#UN thread gauges

[metricthreadgauges]

Thread Gauges And Thread Taps Cost Comparison - Crucial Factors To Consider

When it comes to procuring Metric thread gauges and thread taps, businesses are faced with a decision that goes beyond the apparent price tags. The cost comparison involves a nuanced evaluation of various factors that collectively impact the overall value and efficiency of these essential tools. One crucial aspect is the material used in the manufacturing of thread gauges and taps. The choice of material significantly influences the durability, performance, and longevity of these tools. While certain materials may come at a higher initial cost, their extended lifespan and resistance to wear and tear can result in long-term cost savings.

Precision is paramount in industries utilizing thread gauges and ACME thread taps, and the accuracy of these tools is closely tied to the manufacturing processes employed. The level of precision achieved during production can affect the overall quality of the threads and, consequently, the efficiency of the entire manufacturing process. Therefore, it's essential to consider the manufacturing standards and processes of potential suppliers when comparing costs. Investing in thread gauges and taps manufactured with high precision not only ensures accurate results but can also contribute to the longevity of the tools.

The cost of maintenance and calibration is another critical factor that often gets overlooked in the initial cost comparison. Regular maintenance and calibration are essential to uphold the accuracy and functionality of thread gauges and taps over time. Suppliers offering tools with features that facilitate easier maintenance and calibration may incur additional upfront costs, but these can translate into long-term savings by reducing downtime and ensuring consistent performance.

Additionally, the manufacturer's reputation is a key factor in the cost assessment. A manufacturer known for consistently delivering high-quality tools is expected to provide products that adhere to strict industry standards. Although these manufacturers may have slightly elevated initial costs, the dependability and durability of their thread gauges and taps can lead to a more cost-effective outcome. Opting for a reputable manufacturer helps reduce the likelihood of premature tool failure, thereby ensuring a manufacturing process that is both reliable and efficient.

The variety of thread gauges and taps needed for particular applications is an additional aspect impacting costs. If you are looking for custom-made thread gauges and thread taps then it would have a direct impact on the costing as opposed to the standard sizes which are mass produced.

[slamminslamminmcgill]

Perrito: Chapter 1 - Lalo Salamanca/FTM Reader (NSFW!)

you were supposed to be doing 6 months in prison for drug possession and prostitution. that is, until you met lalo salamanca, and he decided to make you his puppy. for $10,000 a week, you were to wear a dog collar around your neck 24/7, and once he clipped the leash to you, you were to obey his every command. tags/warnings: petplay, dom/sub, bdsm, possessiveness, implied stalking, face slapping, praise kink, degradation/humiliation, oral sex, vaginal sex, squirting, needles/syringes/injections, medical exam, a few tiddlywinks of blood, non-consensual body modification (you'll see >:33) anatomical terms: cunt/pussy/hole, (t-)dick/cock words: 6,918 ao3 link author's notes: baby's first multichapter fic!!! had a LOT of ideas for this concept and im super excited to write more for this 🥺 y como siempre no soy un hablante nativo pero estoy aprendiendo. entonces por favor corríjame si se encuentra algo de errores :3

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

A generic job interview question meant to gauge your desires and plans for the future. 5 years ago, you would’ve said the best case scenario would be a life of modest success and comfort. You would have never imagined that by this point in your life you’d be living in a lavish estate and making 10 grand a week. 

Let alone the fact that you were making 10 grand by wearing a dog collar for the drug cartel boss who owned said lavish estate. 

Whichever deity wrote your life story had a fucked up sense of humor. Your thread of life was being used to draw dicks on the tapestry of existence. You’d gotten great at lying to friends and family. As far as they knew, you were moving abroad to work as an on-call assistant for a shipping executive. You rationalized that it was technically true, but it was an egregious lie of omission. Don Eduardo Salamanca, or “Lalo” as he preferred, was a wealthy businessman; there was no denying that. Though your assistance was the furthest thing from business that anyone could fathom. It was a stable position that came with steady income, job security, and benefits. Sure, these benefits just so happened to include the best sex you’d ever had on the comfiest bed you’d ever touched, but that was neither here nor there. 

It all started how most job interviews go: prison. You were supposed to be doing 6 months for drug possession and prostitution, but Lalo took a liking to you the moment he saw you. He said that your skills would be highly valuable in an organization such as his, which was jobspeak for “I want to get my dick wet”. You thought he was talking out of his ass, but judging by the respect he got from your fellow inmates and even some of the guards, you took his word for it. He promised you a job when you both got out, if you’d take it. 

