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finderstrails · 3 years ago

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Highway Woes [Session 2]

Our characters for this session are :

Pirrip - A sweaty cacogene with extending limbs and a hydraulic bicep. He’s the caravan clerk and has a habit of gambling.

Fane Many-Moons - An imposing, but fragile, chimera synth with a single green eye. She’s the caravan oracle and is preoccupied with Urth’s moons and satellites.

Symmeon - A sneaky synth powered by blood. His priest outfit got him hired has a healer, although he was programmed an assassin.

Samar Xan Hevran (NPC) - Leader of the Hevran caravan, she’s a fierce True-Kin looking for the fabled city of Oralens.

Jamik (NPC) - A quiet and careful New-Coyote, the right man of Samar.

Storm Discussions

After the fight from the previous day, the Iron Slug convoy makes its way through terrible weather. A fiery sand storm and thunderous lighting hits the blue desert which ends up clogging Fane with sand and her metallic joints take a bad hit. The whole convoy is slowed but the downtime lets the travelers discuss various subject.

"Fane, what exactly is the future?" asks Symmeon. "The future is a past that hasn't happened yet." answers Fane in her metallic and catatonic voice. The assassin synth is confused. He leaves and meet with Pirrip.

"Do you believe in chance?" as he hands Pirrip a dice he stole in Sulfri a couple days ago. "Oh... sure yea... of course. You need chance sometime..." mumbles the stout man. Pirrip tosses the dice getting an unimpressive result. Symmeon focuses on the metal object, spinning the score to 20. Pirrips stutters with excitation.

The next day, Samar ask Fane for foresight. They meet in the Cartographer's quarters with Jamik.

The Cartographer explains : "So there are two exit to the R3 Interchange, which we should be arriving any time soon. The Prima North, which leads to some sort of plateau and eastward toward Calban's Crevasse. Both paths are somewhat heading north east."

Looking at the moons, she wonders at both alternative. Invoking her augury gift, she sees that The Prima North seems to lead to a higher plateau, away from the desert storm and toward a large sphere tube structure. Heading eastward appears to be a calmer route with the bridge going over Calban's Crevasse still in proper shape. Both journey through the interchange presented the possibility of bandits and hazards, but in the end, the small group voted to go toward Calban's overpass.

Dead Ends Loop

The convoy eventually reaches the R3-Interchange, a large multilayered road structure hanging over the desert. Desolated and full of wrecks, the ruined highway intertwines in a series of large loops of busted concrete. At the entrance, a large highway sign has been spray painted : Dead Ends Loop. The caravan slowly navigate toward the Calban's Crevasse, smashing the littered cars and junk upon their way. Pirrip notices another sign : Murphy's Dinner, best Coffee and Bean, R2 exit 71. "That sounds good... Everyone needs a good coffee!"

Fane guides Jamik, who's now driving the first Iron Slug. Because of her previous vision, they avoid hazardous section of the road. Everything goes well until they hear loud sounds coming from the upper levels. Motorbike, obnoxious laughs and series of gunshots. The convoys stops and everyone is tense and a few put their hand on their weapon. Suddenly, someone screams : "ROCKET! ROCKET! " and everybody ducks as the projectile explodes near the rear end of the caravan, injuring a couple of members.

Jamar puts the Iron Slug in full speed, trying to escape the biker gang. Symmeon, frenetically watching back and forth for other threats, detects the two bikers launch a second rocket, now heading straight for the head of the convoy. Without making any grand gesture, the synth channels its new magnetism gift at full force to deflect the missile, who crashes a few feet away from the road. They finally get away from their firing range but still hear their irritating hysterical laugh.

As they climb their way up the second level at full speed, everyone fail to notice the large cave-in section of the highway. Jamik tries to stop but the Iron Slug slowly tips over the edge of the road. Fane, quick on her feet, treads to the back of the large Iron Slug. Pirrip locks his magnetic boot on the platform while Jamar and Symmeon are pushed forward, tilting the vehicle in a dangerous position. In a desperate attempt to stabilize the situation, the heavy chimera lift on two legs and deploy her wing. Everyone held their breath... until the bulky vehicle finally landed back in a thunderous racket.

Now travelling with extra rattle, they decide to head over Murphy's Dinner for a much needed coffee... and repairs.

Coffee and Mushroom

Murphy's Dinner is located away from the R3 Interchange but is connected with a single road leading to this outcast section. The small settlement is built around a singular loop, 30 or so feet above the ground. Two mains buildings, Murphy's Diner and Rusty Ratchet make most of the small but active shelter. Bikers and travelers are either snacking on beans, trading motor parts, waiting for repairs or delivery. Pirrip is asked to find someone to fix the Slug while Fane and Symmeon go on their own, recharging their battery (... or blood reserves).

Pirrip heads in the diner for his coffee and tries to find someone who could do the repairs. He can't help but notice the four identical red mushroom figures sipping silently on the same coffee bowl and chuckles a bit. At the bar, two fellows are talking about the pro and con of electro-propulsion so Pirrip chimes in and ask if they'd be willing to repair their big wagon in exchange of three questions to be answered by a real oracle. They agree and get to work, eager to get this divine knowledge.

The nights goes on to the sound of flux torches and UV welding. Meanwhile Symmeon inject himself with disgusting green cacogene blood, all he could find during the day. He also spends the night talking with Tyrus, a small quirky pyramid synth who's part of the expedition.

The next morning, Samar, Jamik and our crew talk about the next course of action until they notice two red mushroom, seemingly starring at them (without having any eyes). Pirrip yells at them to scare them off but this seems to trigger the opposite.

"Your caravan is noisy, we could feel you from miles away. You disturb the balance." The mushroom notices Pirrip's iridescent pistol. "Where did you get this weapon?" Pirrip tries to smash him but the two red mycomorphs scoot away in the diner.

Symmeon sneaks on them for a bit until one mushroom discerns him. Unscarred, the mushroom asks him about Pirrip and his weapon, where the caravan is headed and is he would be interested in taking his arm. "Wait sorry? Taking your arm?" "Yes, yes, take my arm!". Symmeon pulls and the flimsy tiny mushroom arm splits and curls up in his hand, still twitching. "Thank you Mr. Symmeon"

The Iron Slug now repaired, the two mechanics find Pirrip for their reward who then introduces them to Fane, the grand oracle. The chimera, surprised, listen to their question, some petty some quite curious. "There's this strange transport vehicle on R3, I've been trying to access the inside but I can't find the entrance.." She answers calmly "You will find the door when the sun shine the brightest...". The last question surprises everyone : "Oh grand Oracle, how can you be sure that time doesn't actually flow backward? The sun isn't dying, it's being born, isn't it?" Fane pauses for a second "Vaarn will eventually be in darkness, I fear it is inevitable..." "I assume you're right... strange times". Upon leaving, Fane asks the repairsynth for a brush, which he agrees to give as a parting gift. She then uses the brush to clean out the left over from the sandstorm.

Now with functional vehicles, and the belly full of coffee and beans, they return to Dead Ends Loop once more, hopefully with better luck this time.

GM’s Note

This was a good session, but I realize that my GMing for travelling (in the desert, first part) was the weaker part. Maybe it was just too long? It gave the player some time to roleplay interesting discussion about chance and time.

Also, I should have made the repair time at Murphy’s Diner longer, not only it would have leaded to more interesting encounter there, but also would have made the vehicle damage more important to consider

#ttrpg #vaarn #scifi #acutal play #play report

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dontasktheradiodemon · 4 years ago

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Ship Repairs

This actually happened... mid-October, but somehow I never transferred this chat log, so HERE IT IS NOW. Alastor helps Sir Pentious repair his airship; they take a break in the middle for a picnic lunch and chatter about things like magic and personal boundaries and conquering Hell, you know, normal friend things.

Sir Pentious

Work on the airship continued, now with the benefit of having a giant tentacle monster loading crates into the creation. It was almost complete, with decor really being the finishing touches needed. Pentious would have time to work on mechanisms and making sure everything *there* was in tip top shape... And with Alastor here, it seemed things were taking no time at all.

Other than the fact when Pentious would demand various tools, he wouldn't call them by their actual names, but rather whatever he'd come up with, which likely made the entire cooperative experience much more infuriating.

But now it was a break for lunch! Tea, sandwiches and cuts of meat. Nothing overly sweet this time. There's some brandy on hand if necessary.

Alastor

On the bright side, Alastor was learning an entirely new vocabulary of made-up tool names. Learn something new every day, right?

"Now, I'm no engineer—but it looks to me like you're gonna be done here in just another few days, is that right?" In lieu of any sort of proper etiquette, he'd started spearing cuts of meat with one claw to eat.

Sir Pentious

Sir Pentious sips at his tea, watching Alastor with one opened eye. And at least fifteen others.

"YESs, THAT IS THE PLAN. SHOULD I BE ABLE TO KEEP TO SCHEDULE, BUT YOU KNOW. THINGSs COULD CHANGE AT A MOMENT'Ss NOTICE."

Alastor

"Of course! All schedules are tentative down here." He says so flippantly enough; but there's real nervousness buried beneath it. This ship was smashed twice in short sequence; there are, he has no doubt, overlords and other heavy hitters who must smell blood in the water.

He pushes his concerns down for the moment; he doesn't plan on leaving without addressing them. "Even so. Good to see this thing in almost working order again."

Sir Pentious

Sir Pentious has definitely *thought* about such things, but also.... He's been pleasantly distracted by Valera that he hasn't worked himself to second death trying to fix the airship.

"YES, WELL, THANKS ARE IN ORDER. IT HELPS TO HAVE MORE HANDS ON DECK! OR TENTACLES, AS IT WERE, HAHA."

Good to have them NOT ripping his ship apart, again.

Alastor

"Any time!" He half bows in acknowledgment of the thanks. "It's about time said tentacles did something *useful* around here, anyway."

Good to not be ripping the ship apart again.

Sir Pentious

He's going to take a sandwich and start biting... Just little bites. Mentlegen.

"OH? IS DESTROYING YOUR ENEMIES NOT USEFUL?"

Alastor

"I've never considered you an enemy." The answer's out before it occurs to Alastor that Sir Pentious was quite likely including *other* potential enemies among the pool of his monstrous friend's possible targets. "And barely anyone down here that I DO consider an enemy has hardware big enough to necessitate calling him out! So—no, not much use for him, really." SMOOTH RECOVERY. He's going to stuff half a sandwich in his mouth and hope Sir Pentious focuses on the latter half of his statement.

Sir Pentious

..... <:looking:744577544283750520>

He is Looking at you Alastor.

..... <:squint:548214854138200065>

"... *YES*, WELL. FOR SOMEONE YOU DO NOT CONSSSIDER AN ENEMY, YOU CERTAINLY HAVE A WAY OF TAKING THE STEAM OUT OF HIS ENGINES." Pentious two of those times are entirely your fault. (Maybe even three.)

Alastor

For the next thirty seconds Alastor's number one priority is pretending that didn't cut him to the bone. He arches an eyebrow. "Sometimes someone you don't consider an enemy aims a cannon with a barrel wider than you're tall at your face, and you find you don't have many options but to aim something bigger back."

Brandy sounds better than tea right about now. He's gonna snag that bottle and pour some out. "I could've dodged, I suppose. It would have made me look bad and the hotel would've taken the shot—but I COULD have." A shrug.

Sir Pentious

His tail curls a little more around their picnic area. He's so much longer now. Pentious closes his eyes, grinning just before sipping his tea.

"I WOULDN'T WANT YOU TO GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT, IF I AM BEING COMPLETELY FRANK! WHERE'SSSS THE FUN IN THAT? SSSTILL, YOU DEFENDING A HOTEL? YOUR *LUST* FOR ENTERTAINMENT REALLY DOES MAKE YOU UNPREDICTABLE. WHY, YOU COULD TURN HELL UPSIDE DOWN IF IT MEANT OBSERVING THE BUSINESS VENTURES OF A RATHER AMBITIOUS INSECT!"

This is a. Compliment? Or a drag? It's uncertain, but Penny is looking very smug about it.

Alastor

That's one crisis dodged. "MY lust for entertainment, you say! Right after saying you'd rather a fight with me be fun than easy! I think you've got a bit of entertainment lust yourself!"

He's gonna take it as a neutral statement of fact. "Ha! Maybe. I don't know about turning Hell *upside down,* though—I'm better at knocking things over than setting them back upright. Now, if anything around here is capable of turning Hell upside down..." He gestures in a way meant to take in the airship. "And not for any mere insect, either."

Sir Pentious

*PURRRRRRR*. That's such a loud Cobra purring. Look at him preening, as he brushes his hood over his shoulder, and holds his talons just below his chin... He is so pretty, look at him.

"YES, INDEED, ONLY A MAN OF MY CALIBER, A DEMON SUCH AS I HAS THE CAPABILITY, THE *DRIVE* TO CONQUER AND RULE ALL OF HELL! AND ONCE I FULLY CRACK THE CAPABILITIES OF INFERNAL ENERGIES, I WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE!"

Alastor

Alastor is Looking. A very pretty snake—and a *proud* snake, which just enhances the prettiness.

He's Looking too much. He's started leaning toward Sir Pent. He hastily leans back. "Now, what's this 'infernal energy' business you've been up to lately? Because it sounds to *me* like you're trying to tap into the same power source us magic users have been utilizing." He wiggles his fingers, *magic users*—alchemical and astrological symbols dance in red around his fingertips. "Is that about right?"

Sir Pentious

Sir Pentious seems to be somewhat acclimated to Alastor leaning towards him--his own head is slowly leaning away, unconscious of his own actions therein. Personal space.

His claws wave away the symbols, and Pentious grins at him, "MORE OR LESS, YES. THERE IS A LOT OF ENERGY THAT COURSES THROUGH THE GROUND AND THE VERY AIR IN HELL. WHEN A NEW SINNER ARRIVES, THERE IS ALWAYS A FLUCTUATION IN THE AMOUNT OF INFERNAL ENERGY AT ANY TIME!! I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT IT IS *TIED* TO SSSOULS, AND THAT THE EYES GROWING AROUND HELL (AT LEAST THE ONES I DIDN'T PUT THERE) ARE LOADED WITH INFERNAL ENERGY."

Alastor

Alastor certainly isn't unconscious of being leaned away from. He suppresses a wince. Right. That's something else he needs to bring up. And sooner rather than later.

But the self-consciousness only has a chance to last a couple of seconds as he's dragged back into the fantastical idea of channeling Hell's own energy through machinery.

"And YOU'VE figured out how to—what, convert that energy into electricity? Or just power machinery on the energy itself, unconverted?" Whichever Sir Pentious was doing, he'd certainly demonstrated the concept respectably enough to Alastor—channeling Alastor's own energy to power that absurdly big gun. "I can only imagine what kind of power you're going to have at your disposal once you've scaled that up! Turning manipulating the power of souls from a skill into a science... Why, who WOULDN'T you have the ability to overpower?" He's already busy mentally measuring up Sir Pentious's odds against Lucifer. No, probably not yet; but getting ever closer.

Sir Pentious

Oh, look at him. He's *preening* again. Every time he's praised and uplifted like this, he just looks like he's *so* proud of himself.

"OH, YES, UNFILTERED FOR NOW! BUT I WILL LIKELY WORK ON WAYS TO FILTER OUT THE IMPURITIES... IT IS SSSUCH AN ABUNDANT ENERGY SSOURCE THAT WHEN IT COLLIDESS WITH SOMETHING... MORE EYES ARE FORMED, AND THUS, MORE PATCHES OF ENERGY. OF COURSE, ONLY A DEMON SUCH AS *I* WOULD THINK TO UTILIZE IT!"

Alastor

"I certainly haven't seen anyone else trying!" Which is something, because plenty could have. *Alastor* could have—he himself works with that energy every day, it's the power behind his magic and even his machinery.

But Alastor has only ever used it as he's always used magic, tamed through his intent and his will. Like trying to move water from a river to a pond by cupping it in his hands—and here's Sir Pentious building a canal.

"How much have you looked into technology that's already powered by souls?" Alastor summons up his cane and holds it across their spread of food, microphone out. It rolls its eye as it tries to make eye contact with all of Sir Pentious's. "It works just like any other microphone—but it's not running on a battery, it's running on me. I couldn't begin to tell you how. The way I see it, either you already know that part and you can tell me—or you don't know, and studying it could give your research a boost."

Sir Pentious

Alastor's question has him looking over at the deerman with a bit of a squint. Ah, this topic... He'd attempted to keep his knowledge of this kind of thing on the *down-low*, but it didn't surprise him all that much that Alastor of all people would be more aware of it. Sir Pentious looks more closely at the cane, studying its singular eye, and he takes his hat off, holding the accessory close to it.

"IT IS RATHER A MIX OF THE TWO, ACTUALLY. I DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND IT, MYSELF, BUT I DO KNOW THAT OUR BODIES, THE STATES OF OUR SOULS AND MINDS HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE HELLSCAPE AROUND US, OR AT THE VERY LEAST, OUR *PERSONAL* HELLSCAPES."

The Hat is Looking at the Cane. .... Big grin!

Alastor

"Well, do you need another test subject to help you understand more? I'm connected to the cane, I can manipulate radios, I've got limited skill with some other machines... some of it's just broadcasting signals, but some of it's magic. Hell, I've got radio parts IN me—but you're going to have to take me on a couple more picnics before I agree to any dissections!" Look at him so eager to offer assistance, please let him help take over Hell, oh please, oh please— "I'm sure your research is miles beyond anything I'm built to do, but if there's anything I can naturally do more efficiently that you can copy—why reinvent the wheel?"

