voice faltered at the end. She had only ever staked one vampire and it had been a total fluke. But she wanted to make sure you were safe. She was so confused when she saw you leaving the Bronze, she had to follow you to convince herself you weren’t a trick of the eye. 

“Two for the price of one” The vampire shrugged, clearly unmoved by Cordy’s threat. He went straight for Cordelia and you grabbed him, twisting his arm and managing to push him to the floor. You had the upper hand only because he (and you) hadn’t realised the strength you possessed. 

You were confused, standing still with your brows knitted together. Blood running down your side. This allowed him to gain the upper hand again. He sprung up as you were in awe of your own strength as he started to round on you, his fangs bared. You felt a rumble in your chest, as if you wanted to growl. It was a dull ache, like when your tummy rumbles except in your chest.

Out of nowhere, Cordy broke off some wood and while he had his back turned, she managed to stake him. She ran through the dust, to your side and checked over the wound that was already slowly closing itself up. Your mouth had widened in shock at how easily she appeared to roll with everything. She moved a hand to softly rest under your chin as if to close your mouth that was still open in confusion. How did she know about vampires?

The next evening, you had met at the Bronze. You had a lot of catching up to do. You wore something to hide your neck as you had no way to explain how your wound had already healed. She had started to tell you about hanging around the slayer, how she had never mentioned it because she didn’t want to have you worrying about that. She really cared for you and she was very protective. This hadn’t stopped despite you no longer being her girlfriend. 

Talking to her was so easy, you both smiled over at each other and shared anecdotes you had been saving in hope that one day you would be able to speak the way you used to. Your legs brushing against each other under the table, making you both smile every time that they did.

Every so often you opened your mouth, trying to find a way to tell her what had happened to you. What you were now. How you had become a werewolf. But every time you open your mouth you just can’t do it. You were so scared of rejection. You didn’t want her to think you were some monster. You were still you.

You were scared she would hate you. Find you unlovable for something you couldn’t change. The conversation stopped flowing so easily as you found yourself more caught up inside your head. She noticed you had started to become distant - staring off into space again. She clicked her fingers in front of your face more than once and decided that it was probably time to call it a night. She asked if you would take her home and you nod, agreeing to walk with her. It was the least you could do after she saved your life.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Buffy saw you escorting Cordy out and felt a sense of duty she was sadly lacking when a stranger was taking you for a bite the other week. She followed you both a safe distance from the Bronze and then started to attack you. She spun you around, landing a hard blow against your face which made you cry out and clutch your face.

“Ow! What is your problem!?” You snarl at her as she raises an eyebrow waiting for your forehead to shift and confirm her suspicions. When it had almost been a solid minute of staring in silence, Buffy still didn’t back down.

“I know what you are” 

“I- I don’t-”

“You’re a vampire. I’m the Slayer. Together, we’re a match made in Hell” Buffy started to punch you again, but you were more ready this time. Your arm came up instinctively to block her curled fist but nothing connected with your body. Cordelia had stepped in front of you. Her arms crossed. There was no way that someone with that hairstyle was going to be beating up the girl she cared for.

“I’m not a vampire!” you said from behind Cordy.

“Buffy, God, not everything is about you! This is y/n she’s just transferred from-” she started to introduce you but Buffy had to be tough. It was her job. She couldn’t just take your word for it and let you go.

“Move, Cor, or I will move you” Buffy warned. Cordelia was getting on her nerves. First she didn’t believe Angel was a vampire and now you. 

“Just... do what she says” You mutter as she swung around, eyes wide. As if you had just grown a second head. She decided this must mean you are a vampire. 

“When?” she whispered but there was no time to reply. Buffy was attacking you so quickly all you had to do was blink and she had already left several bruises starting to form on your skin. You could handle yourself on instinct for the most part, but trying to win a fight against a slayer? You had no chance. 

You managed to block a few moves but you were lacking on offensive blows. She was just too fast for you. She eventually knocked your feet from under you, your brain taking time to catch up to where you were now in a heap on the floor. She stepped over you with Cordelia screaming and trying to hold Buffy back. Buffy had a wooden stake now as she crouched next to you, the pointed end of the wood starting to become increasingly uncomfortable as it dug into your chest.

“I’m a werewolf! I’m a werewolf!” You shouted, putting your hands up in surrender, “I’m no threat, unless you find me on a full moon! Please don’t put that through my chest!” you plead, pride no longer a worry. Fear of rejection now further down on the immediate list of threats. You let your mouth say whatever it wanted so long as it would get that massive splinter away from your precious heart. You weren’t a vampire, but you were pretty sure a massive object stabbed through your heart wasn’t going to be very healthy.

Buffy paused and you knew she would expect you to prove it in some way, “Look” You mutter, grabbing at the cross that was hanging around her neck as you proved to her that your hand wasn’t starting to steam. 

Cordelia’s face was a picture of shock. She had known you weren’t a vampire and hadn’t been sure why Buffy had gone totally psycho (her words). But this? It all made perfect sense now. The secrecy. The way you went missing for those three days every month - she knew it couldn’t have been camping. What a bad excuse. But it didn’t make it any less of a shock to hear.

Buffy mutters an apology getting up and leaving, knowing this wasn’t her conversation to have. She stared at you for a second where you were still sat on the floor after you had been knocked down pleading for your life. Then she left just as abruptly as she had stormed in.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she exploded, clearly mad that all of this - losing you, feeling so distant from you was down to this. To your shame. You hadn’t even wanted to admit it until you were two seconds away from death.

“I didn’t want you to... hate me” You said softly, “I mean it. Silver bullets have nothing on you - on the pain that I would feel from losing you because of what I am...” you sniffed, looking into the distance rather than at her disappointed face.

“You could have died! That’s way worse” The pitch of her voice climbing several octaves in disbelief. She didn’t think hiding this was worth almost dying over and she told you about it. You squinted at her, she didn’t seem to be cowering from you in fear or not being able to look at you in disgust.

She just appeared to be exasperated that you hadn’t told her something apparently so mundane to her now she knew about demons. She offered a hand to help you up and you took it gladly. 

The smile you shared, knowing that you both cared for the other filled you up with hope. Your body glowing from head-to-toe with the possibilities that came with her acceptance. You walked slowly, the moon lit your path as you walked home together.

Maybe you could face the full moon, with her by your side.

[startwithbrooklyn]

THE GREAT ND REWATCH OF 2021 / OCTOBER 5, 2019 // return of josh

oooookay folks! that's a wrap! below are my comments about tonight's ep + additional expansions on previously stated opinions. i'm not combining s2 ep 1 with this bc s2 is dead to me! so is s3! i only did this to gather up all these loose thoughts i had when this show with its one lonely season became such a comfort to me that i developed a second consciousness about it. but with these posts i am done! the evil is defeated! i will carry on through the 3rd and hopefully final season of nancy drew with less emotion and better spirits. thank god.

-"talk to owen" nancy firstly thinks of talking to owen only to see what happens w the agleaca; saying goodbye comes as sorta an afterthought mirroring tiffany's possession of george. yet nancy was unable to say goodbe to owen just like w kate. knowing this reveal about kate, i wonder if this was foreshadowing that something big will be revealed about him later? unlikely but still

-nancy + the reality of broken things: 'totems' like broken sand glass sculpture (good place) to show you it's not a dream; "owen broke that" ghost trap to ground him to reality, like how she reached for her locket in the good place, lucy's charm, ace's bear ('totems' idea borrowed from inception)

-george has never been an affectionate person, even with other women- so why does pda with nick suddenly become so important?

-lots of comments about ryan + women but what about carson/kate and karen? again with the hypocritical (interestingly, there is an aspect of violence to women connected with ryan (even though that violence is not his fault); but its not like kate or karen fared well either)

-ryan feels useless- relationships with women as stated by nancy- he seeks to redeem himself by showing up where nancy goes to prove he is good to have around/necessary/needed - but now that he is attempting to act as a parent he has to break through nancy's defenses all over again- firstly she didnt really consider him any kind of threat bc he comes off as incompetent- ie bad business deals- i think i mentioned last ep, their hauntings equalize them as they both attempt to gain peace by searching for answers but now ryan has changed the terms of engagement so he's back to square one, with carson. (which is how we find them s2 cowering in ryans car stalking nancy together)

-ryan's relationship to nancy exposes an interesting layer here. so far she doesnt know about nick/george but they still hold the cards (ie george gets one over on nick's ex/"the new girl") with the revelation of ryan being nancys father, nancy gains an interesting trump card in navigating the social fallout of being nick's ex. like george would take the new spot but then nancy comes out with george's ex in a much higher category. this plays out later on in the ep when george confronts ryan. george wants to talk about "them" but ryan shows up completely focused on nancy, thus illustrating the trump

-"i thought it was whitney with another insipid question" to me this sounds like whitney took bess's advice earlier about "asking aunt diana what she wants" (only to learn it actually annoyed the hell out of diana lmaoo)

-"then you need to fight for it" this hearkens nancy earlier by asking "arent you in by virtue of dna?" the test was positive; she is a marvin just like nancy is a hudson. thats not a fact that they can change. however, diana really acts like it can be changed- and in s2 we see it does change. its interesting for bess to be told to fight to be in a family she's already in and also foiled by nancy trying to fight her way out of her own family. would like to see bess stand up to diana and say something. i mean, she exists. as much as she may want to erase bess from the family, diana cannot erase her existence

-hannah's rolled up sleeves 💙

-"previous keepers records" -from s2- were those not her parents??