You agreed; it sounded a hell of a lot better than going back on the streets. He promised to set you up with his lawyer, who’d been working on a way to get him off. Luckily, the lawyer actually knew his shit. He had found some tiny loophole in your case and was able to get the charges dropped and your record expunged. Much to your surprise, Lalo was waiting outside the jailhouse to pick you up when you got out. He dropped you off at your place and gave you a week to get your affairs in order. Then, you’d be moving to his place across the border in Chihuahua, Mexico. 

The week after, he showed up at your apartment in a car that, if it could speak, would definitely call you poor. On the way to his house, you discussed the specifics of your position. 

“So!” Lalo declared in a cheerful voice as he adjusted the rearview mirror, “What do you remember from what we talked about?”

You combed through your memories, the many conversations you two had in the prison showers, cafeteria, and rec yard. “10 grand a week, I wear a dog collar 24/7, and when the leash is clipped to it, I’m working. When I’m working, you have full control over me, and I have to do everything you say. Is that right?”

“Yeah! There you go. That’s the gist of it.” Lalo affirmed, “But, you won’t have to do literally everything I say. If you’re uncomfortable, you have your signals, and I’m not gonna press your limits unless you say I can.”

That was one of the promises he’d made that had put your mind at ease. Discussing this over state-sanctioned lunch one day, he had asked you your boundaries, things that you would never ever do under any circumstances. He was receptive when you told him. Plus, he’d given you safewords to use: green for “I’m okay. Keep going.”, yellow for “Ease up a little bit.”, and red for “You need to stop everything right the fuck now.” There were also corresponding hand signals in case you couldn’t talk: 3 fingers up for green, 2 for yellow, and 1 for red. 

“Right, yeah. Thank you for that.” You said. 

“Ah, don’t be silly. You don’t have to thank me. I want you to enjoy this. It’s a lot more fun for me if I know you’re having fun.” He patted your shoulder, “And, if you want to really have fun,” and squeezed it tighter than you expected, “you can talk back once in a while. You can be a naughty little puppy, if you want, but you’d better be prepared for discipline. So make sure you know what you’re getting into, alright?” He put his hand back on the wheel.

That was generally good life advice, but you’d be lying if you said you knew entirely what you were getting into. “Alright, sure. Fair enough.” You gazed out the window at the desert terrain. Nothing but cacti and sand for miles and miles. You’d weren’t entirely sure which side of the border you were on anymore, or if it even mattered. “Question,” you posed. 

“Yeah?” Lalo prodded. 

“So, like… what am I supposed to call you while we do this? Just Lalo, or…?” Your voice trailed off, as if you were expecting a different answer out of him. 

“Oh, good question! I was actually getting to that. Such a smart boy.” He laughed and ruffled your hair, making you jump a little in your seat. His touch felt nice, but it was definitely something you’d have to get used to. You probably shouldn’t react that strongly every time. “You can call me Lalo when the leash is off, but if it’s on, you need to be professional. If you’re working, you call me ‘Don Eduardo’, ‘sir’, ‘master’, ‘señor’, ‘jefe’, or ‘patrón’. Those last two basically mean ‘boss’. Make sense?”

Sense was made. “Yeah, alright. Easy enough.” 

“Very good. And how’s your Spanish?”

You shrugged, “Mediocre at best. I can understand more than I speak.”

Lalo chuckled, “Well, I appreciate the honesty. I’ll have to teach you to speak it, then, no worries. Also, if the leash is on and I have you speaking Spanish, call me usted, not tú. That’s just when you’re working, though. Es formal, ¿comprendes? (It’s formal, understand?)”

Okay, sure, you could do that. It might take you a bit to figure out, but you’d get there. “Sí, yo comprendo. (Yes, I understand.)”

“Bueno. Now, what can I call you?” Lalo poked you in the arm, “And I don’t just mean your name.”

Your first thought was an idiot. That seemed like a fitting label for someone in your predicament. Thankfully, your second thought was much more receptive. “Well, uh… what did you have in mind? I’m pretty open.”

“Oh ho, you wanna hear what I think of you? I got a whole list of ‘em in mind. They might not all be flattering, just so you know.”

You secretly hoped they wouldn’t be. “That’s fine. Go for it.”