The cane winks at the hat. It's just a blink. There's no actual way to tell it's winking.

Sir Pentious

HMMMM. Pentious' tongue flicks, and he suddenly leans in VERY close. His hand reaches to grab Alastor's arm, and he begins inspecting him.

"YOU ARE A LITTLE *THIN* TO BE IMPALED WITH MY SIPHONING TOOL. IT WOULD GO RIGHT THROUGH YOU, BUT PERHAPSSSS I COULD WORK ON MAKING SOMETHING SSSMALLER." Another tongue flick, "YES, YES, LIKE A..." OH he's just going off on experimental mumbling. Mad Genius here.

The Hat is Looking Away.

Alastor

That arm is Sir Pentious's now, Alastor doesn't need it. It's safe to lean in now, right?

For the moment, Alastor forcefully swallows back the urge to fling out suggestions and questions, instead listening carefully with ears perked toward the mad genius mumbles.

Well, fine, maybe the cane didn't want to make eye contact. It looks away too.

Sir Pentious

Pentious doesn't lean back this time, though his hood opens up as he rambles on. Big and showy snake.

"HM HM! YESSS, I SHOULD LIKE TO RAM ALL KINDS OF THINGS INTO YOU, HA HA! FOR SCIENCE. FOR DISSSSCOVERY."

He smiles far above his eyes at Alastor. Sir Pentious was looking more in color than usual. This is one happy and energetic Cobra.

The Hat looks back at the cane, making a quizzical expression........

Alastor

Don't mind the brief burst of shocked static as Alastor processes the words that just came out of Sir Pentious's mouth. "... Well! You know me: high pain tolerance and far too curious for my own good! It sounds like an agonizingly good time! Call me over to ram whatever you'd like into me any time you want!"

... Is the hat looking at the cane again? It glances over to check—oh, yes, it is, look away, look away quick. ... Check again.

Sir Pentious

The hat is looking at Pentious now like B/. Penny is ignoring his sassy chapeau as he goes right back to preening.... Dainty claw taps to his hood.

"I SHALL CALL YOU OVER WHEN I HAVE SSSSPACE TO STRAP YOU DOWN TO A TABLE! NYA HA HAAAAAAA!!!"

Alastor

And just when the cane thought it was making some real progress with the hat.

"I'll be eagerly awaiting your call!" It's a date. Well, not a date, but close enough.

Oh, right, there's still food here, isn't there? Alastor nearly forgot. He's gonna grab another sandwich. "Say! While we're on the topic of ramming into each other's personal space..."

Smoothest conversational segue in Hell's history. Ladies and gentlemen, a professional radio host at work.

Sir Pentious

..... That segue is enough for Sir Pentious to realize he said something weird before, and he lights up like a pink light bulb.

"I DIDN'T MEAN THAT IN A *PERVERTED WAY*, ALASSSTOR!!!"

Alastor

"I didn't think you did! I know you m—I didn't mean it that way either!" Okay segue a little faster, Alastor. "It's about—I wanted to talk to you about Broadway."

Sir Pentious

He's already in full Pentious Pout as he replaces his hat on his head. Arms folded. Huff.

"ABOUT BROADWAY? WHAT ISS IT?? I DO NOT WANT TO GO AGAIN FOR A LITTLE WHILE, I HAVE A SCHEDULE TO KEEP TO!"

Alastor

Farewell, hat; cane hardly got to know thee.

"No, about last trip. There was—well." Don't tiptoe around the topic, remember, Sir Pentious prefers direct and plain. Alastor cuts out about five sentences of easing his way into the topic and plunges in. "You shoved me off of you." (And yes, it HAS been haunting him ever since.) "Now, believe it or not, I'm actually putting a little effort into being less of an irritation than usual. If my presence is getting on your nerves... just say so. Preferably before I've become so annoying that you feel the need to bodily push me away." A wan smile. "My goal is to AVOID reaching that point, see."

Sir Pentious

Well, that wasn't what he was expecting. Pentious squints, trying to remember. So much happened that day...

"COME ON, MAN! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER THAT? COULD YOU BE MORE SPECIFIC???"

Apparently Broadway wasn't enough. Pentious may have smushed all of New York into Broadway. Even the restaurant was Broadway.

"I DO NOT RECALL DOING ANYTHING OF THE SSSORT!"

Alastor

"Oh, well! That's comforting." And also embarrassing, if it was such a not big deal that Sir Pentious doesn't even remember it. "During the musical. When we were leaning on each other. Not long after we were joking about... how much we don't like physical contact." Ah. "That was it. That was the hint to get off that I missed, wasn't it."

Sir Pentious

Pentious looks at him like he's speaking a different language, and he recalls everything going on at that point. These two having a laugh, and then Valera withdrawing and ignoring him suddenly.

He frowns, remembering her hand slipping out of his even though he had squeezed it lovingly. They'd talked about that after but it had hurt his feelings.

He waves Alastor off! "NO, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT! IT WASN'T ABOUT THAT AT ALL!!! VALERA PULLED AWAY FROM ME AND I WAS AGITATED AFTER BECAUSE OF HER BEHAVIOR. WHEN THAT HAPPENED, I WAS NO LONGER IN THE MOOD FOR FRIVOLITY!!"

Alastor

“Oh!” He doesn’t quite heave a sigh of relief, but there’s a static hiss as he exhales. “Well, don’t I look a fool, all this time and it didn’t have a thing to do with me! But give me a little credit, here—how was I supposed to guess that you were shoving *me* because of *her*?”

Sir Pentious

"WELL I DIDN'T THINK IT TO BE SUCH A *BIG DEAL* THAT YOU WOULD HARBOR IT FOR WEEKS." He is Looking at you Alastor, like a man on the brink of Realizing Things.

Except he's Pentious, so he just remains on that brink.

Alastor

Alastor’s #1 survival skill is talking himself back from the brink. “Of course you wouldn’t think so! Not to put too fine a point on it, but at the moment I’m in a far more precarious position than you!” His smile is nearly a grimace. “YOU, after all, are not engaged in ongoing efforts to convince a man you messily backstabbed that you’re worth the risk of keeping around! You don’t have to wonder what little irritation might be the last thing he’s willing to stand out of you. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

He lets that thought linger for only a split second; and then hurries onward: “So my initial request still stands. Tell me if I’m going too far—on anything—BEFORE I’m past the point of no return. You have enough to resent me for. I’m trying not to add more.”

Sir Pentious

Alastor is also very good at just talking a lot, and Pentious is listening but also shifting his mouth from side to side. His hood flares out and he throws his arms up!

"WELL I DIDN'T TELL YOU BECAUSE IT WAS NOT A BIG DEAL TO ME!!! I MAKE A POINT OF BEING DIRECT, ALASSSTOR ! YOU ARE THE ONE WITH DIFFICULTIES ON THAT FRONT, NOT I!"

Alastor

“Clearly it wasn’t! So it’s—The request is for future reference. For situations where it DOES apply.”

Sir Pentious

"WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?? OF COURSE I WOULD TELL YOU!!"

He stretched out his bowtie, "I HAVE CLASS, AFTER ALL!"

Alastor

“Well, good! Glad that falls under your criteria for class, then.”

Mission accomplished, he supposes. On the other hand, he just tried to be about as direct as a bullet and on top of that spilled approximately 1/3 of his heart to Sir Pentious, and he’s not sure if any of it registered at all.

That’s fine. He’s got brandy.

Sir Pentious

Unfortunately, things always took a while to really register for Sir Pentious. He'd never had friends he could rely on, and even his previous partnership with Match had been, from his perspective, business. Although working together with someone so closely was different for Pentious, too... He was awkward and aggressive and questioning everything.

So he pours himself more tea and looks away, without turning his head... And thinks over the things Alastor has said to him. He was trying so, so hard to be appear trustworthy, and that made the snake's paranoid brain more suspicious!

Which sucked. He liked Alastor's company, which was why he didn't want this to all go belly up. His tail curls closer, now, sliding against the deer's backside. You now have a sofa.

"... ALASSSTOR. I *DO* RECOGNIZE YOUR EFFORT. CONTINUE TO BE UPFRONT WITH ME, I CANNOT PROMISSSE WHAT MY..." He gestures, vaguely, then points to his head with an ashamed expression.

"JUST! *BELIEVE* ME WHEN I SSSAY I WILL *TELL* YOU."

Alastor

He is IMMEDIATELY leaning back on that sofa oh hell yes he's been trying to avoid touching Sir Pentious too much and being able to lean back against him is bliss. It's like a hug, except minus any and all features that resemble a hug in the slightest.

He waves off Sir Pentious's embarrassed disclaimer. "That's all I ask for! I'd like you to notice it. I don't expect you to TRUST it. Getting you to trust it is my job." And a job that he takes zealously seriously. He had been allied with his own Sir Pentious fifteen years before abruptly betraying him; if it takes another fifteen years before this one is completely comfortable with him, it will be fully justified and worth the wait. "I believe you. And thank you."

Sir Pentious

C O m f Y.

Sir Pentious turns his head, idly fidgeting with his jacket. WELL NOW HE FELT AWKWARD. And sweaty. Why did he feel SWEATY he didn't SWEAT. Penny pouting...

He reaches for the brandy, pouring himself a glass!!!

Alastor

That was, in Alastor's opinion, quite enough time spent talking about things like trust and communication. It's high time for Alastor to move them on to another topic. He'd thought of one earlier, what was it?

"Oh! Before I forget again—to celebrate the ship repairs, I got a little housewarming gift!" He pauses. "... Shipwarming gift. Want it now, or should it wait until all the repairs are finished?"

Sir Pentious

Pentious turns his head RIGHT BACK to Alastor in interest. A present??? A present! His hood floops open as he brings a hand out in interest, "OH? A SHIPWARMING GIFT??? HOW THOUGHTFUL! WHAT ISS IT? I AM *DYING* TO KNOW! HAHA!!" That clearly took his mind off of the awkwardness of the previous conversation. Eager to get away from vulnerability, thy name is Sir Pentious.

Alastor

"So, right now it is!" Alastor kind of thought it might be. He opens up a portal in mid-air to reach through and rummage around until he finds and retrieves a simple paper bag with the top rolled shut. "Here. I suspect it's going to take a little explaining." But he'll give Sir Pentious a chance to see what it is first.

Inside the bag are five little pouches of cotton gauze dyed red, tied shut with two long loops of fabric so tightly they'd have to be cut open. Visible beneath the gauze is a second layer to the pouches, clearly made out of snakeskin (guess whose); and between the gauze and the semi-translucent snakeskin, it's probably too difficult to see any further inside. Each double bag is stuffed full with about as much material as could fit inside a typical cup of yogurt, and whatever's inside is slightly crunchy.

Sir Pentious

A paper bag causes a grimace to appear on the serpent's expression.... What, a packed lunch? Of course not, but with the ratty preparation, he's really going to have to be won over!

Though looking inside just raises *further* questions...... Is that his skin. Sir Pentious looks up at Alastor without turning his head up to follow, a kind of expression that reads *Alastor, what the fuck am I looking at?*

Alastor

"I didn't have time to gift wrap it," he says dryly.

He scoots closer to explain the gift. (Note that he doesn't scoot AWAY from Sir Pentious's tail. He just sort of scoots around the perimeter of the picnic so he can keep leaning on the tail.) "I thought that—well, this poor ship got knocked outta the sky twice in short succession, it couldn't hurt for you to have a little bonus protection! Not extra armor—you've got that handled—but something to designed to repel more... MAGICAL assaults. So! You've got yourself the typical crystals and herbs, all bundled up in snakeskin—snakeskin is WONDERFUL for protection work, and no magical ingredients are ever stronger than ones DIRECTLY connected to the person they're meant to protect—plus a tiny portable radio in each one—got those from the dollar store!—to ensure they remain connected to their power source."

Look at him beaming. He's so proud of himself. "Just hang one up by whatever you consider the main entrance, and arrange the other four around the ship against the inside of the hull to form as close to a pentagram as you can, and they'll do the rest! Of course, a few little bags can't knock out every hex, curse, and spell—but they'll make it a damn sight harder for them to get through!"

Sir Pentious

He's listening to Alastor, occasionally tilting his head and plucking up once of the little bags to examine it. Very odd to see his own skin used for something like this... Usually he just burnt it. But he does like the fact that he was given something so specific... Alastor really wanted him to build his ship, and, considering it was an Alastor that blew it up *every time*, this would have to be a good ward!

"WHY ISS SSNAKE SSKIN GOOD FOR THESE THINGSSSS IN PARTICULAR?"

Local inventor specializes in machines, not hoodoo or whatever this was. He probably would enjoy studying it.

Alastor

"Why, bits of snakes are good for a whole slew of things! Snakes are some of the most inherently magical creatures you'll find. Venom for cursing and crossing, blood for poisoning—naturally, you can use venom for poisoning as well, but there's no magic needed for that, hah!—and snakeskin, it's something that a snake sheds off from time to time to be symbolically reborn; so it's good for magic tied to symbolic rebirths—like rebuilding your ship, here—or good luck—'shedding off' old, bad luck, see—and on and on. And ANY skin or hide or leather is good for protection, since that's what a skin is FOR, but between snakes' natural magic and the connection you'd have to the skin, under the circumstances this snakeskin is going to work better for you than, say, cow hide."

He's rambling, but it's a very excited rambling. He's rarely asked about his magic, and when he is it's rarely by somebody he'd really really like to share that info with.

"So I'm afraid the explanation isn't something simple you can find with a microscope—no chemical reactions or analyses of tensile strength involved. In my experience, most of magic is... you know how humans look human in the living world, but in death their souls takes on traits that metaphorically suit them. Spin a web of lies and see yourself reborn as a spider, that sort of thing. It's no different here: you've got something's physical form, and then you've got the traits that metaphorically suit it—and it's the metaphors in that object's 'soul' that hold power in magic."

Sir Pentious

Alastor most assuredly knew all about these sorts of things... and honestly! Sir Pentious couldn't hide the grin that was spreading over his features. Listen to this man go off--there were very few in Hell who prattled on with such excitement about their craft. Alastor, of course, and himself! Of course, there were likely *others*, but Sir Pentious frankly didn't have much patience to listen to much other than what he deemed to be interesting and good work. Yes, indeed, if it didn't pique the serpent's interest, did it really count as work at all?

No, apparently. So his own shed skin was most exceptionally effective! He couldn't do any scientific examinations, though, and that news brought his grin down a little as he went back to examining the contents. And then... Sir Pentious reached into his coat to withdraw a pair of glasses. They had multiple rows of magnifying lenses upon them, and he put them on, leaning his head back so that he could get a better look. Alastor had JUST SAID he couldn't find anything under a microscope, but apparently, Sir Pentious wanted to see for himself!!!

"I WAS REBORN IN HELL AS A SSSNAKE COVERED IN EYESSS. IN LIFE, I MUCH ENJOYED SSERPENTSS, BUT IT MIGHT BE MORE TO DO WITH THE KIND OF PERSSSSON I AM, HMM? SSSOMEONE WHO SSTRIKESS WITH CERTAINTY, *DEVOURING* ALL WHO UNDERESsssssTIMATE ME!" Big grins, his eyes all glowing red as he flicks his glasses--with the way he's looking at Alastor, it kind of looks like he has eight eyes, now that the lenses are all resting in different places. Eldritch Grin!

Alastor

Oh, look at that smile! It's nearly enough to make Alastor's heart start beating again. "Could be. Or perhaps it's both! Honestly, I bet there are more factors than we can dream of that decide our shapes down here. Maybe you were fated to become a snake the minute you named yourself serpent-ious!"

And here was Alastor thinking Sir Pentious couldn't squeeze on any more eyes. What a look. "Now, how many optometrists did you burglarize to make that thing?"

Sir Pentious

Clearly, that assertation sits well with him. Look at that smile.

Though the question that's posed gets another wide grin out of the serpent!

"OH, THESE? OH, YOU KNOW." A hand gesture, "BUT MOSTLY I TRY TO MAKE MY OWN MATERIALSSS, IF I CAN! THE LESS I HAVE TO INTERACT WITH THE DENIZENSS OF HELL, THE BETTER! UNLESS I AM BLOWING THEM TO BITS!"

Alastor

"You want something done right, you've got to do it yourself!" (How much meat is left? He's gonna snag some more. Yum.) "Where ARE you doing your materials fabrication these days, anyway? Can't be all aboard your ship, but I don't know what your current territory look like."

Sir Pentious

He makes a bit of a *face*, and puts the little baggies back inside the main baggie, before picking up his mug of brandy... "I HAVE TWO FACTORIES TO MY NAME, WHICH IS REALLY A GODDAMN SHAME. I INTENDED TO TAKE MORE TERRITORY AFTER THE LATESssssT EXTERMINATION, BUT EFFORTSSS WERE THWARTED BY THAT HARLOT--" he looks around like he just fucking saw a ghost--"CYCLOPS WITCH AND ANGEL DUST ATTACKED ME! I HADN'T EXPECTED HER TO HAVE SO MANY EXPLOSIVESSSS ON HAND. ALAS." Sip.

Alastor

"That IS a shame." Only two. Good grief. It's amazing Sir Pentious gets anything done at all, although Alastor doubts he'd appreciate hearing so.

He saw the fight with the harlot cyclops witch on the news. In his opinion, Sir Pentious shouldn't have had any trouble with her or with Angel Dust. The fact that he did... well. Alastor can't very well blame Sir Pentious for that, can he? "Maybe next extermination you ought to venture further from downtown and snap up the suburban industrial zones? I expect the turf's less hotly contested out there." He huffs. "But you've probably thought of that." Unlike Alastor, who hasn't had to think about this in half a century and even back then the extent of his involvement in the strategy was deciding how he'd like to crush his assigned target.