-mistaken murderers- everyone incorrectly assumes lucy was murdered just as they assume the agleaca killed owen

-even if owen weren't the price, how can they pay the toll without one of the people who called? i mean if it was anything other than owen and he still died they still wouldve been fucked

-"you don't need to check, i'm not even driving!" okay and giving up the goss. cassidy is me. lmfaoooo

-wonder if this locked marvin industries box will ever come back

-UNPOPULAR OPINION: george's confrontation with ryan comes waytoo late to do anything. i think i brought this up in an earlier post. its literally just her screaming at him now. like he is clocked out moved on. you know a good time for this scene? in the claw when he comes by to "check on her". hes vulnerable, fresh from rehab. and she has a chit over him for punching bookcases/the fuckin country club deal. therewould have been a perfect time to confront ryan on what happened- "what you did to me" okay sis. you admitted ep 1 you werent in hs anymore. youre of age now. admit you fucked up. take the L to force him to swallow the bigger L. and imagine how much more powerful the scene would have been- in george's domain, literally her own office, something ryan doesnt even have because HE DOESNT DO SHIT. ryan is SO EASY to trap but nobody notices. instead they have george try to get some kind of apology out of him when hes already done with that, and only for the sake of her establishing a new relaionship to boot. imagine how much more empowered she would feel if she just got that closure for herself- because she needed it, not so she could trot straight back to nick being all proud of calling a grown man to some random estate only to scream at him in a parking lot and have accomplished nothing. 🤦🏼‍♀️

-i get patrice thinking nancy is lucy but yeahhhhh this isnt how dementia works 😬

-i almost cant with nance and josh. how do you save your would-be murderer? (+ lucy's best friend and brother are in jail, her mom is lost to her mentally; all she has left is nancy and ryan)

-tbh i had no idea how to spell agleaca until bess said "theres no i in agleaca!" i thought it was igleaka like 😂

-damn how george just stares at nicks hand and then gets out herself is just so sad (like she immediately rectifies it but still...)

-"curiosity" part II; nancy who comes back to the sea after her mother died in it- agleaca drawn to lucy's trauma/to agleaca, lucy died fir "love"- would nancy be willing to risk the same? // this is also one of nancy's "mirroring mom" moments: winning sea queen, going to the velvet masque, getting caught by celia, having a "chat" with everett, and "falling" off the bluffs

-the collector 🎵👌🏻

-i wonder if there's any significance to the locations/means of their deaths; nancy's is pretty straight forward in terms of where and how, but why george and nick drowning, in the truck specifically? drowning in love? idk. ace's at the claw i get, but he gets himself caught? in what precisely? what does the fish hook mean? and bess's makes the least sense- burning alive? in the marvin estate? maybe the agleaca picked the most painful death for the marvin blood relation? idk. up for debate lmk ya thoughts

and lastly:

-i remember seeing this ending for the first time and i had just been traumatized by avengers endgame and since black widow is also a redhead seeing that shit at the bottom of the cliff it was like 😰😰😰 TOO SOON

-random thoughts-

these are just things i noticed, feel free to grapple with them or take note of them for extrapolation in s3 (lord knows i wont be) they probably belonged in recaps for previous eps but i either didnt find them in my notebook or couldnt fit them in

•nancy and truth/the perception of truth: using facts to suit theories instead of creating theories to suit facts- nancy often plays with the perception of truth and the details that fall between the steps; but she is also a victim to them by people who also know how to play the game (ie Carson) ex lying about the dress (tea cups and knives, trash got picked up, bail paid 1 hr ago) her inferences can be off from what others tell her ("people always lie") but she can also come to the wrong conclusions organically (carsons trial) more willing to believe the best in others/wanting them to be innocent (think nick ep 1) but later finding out the truths hurts more so she chooses to isolate herself and avoid involving others to be spared pain

•maybe i'm dumb, but who is "mr marvin" exactly? owen? the bald guy from the funeral? this comes from the guy who takes sailboats out like ep 4ish and says "ive worked for the marvins 20 years" she compliments the ship, he says "mr marvin and i just took her out this morning" so?? who is that? plus last ep just saying cassidy and isaac are her "late husbands children" dows thet mean sebastian? like did diana marry in? i feel like it would be odd for her to so embrace the "marvin way" if she wasnt a true born marvin

•ik college becomes a more s2 topic but none of the crew have ever been to college 🤔

•nick + the relationships with people whose reputations are tarnished: tiffany with investigating the hudsons/marvins, josh with murder/attempted murder, kate and 'stealing'/lying about nancy (esp compared to her almost preternatural kindness i mentioned before), george and her mom/family's reputations --> this kind of segues into nick + the concept of believing people you love could be capable of horrific things- accidental or on purpose (see- having to tell his family what happened)

•at the beginning, nancy kind of seems to be the "i'm sorry you're upset" kind of apologist and knows it. she also doesnt usually apologize earnestly bc shes never really sorry (she always has to get what she needs first ie coins mess) and she doesnt want to lie; to me it seems she doesnt like to bother with other people bc they require certain cues/niceties that are often lies- they ask "how are you" without meaning it, they dont really want an honest response except "fine", they dont like it when you call them out on fakeness, etc/ they require apologies for their bruised feelings even if youre right (and nancy can be pretty rude/nasty if provoked- a harshness unsoftened by sympathy)

•cont'd from the good place ep- since kate apparently means nothing to nancy anymore according to last ep ("stop calling her my mother") is her policy of "always seek the truth" now null and void? this mantra is now tainted bc the person who gave it to her broke it so much. can nancy disengage w it now? does she fall from grace to be complicit in "mysteries" of her own like everyone else? does she lose some of her "god-like" holier than thou act bc she is now literally born and raised in the "darkness" of sins/ugly truths like everyone else's? (ie truth is ugly but not to nancy, until now)

•did lucy disappear because her "murder" was finally solved? or simply because her trauma was addressed- she never meant to tell anyone about her suicide plans, the twisted trauma of which was too great to contain/unable to move on due to "sin" - or unable to move on because secret of nancy's parentage still remained? "lucy never wanted me to figure out how she died" she only wanted nancy to figure out her parentage without solving the mystery, yet did lucy see/witness nancy's revelation at the claw, or with carson, or even ryan? waiting for karen/josh to know? or just vanished?

•concept of imperfect mom figures- lucy, kate, celia, victoria, even karen- who all struggle with failings

•since karen dispelled one of lucy's attempts at nancy's haunting at the garden party, is that proof she isn't haunting karen?

•the crew + needing adult help: george's possession and victoria, club busted and owen, car accident and mcginnis, thom and cipher, larkspur lane and sal, bones and john, agleaca and hannah

•everett is always sitting- at his home office, at dinner, at yacht club (wonder if that was his actor + had to do with his recasting?)

-dad talk-

•both her dads think negatively on her "girl detective" thing but ryan sees use in it as a means to get answers, carson would never 'use' her in that way

•nancy + carson : suffering

"what about what i wanted?" + carson being imprisoned for weeks but she immediately rejects him (the DAY he gets his freedom no less) with no regard to his suffering (caused by herdiary!!) in regards to her own from this new knowledge (she does suffer a lot- "almost dying is my new normal" but still)/ the "thankless job" of parenting

•nancy + adults - connected to cop thing a few posts earlier : nancy is v precocious and smart for her age- she is "old enough" but also has trouble with the "adults" in her life- fathers, moms, karen, and cops letting her down but depends heavily on "adults" she cantrust- hannah gruen, john sander, lisbeth- highlighting her youth and occasional naiveté; nancy is unafraid to hold adults accountable for their actions (ie karen) but also loses them as allies along the way. both hannah and john are very nonthreatening and also experts in their fields, while her fathers and karen are revealed to be "just another brick in the wall" average, capable of mistakes, and not the people she expects them to be, while characters like john and hannah can only benefit nancy because either they do not mean as much to her or have no reason/nothing to gain by lying; they are purposefully shown to be small, demure, gentle, and nonthreatening as foils/opposed to karen, ryan, and josh whom she previously trusted; carson (+kate) is nonviolent as well but has the biggest betrayal which is perceived as an act of violence to her very personhood/shattering who she thought she was so she cannot be that anymore (admits truths to john "everytime i dig i hurt everyone" and hannah-agleaca) : unclear if redemption is possible for anyone :

•nancy bonds with carson over loss and then ryan over haunting. but actually, nancy rejects carson over loss bc she wanted to say goodbye and wasnt allowed to- so carson was with kate but nancy was not. nancy and ryan are more equals about haunting bc they both start around the same time and conclude together as well [nancy and ryan bond over thinking their parents conspired to kill lucy- think sitting on the floor at velvet masque] nancy is appreciated by ryan for her ability to get answers- he has no qualms about going through her/outside of police bc he wants results/instant gratification and thinks nancy is more so the expert in her field/respects her even through her age- once again acknowledging she is braver than he is (think lucy + claw parking lot) and her portent in the car freaks him out bc shes usually always in control, esp with him

•bc nancy was told "you can't be afraid of the truth" until she was / ironic bc shes braver than him except when the truth is they are related then she's scared to tell him while he actually starts to take some initiative

•nancy picked "the wrong person" to help her through her grief in her dad's eyes like her mom's best friend was somehow a better choice? carson truly "parents" nancy even during grief and haunting (which she rejects) whereas nancy and ryan are really equals in all their situations which is actually better for her and easier for her to maintain- nancy's expectations are low so anything that ryan gives is a bonus. nancy's expectations of carson were shattered by his lies so now she has nothing to connect with him about- they could barely even connect when sharing the same grief- carson actually very hypocritical hence nancy's upset at karen revelation yet carson doesn't agree bc hes the "adult" and shes the "child" not realizing she hadnt been one for a long time (hidden staircase perhaps?) whereas ryan better treats her with lack of controlling parental nature bc he is impressed with her competence before he receives that knowledge; "lucy was smarter than me too" acknowledging her intellect negates his ability to "parent" ie control her to leave him solely with caring about her wellbeing in her situations + aftermath - i honestly dont think carson would ever admit that shes smarter than him* bc he thinks shes not "all grown up" yet ("youve kept me on the bench for years"); ryan is more willing to meet her where she's at which is so important for all her good relationships - ace, owen, etc

*carson asks for nancy to figure out "who to trust" in ep 12, finally admitting that she is useful/ie acknowledging that her skills/abilities do help, are necessary, and can in fact save lives --> this is then s2 follow up by working for him (but it takes him that long)

•ryan/nancy/carson venn diagram - using sex to escape trauma

•if not carson vs ryan then what about celia and everett vs patrice (and josh)? at this point in the narrative, do you think ryan's parents would take his side should the knowledge become public (without their involvement), or deny nancy?