“Well, there’s the animal related ones. Puppy, dog, perro, cachorro (puppy), and then variants of those like doggy and perrito. Reminds you what you are to me, y’know? There’s also other animal terms like conejito (bunny) and osito (little bear). Basically, anything that lets you know how cute you are.” He reached over to pinch your cheek. 

You giggled. The attention and praise was definitely a perk to this whole arrangement. “That all sounds good.”

“And, if you’re a naughty little puppy.” His tone darkened to a rich growl and he dragged his hand down to your upper thigh, squeezing it hard before he spoke, “I may call you chucho, or a dirty little mutt.” He spat that last word at you with mock disdain. 

The idea of him changing up like that, getting rough with you, putting you in your place, that was another perk. Honestly, you weren’t sure if you were more excited for the praise or the punishment. “Oh… Oh wow…”

He leaned in closer to you, his breath hitting your face. You wondered how he could watch the road like that, but maybe that’s why he drove you through the middle of nowhere. In his mind, you were the only thing worth watching. “You like that?”

“Yeah…”

He showed you how quick he could change by pulling back and switching back to his friendly tone. He gave you whiplash, but not from how he was driving. “Good! ‘Cause I got more. You’re okay with me being mean to you?”

You were more than okay with it, especially if he would say it in that same sexy tone. “Yeah, I mean, like, just don’t call me a girl and you can pretty much say whatever you want.”

“Heh, I’ll keep that in mind.” He patted your thigh before putting his hand back on the wheel once more. 

A few more hours, a few more rest stops, and a few more hundreds of miles, and you pulled up to what looked more like a military base than your future home, complete with friendly, welcoming armed guards and a concrete wall topped with warm, fuzzy, barbed wire. 

Actually, the armed guards were friendly and welcoming, once they realized who was coming at least. Lalo rolled down his window and spoke to a man with a ponytail, who greeted him with a smile. 

“¡Buenas tardes, señor! (Good afternoon, sir!)” He pointed at you in the passenger seat and leaned on the window. “Ooh, ¿es este el nuevo chico? ¡Él es más lindo de lo que usted dijo! (Ooh, is that the new kid? He’s cuter than you said!)” Apparently, his other employees referred to him with the same formalities.

“¡Ay, ay! ¡Mucho ojo, cabrón! (Ay, ay! Watch it, asshole!)” He laughed and pushed him off the side of the car. “Pero sí, es él. Parece un buen chico, ¿verdad? (But yeah, that’s him. He looks like a good boy, right?)” He turned to you. “This is Miguel. He’s one of the guards I have working here.”

Your eyes were fixated on the gigantic rifle across the man’s chest, enough so that you forgot your vocabulary from Spanish 101. “Bien a… bien a conocerte? (Nice to… Nice to meet you?)”

The two men laughed, but you could tell it was all in good fun. Lalo smiled, “Ah, tan tonto… (Ah, so silly...)” and petted your hair again as he corrected you. “You’re kinda right, but ‘Mucho gusto’ is what you’re trying to say, mijo (my boy).”

You blushed the tiniest bit and course-corrected. “Oh, lo siento. ¡Mucho gusto, Miguel! (Oh, sorry. Nice to meet you, Miguel!)”

“Igualmente, chiquito. (Likewise, kiddo.)” Miguel turned around and punched in a code on the keypad. “Listo, patrón. (All set, boss.)” Another term you shared for him. 

“¡Bien! ¡Gracias! (Nice! Thank you!)” Lalo waved him off as he pulled through the gate. He could see the tension in your face and slung his arm over your shoulder. “What, did the gun freak you out? Ah, don’t worry about that. He’s just compensating for something, y’know?” That got a hearty snort from you. “Nah, but really, he’s a nice guy. All of my people are great. I told them all about you, y’know.” He drove up to a spot in his massive driveway and parked the car.

His last statement tied your stomach into a knot. You couldn’t imagine facing an entire army of employees, your potential coworkers, knowing what they knew. “Uh… all about me? Like… what exactly?”

Lalo turned the car off and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Well, basically, your personality, your looks, how we met, and what you’ll be doing here. They don’t need to know all the details. Just enough to know what to expect, right?” 

You unbuckled yours as well, even though you were now mortified to step out of the car. “What I’ll be doing here? How the hell did you explain that?”