Sir Pentious

Looks like he's about to INTERJECT but then. Bingo. Sir Pentious nods, a little solemnly, looking pretty tired. "YES, EXACTLY, I *HAVE* THOUGHT OF THAT. BUT NEXT TIME I WILL BE MORE SSSUCCESSFUL! I WILL *DOMINATE* ANYONE WHO GOES UP AGAINSSST ME!"

He wiggles the bag around with quite the smile, "I HAVE ADDED PROTECTION, AFTER ALL!!!"

Alastor

Alastor beams. "That you do!" The best he can create without bargaining with nobility for a little extra oomph—and if he did that, the strength of the defenses would be tied to another demon's will, not to Alastor's.

"I'd say you have added firepower, too, if you want it; but, well—if you're ever going to call me into battle, it's only going to be a surprise to everyone first time. I'd think it ought to be the kind of surprise saved for a... special occasion."

Sir Pentious

"MM--" He's actually just drinking straight from the bottle. Old times,. Should they even be drinking while about to get back to working with power tools?

Oh well.

"YESSS, INDEED A SSSPECIAL OCCASION! PERHAPSSSS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH!"....... He's immediately looking. Uncertain, as he can't exactly remember when that was.

"OR SOMETHING ELSE,"

Alastor

No, it's probably not a smart idea for Sir Pentious to be chugging the bottle before getting back to work. Therefore, Alastor will have to help him be responsible—by slinging an arm over Sir Pentious's shoulders, taking the bottle from him, and chugging it himself.

"I was thinking more along the lines of a special occasion like, 'When you take on whoever's got the most turf once you've worked your way up the ladder.' But, hey! No reason you can't schedule that fight for your deathday!"

Sir Pentious

*DRUNKEN DEMONS WITH POWER TOOLS. THERE ARE NO BRAIN CELLS LEFT.* Pentious doesn't lean away or out of the friendly embrace this time, beaming even if he's a little embarrassed.

"OH IS *THAT* WHAT YOU MEANT? THAT'SSSS NOT A SSSPECIAL OCCASION, THAT'SSS JUST BUSINESS!!"

Alastor

What's the worst that can happen to them? A hospital trip or two? Pshh.

"Well, can't it be both? Business is business, sure—but on the day that, say, for example... old blockhead takes a tumble? I'm going to consider that a *very special* business transaction."

He's not getting pushed away. That's good. That means they're back closer to where Alastor hopes they'd be. Right?

Or maybe it means Sir Pentious is only willing to let Alastor drape around him like this when he's too drunk to think clearly.

That thought alone is nearly enough to make Alastor withdraw completely.

No, not this time. He's already here, he'll enjoy it. But in the future—no getting closer to Sir Pentious AFTER he starts drinking. Once the bottles are open, Sir Pentious can close the distance himself, or else it won't get closed at all.

Sir Pentious

He's not that drunk yet! Of course, Alastor wouldn't know how Pentious felt without the booze nearby.

He himself enjoyed drinking around Alastor--wasn't that proof of trust, of friendship? It was probably not great to go off of Pentious' standards... He didn't really have friends.

"OHH, YESSS. INDEED, THAT *WOULD* RATHER BE A SSSPECIAL OCCASION, HHEE HEE HEE!!" He clacks his talons together with glee.

Alastor

"I thought so!" Oh, Alastor can hear his scream now... "But! I'll leave the details to you. I may have many skills, but warfare strategy isn't among them."

Sir Pentious

"MMM, I SUPPOSE NOT. BUT THAT MIGHT BE WHY YOUR BRAND OF CHAOSSS HAS BEEN SSO EFFECTIVE." Pentious gestures, "YOU SHOWED UP ONE DAY AND NOW EVERYONE ISS TERRIFIED OF YOU."

Alastor

"Amazing, isn't it! I haven't caused that kind of devastation in decades and ninety-nine percent of the population is still too scared to talk to me! Ha!" He shrugs one shoulder, "Still, it's what you say it is—chaos. It's not what one would call a firm foundation for empire-building, is it?"

Sir Pentious

"RATHER LIKE A BIG EXPLOSION WITH NO FOLLOW UP, YOU'RE RIGHT." He makes grabby hands for the bottle again, "LIKE A WRECKING BALL! I DO SO LIKE THOSE MACHINESSSS."

Alastor

He's gonna take another swig before passing the bottle back. "A wrecking ball, hah! How apt. Clears the playing field for something new to be built, but doesn't do the construction itself."

Sir Pentious

Pentious points at Alastor, nodding as he takes the bottle and just holds it, "EXACTLY! THAT'SSSS YOU. BLOW THEM OUT OF THE WATER AND I'LL DO THE REST!"

Alastor

Hand on his chest and smiling widely even by his standards, "With pleasure!"

It's where he was always happiest: blowing them out of the water and watching Sir Pentious do the rest.

Sir Pentious

That tail is slithering closer. You're gonna get a snake hug, you've no choice in the matter. Pentious leans back against his own body, taking another few gulps of brandy before he laughs, "OH, FUCK. WE'RE SSSUPPOSED TO BE WORKING AFTER THIS."

Alastor

Oh no, whatever will he do, it seems he has no choice but to be embraced in a coil of pure friendship.

Alastor huffs. "Maybe we should extend the break." He probably shouldn't be giving orders to an eldritch abomination while tipsy, things tend to get disconcertingly non-Euclidean when he does that. Then he brightens a bit and reaches over to poke the paper sack. "We don't have to be sober to place these, do we?"

Sir Pentious

The mere *suggestion* gets him beaming into full on LAUGHING.

"OH PROBABLY NOT!! BUT I LIKELY WILL NOT REMEMBER WHERE I'VE PLACED THEM, DEPENDING ON HOW FAR WE GO!"

Alastor

"Well, you probably won't *need* to know where they are once they're placed—but still. You never know." He ruminates on this a moment longer. "Well—unless you can think of a better way to pass the time, maybe we ought to just sleep it off and then get back to work."

Sir Pentious

"SSSLEEPING IT OFF IS THE *INTELLIGENT* THING TO DO. BUT I AM NOT YET AT THE POINT WHERE I WANT TO SSSLEEP, SSSO YOU ARE SSTUCK HERE WITH ME A LITTLE LONGER, ALASSSSTOR!" Yes, as if that's not exactly what Alastor wants at this point, but Pentious is somehow still clueless. To him, this is what friends are just like! He broke all kinds of social etiquette rules when he was alive, after all.

Another swig from the bottle, and he hands it back. "THERE'S SSTILL SSSOME SANDWICHESSS TO WORK ON."

Alastor

"I'm not budging." He is being coiled around, he wouldn't leave for the world. If the hotel catches fire right now he'll teleport in a newspaper and start browsing the job listings.

Another swig for him. "I didn't want to hoard them!" He says, and then immediately grabs three, now that he's being encouraged.

Sir Pentious

Prrr Prrr prrrr. Alastor likes his food!! It's not really *cooking* but Pentious always put work into it regardless. Picnic fair was his favorite.

He leans on Alastor, and splays his hand open as he reaches towards the sky.

"HELL *WILL* BE MINE. I CAN ASSURE YOU OF THAT. NOTHING WILL TAKE THAT GOAL FROM ME, ALASSSTOR. THAT ISS A *PROMISE.*"

Alastor

He has to swallow quickly to reply. (He'd stacked two sandwiches on top of each other to bite.) "I know it will. It's just a matter of time."

And he truly believes it. Not that Sir Pentious WILL—there's too much that's uncertain, too many people that will be doing everything in their power to stop him—but that Sir Pentious CAN. He's the only person in Hell that Alastor believes can. And he's going to see it happen or get exterminated trying.

#hissandvinegar #chat log

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omgjasminesimone · 5 years ago

Text

Philosophical (Epilogue)

Bryce x MC

An epilogue to Homecoming

Previous Part: Part 5

Word Count: 2200

Warnings: Recreational drug use, implied NSFW

“You know what’s a weird word?” Casey queries, cuddled into his side as they lay on the plush rug Casey got on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond.

Bryce takes a long drag from the joint before handing it back to Casey. “What?” He prompts, as he exhales the smoke.

Casey inhales more smoke before she replies, blowing smoke rings. “Landlord. Like, it’s just so elitist. You know they came up with the term themselves, thinking they’re so much better than the lowly renters without the capital needed to buy anything in ridiculous housing markets like Boston.” She tssks. “Landlord.” She repeats again.

Bryce smiles up at the ceiling, taking the joint back when she clumsily hands it back over. “Hmmm.” He adds.

Casey is undeterred by his lackluster reaction. “Like, oh Lord of the Land that I pay for every month, please, have mercy on me and fix the leaky pipe I told you about months ago! I beg of you, oh rich and powerful one.”

“You seem to be very anti real estate investment. Should we talk about that? What happened? Was your landlord at that penthouse terrible? I thought he gave you guys a good deal out of the kindness in his heart.” Bryce quips.

“Pshh…of course you landlords stick with your own.” Casey teases.

“I’m not a landlord. That only applies if you don’t live in the same house.” Bryce defends himself, not wanting her to group him in with her very negative perception of landlords.

“Nope, me and Chris pay you rent. You’re a landlord.” Casey insists, taking the joint back from him.

“Roommate.” Bryce counters. “And I’ve told you a million times you don’t have to pay rent. And in any case, you’re paying way below market rate.”

“I’m a strong independent woman who doesn’t need my landlord slash boyfriend to take care of me.” Casey responds cheekily.

“I should have known you’d be a philosophical stoner.” Bryce comments, leaning over to kiss her softly. She tastes like smoke and Fritos.

Bryce and Casey have never smoked together before. But they’re currently snowed in, the electricity is out, and Chris, Bryce’s tenant, gifted them the weed since he is trying to cut back as he finishes his dissertation.

Plus, every month they try to do something new together. When they went to couples’ therapy after the incident in Hawaii, that had been something their counselor suggested. They’ve since stopped going to therapy, Casey having worked through her trust issues, and Bryce having worked through his habit of sabotaging good things in his life, (their relationship is now stronger than ever) but they kept the once a month something new rule going.

“Philosophical stoner? What other types of stoners are there?” Casey asks, taking another long drag of the half smoked joint.

“There’s the goofy stoner, the sad stoner, the sleepy stoner...”. Bryce ticks off on his fingers.

“And what kind of stoner are you?” Casey interrupts.

Bryce grins at her, stealing her bag of Fritos. “The classic, the hungry stoner.”

Casey laughs, grabbing her chips back once he’s had a mouthful. “Man, it’s been years since I smoked weed. I think the last time must have been freshman year of college. I don’t remember ever feeling this good though.”

“It’s the company.” Bryce quips with a wink, running his hand up and down her bare leg. She’s only wearing one of his button ups, whilst he’s clad in just loose grey sweatpants.

“Probably partly it’s your company, but I also think this is just really good weed. Now that it’s been legalized, I feel like quality has gone way up.” Casey responds, taking one last drag before handing the joint back to Bryce.

“I don’t know. I smoked weed last year at Phoebe’s going away party with Elijah, and that weed wasn’t this good. We’ve got to find out exactly where Chris got this.” Bryce insists.

Casey wraps her leg loosely over his waist as he takes another drag, her arm curling over his bare chest. “You know, I think you’re wrong about me. I’m not a philosophical stoner.”

“Then what kind of stoner are you Casey?”

Casey moves to straddle his waist, slowly unbuttoning his borrowed shirt to expose her smooth skin as he watches hungrily. “The horny stoner.” She answers, taking the last remnants of the joint from his hand and putting it out in a glass bowl on the floor before capturing his lips.

…

An hour later, the two off duty doctors lay comfortably in each other’s arms. The natural light coming through the open blinds illuminates their bronzed skin as the now sated lovers share a new joint. They have yet to find the energy to get up off the floor.

The comfortable silence is broken by Bryce’s cell phone ringing. He reaches up to the nightstand for it, before lying back down on the carpet beside Casey. “It’s Abs.” He tells Casey. “You might want to button that shirt back up, it’s a FaceTime call.”

Bryce puts out the joint before tugging his sweatpants back on while Casey works on the buttons. Once they look somewhat presentable, Bryce answers.

“Hey Abs.” Bryce greets. His eyes widen as he takes in his sisters’ hospital surroundings. “Did you have the baby?! She’s early!”

Abigail smiles, somehow still emanating that Lahela beauty even right after childbirth. “Meet Ailani Marie Hill.” She says softly as she pans the phone to the small bundle in her arms wrapped in a pink blanket. The baby opens her light brown eyes, seemingly staring into the camera even though with their medical knowledge they both know all she sees at this stage is blurs.

“Oh my God Abigail, she is so beautiful.” Casey praises.

“Thank you! I think she looks like Ryan, but he insists she looks like me.” Abigail responds, turning the phone toward her husband who’s sitting at her bedside returning work emails on his phone.

He pauses on that for a moment, waving to Casey and Bryce. “Congratulations Ryan, how does fatherhood feel?” Bryce asks, being much friendlier than he usually is with his brother-in-law. Abigail got pregnant almost immediately after the wedding, so now that Bryce assumes Ryan is going to be around, he’s resigned himself to building some sort of brotherly relationship. Well, a better brotherly relationship than the one than he has with his own brother Francis.

Ryan smiles. “It feels amazing. I already feel like Haku is mine, but now being able to be here for everything from birth, it’s something else.” Ryan answers.

Abigail turns the phone back to her own face. “When are you coming back to Hawaii to meet your niece?” She questions.

“Why don’t you come to Boston? I’ll show you around the hospital, we can walk the Freedom Trail, and I know all the best Boston restaurants.” Bryce counters.

“You can’t avoid home forever Bryce.” Abigail insists. There is some commotion at the door. “Hey, Gabby and Francis just got here. I’ll call you back.”

“My phone is going to die, and the power is out, so I’ll call you back when I’ve charged it. But congratulations again Abs! She’s really something, and I’m glad you’re happy.” Bryce responds.

Abigail smiles. “I’m glad you guys are happy too. You know what would make you guys happier though? Babies. When are you going to give Dad those mutt grandchildren?” Abigail mocks their father’s callous words from the brunch from hell.

“Abigail.” Bryce warns.

“Wait, I just noticed how red your eyes are. Are you guys high? What, are you 16? You better get all that weed smoking out of your system because let me tell you, once you have babies you don’t get to hang out on the floor, banging and smoking weed all day.” Abigail warns.

“Alright, I’m hanging up now. Conserving phone battery for emergencies. Bye Abs.” Bryce hangs up, shaking his head at his sister ending the call like that. He turns to look at Casey, who’s uncharacteristically quiet. “What?” He asks.

Casey straddles his waist once again. “When are we going to have babies?” She asks.

“You want me to pump a baby into you?” He says jokingly, thrusting up from beneath her.

Casey lets out an irritated sigh. “You’re not taking me seriously.” She moves as if to get off of him, but he stops her by gripping her bare thighs.

“Baby, it’s not that I don’t take you seriously. It’s just that you’re high and being very philosophical right now.”

Casey’s eyes narrow. “I thought we established in therapy that being under the influence doesn’t nullify actions.” She can’t help but jab at him about the incident with Tia in Hawaii.

Bryce frowns, hurt by her words. Casey sighs, placing her hands on top of his. “I’m sorry Amor. I know Dr. Wilson said that if I’m going to forgive you, I really need to forgive you. And I do forgive you Bryce. And I love you.”

“I love you too Casey, always.”

“So, if we’re in love, and almost 30, and settled, doesn’t that seem like a good time for a baby?” Casey questions.

“I have two more years of my residency.” Bryce points out.

“Two years isn’t that long. And I’ll be an attending in a few months, making real money finally. And Chris is probably going to leave Boston once he graduates from MIT, leaving us with a spare bedroom. Plus, if I’m going to hyphenate our last names or take yours, it saves me a lot of hassle to do it before I publish research.” Casey replies.

Bryce’s right hand leaves her thigh to cup her face. “It seems you’ve put some serious thought into this.”

“I am serious about this. And about you Bryce.”

He gently runs his thumb under her eye. “Ask me about a baby tomorrow Casey, when your eyes aren’t bloodshot from marijuana.”

She gets off of him, storming off towards the kitchen. “Casey.” He calls after her exasperatedly, rushing after her.

“Why do I always have to be the one to initiate everything?” She questions when he catches up to her. She’s pulling out ingredients to bake a cake. She only ever stress bakes, which doesn’t bode well for him in this argument.

“What?” He questions, reaching the flour on the top shelf when he sees her struggling to reach it. She doesn’t say thank you when he hands it to her.

“I had to kiss you first, and I had to be the one to say that our hooks up meant something to me first, and now I have to be the one to bring up babies, and a future. How do you think that makes me feel? The fact that you don’t seem to take any initiative when it comes to our relationship?”

“I told you I loved you first. And I asked you to move in.” He reminds her.

“Fine, yes, you did do a few things. But why haven’t you proposed? It’s been three years Bryce.” Casey gripes.

He grips her arm when she moves towards the fridge for eggs. “Do you want me to propose?” He asks, eyes searching hers intensely.

“What do you think?” She responds, her tone irritated.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to, that’s why I haven’t. After Hawaii, it took a long time to get back to where we were. I didn’t want to mess anything up by pushing you for anything you weren’t ready for.” Bryce answers.

“Something I’m not ready for, or something you’re not ready for?” Casey pushes.