•"we were a family" + the disruption of family dinner- kate was really the one holding that family together and her death makes it unsustainable

okay!! that's all folks! i have exhausted my plethora of nancy drew thoughts + knowledge. you will never have to hear from me again!! TYSSM 😘

[spin-birdie]

who wants to have a DREADFUL time

you hear that? its the sound of me crackin my bones and blowing dust off my keyboard in preparation of posting Cringe Fics From My Fail Brain

word count: 2140

pairings: n/a

rating: explicit

additional tags: i refuse to categorise them again. phoenix gets a tentacle dildo as a joke christmas gift and then he uses it. this doesnt deserve additional tags. except for crack treated seriously. also theres a bit of choking so give this a miss if youre not into that

its under the cut but you can just read it on ao3 here

At first glance, Phoenix has no idea what he’s holding. Everyone else in the room is silent for a moment as he turns the object around in his hand, perplexed. Then three things happen in rapid succession; first, Larry laughs so sharply it sounds like he’s going to pass out from the force. Then everyone else in the room erupts into shocked laughter. Finally, Phoenix realises Larry gave him a fucking dildo for Christmas.

He drops it back into the box it came in with an indignant shout, like even touching the thing had burned his soul. He glares at Larry, who’s leaning on the arm of the couch in a futile attempt to stay upright. His laughter has dissolved into coughing and wheezing. Everyone else seems to be in a similar state, either cackling so hard they’re about to fall over or exchanging stunned, silent glances with each other.

Phoenix isn’t sure why he expected anything else from a frat house full of drunk college students.

He glances back down at the box in his lap. Then he looks back up. Then he remembers it’s been a while since he’s said anything and everyone’s still looking in his general direction. “Larry, what-- why?!”

The embarrassment in his voice just makes Larry laugh harder. The poor idiot’s face is so red Phoenix thinks for a moment he’s actually going to collapse and die right there. At this moment, he’d probably be okay with that.

Larry composes himself just enough to say something like, “You keep talking about how lonely you are, so I figured…” before breaking down again. “Ev-Everyone else got a legit gift and a joke gift, so like…”

“Huh? A joke--? This thing’s the size of my arm, Larry!”

Another bout of giggles fills the room. Phoenix can feel the tips of his ears burning. Forget Larry, at this point he’d welcome it if death wanted to claim him right this second.

He buries his face in his hands, staring down at the incriminating object between the cracks in his fingers. It looks well-made, and that might be the worst part, if only because it implies Larry spent a lot of money on a fucking prank gift. There’s a nearly metallic-looking sheen to the thing, and the swirling sandy/aqua pattern reminds Phoenix of the ocean, to his chagrin. But those traits are more or less overshadowed by the fact that it’s a fantastically crafted dildo shaped like a fucking tentacle that’s as wide as a soda can at its base and about twice as tall. Phoenix has so many more questions about this thing, but he’s sure the answers would only leave him with questions he doesn’t want answers to.

Someone else starts tearing open a present, and the crowd’s attention turns to her. Phoenix doesn’t pay as much attention as he should.

Let it go. It’s just a prank gift, Phoenix tells himself. No one expects him to use the thing. It’s that simple.

---

It should be that simple. But it’s been about a week since that party and Phoenix keeps thinking about the blue tentacle-shaped sex toy taking up space in his closet.

He looks up the price at some point, just out of curiosity. It’s fairly easy to find the online store it was bought from; the box was open when Phoenix unwrapped it, but the packaging inside was mostly intact, and there was a care guide with the store’s logo on it to boot.

He balks when he sees the base price listed as somewhere around $55, but then he realises it costs even more to increase the size. If Phoenix had to guess, Larry spent at least $100 on this thing, probably more with tax and shipping costs.

Upwards of $100 on a stupid prank gift. Sounds like a thing Larry would do.

Phoenix should probably close the tab right there, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t. He hits the back button and scrolls down the store page a little more and sees a lot of products that make even the tentacle thing look fairly tame in comparison. He knows he’s blushing harder the longer he stays on the site, and keeps thinking ‘holy shit, I didn’t really want to know that was a kink that exists’ or ‘how is that even remotely pleasurable?’ every few minutes, but he still doesn’t click off until he’s hit the bottom of the page. If anyone asks, he’ll just chalk it up to morbid curiosity.

Of course that explanation doesn’t hold up so well an hour later when Phoenix is jerking himself off in the shower, but no one needs to know about that.

---

Two weeks after the party, Phoenix takes the box out of his closet.

He almost thinks about opening it about a dozen times, but always remembers at the last moment about some chore that needs doing, or some file he needs to fill out, or that email he’s waiting for that definitely hasn’t come in the last three minutes but surely it can’t hurt to check again anyway. He knows he’s stalling. He can’t be bothered stopping himself.

Ultimately he ends up taking a shower to calm down and prepare himself for what he’s inevitably going to do this evening. It’s fine, he thinks to himself. It was an expensive gift, after all. It’d be a shame to spend that much money on something that’s going to stay in his closet forever, so why not use it just once?

Lord, Phoenix is so fucked. A statement that will be very, very literal within the hour. God.

There’s about an hour gap between Phoenix taking the box out and actually opening it. After that, he’s pretty sure he takes another ten minutes to undress since he’s too busy staring at the dildo like it’s betrayed him somehow.

At long last, he actually picks the cursed thing up for the first time in two weeks. It’s heavy and firm, yet there’s some give to it. He wraps both hands around the shaft, and there’s a good inch or so he can’t even reach and he can feel the unfamiliar texture of the suckers beneath his hands and he suddenly feels even more daunted than he was before, if that’s even possible.

Before he really knows what he’s doing, he brings the tip up to his lips and lets it rest inside his mouth. It’s warmer than Phoenix expects, the weight against his tongue unusually comforting. He can feel the suckers lining the underside of the tentacle, the silicone yielding when he presses his teeth against it lightly. A low, needy sound escapes him and he pulls his mouth away. There’s an unpleasantly clinical aftertaste, which is the only thing that reminds Phoenix he should probably wash the damn thing before doing anything else with it.

(Washing it does give him a chance to get more acclimated to the texture, even if he can’t stop thinking about what it will feel like inside him.)

He’s not sure how long he’s been at half-mast, but once he’s lying in bed and actually takes himself in hand he’s completely hard and leaking precum in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, he’s a little too far gone to be embarrassed about it. He gets worryingly close to the edge before he remembers his real goal and moves his hand up to rest on his stomach instead. He looks down at the toy next to him and swallows thickly.

No turning back now.

He’s not sure how much lube to use on a toy with this much texture, so he uses more than what’s probably necessary. He spreads his legs, starts stroking himself slowly and takes a sharp breath when the tip of the toy nudges his perineum before settling in front of his entrance.

The toy slips in with less resistance than Phoenix expects, though he’s still glad he prepped in the shower earlier. He shivers, bearing down against it as it fills him up. At first it doesn’t feel like much; not bad, not mindblowing. It does remind Phoenix how long it’s been since he had anything to fill him besides his fingers and the one vibrator he lost the remote for.

A little more of the toy slides in, and Phoenix’s breath catches when he feels the suckers. He swears they feel even more pronounced than they did before. Phoenix clenches around the dildo, squeezes his own dick, tries to remember how to breathe evenly. He doesn’t know how full he actually is. He’s certain he’s not going to take the whole thing because that would be really fucking ambitious even for him, but…

He adjusts his grip on the dildo, pulls it out a bit, pushes it back in even further--

“Oh-- Fuck--!”

He knew there was a bit of a curve to it, but christ does it make a difference when he changes the angle and the tip of the tentacle nudges against his prostate a bit too hard and it feels like someone just set off a firecracker behind his navel and it’s just on the wrong side of painful. He has to stop and breathe again before he chases the feeling.

Before he knows it he’s rocking his hips until he finds the angle again and the tip catches his prostate again and it’s uncomfortable for a few seconds and then it’s not and, and…

Phoenix keens high in the back of his throat, throwing his head back against his pillow in a needless effort to muffle himself. It’s almost scary how fast he starts to unravel after that. His legs shake uncontrollably, he’s rocking against the toy, losing himself to the delicious pressure against his prostate and the sensation of being filled up more and more, and every time he remembers he’s fucking himself on a fucking tentacle he almost breaks apart entirely. The hand that isn’t guiding the toy around can’t stay still, moving to wrap around Phoenix’s straining cock or dig into the sheets beside his head or press down on his stomach or flick across his nipples.

It’s so much. It’s almost too much but Phoenix would rather die than stop moving. He’s not sure how much of the tentacle has worked its way inside him. His whole body trembles at the thought. He knows he’s panting at this point, vaguely aware he’s whispering to himself, but fuck if he has a clue what he’s actually saying.

He thinks he’s close. Scratch that, he’s very fucking close all of a sudden; it’s like a switch was flipped and Phoenix is hyper-aware of his body. The mounting pressure just under his navel, the ache in his legs from being tense for so long, the pain in his wrist. His body feels like a live wire. He just needs one more push and he’ll fall off the edge completely.