Lalo waved off your concerns, “Oh, what, are you worried about? That they’re gonna judge you for it? Don’t be silly! They know better than that. Honestly, they’re all psyched to meet you. Now, c’mon, you’ll see what I mean!” He opened his door and saw you reach for yours, “No, no, let me get that for you, sweetheart.” He stepped out of the car and walked around to your side, opening your door and offering his hand for you to take.

“Thanks.” You gave him a timid smile as you took his hand and stepped out. Sure enough, a couple steps later and you saw an eager crowd of people waving you over. 

Lalo raised the hand you were holding and called out to the crowd as he approached, “¡Aquí él está! Entonces, tengo suerte, ¿o qué? (Here he is! So, am I lucky or what?)” He let go of your hand and patted you on the back. Knowing his ego, he definitely wanted to show you off. 

An older woman was the first to answer him with a voice that sounded like how fresh baked cookies smelled. “Claro, tienes razón, mijo. (Of course, you’re right, my boy.)” She approached you and held her arms out for a hug, which you graciously accepted. “¡Bienvenidos, querido! Estamos encantados de tenerte aquí. (Welcome, dear! We’re happy to have you here.)” she said, hugging you with all the love in her heart. Oh, god, that wasn’t his mother, right? You dreaded to think of how that conversation must have gone.

Lalo introduced her as she let go of you, “This is Yolanda. She’s my housekeeper, cook, and the reason why I have such a fat belly!” He laughed and patted his stomach, clearly exaggerating. In reality, he was only slightly pudgy, but hey, you liked a man with a little squish. Much better to cuddle with. “Let me tell you, she looks sweet, but her cooking is dangerous. I’m told she's got something great planned for us, you’ll see.”

A young man, even younger than you were, raised his hand to ask a question. He looked tense, probably afraid to speak out of turn. “Uh, perdón, ¿señor? ¿Él habla español? (Uh, excuse me, sir? Does he speak Spanish?)”

Lalo scoffed, “¿Por qué te importa a tí? ¿Qué, le vas a decir que huir? (Why do you care? What, you gonna tell him to run?)” He was staring him down like he was trying to melt an ant with a magnifying glass. The kid looked like he was about to piss his pants, he was so nervous. Suddenly, Lalo burst out laughing and flicked the boy’s forehead. “¡Ah, solo te estoy jodiendo, chamaco! (Ah, I’m just fucking with you, kid!)” He then turned back to you. “This is Ciro. He’s another one of the guards here, believe it or not with a babyface like that. He was asking if you speak Spanish.”

“Oh! Hi! Uh…” You took a moment to think of an answer for him, “Comprendo más que yo hablo. Solo hablo un poquito. (I understand more than I speak. I only speak a little.)” You glanced over at Lalo, who gave you a thumbs up. 

Lalo snapped at him, both physically and verbally, though his words had an edge of sarcasm to them. “Entonces, no le digas algo estúpido a él. ¿Entiendes? (So, don’t say anything stupid to him. Understand?)”

Ciro nodded, “Sí, señor. Entiendo. (Yes, sir. I understand.)”

“Bueno. Pues ve a llevar sus cosas a mi habitación. Tiene dos maletas en la cajuela. (Good. Then go take his things up to my room. He’s got two suitcases in the trunk.)” Lalo patted the boy on the shoulder and handed him the keys. 

“Si, señor. (Yes, sir.)” Ciro replied before he ran off to get your bags from the car. 

While he was doing that, Lalo took the time to introduce you to his remaining staff: Cecilio, the gardener, and the other two guards, Herardo and Raul. Everyone seemed like decent, hardworking people, and you couldn’t wait for dinner tonight. After having said your hellos, Lalo said there was one more person you had to meet, a visitor, and he was waiting in the living room. 

Lalo led you into the house, guiding you with his hand on the small of your back. To the right of the foyer was the living room, where sure enough, someone was waiting for you: an older man in a white lab coat. A doctor?

“So!” Lalo gestured to the man standing before you. “This is Dr. Cruz. He’s been with my family for years. Actually, he helped deliver my little cousins Marco and Leonel when they were born, so we have a lot of trust in him. I just brought him in today to give you a quick checkup and see that you’re fit to work. Is that okay?” 

A physical? That seemed pretty excessive, but this was a new job, at the end of the day. You figured it wasn’t entirely abnormal. “Uh… yeah! Sure. I think I’m actually due for one, anyway.”