“I’m ready. I’ve been ready. I just…you know I self-sabotage. I didn’t want to mess anything up with you Casey. I can’t lose you, you’re my everything… You really want to get married? To have babies with me? You’re not messing with me?” He says this last bit with such hope and insecurity that all the anger immediately rushes out of Casey. Sometimes, she forgets how messed up his family is. How he never had a healthy image of marriage to emulate. How he was raised to think you marry for business connections and then rear heirs to a business empire.

She loops her arms around his neck and draws him down for a passionate kiss. He grips her waist and lifts her onto the countertop, stepping between her legs as he deepens the kiss. It’s several minutes before she pulls away.

“I’m not messing with you Bryce. I want to be with you, forever. I want my kids to be half you.” She seals her promise with another passionate kiss.

Bryce pulls away after several long moments, smiling at her as if he’s just won the lottery. “Let’s go pick out a ring when they reopen the T.” Bryce suggests, and Casey nods happily.

“And can we do a small wedding? Preferably in California?” Casey asks.

“God, Casey Valentine, nothing would make me happier. Do we have to invite my parents and Francis?”

Casey chuckles, giving him another kiss. “We do. But your mom is not allowed to plan anything.”

Bryce grins. “In that case, she might refuse to come. It’s perfect.”

Casey smiles. “I can’t wait to be your wife.” She pushes against his chest so he’ll let her down from the counter. “Now let me continue with my cake. I think I’m actually a hungry stoner like my fiancé.”

Taglist: @octobereighth @akrenich @lovehugsandcandy @regina-and-happiness @brightpinkpeppercorn @choicesarehard @lizeboredom @desiree-0816 @hellooliviaolivia @dreaming-of-movies @friedherringclodthing @weaving-in-words @fairydustandsarcasm @goldenjellyfish12 @pessimystic-fangirl @mimikoasahina @srta-give-me-my-jax-rl @god-save-the-keen @caroldxnvxrs @cora-nova @emceesynonymroll @choicesgremlin @anxious-arliah @cordoniasmost @lahelable @ohsnapitzlovehacker @crispycrunchyleaves

#bryce x mc #bryce lahela x mc #choices fanfiction #open heart #bryce lahela

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wisdomrays · 4 years ago

Text

TAFAKKUR: Part 194

Questions Concerning Robots That "Care": Part 2

... and these robots that "care" invite some questions

Considered only as machines meant to assist overburdened nurses with their care of older people, the types of humanoid robots just described might initially be categorized simply as useful new tools. We have reasons to wonder, though, how long those who will be interacting regularly with these life-like robots can be expected to perceive them merely as tools. So-called "animaloid" robots, such as the robotic dog AIBO that was marketed in recent years by the Sony Corporation, admittedly represent a somewhat different class of robotic artifact than the more complex contemporary humanoids such as ASIMO. Nevertheless, empirical studies of human-robot interaction even with AIBO have uncovered some relevant thought-provoking surprises. Not long ago, for example, numerous online postings by owners of AIBO began appearing on Internet forums. One study of these postings noted the following confession by an AIBO owner:

The other day I proved to myself that I do indeed treat him as if he were alive, because I was getting changed to go out, and [AIBO] was in the room, but before I got changed I stuck him in a corner so he didn't see me! (Friedman, Kahn, and Hagman 2003, 278)

Regardless of whether this posted confession was altogether truthful, its expressed thought of needing modesty in this case clearly alerts us to the potential psychological potency of human interaction with such machines. Abrahamic religions, through their shared accounts of the Garden of Eden, have long recognized appropriateness of modesty between even the primordial man and woman – but application of that sentiment to our dealings with a battery-operated dog suggests how plastic human notions of personhood might be!

For that matter, professional testimony of such plasticity for the specific case of humanoid robots is available in a frequently-quoted set of observations by Professor Sherry Turkle, Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of her MIT colleagues, widely-recognized roboticist Rodney Brooks, is among the many people who have cited Turkle's report of her first encounter with his experimental humanoid robot, Cog; note carefully Sherry's candid description of the experience:

Cog "noticed" me soon after I entered its room. Its head turned to follow me and I was embarrassed to note that this made me happy. I found myself competing with another visitor for its attention. At one point, I felt sure that Cog's eyes had "caught" my own. My visit left me shaken – not by anything that Cog was able to accomplish but by my own reaction to "him." For years whenever I had heard Rodney Brooks speak about his robotic "creatures," I had always been careful to mentally put quotation marks around the word. But now, with Cog, I had found the quotation marks had disappeared. Despite myself and despite my continuing skepticism about this research project, I had behaved as though in the presence of another being. (Brooks 2003, 149)

Professor Turkle's testimony is consistent with an entire literature of contemporary research in human-robot interaction that suggests a deep human predisposition progressively to accept as peers various machines that convincingly mimic human appearance and autonomous behavior. Her reference to discovering herself behaving as though she were "in the presence of another being" points, in turn, toward some questions that invite our reflection.

First, one might inquire whether (and why) it could matter that humans seem so inclined to regard convincingly humanoid machines as peers. For some people, it apparently does not matter. From his perspective as a practicing Zen Buddhist, for example, robotics engineer Masahiro Mori has argued against insisting upon any profound distinction between persons and robots, noting that there "must also be buddha-nature in the machines and robots that my colleagues and I make" (Mori 1999, 174). In contrast, though, a pilot study has suggested that Abrahamic theistic belief in creation of individual human souls by a personal deity may be related to disapproval of human-robot interaction "with life-like personal robots that requires human acceptance of the robots at intimate levels" (Metzler and Lewis 2008, 22). This finding resonates with a respected voice in modern Christian theology. Paul Tillich, in Volume Three of his monumental Systematic Theology, addresses "objects that are produced by the technical act," warning that "by virtue of producing and directing mere things" one can lose one's "character as an independent self" and "become a thing" (74). Again, Jewish theologian and philosopher Martin Buber, widely remembered for his distinction between "I – Thou" and "I – It" relations, issues a similar warning in I and Thou:

And in all the seriousness of truth, hear this: without It man cannot live.

But he who lives with It alone is not a man. (34)

Apparently, we have reasons to expect that individuals belonging to Abrahamic religious traditions may especially feel troubled when they find themselves treating humanoid machines as though they were peers.

Within the Abrahamic religious family, after all, human beings historically have been regarded as spiritually special, and understood as belonging to a category fundamentally different from any technological artifacts that they might construct for amusement, or as tools. Anglican priest (and physicist) John Polkinghorne has emphasized significance of "the mystery of the human person," which involves "our embodied nature, embedded in the physical world but transcending a merely reductive physicality" (Polkinghorne 1998, 80). Both the mystery and the transcendence that Polkinghorne mentions are punctuated clearly, as well, in the Holy Qur'an: And they will ask thee of the Spirit. SAY: The Spirit proceedeth at my Lord's command: but of knowledge, only a little to you is given (The Night Journey – Sura 17:85). The theistic perspective of this family of religions tends to link the human person, as a free moral agent, with a spiritual level of reality that is not completely expressible in terms of everyday (macro-level) entities such as rocks and trees – and machines.

It may be pertinent at this point to inquire whether the spiritual level of reality envisioned by these religious faiths might arguably be represented even in current science. To be sure, the robotic and AI technologies upon which we have focused in this essay are discussed almost entirely nowadays with so-called "macro-level" accounts of discrete, individualized entities. Computer scientists typically view all "information processing" executed by contemporary computers as reducible to operations of the celebrated Turing Machine formalism, which imagines an abstract machine successively "reading" well-defined symbols (0 or 1) on an external tape, comparing them with its current internal "state," and then implementing clearly prescribed (albeit possibly null) changes on the tape and its own internal state. Physicists working with quantum mechanics, however, have discovered a quite different level of reality that requires a so-called "quantum-level" description. The description is expressed mathematically in terms of complex numbers (incorporating an imaginary unit equal to the square root of negative one) and it explores a reality in which individualized entities of the macro-level (this table, that book, etc.) simply are no longer present. An atom may be understood to contain four electrons, but – in principle – one cannot select and track, say, the changing locations over time of a specific individual electron among the four. Pondering this strange new reality, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has argued (via his Shadows of the Mind) that human consciousness cannot be modeled in terms of the Turing Machine formalism, requiring, instead, the resources of an advanced quantum physics. If the emerging technology of "quantum computers" eventually could yield a machine consistent with Roger Penrose's understanding of how the human brain operates when we experience consciousness, future robots incorporating such computers might open possibilities for exciting new dialogue between religion and science.

Under present circumstances, though, we can discern the outlines of potential difficulties in the not-so-distant future. Specifically, elderly members of the Abrahamic faiths may find themselves increasingly conflicted in responding to robotic "caregivers." On one hand, following natural predispositions, they will be inclined to accept the machines as caregivers (dropping the skeptical quotation marks, as Professor Turkle did during her encounter with Cog). At the same time, they may retain their religious worldviews and resist accepting the machines as persons. Will they feel authentically comforted, then, by machines programmed to display "artificial empathy"? Will they discover resolution of their conflict in the following conjecture by noted roboticist Hans Moravec?

So, it may be appropriate to say "God" has granted a soul to a machine when the machine is accepted as a real person by a wide human community. (Moravec 1999, 77)

Indeed, in perhaps the next ten years or so, how will people be using quotation marks to distinguish what they consider authentic from mere "make-believe"? Will they be describing new robot nurses as persons – or as "persons"? Will they decide that the machines care for people – or "care" for people? Will the artifacts be considered capable of moral behavior – or "moral" behavior? Will some older people still understand the granting of souls to be determined by God – or by "God"?

For some of us, these already are important questions.

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frogmanwritings · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Teen Titans (Animated Series) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Beast Boy/Starfire, Garfield Logan/Koriand'r Characters: Garfield Logan, Beast Boy, Starfire, Koriand'r (DCU), Slade, Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, Robin, Robin (DCU), Dick Grayson, Cyborg (Character), Victor Stone, Raven (DCU), Rachel Roth Garfield Wilson has lived with his adoptive father, Slade, since his parents died. Finally, after 5 years, Slade is sending him out to try and take down his rivals, the Teen Titans. How will a dark and mistreated Garfield react to them upon meeting them? How will he deal with their bright alien bringing a shine of positivity and joy to his life that he had hidden from him behind angst and abuse? Links: Archive of Our Own Fanfiction.net Wattpad

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Cyborg was in a good mood, whistling up a fancy tune while he carried his glowing blue and silver battery over his shoulder like an 80s high-schooler did with a boom-box, a nice bounce in his step as he went into the common room. While he had recently had to power-down and recharge after he dropped his precious metal power source, things weren't as dangerous as that seemed, and after an hour of rebooting, his power levels were returning to normal. And he estimated that he wouldn't need to carry around the recharger for any longer than a day now, which was a blessing.

While he had come to terms with his robotics a while ago, it was still tough, made even tougher by the fact that he had to heft around a goddamn battery just so he could be conscious. Malfunctions were annoying, but they never really restricted him like carrying a 30lb power source in his arm that had to stay attached to his chest. Not to mention the fact that he only had one arm to carry it around with, given how he had only just now developed an exoskeleton for his destroyed limb during that encounter with Garfield.

Speaking of whom, Victor had taken a bit of time researching the deadly disease that he detected on the villain, and so far, things were frustratingly, but understandingly slim on the Internet, and there were no medical records in the U.S. of 'Sakutia'. So he was simply going off of flimsy reports that he found via Google Search, and the only somewhat credible source he found was about the disappearance of two rangers that went by the names of Mark and Marie Logan. They had a son that had contracted the deadly disease, but.. that was all there was. A singular news article in a foreign language that described the boy with the disease. Nothing about him surviving or dying, nothing about how he got it, just "Son of rangers contracted Sakutia".

Raven herself was recovering nicely, her natural powers made her heal much faster than a normal human, and thus her nose was practically as good as new, while her ribs didn't do much more than ache than she put weight on them. She'd be good to go by tomorrow, and really the only reason she didn't go up with Robin and Starfire to check out the crime-scene of Professor Chang's murder was that she wanted to make sure she was at 100% in case of an emergency.

And it seemed that it was a good decision, as Cyborg's robotic eye and Raven's orbs on her gloves and belt went off not long after their leader and their leader's crush left. Victor figured he'd check just what the danger was, and a grim look crossed his face when he saw the location of the crime, a laboratory in the same block of the lab that Garfield robbed and... murdered a police officer.

He still felt terrible about it, reaching out to the family of the cop's and offering his deepest condolences and apologizes to them for not being able to save the husband and father. They were very forgiving and insisted it wasn't his fault, but the pain in their eyes, the distant cries of their daughter stuffed away in her bedroom... No one said that superhero life was easy, that you weren't going to be able to save everyone, and that there would be casualties, but...

"Cyborg, Raven! I require medical assistance!" The blaring voice of the resident alien broke up his thoughts, and he looked over towards the center entrance to the main-ops, his human eye widening at the sight. Starfire was levitating, her sunglasses and earplugs missing, but it seemed that she cared more for the bodies she was carrying over her shoulders. Not body, but bodies. Raven shot up from the couch she was sat at, zooming over to grab one of the bodies, their own leader's in Robin. His ankle was twisted at an odd angle, blood ran down his thigh and there were scratch marks on his face.

But there was another body, and Cyborg could barely believe it. Garfield Logan was over her right shoulder, and he wasn't in good shape. Both his arm and his side was pouring with scarlet red, and while Robin was stirring in Raven's hold and his domino mask was scrunched up in pain, the apprentice was completely limp, and the only sign that he was alive was the occasional heave in his stomach. But Victor was hesitant, why would he want to help a murderer? As much as he DID blame himself for the cop's unfortunate demise, the changeling was the one who pulled the trigger.

"Star, what about you, are you-" "I am fine! But Garfield is losing lots of blood very quickly and needs your help!" Starfire was many things. Assertive was certainly one of them, and Cyborg reluctantly nodded his head, following the Tamaranean as they headed to the medical bay, letting out a grunt as he thought of the implications of this. He was really going to nurse a villain, and a murderer at that, back to health. Curse Kori's heart.

"And Cyborg.. you mentioned that this Garfield has 'Sakutia', correct?" Her bright voice asked, and after the half-robot nodded, she had another question. "And this 'Sakutia' disease is spread through biting, yes?" And while a part of Cyborg wanted to break down fully the ways of contacting Sakutia, that it could be from biting to blood transfer to sometimes even being spat on, he just nodded his head once more to make things simple for his friend, who sometimes had trouble taking in Earthen things. Not to say that she was dumb, of course! But... he imagined it to be extremely difficult to have perfect knowledge of both Tamaran's AND Earth's cultures, traditions, languages, sayings, activities, etc. The fact that she knew so much already and picked up onto more each and every day was a sign of her great intelligence.

"Oh no... Garfield bit Robin in the leg during their fight, I wasn't-" Victor didn't wait for her to finish her statement, be it her blaming herself or voicing her condolences for Robin's safety, he wasn't about to jog while his leader had potentially contradicted one of the deadliest diseases in the world. He ran as fast as his battery could pump power into him, catching up to Raven in the process and snatching the squirming body of Robin in the process from her arms, ignoring her exasperated protest as he got the Boy Wonder to the med-bay as fast as possible.

Robin better be okay, for Garfield's sake..

Excruciating pain welcomed Garfield as his eyes shot open, reaching up to cup his head, only to meet cold metal resistance. Trying to raise his other hand, he only met the same result, which led to him glancing downward. The room he was in was rather dark, so his tired gaze could barely make out what sort of position he was in. He was laid down, neck and head propped up by a few pillows, while his wrists were strapped down onto two armrests by what seemed to be steel restraints. An idle beeping sound brought him to look at a white machine taped to his right index finger, running all the way to a heart monitor.

Wherever he was, it seemed to be some sort of medical-bay. Like a hospital. But what hospital would accept a green-skinned, murdering, diseased villain?

His wounds on his arm and his side were taped up, and while he remembered feeling far worse, his muscles were still somewhat sluggish and pain still raked at his torso. Getting stabbed will do that. "Hey!" Garfield called out, struggling a bit more against his metal straps, attempting to kick his legs up only to meet the same resistance as he did with his hands. The situation almost reminded him of a comment Professor Chang said, about strapping him down and experimenting on him. Of course, he was credited for the death of the Professor, even though it was his father who ended the elder's life. How he would've liked to be the one to be the one who put down the doctor.

Some worry crept on him as the thought crossed his mind, and the changeling once again called out, exerting as much force in his attempts to escape as he could, but it was all met with the same result of him being stuck in the hospital bed. Any transformation attempts were met with a simple prickle running through his spine and.. nothing. Wherever he was and whatever it is that his adversaries did to him, it left him without the ability to shift into any sort of animal forms, restraints or not.

Garfield's third attempt to call out was interrupted by a loud sliding sound, and glancing upward, even the darkest of rooms couldn't hide those shining emeralds for eyes that stared at him so curiously. And.. worriedly? He had a faint memory of her standing over him before he went out, but he couldn't make out her emotions there. Here? It was crystal clear that she looked at him with many emotions that led to him being even more confused than her.

"You are awake, are you alright?" Her soft voice questioned him, a finger sliding up to a switch right next to the door and a few ceiling lights turned on afterwards, annoying Garfield's dark-adjusted eyes for a few seconds before he was able to fully look at Starfire again. "Uh.. where am I?" The changeling answered her question with a question of his own, the layout of a medical room much clearer with the lights on, white tile and white-painted walls an eye-sore, along with a few other hospital beds and desks with many equipment on them.