Phoenix lets go of the toy with a sigh, pushes himself further up the bed. He cants his hips until he feels the tentacle shift inside him just hard enough that he throws his head back with a gasp.

He’s not quite riding it, and it’s a little harder to keep a steady pace from this angle, but it leaves both his hands free. He reaches for himself again and strokes himself hard and slow, squeezing the head on every upstroke in that way that leaves him gasping for breath. His other hand rests against his throat, fingers pressing against the arteries on either side until he’s even more lightheaded.

His tongue feels heavy and useless, his entire body is convulsing, right there on the precipice and it’s too much, not enough, too much, too good--

He thinks he might actually die when he comes. It’s hard to say. It’s one of those full-body orgasms; something that saps all the energy out of him and concentrates it into raw pleasure that spreads through every inch of his body until he’s left boneless, exhausted, and pleasantly numb.

Phoenix barely moves for the next few minutes. It’s all he can do to lie still and catch his breath as he winds down from easily the biggest orgasm he’s had in months.

When he does try to move, he realises with a start the dildo is inside him, nestled against his prostate and abrading his raw nerves as cum dries on his chest and stomach. He shivers with a near-silent moan as he pulls the toy out, leaving him empty and wanting.

He tosses the dildo aside and lies back against the bed with a groan. He knows he needs to clean up sooner or later…but there’s no reason it can’t be later.

Phoenix would never admit it to a single living soul, but he thinks he’s just found a new favorite toy.

[uncannycookie]

If you ever do more side oneshots from Teru's perspective for your fics I promise to read and love them to death. (Yes, the friendly water providing drunks can also be included.)

Yay I finished one prompt! Out of, like, ten. Bear with me, I’m working through something here.

Also I promise this is the last time I write about Teru’s shopping adventures, this is way too repetitive, it’s just the first thing that popped into my head and, just, this is how this boy copes in my mind

AO3 link in case the Read More isn’t working again for some reason.

Holding On (With Broken Grip)

“Of course I’m busy,” Teru drawls into the phone awkwardly held between his ear and shoulder. “It’s a Saturday, I have like - three party invitations for today.”

It’s only one actually, and he’s definitely not going, but of course that’s not something he needs to advertise right now. Juro is a friend from school and a total ass, he’ll ridicule him in front of everyone for staying in on a weekend even once.

“Anyway, why, what do you have planned?” The phone is slipping away slowly and his neck is starting to cramp a bit from the position.

How do people in movies make that look so easy? Should have put it on speaker phone. He supposes he could still do that, but he already got too much blood on the white casing just picking it up, he doesn’t want to fumble around with it more than necessary.

Where does he keep his fucking bandages? He knows he has some, somewhere.

“Mizuki nicked some beer from her parents and Eiji is bringing something too,” Juro is telling him over the phone while Teru tries his best to open the bathroom cabinets using only the heels of his hands. “We’re meeting at Eiji’s place and going wherever later, I guess.”

“Oh, wherever? Sounds riveting,” Teru yawns. Which is not even a big act to be honest. It’s a real yawn and he just has to adjust it a tiny bit to make it sound appropriately condescending.

The phone barely survives the act, dislodged from its place by his jaw, and he distorts his shoulders and neck even more to catch it in time.

“What the hell are you doing over there?” Juro asks predictably, finally reacting to the loud shuffling sounds he must be picking up on his end, as well as the banging of the cabinet doors that repeatedly slip out of Teru’s grasp.

“Getting ready of course, what do you think.”

For a second, Teru considers using his hands to open the rebellious doors after all, but he quickly drops that thought again. The cuts on his left hand are superficial, barely even bleeding anymore by this point, but a lot of glass splinters are stuck near the fingertips and he doesnt want to risk pushing them in even further. Meanwhile his right hand already feels too swollen to even move and is turning blue around the scraped knuckles.

He hopes the fridge survived that punch more unscathed than he himself did. Teru didn’t like the sound it made.

“You can’t call me on a Saturday evening and expect me not to be on the go, idiot,” he continues. “Whatever, thanks for the invite but I’ll be elsewhere. Take pictures though.”

“Dude, you’re always elsewhere lately,” Juro protests, more annoyed than disappointed. “What, found cooler friends?”

That stings for a second, and Teru can’t really tell why.

Except, maybe, the word friend made him think of Shigeo and that’s by far the worst thought for him to have today. His fridge can attest to that.

“You say that as if it would be hard,” he snaps. “At least elsewhere no one is whining at me like a ten year old. Was there anything else or are you going to stop pestering me now?”

“Nice party mood,” Juro drawls. “I don’t care man, do what you want.” He turns away from the phone and just before he hangs up, Teru can hear him addressing someone in the background with a “Nah, told you, nerd is staying in again.”

The phone finally slips out from underneath his ear and tumbles to the ground. It takes all of Teru’s willpower not to kick it away over the tiled floor.

At least now he can use his elbows to open the cabinet and keep it open long enough to actually look at the contents. The success is short lived, because apparently that’s not where he keeps his bandages after all. Teru somehow manages to slam the cabinet shut again and judging from the clattering sounds from inside, it only knocked over about half of his things.

If he really tries, he can actually bend the fingers of his right hand. It hurts like hell, but technically he can use that hand.

He’d declare that more than enough, if it wasn’t for the splinters in his left. There had simply been no time at work to look for a dustpan and brush. It had been the end of his shift already and he’d had a train to catch and he’d been tired and hadn’t been thinking and quickly picking up a whole tray of broken glass with his fingers had seemed like a good idea at the time.

From the kitchen, there is a tired mechanical whir and a small spluttering sound.

It’s probably safe to say that the fridge is not going to be in top form again anytime soon.

Might as well head to the store now to get some band-aids and a few groceries that’ll keep at room temperature.

Instant coffee is disgusting. Teru despises the stuff, but it’s the only coffee they have here and he’s at the point where looking at the prices for the actual coffee beans in an actual supermarket makes him scoff out loud.

He gets two large boxes of instant coffee. Some toast and instant ramen. Lots of instant stuff in general. Not too long ago the contents of his basket would have made him cry. Now it’s mostly just the pain in his hands that’s making his eyes water a bit with every movement, but he’s clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth and bravely ignoring it.

“Do you have tweezers?” He asks the cashier, because his own that he uses for his eyebrows aren’t fine enough to pick tiny glass splinters out of his fingers. Past the two customer he’s ringing up right now, the cashier points towards a small shelf near the front.

“I’m not talking about the movie,” one of the customers currently paying for a six-pack of beer is saying while Teru picks out the finest tweezers he can find and steps up to the counter. “I’m talking about the book! Because yes, there is a book. And guess what, there’s not a single robot uprising happening in there.”

Teru can’t see the young adult’s face past his enormous mop of curly hair, but he seems livid when he slams a hand on the counter and points at the clerk with the other. “The robots are completely and utterly trustworthy! It’s right there in the first law of robotics: Don’t harm human beings. Meaning they are actually literally unable to! And the ‘loophole’ the movie used to get around it - 'humans always hurt themselves so we have to overthrow them to protect them’ ‒ blah blah, bullshit! That’s not a loophole, it’s just a paradox. To protect humans they have to harm humans but they can’t harm humans because they have to protect humans. The supercomputer couldn’t have gotten to any decision there, it simply would’ve shut itself down!”

The clerk really doesn’t look as if he ever asked for any of this. He just stands quietly, holding out a handful of change that continues to be ignored, and watches the guy ramble with an empty expression.

He is freed when the small woman with the sidecut next to the chatty guy grabs both the change and the guy’s collar, says “I apologize for his opinions,” and pulls him with her towards the exit, just at the same moment that Teru shoves his basket on the counter. “Get the Hello Kitty band-aids,” she says over her shoulder, and it takes Teru an embarrassingly long second to realize she’s talking to him. “They hold better and look rad.”

Even through his confusion, Teru manages to quickly recover, grab said band-aids from inside his basket and wave them in her direction. “Way ahead of you,” he says, just barely making it sound sufficiently bored to cover up his surprise at being spoken to in this moment.

“Neato,” she nods at him, right before the doors slide shut behind her.

When Teru steps back outside, two plastic bags dangling from the crook of his arm, she and her opinionated friend are long gone.

His right hand is starting to look very dark around the knuckles. He bends the fingers as far as he can, at this point just to prove to himself that he can, and sucks in air through his teeth at the pain.

It feels as though he wants to be angry. As angry as he was when he stopped thinking entirely and punched that stupid fridge. He can’t even remember what set him off. There has just been that feeling at the back of his throat all day, something that tints every thought a deep, painful color and makes it hard to swallow. Every tiny thing has been pissing him off today and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He walks home and thinks of how he can’t go out tonight, he has to work tomorrow and he’s way too tired anyways and it’s not even as if he wants to go out.

None of that changes how he’s nonsensically resenting Juro and the others for having fun without him.

Or resenting the empty apartment he’s returning to right now, the one that he hasn’t had the time to clean up properly in days and that is housing a broken fridge now, which is entirely his own fault but he still wants to punch someone else for it.

(Resenting, maybe, the lost thought in his mind that he would like to invite someone over. Not for a party, but just for something calm and easy, something that doesn’t feel quite as ‒ cold ‒ as spending the evening alone in silence and going to sleep early out of exhaustion.)

The keys hurt his fingers when he takes them out of his pocket.

And the first thing that greets him after pushing open the door to the stairwell, in the form of just a small blur rushing down the stairs to the courtyard, is a cat.

Teru stops. Tilts his head back and slowly cracks his neck with a long sigh.

This is not fair. Those cats don’t even belong to anyone in the house. They shouldn’t be here. They don’t have the right to make him feel worried all of a sudden because Shigeo will be upset and Teru is grinding his teeth again because why should he even care, it’s not like Shigeo will be coming over anytime soon!