Dr. Cruz smiled at you. “Great. I just need to talk to Lalo here for one second, and then we can get started. Please, have a seat on the couch. I think that will be the best place for everything. It’s a pleasure to meet you, by the way.”

You returned the smile. “You too.”

As you sat down on the examination couch, Dr. Cruz walked Lalo over into the next room. You could hear bits and pieces of what they were saying, but you couldn’t decipher any of it. He spoke in a hushed voice. “Está seguro que yo no pueda disuadir a usted de esto? (Are you sure that I can’t talk you out of this?)”

Lalo responded at the same volume. “Estoy seguro. No quiero que él se pierda. Te pagaré doble por el molestia. (I’m sure. I don’t want him to get lost. I’ll pay you double for the inconvenience.)”

The doctor sighed. “Bien. Entonces… (Alright. So…)” He put on a friendly grin as he walked back over to you. He reached into a bag that was sitting on the coffee table and started pulling things out. Needles, syringes, bandages, alcohol wipes, and some other medical supplies you couldn’t quite name. Then, he pulled out a file and handed it to you. “These are your medical records from your time in MDC Albuquerque. Would you just tell me if the information here is up to date?”

You briefly wondered how in the hell he was able to get his hands on those, but hey, the cartel family doctor probably had connections. You scanned over a list of medications, vaccinations, diagnoses, allergies. Everything was correct. “Yeah. Looks good.” You said plainly and handed the file back to him.

“Alright, perfect.” Dr. Cruz accepted the file from you and placed it back in his bag. “Now, we need to take some blood to run labs. Just to make sure that nothing has changed and that you’re clear for work. Don’t worry, we won’t need much. Just a finger stick will be enough.”

Bloodwork? That seemed excessive too. But, come to think of it, you’d basically be sucking Lalo’s dick for a living. He probably wanted to make sure you wouldn’t give him anything. “Okay, yeah. Hit me.” You held your hand out. 

Dr. Cruz snapped some gloves on before he grabbed your wrist and stamped the needle into your fingertip. You winced at the stab, but it was over in a flash. Then, he milked your finger to get some blood, enough to fill up a small vial. “This will be used for STI testing. We’ll have the results back in a few days, but we’ll only call if you test positive for something. As far as we’re concerned, no news is good news.” Once the vial was full, he capped it and bandaged you up. He put the vial in a bag, sealed it, and stored it with the rest of his equipment. “Okay, last thing on the agenda. Your records state that you’re due for a tetanus shot. It’s a big injection, so I’ll have to numb you first. The injection site will bruise and be sore for about a day or two. Now I’m sure this is probably different from how they do it in the states, but this is how it’s done in Mexico.”

“Oh, really? Interesting.” You pondered, none the wiser to your boss’s plan. He’d exploited your naivete and trust in him to get you to do this, and it worked like a charm. You had no clue. “Yeah, I mean, if I’m due for it, might as well.” You rolled up the sleeve for your non-dominant arm.

“Perfecto.” Dr. Cruz said as he grabbed your forearm. He sanitized the underside of your bicep with an alcohol wipe. “First is the local anesthetic. Tiny pinch, but then you won’t feel a thing when we do the second one.” He positioned the syringe just below your muscle. “I’m gonna have you breathe in and out twice, and on the second exhale I’ll inject. You ready?”

“Yep.” You said, closing your eyes and calming your nerves.

“Alright. Breathe in…” Inhale.

“And out…” Exhale.

“And in…” Inhale.

“And out…” Exhale. Pinch. 

“Beautiful. Now, it’ll take about 30 seconds for the numbing to kick in. I’d advise that you keep your eyes closed while I prepare the vaccination. The needle size may frighten you.” 

“Sure thing.” You obliged, keeping your eyes closed and your arm out. You could hear the doctor rifling through his bag, unwrapping sterile equipment and popping containers open. It was hard to picture exactly what he was setting up, but you could tell he was done when he grabbed your forearm again. “Can you feel me touching you?” He asked. “Not where I’m holding you, I mean right here.” He poked your bicep again, not that you knew, of course.

“Where?” You asked. 

Dr. Cruz chuckled. “Okay, you’re numb. Now, same thing as the last one. I’m gonna have you take a deep breath twice before I stick you. Ready?”

“Yep.” You repeated.

“Breathe in…” Inhale.

“And out…” Exhale.

“And in…” Inhale.

“And out…” Exhale. You didn’t feel a pinch this time.