"You are at Titans Tower. You were in very poor condition when I caught up to you after your fight." She began to explain, slowly floating over bedside to Garfield's bed, causing him to quickly gulp as those twinkling green eyes got ever so closer to him, peering at him and only him with such curiosity. And when he did gulp, he noticed how the saliva traveled much easier and quicker down his throat, but that wasn't much of a concern for him at the moment. "I.. would have felt very guilty leaving you there. You were bleeding heavily and you were unconscious before I could even think about assisting you."

So I HAVE been captured. Great. He growled in his head, only imagining how disappointed his father was going to be in him. "Speaking of which." An orange hand then reached out to his gut, causing him to flinch and suck in his stomach, trying to avoid her touch as much as he could. "Please don't worry, I am not going to hurt you. I merely wish to check on your wounds." Her voice was... actually very comforting, and a quick look upward into her eyes told him that she was telling the truth. Something so sincere and sweet like the shine in her orbs told him that she meant him no harm, and he slowly allowed exhaled.

Garfield's top, which had been cut up a bit, didn't require much tugging in order to expose his stomach, his toned abs covered up by several colorless bandages that wrapped all the way around his torso. Two long fingers pressed against his side, causing a small hiss to escape his clenched teeth, the pain aching as she poked at where he had been stabbed. "Ah, sorry. Is the pain.. um, sharp? Or blunt?" Starfire asked, once again pressing her fingers at the same spot, this time much gentler. Once again, the pain shot through his stomach, this time Garfield taking note of the pain being much more of an ache than a stabbing pain.

"Blunt? You mean.. dull?" The changeling questioned, letting out a small sigh as the fingers retreated back. "Yes, that is the word! I presume that is how the pain is like then?" She perked up, and while she was correct in her assumption, he was... confused. Why did she even care? She was nice, sure, but it was the dead of night, judging by his outlook of a nearby window. He did recall Slade pointing out her kindness could be exploited, and while it was odd.. he might as well try and use it to his advantage.

"Can I go now?" Garfield asked, putting on his best sad frown and even if it didn't work, it gave him an excuse to stare into her eyes, something he was avoiding for so long. But it seemed that while she was kind, she wasn't dumb, as she just shook her head without giving his eyes a single glance. "Unfortunately not. As much as I dislike the word, you are our prisoner." She solemnly stated, earning a grunt of disappointment from the changeling's throat.

"You have done... very bad things, Garfield. You should consider yourself lucky we are providing you shelter and medicine after all you've done." Starfire continued, floating over to a nearby table with a stack of papers on a clipboard, along with a pen placed down next to it. "Do you think your actions are justified? Using your extraordinary powers to steal, harm, even... kill?" Her words were firm and forward, though her tone hardly wavered as she picked up the pen, casually tested it for ink before beginning to scribble words down onto a paper.

Narrowing his eyes, Garfield felt.. attacked. He didn't take offense to the words she threw, in part of that having to do with her soft voice still possessing that caring nature that he had been able to recognize in the short periods of time when he heard her speak. But, it still felt like a bullet fired from a gun, only to intercepted by a bulletproof vest. She WAS attempting to guilt him, but he wasn't about to let that work, even if he was wondering about her other motives. "Why do you care?" Logan said in a monotone voice, careful to try and not let his curiosity be apparent.

The Tamaranean opened her mouth, seemingly to answer him, but nothing came out and soon she closed it after only uttering a sigh. "Get some sleep, Garfield. Robin and the others wish to speak to you in the morning, and it would be best if you were well rested for that." Her voice lost emotion as she gave him the small breakdown, not giving the changeling the chance to question what she had just told him before the lights were shut off and her tall frame disappeared behind a door.

Weirdo. He quietly huffed, figuring he might as well get some rest before he was interrogated by the Boy Wonder and the hospital bed was fairly comfortable. Still, his mind was racing with what had just transpired, with her checking on him carefully and showing interest into his motives. Those twinkling eyes never lost their shine, her voice only wavering at the end of their conversation.

God, what was wrong with him?

His slumber didn't last long however, with the feeling of metal pressing against his forehead causing him to shoot his eyes open, only to see the half-man known as Cyborg playfully poking his face. "Wake up, sleepyhead." He teased, giving the changeling's nose a 'boop' before walking away, just in time for his metallic finger to avoid an angry bite. "Let... me out!" Garfield growled, struggling against his restraints, using all the strength he could muster, but alas, it was no use.

"You're not going to break those, you know?" A calm, yet vindicating voice was the next to irritate the changeling, and Gar turned his head to look at the owner of that voice, recognizing it to belonging to the goth heroine of the team, Raven. "Those restraints are tight enough to trap Cyborg over there, and I sincerely doubt you are as strong as him. So save your energy." Her voice held quite obvious disdain for him, and it wasn't hard to tell why once his green eyes captured the bruise that was on the bridge of her nose.

A smirk crossed his face upon noticing it, knowing that it was from him, from when he wasn't restrained and she couldn't just taunt him like a coward. And it seemed she noticed his facial expression, to which he caught her frown only grow wider and her eyes darted away from him. Subtle black energy radiated from her fingers for a few brief moments before fading, and Garfield remembered that anger was considered both a strength and a weakness of hers. Get her angry enough, and she loses all restraint in her power and becomes a monster of rage. Good for strategy, but if that strategy failed, then she wouldn't hesitate to kill you.

He wasn't exactly in a position to abuse that, and he knew that he'd only get more frustrated trying to fire her up, since he was the one in restraints. So, the changeling just turned his attention back to the metal holding him in place, trying once more to break out of them.

"Really, not even a 'thank you.'? And here I thought we were doing you a huge favor here." Cyborg soon spoke, his mostly robotic face turning back to look at him, a slight chuckle escaping from his mouth when he noticed the resistance to his restraints. "First, we heal up your wounds, since while you do have enhanced healing thanks to your messed up DNA, you still wouldn't have lasted too long out there without medical attention due to all the bleeding you were doing. And really, I was fairly hesitant in closing up those wounds since well, I thought you got your dirty Sakutia disease in Robin from when you were fighting him."

Garfield raised a brow, not really wanting to listen to all to this speech, but the part about him dying did unfortunately catch his attention. As well as him potentially infecting Robin, which did make the corner of his lips raise a bit. "Oh, don't get your hopes up, green bean. Turns you can't actually spread Sakutia." Victor was quick to point out, which halted the apprentice's slow smile and brought it back down to a pout. "Yeah, that was a hassle though, cleaning up the injuries you put on my boy. But still, stitched up your stab wound, injected you with some fresh new blood and gave you oxygen. And even after doing all of that, we let you stay here instead of sending you off to prison. Bet that would've been a rude awakening for you."

"Are you trying to guilt me or something, you trash can? Your alien chick already tried that." The changeling growled, getting quite a bit annoyed of hearing a list of the things the Titans did for him, as if he personally asked for all of that. If he could've ran away from Starfire and not pass out, he would've. "Trash can, huh? Your words are like a knife to my heart, you know?" Cyborg chuckled, to which Garfield huffed: "If you even have a heart."

"Oh yeah, it's still in there. Got about 20 layers of machinery covering it, but it's there. But back to what I was saying..." But before the half robot could continue his ear-racking speech, the swishing sound of the med-bay door opening up interrupted him and a shudder went through Logan's body. Robin stared daggers at him, and with good reason, his leg wrapped up in bandages and he had a crutch pressed up against his armpit that he used to help him walk, and Starfire followed him through the door, meeting his gaze for a few brief moments before glancing away.

"Alright, let's skip to the chase, Garfield." The Boy Wonder said with a grunt, his green gloved hands pressing against the rail at the end of the bed, his domino mask bared right at him and a slight snarl on his face. "There's enough on you to put you away for life and more, and as much as you do deserve it, you and I both know that this... isn't entirely your fault." His grim voice practically growled at him, his head turning briefly over towards Cyborg and nodding, inviting him to speak.

"He's right. We know about your past, Garfield. Or at least, enough to know that this isn't what you were meant to be." The half robot then continued where his leader left off, opening up a small hatch on his arm, metallic fingers typing rapidly at the futuristic keyboard. Garfield pouted, his brows furrowing. What could they possibly know? His past..? It did take him a bit to catch on, and once he did, his eyes widened just a bit, not wanting to show much emotion to them, but his surprise was hard to contain.

"The reason you can't spread your Sakutia like animals infected with it is because you were given something that altered your DNA and made the disease apart of it. I can test your blood and detect you have Sakutia, but you can't actually spread it through typical means." Cyborg told him, bringing up a biological map of his body and blood from the computer in his metallic forearm, pointing out his blood cells flowing through his veins, each of them containing a small bit of the deadly disease.

Gar could only growl in response, not meeting Cyborg's face as he told him. However, a new face joined him next to his bed in the demon, Raven, her expression calmed, as well as her voice as she spoke. "Of course, this progression wasn't natural. You would've needed medical attention almost instantly after getting infected, and while Slade's smart, Sakutia is almost a complete unknown disease in western civilization."

"Don't talk like you know him, witch." Logan grunted, banging his wrists on his restraints, knowing where this was going and not wanting to hear it. "We don't need to know him, Garfield. Because we DO know who saved your life. Your real parents." Robin cut in, his hands gripping the bar of the hospital bed tight. "Mark and Marie Logan. Your father was a genius, he managed to save your life with a chemical that merged the Sakuta with your DNA, and even gave you your powers as a side effect."

"Shut up.." Garfield growled, the lower half of the bed rattling thanks to his attempted kicking, but alas, all it did was provide a minor annoyance. "You don't.. fucking know me." Memories of his past life were hitting him, being bit by that damn monkey, traveling from continent to continent, all to that forsaken boat trip. Oh, how he wanted to tear that blasted Boy Wonder to pieces for doing this to him. Tying him up like a damn dog, trying to act superior by talking about his life...

"We know enough to know you did not have a very good upbringing, at least, from when your K'Norfkas had passed and beyond." Starfire interjected, hovering over to the side of his bed, looking down at him with those wide eyes, sparkling with sympathy for him. Sympathy that he didn't ask for! He knew enough about their pasts too, and yet they didn't hear him serenade them about it! So what if his parents were dead? That didn't matter now, he was living the life he was given and he didn't need others to talk to him about it.

A sigh escaped Robin's mouth before he spoke once more, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Whatever happened, be it you went to him or Slade found you... you don't owe him a damn thing, Garfield. He's a monster, and he's trying to make you the same as him." The Boy Wonder paused, glancing off to his right for a few brief moments. "Or, more likely, he's using you because of your powers for his own personal gain. I know him, he tried to make me his apprentice. And he did nothing but use me and try and manipulate me."

Logan's arms jerked once more, his mind running wild. He tried once more to transform, this time into the form of a grizzly bear, raising his body up, only for nothing to happen as his body flopped back down onto the bed. "And you can't shift right now. We replaced that collar of yours on your neck with one that restrains your powers. Even then, it's still more humane than that strap Slade had on your neck, surprised you could breath with it on." Cyborg explained, his human eye glancing over to a faraway table, where the metal collar laid.

The changeling snarled upon seeing it. Some days, he hated the damn thing. The half-machine was right, sometimes it was hard to breath with it, and it being off explained why it was easier for him to swallow, but right now? He loved the damn thing. It was something made for him by his father. For him to wear. Plus, it was easy to hate the replacement when the replacement took away his powers.

"The point is, Garfield... you don't owe Slade a thing. He isn't your father, fathers don't treat their sons like he does to you." Robin continued, his knuckles squeezing down tighter on the bar, his knuckles sure to be pale white underneath his green gloves. And that's when Gar had it. His attempts to escape got the most vicious he had, his teeth were gritting, upper lip raised in a snarl. "How dare you? Without him, I'd be dead! He saved my life, gave me a home, food, training-" "That doesn't make him your father. With his intentions, it simply makes him a supplier. He rubs your back with shelter, and you rub his by doing his dirty work."

"Fucking poetic coming from you, Grayson! Can you tell me who your dad is?" The apprentice growled, his rage joined in by slight satisfaction upon seeing Robin's eyes widen beneath his mask, even it was for a few seconds and he adjusted himself.

"Gray... what now?" Raven asked out on confusion, one of her brows perking upward and glancing questionably at Robin, who didn't meet her gaze. His other teammates joined in at looking at him, wondering much the same. He didn't even tell them. Who is he to talk down to me?! Gar thought, happy to see the embarrassed tint on the cheeks of the leader.

"That.. isn't important right now." He shakily acknowledged his teammates, before turning back to the restrained apprentice. "Batman is a far different man than Slade. Batman never had his own personal gain in mind when he took me in. He is a selfless man. Slade is nothing but selfish." The Boy Wonder replied, his brows far more furrowed, a hard pout on his face while Logan could easily match the look.

"Then why'd you leave him?"

"To become my own man."

"Your own man surrounded by teammates to do your bidding?"

The beeping of the Titans' communicators then interrupted the conversation, Cyborg being the first to check his and pouting once he saw what came up on his screen. "Uh.. Robin. It's Slade... and he wants Garfield." Victor told his leader, who let out a puff of air through his nostrils at the word, shutting his eyes firmly behind his mask before responding. "Tell him he can't have him."

"Robin... he has a hostage. He's threatening to kill them within the next 10 minutes unless we come with Garfield."