The door is slowly falling shut behind him and he’s still standing frozen, glaring down the staircase towards the basement and the courtyard entry.

He is, only now, beginning to think that he might need someone else here to help him with removing the splinters. Since his other hand isn’t working perfectly either. So. He should probably actually invite someone.

Maybe he can say that they weren’t fighting in the first place. That it was all just a misunderstanding, that he’s just been busy and that’s why they haven’t been in contact at all since Teru declined meeting for a study session. Shigeo would probably buy that. Nobody would even have to awkwardly apologize that way. They could just. Go back to normal.

Only Teru isn’t sure he could. He tries to imagine having to smile and laugh right now and it actually hurts his face.

Well. Shigeo would probably even come over and help him with his hand if Teru didn’t lie to him about having a fight. If Teru just let him fix his hand and then asked him to leave ‒ Shigeo would. Wouldn’t he.

This train of thought actually doesn’t change anything about the pain in his face. Only it also makes him feel like throwing up. He hasn’t even eaten enough today to actually do that.

It’s not like he’s actually going to call him, who is he kidding, he can’t just call and ask for help when he’s perfectly capable of taking care of everything himself, he’s just ‒

‒ just overreacting.

The phone stays in his pocket.

That he still goes down the stairs to see how many cats there are, maybe figure out where they’re coming from and how to get rid of them, has absolutely nothing to do with Shigeo. Teru scatters instant coffee around the courtyard because he’s heard that coffee grounds are a cat repellent and maybe the instant stuff works too. He bought two boxes, he doesn’t need that much anyway.

The cats are loud at night and he needs to sleep. That’s the only reason he cares.

(It takes way too long to remove the splinters from his hand. His phone buzzes all evening as Juro keeps sending him pictures from their outing. Teru pours rubbing alcohol over his hands, wraps them up in Hello Kitty band-aids and goes to sleep at around two in the morning.

The moment he finally turns off the lights, the first wailing cat scream of the night makes itself heard from the courtyard.)

[tumblunni]

I had some sudden more ideas for npcs in the monster petshop game, and a bit of worldbuilding and stuff!

I was just consideringwhether maybe this should be a fantasy setting with different non-human races, or one that’s just all humans. I dunno, games with catchable monsters seem to ALWAYS be just humans, that’s weird now I think about it! I guess its so the line between sentient magical beings and the pet ones isn’t blurred, but in my petshop idea the monster pets can all talk anyway so that’s not an issue. Tho I dunno if it’ll be to the same degree as in the Monster Rancher anime where monsters are all so similar to humans that they can live their own entirely separate lives without a human partner, and like.. start shops and hold property and stuff. Seriously that worldbuilding is so surreal and cool, you get to see stuff like a giant golem running a little metalwork jewelry store in the background of a crowd scene. I wanna see the story of that guy! Tho it gets a bit confusing cos some monsters can’t talk, and some monsters seem to have more petlike intelligence, and those two things don’t often coincide. I still cry forever about that episode with the guy who abused his giant worm monster, and how with its design and how it doesnt talk you’d probably assume its a mindless evil monster but its actually just a quiet sad good guy and like.. how its full sentience level is revealed by it choosing to refuse an offer from the bad guys to join them, and dying trying to save the life of its abusive trainer. And how it actually does succeed in making him realise how wrong he was to treat it like an animal, and to treat animals like mindless toys! And how he breaks down crying and then how he cradles the lil baby worm and promises to do better this time, and then how his original worm comes back to life way WAY at the end of the series and I CRY FOREVERRRR ... Anyway, sorry, where was I before I got distracted?

OH YEAH! Fantasy races! Which really should be called species, but I guess it stuck cos they’re often used as metaphors/replacements for actual racial diversity, especially in traditional fantasy. IM GETTING DISTRACTED AGAIN!!! So yeah that thought led me to an idea for a particular fantasy “race” I could add. But then it somehow developed into... I dislike designing overly humanlike fantasy races, like seriously what is the point of even bothering if they look identical to humans except short or with weird ears? So I thought.. what if this “race” is actually a disease instead?

MORE LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT!

So, I was thinking they could look like just normal humans but with a greyish skin colour, odd coloured eyes, and some sort of flower growing on their head. They’d be like ‘flower spirits’ but in kind of a negative way? They look like humans because this is a sort of magical genetic condition that turns humans into this. Though they still get predjudice because people are afraid of ‘catching’ a disease that isn’t actually contagious through touch or anything, but people are happy being ignorant fucks and excluding them from society ‘just in case’ their paranoia comes true.

But anyway! The details! At any moment an inherited carrier could manifest symptoms, and rather literally manifest a glowing flower from their forehead. It grants you enhanced magical powers, but at the cost of your life being tied to that magic. The flower is like if your soul has been forcibly pulled outside your body in a very fragile form! You have to tend to it like a normal flower, and you also have to sorta feed it by doing enough magic or absorbing the energy from magical objects. (So these guys’s magical power is to negate other magics.) If left untreated it will eventually be fatal, and if the flower wilts it’ll also kill you even faster. If you fail to take care of it, it drains energy from your soul instead, which leads to the grey skintone and general weak health. But even if you keep the flower alive it’ll eventually grow too big and you’ll be unable to drain enough magic to keep up with its energy consumption. By the time the story begins, medical technology has actually advanced enough to find life extending treatments for this, even if we don’t have a complete cure. You can’t get rid of the flower but you can take medicines to slow it’s growth. I mean, really the problem is just that this thing outpaces its host, its a really impractical parasite! It ends up killing itself by getting too greedy! (Which makes me think probably the predjudiced slurs around these people would be like... ��you got that disease cos of your greed/sin/etc’. Even though its just genetic.) And then I think the final breakthrough to save people from this disease wouldnt really be a perfect cure, just to regress it to a budlike inactive state. You’ll always be physically marked as a victim of this disease, and you’ll always have the ‘demonic’ magic-draining powers. And it’ll probably be a long time before people stop treating the sufferers like shit, even after this...

So umm.. yeah. Its kinda gonna be like an analogy for the horrible HORRIBLE way the AIDS outbreak was handled by the government, and how it happened because the victims were ‘undesireables’. And how in this post-outbreak world the whole thing’s practically been covered up, lessened, forgotten. And people still deny it, and still treat gay people like shit, and its taken so damn long to make all this progress and just... gahhhh... How pretty much every LGBTQ person who’s that old lost a dozen friends, how people got so desperate they used to hold ‘die-ins’- protesting by literally saying ‘leave me here on the doorstep’ when they were about to die. Make the politicians see exactly what they’ve done! And similarly the massive MASSIVE quilt full of patches commemorating everyone who died. God... And seriously just HOW LITTLE EDUCATION there is on this subject! Even amoungst modern LGBTQ communities! How eager we are to sweep things under the rug, even if its LITERALLY a rug made of dead queer folk! *sigh* umm.. sorry for the heavy subject matter there.

So yeah, this would be a ‘race’ in this setting, or rather a minority group, but in fantasy terms its a ‘race’ but.. whatever. Dumb language rules! Very small community of flower disease folks, treated like demi-humans. And this leads to a bunch of new ideas for npcs that could deliver this plotline! Of course, the main one would be an actual member of the flower disease folks.

I’m imagining her as just an absolute sweetheart shy gentle giant sort of lady. She’s introduced being this terrifying presence walking into the town, your protagonist being the only one who doesnt understand why everyone else is being all hushed whispers and closing all their shops. Since you come from a sheltered rich kid background, you’re very out of touch with common issues and had no clue this disease even exists. (Even though rich folks are the ones who had the power to help them, are the ones who refused, are the ones who spread the propeganda and then tried to cover up all their own failures...) So you’re the only one who treats this seemingly terrifying vagrant as a normal person, even though it’s (initially) just because you didn’t know the situation. Because of this, she ends up seeing you as a friend and coming back again. And then its up to the player whether you fall for all the predjudice and decide to cut all ties with her from here on, or whether you continue to stand up for her rights and try and change the way society treats her.