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spazzbunn · 5 years ago

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Sirens In The Forest

The sun was starting to come down with dusk starting to appear. I had gotten a late call about some missing hiker. Oddly enough they never gave me a name for the person. Saying that it is a white male in his early 20s with dark brown hair and a scruffy beard. Apparently they were able to see through security cameras that he walked into the Pine Ridge Hiking Trail. We had cameras around incase of any suspicious activities like with arsonists, drug dealers, punks, you name it. The oddest part was the rangers back at the base said they never saw him walking back. The trail has no end. You would have to go out the way you came in. Pretty much everyone knew that around these parts. So we either had someone that was very new to these woods here or he was from another state.I was the one they called since I was the closest to the Trail. So I took my truck and went over to the gate. I parked close to it as I took my keys with me and got out of it. I had no need of locking the doors. Plus I had nothing worth stealing in the car so it would be dumb to try to steal a forest rangers car. I walked forward and I hopped over it. This was more of a barricade to stop any cars from driving. So you had to duck under or hop over it. It was all we could do for now. The budget was tight after all. So me and my other rangers called them gates.With dusk approaching, I had to bring my flashlight and turn it on before I could walk down to the trail. I only brought the flashlight besides a flask and a pack of crackers since I had no need for anything. I didn’t need no gun since I had the knowledge of the animals by heart. It was better to be smart and not cause trouble to them. Especially the bears. Although to add, bears seemed to be less around now that I think about it.Usually we get reports of bears doing the ‘Yogi Bear’ tactic of them stealing food from people’s picnics and scratching and knocking down the signs for the Pine Ridge Hiking Trail and other Trails as well. But something got them spooked. Mainly because I never saw a bear here. Usually when I do, I see a dead one. Gruesome as all hell, but bears do fight after all, and they gotta eat for their cubs. I walked down and followed the trail as he swished my light back and forth slowly to keep track of anything that was moving. Any sign of any animal. Or a person hopefully. I wanted to get home soon and have dinner with my family. I kept forward as I then notice a few steps away was a backpack. A blue canvas backpack with straps being of a light leather color to it. Clearly odd but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. With how rarely people come here during the Spring season, there is no worry of someone taking your bag so obviously, he must have set up a camp close by. People tend to camp on trails like this. Obviously he must have been new to this and most likely someone that knows of our place. I looked into the backpack. Nothing but a map, some water bottles, and a pack of peanut butter crackers. Nothing appeared off. Maybe this was just a hiker and must be either those “influencers” or a nature loving fella. I walked to the left side which continued the trail while I left the backpack where it was. It felt like the barely lively sun was starting to make the scenery dark so my flashlight was working somewhat more efficiently. Yet I also had that feeling of eyes looking at me. Granted, I always remember it is the animals of skunks, squirrels, raccoons that tend to stare at me. The trees were lively. The wind slightly blowing to cause some of them to move their branches full of green leaves, so I had no worry of anyone watching me. Only the animals. I kept going as far away I started to pick up the sight of something. It looked big. It looked messy. I swallowed my fear away as I pretty much was seeing something that looks of a bear having to have had a person for dinner. I kept going though. I had to be sure. As I did, the mess appears to seem too odd. A lot of blood. Yet with big four dashes on the ground. Maybe five. It looked too bloody to tell. I could handle the smell of metallic thanks to my odd young years of sniffing coins in my hands. Yet I felt sick. This wasn’t fresh either. This had been days. When was the last time someone came here? Before I could even think of a theory in the corner of my eye was a bush by my left. It had a torn cloth of a blue shirt stick on its tiny branches. Maybe light-ish blue or aqua. I got no idea. But that made me feel wary of my surroundings. Something felt really off now.The reason was because of the fact that the person I was looking for had a light gray hoodie with his shirt looking green. This was somebody else. Yet again they never did say anything about other people going in. Just this one person who could be a killer. With my determination to see if this was just some prank by fellow kids and cuff them for trying to scare me, I set foot and continued on. I know it had to be a joke. I mean it made sense. It was dark, a missing unknown person, blood stained mess. Yet in my head, I was swimming with thoughts. No one could ever make fake blood looking strong like that. The scratch marks even were deep. No normal shovel or knife could make lines like those. But my mind also was remembering something I heard about.There were reports of missing people in the woods. We haven’t heard of anything happening to our Trails, yet we might have a few people slipping through our cameras or our rangers seem unfit for keeping a watch on things. People rarely come to this one since it is just short with the end being a bunch of trees blocking the way. We never did get the chance, either due to budget or situations that halt us from removing the trees in winter to make a longer trail for people. I kept going until I saw another mess on the dirt wall that the rangers and I made to let people stay on the path and know where they are going.It looked as if it was the same blood smear with claws. The flashlight showed that it was true. In fact the sickening smell of old dried blood was hitting my nose again. The same dashes. The same smell. It looked disturbing to me. Hell, I even felt eyes staring at me. Making me want to keep going as if I was to turn around I would be killed. Something wanted me to keep going. I took a breath and I walked forward with my body starting to shake out of fear. I called to the woods. To see if anyone was here. I could handle a damn killer, I just didn’t want to be alone in these woods. Feeling the eyes on me. Watching my every move. I swear I heard twigs breaking yet I moved on. I blamed it on raccoons, yet my arm was ready to swing on the killer and have my flashlight meet his skull.I turned right and as if I was being messed with I saw another bloody mess. This was was longer and on the ground. Walking closer, I saw the same number of dashes. More longer though. Oddly, it looked as if it was leading me somewhere. I gulped to swallow my worries and fear away. Whoever wanted me to keep going, I gladly accepted their invitation and walked. I felt the feeling of being watched again. I swing my flashlight to shine the light and I was met with just the wooden oak of the trees. It felt like it was getting darker by a couple of steps. It could have been my sanity toying with me. Or maybe my gut, heart, and brain in union was telling the truth. That someone or something was out in the woods stalking me. I heard nothing. I shouted out again to the only response was the wind blowing and leaves rustling. It felt odd. It felt scary. To be alone in these woods now. I usually am around at day time but never when it was close to night. My neck hairs on the back side were up and I never felt more alert. I walked at a normal pace. I was near the “dead end trees” as I nicknamed them. No way someone would go through there. Especially with bears and poisonous snakes roaming around. My light seems brighter. Either due to the strange batteries or how the slowly rising night was taking away every drop of sunlight it had left. I saw the trees. Yet again, my sight saw something not an average person sees. The wood on a couple of trees looked darkly red. As I marched forward with every bit of courage in me, I saw clear as day what the color was. Blood. So much blood. On the trees and on the ground. This was something non-human. Infact, the blood mess on the ground had the dashes again. I knew slowly but surely that no human could do a work like this. I walked closer to be hit with the strong scent of the blood. But yet it smelt worse. Like the blood was rotten. Like raw meat on a hot summer sun. I almost puked from that stench alone. But I aimed my flashlight and eyes down on the ground. There I saw it. A torn apart broken in pieces human body. Some of its skin was ripped off, barely the veins show which were not covered in blood. Barely a broken torn apart arm and scratched up in half leg as all I could see of the limbs. My stomach was turning inside out and flipping upside down. I have seen dead animals torn apart. But that was nature. This wasn’t nature. Not something God would allow. This was unholy work. For a non-human being. I looked to the left side of the unknown torn apart person since it seemed naked with all clothing just ripped apart and bloody. A piece of a light gray cloth. This was the guy. The poor bastard was chased by something. And this was his fate. His guts didn’t even seem there. Like it was all gone. No liver or intenses. Not even a god damn stomach. I had to go. I had to head back to the station.As my body was ready to turn as I was going to make a book to the truck, I heard a noise that slowly was starting to grow in sheer loudness and terror. The sound of a static noise. Like a television acting up when the satellite was out. I turned slowly and pointed my flashlight towards it. All that I was meeting with, in God’s honest truth, was something I couldn't even describe. It was tall. Like, really tall. About the size of a telephone pole. Its body looked like rusted metal. Skinny and dried up like it was mummified. Skinny long arms that were almost as long as its body. Everything looked so off. Its head was the oddest part of this bizarre mass of dehydrated flesh. It was of a siren. Two speakers on the pole that looked to be connected to the flesh and even the veins of this thing. It was still emitting the loud static sound at me. My flashlight looked over at the tilted siren as the speaker was facing me. Pure white human teeth. This was not Satan's work.No God and no Devil would ever make something like that. This was a true monster. A creature with no reason to live. Just to have more reasons of fear. It stopped its loud screeching and started to emit a new sound. The sound of the speakers started to make the sound of a warning weather alert. It started walking towards me in big steps. With my ears covered to prevent hearing damage, I quickly started to run in the right side to avoid its skinny hands. I ran with my tired feet sore and aching as I just kept going. The flashlight was still in my hands, covering my one ear as it was cold and metal as I felt the ground shaking as the creature was slowly but in big steps, catching on to me.My heart, my mind, my everything. It was all rushing in union. But only because as I was running down the path I started to remember that haunting sound. Months ago we heard this sound before. Us rangers weren’t so focused on it. Mainly due to how we knew of an old siren from so many years ago that used to be for signaling big tornados or hurricanes. It would quickly die off every thirty minutes or an hour before it would start up so months later. The pieces were hitting my face like hard bricks. We rarely have people come over here in this trail. Maybe one or two in those few months. We then hear that sound. This thing has been in the forest for an unknown amount of time. Using that deathly howl as a way to block the screaming of its victims. To not have anyone else intervene with it. I looked back and it still was taking big steps to try to get me. I was faster, but it still wouldn’t give up. It started to lower the volume of the alert as I turned my head forward and kept running. I was close to the truck. I could see the backpack from far away now. That is when the new sounds started to startle me. It was one of the most oddest things I ever heard. It started to speak. Not in basic human function. But static like. I couldn’t remember much due to my heavy breathing and my heart pounding but it was shouting words at me. “Don’t” and “Come”. The words were different voices. Like it had no real voice. It either was from radio stations that it was able to pick up and understand or it listened to the victims to gather more information to understand human speech.I was close. I was so damn close. It kept spewing out words. “Do not go”. It wanted to eat me. To tear me apart and slurp up my guts like spaghetti. “Stay here”. I wasn’t going to stay and die. I had to live. I ran past the backpack as I was closer to my truck. I looked back to see it was far behind but still catching up to me. This thing would never stop. I run harder as I see the gate. In one big jump, I was able to hop over the metal gate and be right next to the car door. I opened it in such speed and force as I threw my flashlight and almost myself in. I slam the door and reached into my jacket pocket to pull out the key. I grab and quickly slide the metal key into the ignition and turned it to start the engine. Within seconds I heard the car purring and in a mere couple of seconds I put my foot down on the gas pedal and my car went forward. I drove without ever looking back. I can still hear those voices. That loud alarm. That horrific creature. I still can see it. Can hear it. The back of my brain will always have me remember that monster. Something that will never go away as the years pass. It will haunt me forever in my broken and terrified mind. (Case #19-9-18-5-14) Report: Forest Ranger having to be in his older 30s rushed into police station at around 10:13 PM. Acting hysterical with his body shaking and looking out of the windows most of the time as officers got him to calm down. Saying a creature in the woods had chased him. Tall as a telephone pole with the head being of a siren. After roughly thirty minutes, we drove him off to his home where he exclaimed he would do an interview tomorrow for the sake of the ‘Missing People’ (See Case #8-5-1-4 for more detail) At around 10:30 AM he came down to be interviewed to give more information of what he witnessed yesterday evening (See the ‘Witness Report’ from the Forest Ranger). After about a two hour interview with the Forest Ranger we were able to get him to show us ‘Pine Ridge Hiking Trail’. He did show some hesitation until we were able to persuade him by offering more officers to the scene. He stated ‘With bigger numbers, the creature might just stay far away.” At the crime scene at the ‘Pine Ridge Hiking Trail’ several officers were able to find the clues and pieces told from the Forest Ranger’s story. We took the blood samples of the blood we discovered and some tissue samples from the torn apart body the Forest Ranger had discovered yesterday. A day later at around 1:54 PM the forensic lab was able to confirm that the blood samples and tissue samples do belong to the people in the ‘Missing People’ case, but also to the person the Forest Ranger was looking for. ( See the Update for Case #8-5-1-4 to see the listed names.) The Forest Ranger was able to provide multiple alibis: - Video surveillance with a timestamp of when the hiker had appeared and seemed to be missing and the time the Forest Ranger had appeared after getting contacted by another Forest Ranger. - Other Forest Rangers were able to show proof as they had recorded audio of him speaking into their radio dispatch of the report of the creature and to not let anyone near the woods. -Gargled audio from the video camera planted by the “Pine Ridge Hiking Trail” sign of the sound of a weather alert system going off as the Forest Ranger had said in the interview. -Pieces of the cloth and of the hoodie showed no DNA of the Forest Ranger’s finger prints. We do know the backpack has the fingerprints of the Forest Ranger, but since he had admitted in the interview he did opened and looked into the bag to see if the hiker had planned to camp out the trail, there is nothing more to further add him as a suspect. -The Forest Ranger was submitted a urine test before he was sent home yesterday night to see if he was under the influence of drugs. The urine had shown that he had no drugs in his system. -The Forest Ranger was also able to give us his medical records to prove to us that he was not acting crazy nor has any mental problems. His medical records show of a clean bill of health which was last checked several days ago. Due to the witnesses and alibi’s, we had to remove the Forest Ranger off the suspect list for now. (Additional Note #1: The blood from the Forensic Lab appeared to be weeks old. The only type of somewhat fresh blood was from the hiker the Forest Ranger was sent to find) (Additional Note #2: The Forest Ranger had exclaimed that he does not want his name to be mentioned nor said in either news coverage or reports. Due to the evidence showing that he was not the culprit of the crime scene and because of how well known he is in town we had respected his command and kept his identity private until further evidence list him as a main suspect.) (Additional Note#3: During the time at the crime scene many officers had reported hearing a faint ‘white noise’ coming from the woods. Several officers checked but saw nothing that could be making the noise. The Forest Ranger explained after the officers and detectives finished up the crime scene that the creature could most likely be asleep. White Noise is a type of sound that is combined with different sound frequencies together. It is known to help people sleep.)

(Credits)

-Siren Head was created and belongs to Trevor Henderson https://twitter.com/slimyswampghost Also on Tumblr @slimyswampghost -This story was based on the Siren Head short game https://modus-interactive.itch.io/siren-head

#horror #horror story #creepy #creepy story #creepy stories #siren head #slimyswampghost #trevor henderson #monster #spooky #spooky story

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bestlaptoopz2-blog · 5 years ago

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Best 2 in 1 laptops in2019

Our rundown of the best PC in India for 2019 offers a decent mix of execution and urgent highlights, at each value point. The Top 10 workstations in India incorporate choices from most recent PCs accessible today, offering spending PCs, standard PCs, ultrabooks and business PCs. Take a pick. We're sure you'll discover in any event probably the most recent workstation recorded underneath worth looking at. This is the rundown of top ten PCs India right now accessible in the market for a wide range of utilization. The Asus ZenBook Pro is a ground-breaking machine for photograph and video altering. Despite the fact that it may show up as a contrivance from the outset, the ScreenPad really figures out how to enable you to function quicker on occasion. The sound and the showcase quality are a legitimate supervisor on this model. The new age of Lenovo IdeaPads accompanies a progressively full grown structure, tasteful look, and a reliable registering knowledge. Masthead of the 500-arrangement of IdeaPads, the IdeaPad 530S scores high on execution, show quality, form, and battery life. It likewise accompanies a Nvidia MX150 GPU for incidental light gaming. In case you're as of now acquainted with the ThinkPad X1 Yoga and are overhauling from a year ago's model, you may not discover a lot to energize you in the current year's model. In any case, Best 2 in 1 laptops under 600 in case you're in the market for a convertible business workstation that can bend over as a tablet for drawing and note-taking, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga is all you'll require. It has eighth gen Intel Core arrangement processors, 16GB RAM, and various NVMe SSD choices.

This machine is decked to the gills with sharp highlights and execution is genuinely first rate. Its strong cost may cause an interruption for idea however. The Surface Laptop by Microsoft might be somewhat old since it discharged a year ago, yet it's as yet an incredible machine. It's ideal for ordinary business and individual use. Its console and touchpad arrangement is ideal for extended periods of time of composing and cursor route. The Dell XPS has stayed a commendable contender to Apple's MacBook and this year also the more current XPS 15 stands head and shoulders over the challenge. The Dell XPS 15 is an amalgamation of all that you could ever require from a standard workstation. It has the exhibition of a gaming workstation, the battery life of a Ultrabook and a modern structure which is attempted and tried in the years past. In spite of the fact that the Lenovo Yoga 730 isn't too not the same as the Yoga 720, it is an able gadget that sports some extraordinary characteristics: a shockingly agreeable console, an exact touchpad, a brilliant and beautiful showcase, and a snappy CPU. Cost turns into the greatest major issue for it. Keep in mind the Specter 13 from a year ago. This year we got the opportunity to see the convertible variation of that PC. The Specter x360 in its most recent symbol is the best convertible workstation accessible today. Be it manufacture quality, execution or battery life, the x360 bests all challenge effectively. It likewise has probably the best console we have experienced on a convertible workstation, making it a splendid ordinary machine. As its name recommends, everything about the new 15.6-inch ThinkPad is outrageous. It sports an eighth gen Intel Core i7 CPU, has up to 64GB of RAM, can take up to two PCIe-based SSDs, and has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 GPU for designs. It's brutal! Acer additionally offers eighth gen Intel Core processors on its most recent line of PCs and among those the Acer Aspire 5 is one of the most moderate workstations you can purchase today. The machine isn't as gorgeous as the Asus Vivobook S15, however it offers a comparative execution. It is likewise accessible with NVIDIA's MX150 GPU and has an estimable battery life. The 2019 Asus VivoBook 14 is in our main ten rundown since it's the first model in Quite a while to bring the Nvidia GeForce MX250 GPU to the majority. It's additionally an awesome PC generally for ordinary figuring and light stimulation. The console quality has gone up as well.

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missilekidding · 6 years ago

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☄ / 🔮 / 🌐 :)

Gah I had so much fun with these! Again, so sorry I didn’t get around to them sooner, but I hope they were worth waiting for!

☄ - NewsAGoGo

To begin with I need to say that my headcanons for this wonderful lesbian are HEAVILY influenced by @neon-rat‘s NewsAGoGo tag cause that shit is SO GOOD.

- So we got our lesbian scene queen here. She’s had about four thousand different hair cuts and colours and not a single one has ever looked good, but that’s sort of the point. She is CONSTANTLY shaving bits off her head and has most of her scalp tattooed. Frequently seen in a variety of extremely ugly green, yellow or orange trench coats and totally impractical knee length boots, and manages to pull off the ‘I literally wouldn’t recognise good fashion if it punched me in the face’ look brilliantly. This is mostly because of her charisma and confidence in personally loving her own look, and besides, she is a TERRIFYING motherfucker so most runners wouldn’t have the guts to tell her they don’t like her look anyway.

- When I say shes tattooed I mean she is TATTOOED. Most of her body is covered. They aren’t generally big pieces either - a large piece on her upper arm, chest and one thigh, but otherwise covered in tons of smaller pieces, individual from each other and symbolic of vastly different things. Her favourite is probably any of the pieces her girlfriend, DJ Hot Chimp, has given her, and even if Hot Chimp wasn’t genuinely one of the best tattoo artists in the zones she would adore the fact that it’s her girl’s iconic ocean patterns that rest across her rib cage.

- She can be pretty blunt, and it often comes across as rude - she will always speak her mind and totally tends to miss the changes in conversations when people are hurt. She can also get a little heated too when she’s passionate, but also very short when she doesn’t care, so she can be a little intense for many joys to deal with. That’s not, however, to say that she is unkind. If NewsAGoGo is anything, its a good fucking friend. She is fiercely loyal to Doctor Death Defying and her friends at the radio station, and to Hot Chimp, and she easily makes up for anything mean that she may accidentally say in the passion she shows to the people she trusts.

- Before they settled either with or near Doctor D in the radio station, News, Hot Chimp, Cherri and Pony all ran together - it only lasted for about six months once they escaped the City, but it was probably the most fun any of them had. They were some of the earliest killjoys to get out, so the rules of the Zones were much less defined, meaning that setting fire to buildings for the sake of it and driving fast enough to crash every single car they found was fine - the precious nature of these things really weren’t set out or apparent, and the desire for chaos which plagues any runner fresh out of the City went uncontrolled in them.

🔮 - The Phoenix Witch

AH! My absolutely favourite character in the universe! Resident Goth Deity!

- She isn’t called the Phoenix Witch for no reason. The woman has mad power. Raising the dead and making random shit vanish type power. Mostly she takes this very seriously - a nasty side effect of prophetic visions is that she can see the role she, and others, need to play in the big picture, and so her somewhat controversial choices to raise, or not raise joys from the dead plays on her conscience a lot. It’s not clear where she got her power from other than the fact that it took her years of practise to gain it, and that the more powerful she becomes the less she seems to actually be seen.

- This then means that very few living runners have actually seen her. In the earlier days it was more common - she seemed to actually conform to the idea that having a physical form means that you had to exist somewhere at all times, so seeing her around the zones was rare, but possible. Many of those ‘joys who did see her wandering across the land however were ghosted, and those who do claim to have seen her in the later years tend to say that she can just appear at will, and so this lack of knowledge and sightings of her, paired with the frequent stories of the impossible things she can just do really gained her her status as big fucking mythical cryptid across the zones.

- Know I included this in my last Phoenix Witch headcanon post but it’s a headcanon I am willing to Die for - She is Doctor Death Defying’s twin. They were raised together and although they don’t see each other very often cause like. crazy zone happenings. they are still incredibly close and look out for each other. They also fuck around and indirectly make each other’s lives extremely difficult on purpose to piss the other one off because even if your sister is essentially a deity you can still make sure that she wakes up to her least favourite song playing on the radio once every week, and even if your brother is the most revered killjoy in the zones you can give him weird fucking intense dreams that fully convince him that yes, he is in fact a large marsupial, at two in the morning.

- Her ability to shape shift was something that kind of just happened. very suddenly. She was kind of just sitting there one day, thinking about how inconvenient it was to be a human person with like arms and legs and a torso, when suddenly she just wasn’t anymore. It was pretty surprising to say the least, to no longer have to exist in corporeal form, but both personally and practically it was pretty awesome, and after some practise she worked out how to change into a raven, which while also looking totally rad allowed her to go and sit outside Doctor D’s radio station at ungodly hours of the morning and shriek really loud before making a quick get away.

🌐 - One of my OCs

Okay lets talk Grenade. My fucking weird dumbass bitch oc. Love her.

- She has never lived in the Battery - she’s originally from around London, but when shit Went Down in the UK her family moved as far as they could - into the area that later became the zones. Her mother moved into the City in the early days but Grenade’s apprehension to follow proved pretty fucking lucky after Better Living started dropping bombs on the zones and their true nature was revealed. During this time she spent a while running with this group of aggressive dudes and trying to convince herself that she was totally straight™, but she quickly realised that this group were actually pretty awful morally, and left, later realising that girls exist and reassessing her entire world view.

- She is pretty covered in tattoos (notice the running theme in my headcanons for most female killjoys, I’m gay sue me), with her favourite being either the snake around her forearm or the large floral pieces over her hips and thighs. Her time being a general nuisance to Dracs has proved a little detrimental to the larger pieces on her body - a particularly violent run in left most of her chest piece totally unrecognisable, but the scarring itself still has meaning to her so it doesn’t bother her too much.

- She is often seen running around under the full moon, titties out, praising the Goddess. Just cause you live in the desert doesn’t mean you can’t still do your crazy witch shit and Grenade is definitely extremely spiritual. Due to this she also makes charms for runners she meets - getting her hands on actual supplies for spell bags is hard, but she makes do with what she can find and invests a lot of time into sigil magic to make up for it.

- Her and Lithium (@neon-rat’s OC) were the first members of their group, and met shortly after Better Living stopped dropping pig bombs when the two of them ended up trying to kill the same annoying SCARECROW agent together. They got on amazingly mostly because they are both fucking batshit crazy, so the idea of spending three weeks hiding in the City and just repetitively stealing all the fruit from the previously mentioned SCARECROW agent’s house before setting it on fire was one that made perfect sense to them both. They were originally gonna call their group Dykes! but realised that DOGS, or ‘Damn, Occult Girls are Sexy’ is funnier, and sounds like it should stand for something way cooler than it does.

#skkjdkjfd #the rest of these asks should be out by the end of the day #once again: i am a dumb bitch and should not casually queue ask posts months in advance and assume i'll have time for them #headcanons #mcr #killjoys #danger days #my chemical romance #my writing #phoenix witch #newsagogo #grenade #asks #long post #d slur /

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youngneemleaves · 6 years ago

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“There’s no need to play the reluctant ingénue with me.” - Killing Eve episodes 2.01 and 2.02 in retrospect

Based on a discussion with @onaperduamedee that drove us both slightly crazy, LOL

Espionage stories are inherently all about fixed spaces and boundaries - nations and borders, centres and their entry and exit points - all very clearly defined systems operating on a specific language. Agents - rogues, spies, carriers of information, currency, weaponry - serve as the connective tissue in this framework. It’s a far, far more chaotic intersection of worlds than most agencies would have anyone believe, and being in control and in power is the best and most crucial spectacle that one can manage.

How does this work with women, who have, traditionally, never been considered a part of essential frameworks, be it morality or politics?

youtube

I don’t pretend to know the ways of the world.

A means to an end seems a way.

Whoever’s got the most of whatever’s best -

All the better,

May the best man win.

This song has played thrice in the show till now: the first time when Villanelle climbs the pipes into a countryside mansion in Italy to murder a mafia lord in an extraordinary display of physical vitality and witchy absurdity. The second time, when Eve defies Carolyn’s instructions to travel to Paris to meet Villanelle, helped along by an unwitting Elena - who hasn’t even been taken on the trip to Russia and simply wants to join Eve the same way Eve had once wanted to join in the thrill of a spy’s life. The third time, it’s Eve uttering her name to open the gates of her new office, entering as a professional, where she’ll be working in an enhanced capacity to apprehend secret female assassins.

It takes the bewildered confession to an absent Carolyn for Eve to realise just how horribly awry her attempts to game the rules of the intelligence mission in her favour - her single-minded goal to find Villanelle - have gone. Villanelle comes to much the same conclusion when her new handler releases his choke-hold on her - her ability to rewrite the plot to the end that she becomes its irreplaceable protagonist, shielded by Konstantin till now, has gone up in smoke. The world is suddenly far less tolerant of Villanelle’s desires, and she’s no longer in a position to just not care about the system’s insensitivity. Both Eve and Villanelle have become trapped in a snarl of their own making, where their own wishes have been revealed to be incompatible with the systems they are a part of. The System is determined to show the two women their place - in the margins, in the streets, where they are servers, workers, pawns, carrying out the will of the state.

And they feel the same pressure; the bosses and handlers in this equation aren’t gone. Carolyn is just as ruthless as Raymond, only she doesn’t resort to physical violence to compel Eve to remain with the MI6, and she isn’t a mere handler. Like Flo said, Carolyn has reevaluated Eve on her return from Paris, and she sees her in a new light now - as an asset. And, I would add, as someone who knows, and figures out, a lot more than Carolyn can always control. The only way to keep a tab on the unfiltered information that leaks out is to keep a hand on Eve’s shoulder.

With the new turn of events (series 2), Carolyn’s attitude towards Eve seems to have changed accordingly. Her body language is slightly different, somewhat more showy. She’s less deadpan and professional as she’d been earlier, and a process that began with Carolyn and Eve spending time together as part of the mission and together in the hotel in Moscow has developed into Carolyn having become used to Eve’s admiration to the point of consciously expecting it. In the scene at the end of episode 2.02, where Konstantin is revealed to be alive and currently reading a book in Carolyn’s drawing room, Carolyn smiles while scrutinising Eve’s reaction to the reveal. It’s a very confident smile, demanding a response from Eve, certain that she’d be impressed. And Eve is impressed. Carolyn expects Eve to be frightened, perhaps, intrigued, or even paranoid. She admires Eve’s roguish tendencies although they frustrate her quite often, and she likes Eve’s appreciation of a mystery, and of women who can keep them. Part of Carolyn’s control over this brilliant, emotional woman is to amplify the image Carolyn shows everyone else - as a mastermind who can do incredible things, things for Eve (linking her her moisturiser of choice, arranging a witness protection scheme for her, even a new name), things to Eve (bringing back people from the dead to keep an eye on her as well as protect her, throwing her into Villanelle’s path to be devoured as a matter of course), anything to anyone. The bigger difference here is that Carolyn, probably for the first time, is bringing Eve closer to understanding how it works.

Eve: What am I doing here, Carolyn? Going through the charade of solving your test.

Carolyn: Well, you’re proving yourself useful.

Eve: No. What’s going on? With Konstantin and Moscow, and what were you doing, talking to Villanelle in that prison? I mean, who do you even work for? Are you part of the Twelve?

Carolyn: What really happened in Paris? Why was Nadia’s note addressed particularly to you, and why are you and Villanelle so interested in each other? You see how it works?

If that necessitates revealing sensitive information to Eve in carefully considered pieces - Kenny being Carolyn’s son, Carolyn playing a part in keeping Konstantin alive - so be it. Revealing information, as Flo said, would be a test of Eve’s ability to use it, and to gauge her behaviour.

Flo, as usual, was bang on target when she said in the tags that Carolyn shouldn’t be surprised about Eve’s obsession with Villanelle; Carolyn might be just as obsessed with Eve. Eve isn’t alone in her descent into the abyss, as Bill had called it so long ago. They’re all on their way down. Eve’s particular obsessions are very much a product of the “normal” relationships in her life, their high points and their lows. It’s just that Eve doesn’t always bother to hide her desire, which, like Villanelle’s and perhaps Carolyn’s too, completely diverges from the limited spectrum allotted to women by the traditionally androcentric medical, psychological, and philosophical institutions. They literally are deranged. But Eve’s very real penchant for violence and politics is born out of her own hard work and her own psycho-spiritual crises and epiphanies.

Although she still underestimates herself, I think Eve does understand the power dynamics she's become a part of with Villanelle, Konstantin, Kenny, and Carolyn. She's taking her time to process everything because, in spite of the trap she’s found herself in after the encounter in Paris, her new position suits her. The power she has now becomes her. And she's honestly loving the fact that she's an important part of investigations without being encumbered by too many rules because she's still on the edges of The System. Eve’s status as an outside expert, a rogue agent, is her greatest weapon as well as her Achilles heel. It’s impossible for her to just “go home” now; her locus has shifted. She’d thrown away home for the sake of the world outside, The System beyond the home, and now she’s adrift. She can’t pretend anymore.

Villanelle: I know her better now. I know her better than anyone. Better than she knows herself.

Eve: You think he was murdered. You think he was.

Carolyn: Yes, so I thought I’d draft in the head of the fan club.

(Also, that last bit is hilarious. You can tell the head writer is a woman.)

An eye for an eye

Is a blind man’s rule.

I wasn’t going to follow.

I’m nobody’s fool.

So now, Eve is the one - like Villanelle in ep. 1.01 - entering and exiting government intelligence offices, palaces and parliaments of knowledge and power, who must be given protection against assassins, who’s not entirely comfortable in her marriage, who’s surrounded by people - powerful people - who want her input on Important Stuff. Eve is now the princess in the castle, and Villanelle must now play the part of the hero from the more mainstream romances, the errant knight reinterpreted, who must remain herself and journey across foreign lands and endure a Whole Lot Of Crap to reunite with the princess. The gender dynamics have been subverted and plugged to industrial-strength batteries to set the screen and our minds on fire. As Flo pointed out, Eve is at the centre of others’ attention, especially the admiration of both the government intelligence officer and the enemy assassin, the two big polarities of a spy story, but the optics is different because this triangle has nothing to do with the male gaze and the male fixation with the heroine. On the other hand, in the final scene of ep. 2.02, Konstantin sits on the sofa as simultaneously the most and the least important person in the room - the ace in the hole with some tricks of his own still left, but in the end a subject in a plot engineered by women, where the main tension is between two women negotiating the balance of power between themselves. For perhaps the first time in fiction that traditionally operates on strict gender roles, a man serves as currency here, a floating element used to reinforce the relationship between women.

Talking of home and the gender dynamics here, something in Carolyn and Eve’s exchange sticks out:

Eve: I need to go home.

Carolyn: Home? Is that really what you want? I mean, what do people do at home?

It’s the first time this season that Carolyn’s anger shows for just a second before she reins it in. But compare that with the exchange in Annihilation (2018):

Ventress: We need to come to an agreement about what to do with you.

Lena: You’re not going to let me go home?

Ventress: Is that what you want? To go home?

And then with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000):

Jade Fox: [to Jen] What good is a home? You’ve gone so far. Now we can go all the way together.

Home is an extremely fraught topic here. Just gonna quote Flo here: “This show is a dream come true when it comes to so many female narratives. We never talk about home to male characters unless as something to leave behind to live an adventurous life.” But the dynamic is so different here where the heroine and her mentor/boss are both women, and they understand on a level where the other woman is coming from. The mentors don’t want the heroine to decline the call to adventure. Carolyn certainly doesn’t want to lose Eve; she’s too powerful, too clever, too useful. Carolyn had herself given up her life and her son’s to her career long ago, to the point that her relationship with Kenny now is inextricable from her political machinations. But the female mentor here also manipulates the heroine but ever so lovingly; defining the paths they will both tread on while assuring the heroine that its all going to be okay - no, that this is the best way. It’s more subtle, but in principle, it’s not very different from Villanelle approaching Nadia in her prison cell tenderly and mockingly, and then killing Gabriel in the hospital. Villanelle here classically serves as the monster whose shocking actions mirror the twisted relationships in Eve’s world.

So just how fundamentally Eve, Villanelle, and Carolyn have already rewired The System in their favour, although it is still innately hostile to them (Villanelle is now being used brutally by the Twelve, and Eve and Carolyn are both in dangerous positions), can be seen in the overall image of them as the primary trio of the show. Flo pointed out that Carolyn is almost omniscient, but Eve is the one who brings her the information truly necessary, and Eve is the one who discovered first Villanelle and now the Ghost. It’s why both Villanelle and Carolyn find Eve so fascinating, because Eve occupies such a precarious position and is so unpredictable and impactful. The Holy Trinity here, then, is Carolyn as God, Eve as the first human (incorporating aspects of Lilith here), and Villanelle as the Devil. Carolyn, said to be always twenty steps ahead of everyone else, brings Eve back into Paradise, the secret office full of resources and speculation that’s like the inside of Eve’s brain, that lets Eve run free with her pursuit of female assassins, the landscape where she can chase Villanelle. There's a wall full of maps and images trying to establish a pattern, and Carolyn's good at spotting patterns and understanding how people tick. Her whole agenda is to capture evil so that it serves her purposes, the purpose of the good. But this is so different from her previous exercises and missions - this necessitates the use of carnal knowledge that only Eve can bring. Passionate Eve, constantly toeing the line between desire and sanity, her perceptive, intuitive heart her finest treasure. Even before Villanelle has offered Eve the apple, both Villanelle and Carolyn know that here’s someone who is truly special. And now its their game to play, their mystery to stage.

#killing eve #eve polastri #villanelle #carolyn martens #ke meta #eve polastri meta #villanelle meta #carolyn martens meta #ke 2.01 #ke 2.02 #my writing #mine: killing eve

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tlatollotl · 6 years ago

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A new study by Brown University researchers shows that the Dorset and Thule people—ancestors of today's Inuit—created spun yarn some 500 to 1,000 years before Vikings arrived in North America. The finding, made possible in part by a new method for dating fiber artifacts contaminated with oil, is evidence of independent, homegrown indigenous fiber technology rather than a transfer of knowledge from Viking settlers.

The study was led by Michele Hayeur Smith, a research associate at Brown's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, who focused on artifacts from five Dorset and Thule archaeological sites in the eastern Canadian Arctic held in the Canadian Museum of History's collections. Co-authored with Kevin P. Smith, deputy director and chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum, and Gørill Nilsen of the Arctic University of Norway, the research is changing the understanding of indigenous textile technology as well as the nature of the contact between Dorset and Thule peoples and the earliest European explorers of the eastern Canadian Arctic.

Here, Hayeur Smith and Smith discuss the study, published in Journal of Archaeological Science, and what it means for understanding the history of the high Canadian Arctic.

Q: What was the impetus for undertaking this study?

Michele Hayeur Smith (MHS): I am a specialist in Norse textiles, and I was researching the production and circulation of textiles from the Viking age to the 19th century. I started this project because it came to my attention that there were huge collections of pre-modern textiles in Iceland, which is where I started out. I was also interested in looking at women. Textiles happen to be a very gendered activity in Norse society—men had no involvement whatsoever with it. In Iceland, it became very important because it was a form of currency for almost 800 years: Everything was based on the value of cloth.

I eventually expanded my research to the rest of the North Atlantic to see what was going on in the other Norse colonies in terms of textiles. There were some fragments of cloth and yarn that had been found in the Canadian High Arctic, and there was an assumption that it came from the Norse. I went through the collections at Canadian Museum of History—a sizeable collection of pieces of yarn that had been claimed to be Norse. The assumption was that Norse had taught the Inuit how to spin, that it was a cultural transfer.

Q: What did you discover?

MHS: I went in thinking it was an interesting hypothesis that there was a Norse trading post in Baffin Island. First, I performed an initial physical analysis of the material, which included spun sinew, spun yarn, woven textiles and raw wool of unknown species. Second, I needed to date it. And third, I got permission to sample the pieces and do some DNA analysis to identify the animal fibers in them.

One textile piece from the high north was Norse, and several others from a site called Okivilialuk were also clearly fragments of woven European cloth, but not Norse. However, strands of yarn from southern Baffin Island, at sites called Nanook, Nunguvik and Willows Island 4, were obviously different, and not Norse. This yarn, when I analyzed it, immediately struck me as distinct. The materials were wrong for Norse textiles, made of maybe musk ox or arctic hare rather than sheep or goat. The fibers were very tightly spun, very consistent, with very little variation in how it was made, which is not what you see in Norse textiles.

At that point, we worked with a commercial laboratory, Beta Analytic, using the protocol Gørill Nilsen developed, which is critical in accurately dating textiles contaminated with marine mammal oils. In the high Canadian Arctic, people live predominantly off marine mammals. They would hunt seals, whales and other animals and use the fats for a range of purposes. The oils from these mammals permeate archaeological sites and artifacts, including textiles. Because of what is known as the marine reservoir effect, in which sea mammals absorb ancient marine carbon, the radiocarbon date of artifacts with marine oil on them can be thrown off by 400 to 800 years. Nilsen's method essentially "shampoos" out the oils so Beta Analytic could use Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating to give us an accurate age.

Michele Hayeur Smith's research on textiles spanning the North Atlantic region has been supported by three major grants from the National Science Foundation's Arctic Social Science Program. Credit: Brown University

Q: And you used this new method to date the yarn and textile samples?

Kevin P. Smith (KPS): First, we tested Gørill's method on two pieces of cloth—we split one piece of yarn and tested it without using her method. The date came back older than any known date for human occupation in the Arctic, so we knew it was contaminated; but after we used her method to clean the sample, we re-dated it and it fit other evidence from the site beautifully. Then we tested her method on another piece of cloth whose age we already knew and received an identical date. These tests showed us that the method could remove contaminants without damaging the cloth and affecting dates on it.