ANYWAY, her personality once she opens up to you would be the total opposite of her imposing appearance. She’s a chronic sufferer of self-hate issues, who’s been living completely alone in the forest for a long time, after being kicked out by her family and having no-one to turn to. I’m thinking she constantly speaks like... shy equivelant of Fuujin from FF8? One word sentences, but whispered instead of yelled. And like.. “.......ah..............s-....sorry........?” *questioning inflection of silence* “......uhhm........?” *unfurls hand hesitantly from under cloak and points at loaf of bread* *counts out coins meticulously, making sure to spread her hands and show she’s wearing gloves, she’s keeping them in a pouch, she hasn’t touched them* *places them on the very edge of the counter and backs away slowly, assuming you’re thinking the worst of her* *won’t take the bread directly from your hands, just in case* *struggling to speak again* “... th-.... ah-...... t-thank....... you.....” *mumbles her way out of the store quickly and awkwardly* This is kinda how she’s had to deal with buying supplies from EVERYONE EVERYWHERE. This tends to happen with like the one store in town that’ll take pity and throw her some food, at a greatly inflated price. She’s just had to like.. keep trying. Wear them down. If she keeps coming to a town repeatedly they’ll eventually get frustrated enough to give her what she wants.... or they’ll call the sheriff to chase her off. Either way she finally gets a yes or no answer on that place, and can tick it off on her cross country map of spots to find actual supplies. So she like.. CAN NOT function in a regular shop environment anymore. Probably the first hint that she isn’t really scary is how she’d totally freak out at you treating her normally! She’d be TERRIFIED!! There’s no way she’d actually agree to talking normally, she’d adamantly refuse to taking anything for free, seriously WHAT IS YOUR DEAL, ARE YOU A DEMON??? *sobs into the complimentary bread* It’d be a few visits before she actually opens up to you, and even then she’s very monosyllabic. She literally hasnt talked to anyone for years, she’s become so hardened to loneliness and cruel treatment that she can’t remember how to react to kind people anymore. And her voice is so hoarse both from this and from.. well.. the disease. She hasn’t even had the minimal treatment that’s available nowadays... for the rich, at least. So along with her sidequest being to help everyone understand her, you’re also searching for a doctor who’d treat her, and trying to save up the ridiculous amounts of money it would take. Its far easier if you succeed at destroying enough of the town’s ignorance, and make at least a few friendship links between her and your other sidequest pals. You can start having a town-wide fundraiser to get her the lifesaving medicine! Tho probably that leads to its own sidequest of having to track her down after she runs away, worried that she doesn’t deserve it and she’s just gonna cause more problems for her new friends. NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyway, the general structure of her as a customer is that she kinda accepts ANYTHING, and doesn’t have much money to do it with. She’s very lonely, and only built up the courage to come to this town on that first day because she heard about your petshop that sells to lower class citizens, and the idea of getting her own monster friend was like a ray of hope in her life! If you decide not to chase her away from the town, she settles in the nearby forest where all the stray monsters live, and becomes like the scary local cryptid. “I totally saw an eight foot tall woman feeding the crows!!! What the fuck!!!” She has a problem with sacrificing herself to protect all these wild animals, they’re just SO BEAUTIFUL and MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING!! She’s always going hungry cos she gives all her food to them, and then they start to love her in return and she gets a veritable army of feral pals that’ll defend her from anyone who tries to burn her tent down again. So she starts off desperately trying to buy a monster from you, any monster, and then after she gets her first one she starts befriending the forest monsters with its help, and becomes your biggest customer of monster supplies instead. She wants to give all these wild babies the closest life to a normal pet as possible! But she also still will buy literally any monster from you, ever, anytime. Doesn’t matter that she already has fifty, she can always take care of more! Though you do get better results if you give her ones high in defense stats and etc, cos its tough to live out there in the forest, even if your trainer is going hungry to ensure you get the best snacks. Oh, and she’d probably be ABSOLUTELY OVER THE MOON if you could sell her a monster that also has flowers or flower patterns. (Tho i think protagonist would be worried it would be insensitive, but she actually does like them cos they make her feel less lonely) She’s also an incentive to help out with your cookery crafting skills! Cos initially she’s having trouble being able to access any of the other shops in the town, she’ll just buy whatever spare food you have lying around. Even your absolute worst failed dishes are like heaven to her! So you can get more exp from cooking and also make a profit from it, thus helping you get better at crafting fancy dishes for your sweet monster pals. (And your strange tall pal!) Oh, and it’d probably also be an element that people in the town try and ‘politely’ advise you that you shouldn’t sell to her ‘for your own safety’. Because of the flower people’s magic draining powers, there’s the very real worry that one of them could be buying monsters from your store just to drain them dry and slow down their own death. But it sucks to assume the worst of her before you even know her, and honestly even if someone was doing that it’s dishonest to frame them as evil and predatory when seriously they are only committing a crime TO SLOW DOWN THEIR OWN DEATH! I bet that would be the most terrifying depressing situation for them, having to kill a small animal cos you’re having an attack of your symptoms and you just desperately don’t want to die...

And now on to the other supporting npcs I thought could be useful to this plot!

I thought of maybe there being bakers cos... well, the first scene I thought of while planning her personality was her trying to buy a loaf of bread. SIMPLE BRAIN PATHS! WOO! But somehow these bakers ended up gaining a way bigger plot role than I intended O_O I’m imagining them as some sort of Super Duo, just cos this plot idea requires one who starts off sympathetic to flower lady and a boss that provides an obstacle in this. I’m thinking maybe the good guy baker sneaks bread out to flower lady, and their greedy boss is all like ‘no! There are laws in place! Food waste must be destroyed! No giving to the homeless!’ (THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT EXISTS. Almost every major fast food company does it! You can get arrested for stealing food from the bins, or for being an employee who tries to give the food to someone, even if it’s excess food that would just be binned anyway.) But then I ended up humanizing the grumpy boss instead of having them JUST be an enemy. I started imagining this as a family business, and the grumpy boss is their grandma? And then i thought maybe that would be a good vehicle to deliver the backstory worldbuilding about this disease, and now I am REALLY SAD about this grumpy grandma! I was thinking maybe she’s actually someone who lost a lot of friends in the initial outbreak of flower syndrome, and used to protest against it, and became all bitter and depressed after what happened, which is why she’s such a cynical mess nowadays. I think maybe the plot would work better if its like.. the grandkid baker just THINKS that grandma would object to serving a flower disease customer, and then when grandma actually sees who’s been ‘stealing’ her profits, she breaks down crying. Nobody in her family even knew she was so close to the tragedy, she’s been keeping it secret cos even though she isn’t infected she could still be ostracized for being part of that community and all. I’m thinking its gonna just be a very direct analogue, I’m gonna say that LGBTQ people were demonized as the ‘cause’ of this disease back when it was poorly understood. ‘Its caused by greed and sin’ = people pick whichever subjective ‘sin’ they wanna blame... So grandma shows you all her quilt that she’s been keeping secret, full of patches commemorating everyone she knew who died, and tells you about how the tragedy went down and how she got her start as such a cold and untrusting person out of the fear of ever loving anyone again in case she lost them. And everyone gets to have ALL OF THE HUGS, even though hugs can’t erase what happened :( But finding a family that can support her can help flower lady right now, grandma is determined to find a way to save this one person and make up for everyone she couldn’t save! They help you on your quest to track down a doctor, and they give flower lady a place to stay as part of their family, no matter what anyone thinks! And then i think maybe after flower lady manages to get her medicine, grandma actually leaves on a journey with the doctor, to learn how to become a doctor too. She was in medical training when she was younger, before she had to drop out of education due to all that happened. And she just ended up inheriting the family bakery, even though she personally sucks at baking and hates it. (Which is why employee/grandson does all the work and stuff) So now she sees this as a chance to redeem herself, you help convince her that its not too late! She’s gonna use however many years she has left to help people! if she has to be cursed with outliving everyone, she’ll use this long life to make a difference! So its sad cos grandma has to leave on her journey, but grandson takes over the shop and flower lady is employed as an assistant. And they keep in touch with grandma in the mail. (You can sell them a good carrier pigeon monster to help!)

Another npc there could be is... another greedy guy!! I started thinking him up cos i was just wondering about who could be a friend to the grandma. I mean, the npcs have to have relationships and rivalries between each other, its not like the protagonist is the only one who matters, lol This idea i have is (for some reason) someone who looks like a younger AZ from pokemon, wearing a cowboy hat. Kinda? He’s a travelling merchant and ssssssort of the same greedy archetype as grumpy grandpa, but sort of not? He’s an even more huge penny pincher than her, but he doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. He’s constantly desperately wringing any potential money out of anything, overcharging as much as he possibly can, getting himself hurt doing silly get rich schemes. But then he’s not really a jerk about it. He’s very friendly and cares about his customers, unable to actually scam them even as he announces his intentions to do it. He’s constantly betrayed by his own kindness, and ends up giving away free stuff to anyone who has a sob story! He also never seems to actually really spend his money on himself, its not like he actually has any of the luxury he’s always rambling about. I mean, he does indeed seem to have a genuine greed and a few lofty dreams, but then he just puts all his profits in his savings no matter how much it hurts him to do it. *crying over a fancy hat as he dumps his purse in the Swear Jar*

So anyway, his connection to this plot about the flower disease is that his Secret Reason For The Greedy is only revealed if you befriend both him and the flower lady. After you progress the story enough to get her first Happy Ending of getting adopted by the baker family, her second Happy Ending of finally getting the medicine, and her third Happy Ending of becoming the new assistant baker after grandma moves away, the plot still stubbornly continues because really no ending is an ending, yknow? I’m thinking this sort of formula could work really well with a game that has no real overall plot, and is more of just a slice of life theoretically endless thing. When you’re playing Monster Rancher there’s never really any huge changes in the town you still always have the same shopkeepers and nobody even ages. And even though Animal Crossing has villagers moving in and out, its also kinda the same, there’s never any real character development or shifting of the status quo. So I’m thinking having changing generations of the town and continuity between them could be a good way to keep stuff engaging even as you keep playing the same sort of gameplay forever. Maybe some people move away, maybe some people move in, maybe some people get married or have kids, who knows!

So yeah, after the status quo change of the baker grandma moving away and flower lady leaving her homelessness tent to become a full time resident, thats’s when this new sidequest starts. Stuff still isnt instantly perfect for her, she’s still facing predjudice from some people, especially now she’s in a rather public position as an employee. All the controversy over having her work with food, even though SERIOUSLY, DUDE, you can’t catch it from just touching someone who has it! I think she’d feel absolutely terrible, she’d be worried that she’s causing her benefactors to lose business because she’s here. And she’d also have just normal social anxiety adjusting to doing her first job ever, and having to do so much talking. She was homeless since she was very young, she even has trouble with complex mathematics cos she never finished school. Another reason merchant guy could be a good friend of the family, he could help tutor her on this stuff! And general shopkeeping techniques, cos both her and grandson are both super good guy pushovers and all. (”Don’t worry, I’m a wimp too, and even I can manage to be greedy with these five simple steps! ....that’ll be 50 dollars.”) But the main plot for him and flower lady is how he finally reveals his secret reason for being so greedy. One day he just comes along leading a little girl by his hand, and lifts her up so she can see the lady at the bakery counter. “Daddy, she’s got flowers like me!!” He’s been sending all of his profits home to pay for his kid’s medical bills, and he finally decided to let you know once he met someone else with the same condition. He’s been keeping it a secret because people hate flower sufferers so much, and he desperately needs to keep up the trade route with this town otherwise he can’t afford to look after her. he’s so damn relieved to be able to stop lying to you, and to finally introduce his lil bundle of joy! And to let her see someone else with the same condition, for the first time in her life! And then the lil girl could become friends with tall flower lady, and be all like ‘you look so pretty!’ which is something nobody’s ever said to her since she got sick, and just... HEARTWARMING TIME And it could help flower lady keep hope even though predjudice hasnt completely stopped in the world. At least now she’s found some good people, and she can see that her bravery in working at this job is inspiring young sufferers to feel that their life isnt completely over. So they all send off another letter to grandma together, and have a nice family dinner with this other family, and with yours too. :3 (...also, merchant guy apologizes for lying to his close friend grandma for so long, and they laugh at how they both had so much in common and never found out until now! And she is HELLA EXCITED to meet his daughter when she comes back ^_^)

[deutsche-seehund]

29/05/2017

Somewhere outside Namibia

The past few days seemed to have passed so quickly, yet at the same time going through it, it felt like it would take forever to go by. We arrived at our first port, Walvis Bay – Namibia, on the 26th of May morning, only to be told to go to anchorage because reasons. So we basically anchored off at Anchorage number 3 or whatever it was called, because there wasnt anyone there save for this one other multi purpose who seemed to have only 4 containers loaded. 1 on each corner of the upper deck/ hatch covers (2 forward, port and starboard and 2 in front of accomodation, also port and starboard). Anyway, we spent the rest of the day resting up after dropping anchor (9 on deck) because once we berthed it was all hands on deck. For the AB and OS at least anyway. I was relegated to gangway watch from 1730 to 2330, and conversely 0530 to 1130. But prior to my first gangway watch, i was stuck in the ship office with chief answering to the beck and call of the various parties boarding the ship. Immigrations, customs, port inspectors, police, health inspectors etc etc. Sometimes it feels like we are at their mercy. They can just call for you like calling some waiter or waitress at a restuarant.

“You, come here. I want a copy of your ship particulars, NIL list, stores decleration, crew list, vaccination list.” and barely a few minutes later after having to sort through what seemed like a million pieces of paper locating all these documents he calls again and asks where are the papers. All this while i have to serve him with a smile water and soft drinks. I guess thats the price we must pay for doing what we do.

Also, i had my first taste of the 'compliments' system. The immigration officers (if i remember correctly) asked chief about certain 'presents'. With a sheepish look he replied to hold on for a moment while he checked if there was anything. Eventually we handed over a carton of cigarettes to them. That was the only instance i saw at this port because i had to go start my duty at the gangway.  

The stevedores are another group of people entirely. This port didnt seem too bad, but there was this one guy that kept trying to get things from me/us. Water, some form of drinks, cigarettes. Hell he even wanted my boiler suit and jacket. Also quite surprising some other guy asked me for our ship's pass holder, which is to say the plastic holder and lanyard. He said it was good to hold his port pass. Well, i had more in the ship office, but they were spares for us and in the pass box i didnt have any so i just said thats all we have and sorry.

What i dont understand throughout this first stay, and for sure all the future stays in ports is, that why do people want to take things from the ships when they, rightfully (or not) should be giving us things because we are out at sea with no chance of resupply till we get to a port. I was told stories that inspectors would come on board and take cartons of juices, yes cartons, because they never had it before or they like the taste or whatever clown reasons they have. I mean, is it really fair to people on the ship? You take our provisions and other things and what are we left with when we leave port? Especially when we are not resupplying at that port. We go out to sea with reduced food and drink for ourselves? If we had to go back to Singapore from Walvis Bay, lets say (because thats the journey i know, since i just did it) its 22 days or so out in the open sea. And we run out of food? Drinks? Then again thats just my thinking. Who am i anyway? Im just a cadet on a ship for the first time.

Anyway enough of that. The 3 days we spent at port was both long and short, as i have mentioned. It feels short now that we've set sail again (and that i finally feel a bit more rested to sit down and spend time writing these things out), but standing at the gangway doing duty for 6 hours straight felt like an eternity. And thats all there was for my port stay. 6 hours on duty, 6 hours rest. Which usually meant sleeping, no matter what was the time. I didnt get to go out on shore because no one from my 'shift' wanted to go. So i can safely say that the furthest ive been in Namibia was the 4th step on my gangway from my ship.

Also, whoever said that Africa is hot, should actually go to africa. At least the southern part. It was so cold my goodness. It was below 15 degrees everyday we were there, and dropped to anything from 12 to 14 degrees at night. Which isnt so bad actually, except for the fact that the wind will absolutely kill you if you dont dress warmly. Which for us meant long johns, boiler suit and thick jackets. The first night, where i did not have my jacket was the absolute worst night of them all. The wind was relentless in its battering and i had to resort to hiding in the space between the watertight door and inner door to the ships accomodation area. It wasnt that bad in the day, with the sun warming up the air a bit. But i still wore the jacket anyway, simply for the fact that i can hide from the winds this way. Also, it was really foggy/misty, like everyday. Usually clears around noon-ish or so, then picks up again at night. I would delve into meteorology but ill spare everyone and myself included for trying to think about the causes.

For the port itself, it was quite a small port i think. I mean, you cant compare it to Singapore/Shanghai/any top 5 ports you want to put here, but still it feels smaller than what i would have expected it to be. There were maybe like 20 berths in total? And even the cranes are general purpose, none of them were specially fitted for containers. So that meant that if you were unloading containers first, they would attach this special fixture onto the chain block of the crane and when in position, the stevedores would make sure that the container was firmly attached before lifting it off the ship and onto the jetty. Even then, it didnt look anything like what was happening in Singapore (ive been into pasir panjang thrice now. Basically there would be the trailer waiting to pick up the container straight off the crane and drive off, with the next one waiting behind). Instead the container was lifted off the ship and onto the jetty straight away, and just before placing it on the jetty, the stevedores would again remove the twist locks from the bottom section of the containers (twist locks are for holding the container in place while at sea. Its basically a locking mechanism that makes sure that the container stays in place). Then after they check the container number and stuff, they would get another vehicle, like a special forklift cum crane thing that would pick it up and place it onto a trailer that basically just arrived from wherever. In singapore, this process would be maybe 5 minutes start to finish. Here its essentially double the time at least. Then once all the containers that are supposed to be unloaded are unloaded, the crane brings the chain block down to the jetty level, and the stevedores remove the attachment and replaces it with a suitable replacement as to what cargo would be picked up next, i.e. Slings, chain slings, hooks etc etc for picking up the bulk/general cargo. We unloaded quite a bit of cargo here. We unloaded all of the containers on number 4 hatch, and i think some from number 2 hatch as well, and basically emptied out hold 4. We also did some sketchy balls to the walls discharging from hatch 2. Because there was cargo on the deck/hatch cover, on the tween deck and also in the lower hold of number 2. Luckily they were all on the forward part. So we opened up hatch 2 forward part after discharging the cargo on the deck, then discharged the cargo on the tween deck forward in number 2, then removed the pontoon, and then discharged the cargo from the lower hold forward section also. It was pretty risky as there were trucks and some transformers in the hold, to be precise it was 16 trucks. Dont ask me about number of transformers, i dont know. Anyway from the cargo we are carrying, it seems a lot of it is being used to build a power plant and also for construction (trucks w/ trailers). I am quite happy to be a part of this industry for this reason.

We may not be directly involved, but we somewhat enable countries to grow because they are able to get the goods that they need to progress. It may seem somewhat abstract, like what has a shipping company, whose interest is making the most money out of every space they can find on the ship, got to do with the growth of a country?

Chief said this to me before, and i had somewhat similar thoughts about it before (its probably not exactly what he said, since this was like one or two weeks ago and it was about cargo damage or something);

If the cargo doesnt get to its destination on time or in working order, we are affecting someone's livelihood directly or indirectly. We are part of a long chain of a process, and no matter how small it may seem that it is, what happens to the cargo when we are transporting it affects what will happen when we deliver it to the cargo owner.

If the cargo owner is shipping a single transformer that is critical for the project, and it gets damaged because of loading/unloading/sea spray/water leaking into cargo hold or literally anything else that can damage it, it would directly affect its ability to carry out the job. If this transformer was all thats left to power up a whole town or something (dont hang me on this i actually am not sure what a transformer's purpose is), and because it was damaged, it means that the town would not get the power that it needs.

So yeah. Thats one of the reasons why I wanted to do this as well. As small and abstract a part as it may seem, I can take solace to the fact that I am part of a global industry that connects and enables people from different countries to work together.

At least on this multipurpose vessel. Im not too sure about containers yet.

Anyway when we were in port, 2nd officer went out on shore leave and i think at the request of the captain, purchased sim cards enough for 16 people or something like that. The cards gave us 1gb of data and like 500mb or something for dedicated whatsapp messages. And smses, but who uses sms nowadays right /shrug.

So we were able to actually contact people at home and stuff. Which was nice. It helped a lot during the ungodly long hours of duty. I spent most of my data i think downloading my spotify playlists and using instagram, telegram, facebook and stuff. I still had like 300mb of whatsapp data but i dont really use whatsapp that much. I spent a lot of the data sending some pictures and videos that i had that werent already transferred to my laptop.

And that's that. My 3 days in my first ever port in this new journey. Hopefully the time would pass a bit faster now that we are getting into the swing of things.

Im in the process of deciding a new tumblr url, for the purposes of this journal or whatever you would call it.

Now that im back in the open sea with no data, i cant translate properly into german since my german is absolutely shit for all, but i was thinking of salty sea dog, which i guess would translate to something like saltzliches see hund. Oh well. Or i could just go with Deutsche See Hund. Im still deciding.