Then, we applied her method to one piece of spun sinew and seven pieces of spun yarn from Dorset culture sites, to one piece of Norse textile from an ancestral Inuit, Thule culture site, and to two of those mysterious pieces of European cloth from Okivilialuk.

Q: What did the AMS date tell you about the yarn and textile samples?

KPS: The results were jaw-dropping.

The oldest Dorset pieces were made almost 1,000 years before the Vikings settled in Greenland, around 1000 AD. In fact, the oldest piece of yarn, from a site on Willows Island, was dated to between 15 B.C. and 50 A.D. And the most recent piece of Dorset culture yarn was spun around 725 A.D. We knew then that the Dorset had been spinning yarn for more than a thousand years before the Vikings arrived in Greenland and was a consistent part of their culture for at least 800 years! It's also interesting that there appears to be no evidence that the Dorset people shared this technology with the Thule people, ancestors of today's Inuit, who migrated across the Canadian Arctic and eventually to Greenland, in the late 1200s A.D.

However, when we turned to the piece of woven cloth from an ancestral Inuit site called Skraeling Island, we confirmed that those Thule ancestors of today's Inuit were in contact with Norse explorers in the High Arctic during the late around 1275 A.D., almost 300 years after the Vikings had tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a colony in North America.

Finally, those pieces from Okivilialuk were both woven in the 1500s, suggesting that the Inuit there were in contact with some of the earliest post-medieval explorers of the Arctic, including Martin Frobisher [an English navigator who reached Labrador and Baffin Island in 1576].

Q: In the study, you note that archaeologists have been somewhat reluctant to acknowledge the possibility of an indigenous fiber technology. Why do you think that is?

MHS: I would say that the assumption that indigenous people did not know how to spin is ethnocentric. This is a problem in our field. The sewing skills and abilities of Arctic peoples is unbelievable. They are able to stitch garments made out of gut that are entirely waterproof because the stitching they're using is so sealed and so tight. If you're already spinning sinew because you're making thread out of it, and you happen to come across a piece of musk ox hair on the ground, you know how to spin. It's a very intuitive technique. I've also seen baskets made with Thule material. If you know how to make baskets, you know how to weave. Why is the idea of indigenous fiber technology shocking, surprising people so much? I don't know.

Q: What other questions do your findings raise?

KPS: One of the big questions that it raises is, what is the fiber technology of the Dorset? It also shows that the history of contact between various Indigenous cultures of the North (the Dorset and the Thule) with one another and with different European explorers was more complex than expected—and can be unraveled with such unexpected artifacts as yarn and cloth. But I think the most important finding is that the analyses document nearly 1,500 years of creativity, innovation, selective acquisition and use of textiles by the Indigenous people of the Arctic rather than forcing us to believe that spinning yarn and other cultural changes in the North required a brief period of technological transfer from Europeans.

Explore further: Knitting electronics with yarn batteries

More information: Michèle Hayeur Smith et al. Dorset, Norse, or Thule? Technological transfers, marine mammal contamination, and AMS dating of spun yarn and textiles from the Eastern Canadian Arctic, Journal of Archaeological Science (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2018.06.005

Journal reference: Journal of Archaeological Science

#archaeology #arctic #thule #dorset #vikings #norse #history #textiles #indigenous #native american

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beardyallen · 6 years ago

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Well, that went quickly...

What day is it? I’m starting to lose track of how long I’ve been here...

Well, it’s been a week since my last post, and it seems that a lot must have happened, but honestly I feel like I’ve just been cranking through a bunch of comic books.

But I do know that Friday and Saturday involved a good deal excitement, so I guess we had might as well pick up pretty much where we left off!

Last Friday was Orientation for ICB, which meant getting all of the 35-40 instructors, 10 staff members, and the 6-8 people in charge of this program together in a room to introduce us to...basically what we’d been doing all that week. Also, aside from a couple study-abroad-undergrads and my officemate and me, everyone there had probably already heard the spiel.

It was scheduled from 5p-6p with a buffett afterwards, but a bunch of the Communications people from my floor were going out to eat (again?) afterwards, so I made plans with NR. She wanted to try this Mexican restaurant in what I’ll describe as the “international district” of Beijing. Most everything around us when we got there looked like it belonged in literally every metropolitan area in the world. Every major brand you can imagine had a store. Multiple. Too many...

But the Mexican restaurant we visited is owned and managed by a Mexican expat, apparently. He even stopped by our table to ask how the food was, and let me tell you: that quesadilla was the BOMB!!! And the margarita was pretty good (not as good as MHO’C’s, though!). By the time we finished up dinner, it was kind of late, so we wondered around the shopping center, found a bookstore. You know: the usual.

Fun fact: when a store or restaurant wants to indicate to their patrons that they are getting ready to close, they play smooth jazz and turn the lights down. Like for real. Had their not been windows open to the pavilion outside with it’s hundreds of light displays, I would have been seriously concerned when the lights in the place just went out and Kenny G popped up on the speakers.

We entertained the idea of finding the cinema nearby to see Alita Battle Angel, but during the 15 minutes that we spent wondering around in search of the complex, it seemed to elude us. Plus it was getting close to that time when the subway shuts down, and I wasn’t exactly hankering for a taxi ride this early in my stay....if at all.

The next morning, I got up early to meet back up with NR at the National Museum near the Forbidden City. Now, for the most part, the stairs I get don’t bother me. But I will say, if you’re going to stair at the pasty white guy with a hard-to-describe-its-color-accurately-beard, maybe don’t do it when you’re going 15 mph on a bike, facing in the wrong direction! *sigh.....Some people’s kids...

But what really bothered me, especially at the time, was the father-of-three who straight-up filmed me on his phone from 5 feet away for a solid 6 minutes, three hallways, and two escalators! I get it, I’m funny looking. But I really think I a picture would have done just fine...

One of the things that bothered me the most about that experience was that (a) he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, (b) his daughters seemed rather embarrassed, (c) he filmed me with the screen aimed at me so I could watch myself on his phone, (d) there was text on the screen, and (e) it went on for a solid 6 minutes.

In hindsight, I was wearing sunglasses and a hat, in a subway system, in the morning, heading to the center of Beijing. Maybe he thought I was a celebrity? I had spoken to a Communications graduate student the other day who happens to be black, and he told me the story of how a citizen here pull out their phone with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on it, and gestured to him as it to ask if it were him...even though SLJ is for sure at 70 years old and this kid is no more than 35. And he looks 25. #smh

Anyway, after dealing with whatever the hell that was, I got to visit the museum! They, for whatever reason, were not allowing people to bring their charging blocks into the museum (external battery that you can use to charge your cell phone and other devices on-the-go), but more surprising to me was just how many people carried one with them! At least, it was surprising until I took a moment to think about it. As I’ve mentioned before, basically every payment made in Beijing is through WeChat, which needs internet access, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. You also really can’t navigate through the city with some sort of Maps app; there are just too many bus routes, train routes, terminals and stops to keep logged in your head.

As far as the museum itself goes, the gifts to China from foreign governments exhibit and the Ancient China exhibit themselves took most of the day. Also, no surprise: the gift that took up the most floor space was given by a U.S. President. I also got a refresher in 8th Grade Social Studies. Too many small countries to remember all of them, and that space made me feel somewhat moronic.

The Ancient China exhibit was exceptional, though. They broke up the last, oh...750,000 years of human-ish life in China into 8-10 separate eras, the first few cataloguing the life and evolution of Homo erectus pekinensis into Homo sapien, while the latter eras were segregated dynastically. I’ve never seen the progression of human evolution laid out in such detail! The rock tools became better rock tools, then pottery and paper, stamps, buildings and so much more! There were even ceremonial helmets that would put the Juggernaut to shame!

It was strange, though, to have all of this knowledge just beyond my fingertips both literally and figuratively. The literal sense isn’t too shocking, as I’ve been to a museum before and know not to touch the pieces, but to have placards written in a language that would take years to learn was frustrating. Fortunately, NR has a never-ending supply of patience, and she translated much of the text. She even quizzed me on several of the characters. I’ve worked out how to write “rock” for sure.

After the museum, we wondered over to a nearby mall that, honestly, puts the Mall of America to shame. No joke. This place was huge! It just kept going and going and going! There was a particular alley that has all of the “exotic foods” that you might see on The Amazing Race, which I haven’t tried yet but intend to, but the rest is mostly-outdoor shopping center. Our reason for being there was to find food (we had been in the museum for a bit over 7 hours), and then sit our fine asses down in a movie theater to watch Alita.

We found a restaurant that served food traditionally found where NR grew up. It was exceptional. And the beer just made it better. :P

The movie experience was something else entirely. I’ve gotten used to watching television and movies with subtitles so that, when people decide to talk to me, I can follow along with both bits. Or if people are just talking near me while I’m watching television, I don’t have to rewind the show. That helped a lot; the movie was still spoken in English, but there were Chinese subtitles. I recognized the Chinese character for “1″ frequently enough, but that was about it.

The movie itself was way more than I expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that one of the primary characters is played by Christoph Waltz. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely consider it.

Also, additional fun fact: I’m thinking that most (if not all) showings of major motion pictures here are in 3D. *shrug* Side note: we’re going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow and I’M SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!!

After the movie, we wandered back to the subway station and parted ways mid-subway-ride to head home. The next day I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and sipping some beer in the 3rd Floor Lounge. All day. It was blissful.

This workweek has consisted of four main things: teaching responsibilities, a bit of dissertation work, trying out another one of the cafeterias on campus, and reading comic books. Oh, and beer. But that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There’s a convenience store on the other side of the building in front of the Guest House that has cans of beer. You can buy them individual for 3 yuan, or roughly 45 cents. I won’t lie to you: I bought 12 of them and it didn’t cost me more than 6 bucks. And it’s really not bad, and even more convenient than the liquor store I lived by in Denver.

Anyway, as I said, I’m going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow, then to “W-Town” (originally Watertown...so glad they shortened it...) in northern Beijing, which sits at the base of part of the Great Wall. More than 20 people from ICB will be heading up to their on Saturday, so I imagine one of them will take pictures. Probably ML or S. So you’ll have those to look forward to since you know I won’t be taking any!

Oh!!! I almost forgot the biggest thing that happened this week! Actually, it might be the biggest news of my entire stay!!!

I did laundry.

And I washed my slippers. I’m not convinced that they’ve stopped smelling, but I’m holding out hope that I’ve finally figured out how to resolve an issue that I know humanity has been seriously struggling with for decades. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, people, I swear!

Anyway, time to finish this beer, read a bit more of Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves (WE FINALLY FIND OUT ABOUT SABETHA!!!!), and head to bed. Big couple of days ahead...

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

P.S. I bet you thought I was gonna forget! After class on Wednesday, I worked out how to make a phone call from here to the States to wish my Mom a Happy BIrthday. Caught her at work, and we got to chat for a good long while. It really put a nice cap on my evening, and it seemed it gave her a good start to her day. Anyway, I hope you had a great evening, found something nice at C&B and enjoyed that glass of wine you mentioned! Love you!!

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ledlampsdriver3-blog · 6 years ago

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LED Constant Voltage Power Supply

LED lamps driver

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Now, what exactly happens once we apply attention to this semiconductor is actually what we really want to check out. Apply often the right voltage -- with our application 12V : and the right sum of existing will traveling through the semiconductor in addition to we get a stunning, energy-efficient, bright light which will glow to get hundreds of hours. But, we require the right voltage, specifically 12V.

You and My partner and i know to get a fact that will boats do not offer you lab quality power! Commence the engine, the creator set or connect in order to banks power and your current environment provides suddenly come to be hostile in your LEDs.

The reason is that? Simple! If the generator, alternator or inverter kicks in, we usually begin to see the voltage reaching up wards of 15V or increased. The higher the résistance, the more current should go through the actual semiconductor, the particular more electrons get via one side to typically the other, a lot more light will be generated plus more HEAT is usually generated. And also, guess exactly what is the enemy primary of LEDs? HEAT! We should either control the temperature developed or dissipate the idea. Utilize a lot involving current to an BROUGHT and you will acquire a very crucial choice with regard to a very short period of time of the time. Apply to very little and you get yourself a gray, useless light. Which just what happened to you friends' LEDs.

In this program of semiconductor physics, many of us know that the latest measured at junction with the materials is proportional into the voltage supplied. Controlling often the brouille and consequently the actual current is very important to be able to the life expectancy connected with your GUIDED.

Most low-cost 12V LED chaos lamps being sold today work with a ballast resistor which bleeds off energy to reduce the current. This ballast resistor limits current based to a straightforward formula: Voltage/Resistance = Existing. In in which world, one can get to the right amount associated with current for an DIRECTED by using a ballast of the proper weight for the Voltage offered. Problem is, on a new boat, the particular voltage is definitely not always the identical, the item fluctuates. Consequently, typically the battle being fixed, if the discorde drops, the current declines, and vice-versa. Conclusion: minimal voltage = dim lighting and high voltage sama dengan fried LED!

The effect is often the disappointment within LED lighting effects that an individual have heard about by your entire cruising friends.

Almost all automobile and inexpensive LEDs are based on the actual ballast resistor model. Many people work fine in auto because the voltage different versions tend to be smaller than these found in the particular underwater environment and also for you to the point that most LEDs inside the car world are usually used for turn signs or brake lights. These kinds of signals are not with for long periods of time and so heat is just not a trouble. One can also make use of the resistor that can handle 14V while keeping an acceptable current stage for the LED create adequate light. This tends to make automotive LEDs inexpensive, although unsuitable for that marine atmosphere.

Now that we realize a ballast resistor is actually not well suited for our surroundings, what do we accomplish next? Let's start using everything we have learned consequently far. We know that your resistor is a inerte system that can't preserve a much current with any changing attention. So, precisely what are our other choices?

What exactly if we had some sort of type of resistor which often could accommodate the transforming voltage? There is these kinds of a gadget, and this is used by several LED area manufacturers. The particular device is called a new Linear Regulator, and that is a tiny step way up in control technology from your primitive ballast resistor. Any Linear Regulator is the low cost control method which will can be regarded as any variable resistor this may differ the resistance in line with the fill up in order to supply a constant outcome résistance to the LEDs. Since it is still a resistive unit, it controls excess strength (above that required from the LEDs) by turning the idea into warmth. But hang on a minute, is not HIGH TEMPERATURE the great enemy regarding LEDs? That's right! Regarding course, having proper design and style one could waste several of the heat, however total, Linear Regulator can easily only benefit small brouille variations, which can be fine regarding some applications, but with, not really suitable for the total involving battery banks, solar power panels as well as generators and also inverters of your electrically dangerous marine planet.

Hopefully typically the above makes it specific why ballast resistor light sources and cheap bulbs have zero place on a ship. From everything you have study in the previous grammatical construction, you are now significantly a great deal better informed than often the average person trying to find ENCOURAGED lighting. Not only which, you happen to be most probably considerably better informed in comparison with most connected with the uninformed merchants on the market selling LED bulbs towards the unsuspecting boater.

So what exactly more is available throughout state-of-the-art LED regulates? The idea seems what we actually need is actually a sort associated with closed-loop device that will appears to be at the incoming discorde and maintains the regular recent feeding the LEDs at the same time the voltage varies, all the while keeping bare minimum high temperature. And, you got the item, the device is present! It's known as DC/DC Profit Power Ripping tools. It will be an expensive way to help source energy to LEDs, nonetheless it has all the actual advantages we are seeking for.

The Buck Strength Converter is a sophisticated minor device, but it is function is usually somewhat very simple. To describe this with layman's terms, that generally takes an energy supply and switches it on / off. During the "on" point out, the actual is stored within an inductor and in the course of the "off" status, the particular inductor releases the in order to the LED. The percentage of "on" and "off" time is called typically the duty-cycle. For example, some sort of 25% duty-cycle would complete to the BROUGHT simply 3V from a 12V source. All we have to have to complete is handle the duty-cycle according to be able to the input voltage and get constant current giving our LED. The Greenback Power Converter controller performs this by monitoring the present for the LEDs through a new current-sense resistor and sets the duty routine both up or to right the current in buy to fit the GUIDED optimal existing requirement. This kind of way we can drive the envelope on often the perfection of the LEDs without being concerned that the actual source voltage variations will probably take us past the particular highest possible rated current regarding the DIRECTED and ending up with a toast LED cluster.

This appearance great, but there is definitely one previous issue for you to deal with before we have the brightest marine level LED replacement bulb: typically the BULB itself, the wrapping!

We should instead package our groups so that we achieve often the maximum result possible inside a real modest deal while ensuring optimum existence expectancy as well. Now i'm sure you remember HEATING! How can most of us package lots of power in a cluster and yet certainly not overheat the bulb?

Nearly all internal marine lighting software start using a 10W G4 lamp, quite compact, so the actual fixtures are generally small while well. The substitute ENCOURAGED cluster bulb has to be incredibly small to serve seeing that the retrofit for the particular original halogen bulb. The item also has to create similar output and shade to the original halogen, nevertheless be able to help dissipate heat. That comes to an end up being quite any challenge.

You can find two techniques to pack a lot of mild in a small offer, with each has its advantages and cons, yet the two are acceptable solutions. The first is to use many little lower-powered through-hole LEDs grouped collectively in a tiny package, and the different is to use merely a few high-powered area mount device (SMD) LEDs arranged on a thermally successful support for highest heating dissipation.

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