[mavwrekmarketing]

UK biomimetic engineering startupAnimal Dynamicsis buildinga microdrone with wings inspired by the flapping flight of a dragonfly. The project, which started in June 2015 with a feasibility study, isbeing funded with 1.5 million from theUK Ministry of Defence, via DSTL, the Defence Science and Technology Lab.

Last fall the companyswitchedfrom researching the feasibility ofthe concept into phase two: actually trying to build the thing.They now saytheyre confident theyll havea flying prototype of their Skeeter drone to demo by this summer with the tech potentially deployed in the field bythe endof next year.

To be clear this microdrone hasnot yet got off the ground. At this point all theyreshowing publicly is the bug-like modelon a stick, pictured above. But Animal Dynamics co-founder and CEO Alex Caccia says hesconfident it will take to theair in two to three months time. One of the challenges with something that flies is that everything has to work for it to work at all but were pretty close to it now. The ah-ha moment of it flying is almost the last thing that happens,he adds.

The team is also lookingto raise around 4 million in Series A funding in the next few months for continueddevelopment of Skeeter but also to fund some potential spin-out technologies theyve created along the way such as a high efficiency linear actuator designed for the drone which they reckon could also be used for other use-cases, such as in medical pumps and for road vehicle propulsion.

Were fundamentally interested in developing commercial products from studies and understanding of how nature reaches these tricks that allow greater performance and efficiency, saysCaccia.

Drones with flapping wings do exist including a DARPA-backed drone that resembles a hummingbird, built by US company Aeroenviroment back in 2010 but its fair to say that flapping dronesare the exception not the rule. A far more typical animal in this space is the buzzing quadcopter.

Yet rotary blades have drawbacks. They dont support stable flight in windy conditions. Theyre noisy. They can even be dangerous. And they can require a lot of power to stay airborne. Hencethe MoDs hope of driving development of amorerobust flight techniquethat can withstand tough in-the-fieldenvironmental conditions.

Its a very extreme challenge, set down from them DSTL came up with the requirements which is can you make something at this scale operate in high wind and difficult environmental conditions, says Caccia, discussing the MoDs requirements for the Skeeter drone.

Theyd been using small drones in Afghanistan and Iraq with quite a lot of success because when the environmental conditions are right they are extremely useful for soldiers on the ground to go out and see whats round the corner they need to be small so that they cant be seen, so that theyre easily carried and so that theyre quiet. However as soon as theres a slight wind anything above5 meters per second they get blown out of the sky So theyve got a frustration.

As Caccia tells it, theusual suspect defence suppliers werent at all confident theycould build anythingto meetthe MoDs microdrone challenge. But Animal Dynamics other co-founder,Adrian Thomas, a professor of biomechanics in the Zoology Department of Oxford, suggested the answer could lie in looking to nature for inspiration given that birds and insects are able to achieve stable flight in turbulent conditions. And, ultimately, Animal Dynamicspitch securedthe DSTL funds.

Adrian was doing some work in his garden during Storm Doris andthere were 50 mile an hour winds and there were bumblebees happily buzzing around the lawns, completely unfussed by the high winds. Which is something insects have solved for a very long time, says Caccia. Its very, very difficult to do but the interesting things is that flapping wing propulsion lends itself to solving this problem very well. Rotary blade propulsion doesnt.

Asked for anopinionon the engineering challenges of flapping, Dr Mirko Kovac, director of the Aerial Robotics Lab at Imperial College London, tellsus: Flapping wing flight has several advantages compared to propeller based solutions, including the ability for highmanoeuvrability and potentially low energy consumption during forward flight. The challenge however is significant and includes the need for a thorough understanding of the aerodynamics involved, as well as the development of the mechanics and wing transmission mechanisms as well as the controller for successful flight.

Commenting onthe Skeeter project specifically, Kovac adds: The mentioned timeline seems possible but it will depend on the size and weight of the vehicle. Bird-sized flapping wing vehicles are partially already available on the toy-market while bee-sized flying robots are still the topic of intense university research. However, I do believe that it is possible to build a flapping micro drone that can provide value in environmental monitoring, smart farming and search and rescue applications.

Cacciasays the biggest remaining challenge to getting Skeeter off the ground at this point is the mechanical design. Flapping, as youd expect, is a lot more complex in engineering terms than spinning especially if you also have relatively littlepower to play with, as its a lightweight, battery-operated device.

The challenge is really around producing a very low friction mechanism. So the wings weve built, the flight control system has been solved, its actually the mechnical design thats very difficult. So were doing some work with some people in the Swiss watch industry to help us out Its really about friction. You need to get the mechanism to be very, very low friction, he says.

Even the slightest friction will cause resistance, and create heat and stop the thing from working properly. Most mechanical systems get around it by putting an unreasonable amount of power in. We dont have that so we have to make things run very, very smoothly.

Thomas also points tofriction and inertial load as the hard problems. The high leverage at the wing hinge means that the motors see about 50 times the wing weight, so driving the wing weight down has huge benefits. Similarly, apart from the aerodynamic loads, almost all the work done by the motors is work against friction in the flapping system, driving the friction in the system down pays huge dividends, he says.

The stability and control systems may seem challenging, but there has been a lot of work done on control and stability in birds and insects, and our vehicle has a huge advantage over any of the other current drones that can hover turn the motor off and it glides, with good passive stability, down to a relatively gentle landing.

On the plus side, the team says its benefiting from the easy availability of electronic components spilling over from the mobileindustry.

The extraordinary thing and one of the factors that has made a project like this possible is availability of components from the mobile phone industry. The access to very low costs MEMS and sensors and tiny antenna and a whole array of electronics is really one of the key factors, says Caccia. Ive noticed that a whole bunch of components have come onto the markets as development boards literally in the last two to three years I think partly also driven by the wearables market Which anyone can have access to. And certainly were using that.

He also suggests this liberal availability of electronic components is providing an added incentive for the MoD to fund projects such as Skeeter.They need to try and keep one step ahead, but also engage with the tech developer world far more to understand how these technologies are being used, he adds.

The dragonfly-esque Skeeter is planned tobe 120mm at its largest; weigh less than 20 grams (packing a camera and the other necessary comms and navigation sensors); and have a top speed of around 45km per hour. In terms of flight time Cacciasays it will be useful qualifying that as not quite an hour though he also notes it depends on wind conditions, andpoints outthat adrone with wings can also glide thereby saving on battery power.

Range will be most limited by the radio signal which he says might be up to 1,000 meters. While the per unit price theyre aiming foris the low thousands so the microdronecan be widely used andin effect almost thrown away though it remains to see if they can keep costs down.

One thing is certain: should Skeeterget off the ground, this is going to be a very bespoke animal indeed a drone made to measure for its military masters. But, while youre in no dangerof receiving an airfreighted Amazon package to your doorstep conveyed via an industrious team of Skeeter dragonflies,Caccia does reckon flapping wing tech holds promise for more than just stealthy surveillance microdrones. Especially as the form factor need not be so small. And its certainly true that military-funded technology has a habit of filtering down to the consumer space after the expensive R&D work isdone as indeed isthe case with drone tech itself.

I think theres a market for it not just in the military but also elsewhere too, and also at different scales. Theres been a very clear focus requirement to make it at this scale, because theyve been using something at this scale but the technology can be scaled up. So one of the reasons were looking to raise funding is wed like to make a bigger one, he says.

Theres all sorts of advantages you can have with a larger, flapping drone. Far, far more efficient flying from A to B. Can still hover. Much less dangerous. You can put your finger in the flapping wings as they flap and it wont hurt you And also with a quadcopter drone, if any of the mechanism fails it falls out of the sky like a brick. Whereas the things that were making glide in their neutral position.

Could a larger flapping wing drone be capable of taking payloads sayfor adelivery use-case?Caccia reckonsit could, though hesaysit wouldneed to have half a meter to a meter wingspan.Which, sadly, suggests theres also little prospectof urban drone delivery via giant dragonflies. Maybe just for some edge cases such as delivering humanitarian aid to remoter areas.

I think delivery drones is a laughable idea, adds Caccia. I dont think its really going to happen. Its a sort of fantasy. But I think there are uses [for a larger-scaleSkeeter] for instance agriculture, for instance surveying large field areas.

A quadcopter type thing is pretty nigh useless for that because the flight times so low. So I think its something thats definitely worth exploring.

Even at the microdrone scale, the team sees potential agricultural use-cases for flapping propulsion.One area Id like to explore is precision agriculture inside greenhouses, saysThomas. Using the drones to deliver precise tiny doses of nutrients or pesticides to the plants that need them rather than dosing the whole greenhouse, that might be a good use for the existing drones once we have them in mass production and have the cost down to sensible numbers.

It is also investigating the potential of flapping in water, for propulsion and hydropower-generation. And is on its third prototype of a human-powered boat, also animal-inspired of course, with Caccia pointing out thatfish swim with far greater efficiency than propeller-based water crafts. He describes the craftas looking kind of like a recumbent bicycle with a dolphin fin behind it.

This isthe activity that Adrian and I first got excited about, he tells TechCrunch. Its something were hoping to be able to get out this summer and have a go at breaking the world speed record. Just as a demonstrator of how you can make something flapping go very fast.

Propeller design efficiency has basically reached an asymptote, theres been no real, materialimprovement in the efficiency of propellers in the last 20 years, Cacciaadds. Of course everyone thinks flapping is a completely ridiculous thing to do but natures way of telling you youre wasting energy in water is a stream of bubbles. And fish dont produce a stream of bubbles when theyre going about So were interested in all sorts of areas. Were making an out-board motor that uses it. Its also very, very quiet And were making our human-powered boat. And it would be wonderful to see larger vessels using it too.

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