“Amazing. You can open your eyes.” As you did, you watched Dr. Cruz set the syringe on the coffee table and grab some gauze. He debriefed you as he wrapped it around your bicep. “The numbing will last for a few hours, so it’ll probably wear off in your sleep. You may bruise and be a bit sore tomorrow morning, and you can take the gauze off then as well. Try not to overwork the muscle for a day or two.” He taped the gauze to secure it, then patted you on your shoulder. “And you are good to go, my friend. I wish you all the best in your new position.”

You gave him a friendly smile. “Sounds good! Thanks so much!”

“No problem. I’d say see you around, but hopefully you won’t have to deal with me too much.” He laughed as he finished packing his bag. Once he was done, he grabbed it and turned over his shoulder to Lalo, “Y enviaré a usted la factura mañana. Me llame si él se molesta. (And I’ll send you the bill tomorrow. Call me if he has any problems.)”

“Claro. Gracias otra vez. (Of course. Thank you again.)” Lalo replied as he led the doctor outside, patting him on the back for a job well done. He shut the door, and finally, finally, he could focus on you, and he was chomping at the bit to get started.  “Alright! We’re good to go! Got the formalities out of the way, so now,” He sauntered over to you, swaying his hips as he walked. When he got to you, he snaked his hands behind your back and grabbed your ass. “Now, we can put you to work.”  You barely had time to react before he let you go, but not before giving you a playful spank. “Follow me, doggy.”

You squeaked at the literal pet name. Being ordered around by him felt better than you thought it would. This was going to be amazing. He led you up the stairs to his bedroom, though you were practically chasing him up with how excited you were. When you arrived, he closed the door behind you two. “Stay right here.” Lalo commanded. He walked over to the dresser and opened a fancy box that sat atop it. You heard the clinking of metal, and when he turned around, he was holding a black leather collar in one hand, and a chain leash in the other. You beamed at the sight of it. This is what you were here for. You couldn’t wait. You’d be such a good boy. Lalo knew that, but still, he had to ask. “You ready, puppy?”

“Yes, sir!” You responded cheerfully.

Lalo smiled and fastened the collar around your neck. His calloused fingers swept your hair out of the way; his hot breath billowing against your sensitive skin. It was intense. You could feel your thoughts fading away as you focused on getting into your new role; a cute, silly little puppy. You closed your eyes and let the warmth of his embrace dress you up. 

Lalo cupped your face in his hands and pressed a kiss to your forehead, whispering sweet nothings in his native tongue as he petted your hair and scratched behind your ears. “Oh, mi chico hermoso, eso es. Se veas perfecto con ese collar. Es como tú has nacido para ser mi perrito. Vas a ser un buen chico para mi, ¿verdad? ¿Vas a hacer lo que yo digo? Oh, sí, sí, buen chico. (Oh, my beautiful boy, that’s it. You look perfect in that collar. It’s like you were born to be my puppy. You’re gonna be a good boy for me, right? You’re gonna do what I say? Oh, yes, yes, good boy.) Such a good boy.”

Your head lulled from side to side, following his gentle touch. As he pulled back, your eyelids lifted up, and you saw his gorgeous face. Dark brown eyes half-lidded, his mouth curled into a smile. You were so happy to see him. You really did feel like a puppy, so bubbly and playful at the sight of their master. You gave him a goofy grin and said, “Hi…”, one of only a few words left in your brain.

“Hi, puppy.” Lalo cooed as he caressed your cheek. “You ready to get started for real?”

You nodded. You’d been ready for hours.

“Bueno.” Lalo hummed as he clipped the leash on your collar. Thus began the start of your first shift. You were working now. Henceforth, you were at his beck and call, his perfect little lapdog. “Now, I’m gonna teach you some tricks. I’ll say them in English and Spanish so you learn a bit. Okay?”

You giggled, already feeling hazy and obedient. “Okaaay…”

“Perfecto. Entonces… (Perfect. Now…)” Lalo backed off you to straighten his posture, and pulled the leash taut. “Siéntate. Sit.”

You dropped to your knees without a second thought and gave him a cherubic smile. If you had a tail, it’d definitely be wagging. You were anxious to make him proud of you.

“Good boy! So smart!” Lalo praised as he crouched down on one knee and held out his hand. “Dame la pata. Shake.”

You laid your hand in his and waited for your next command.

“Bueno. ¿Puedes hablar? Can you speak for me, boy?”

You could. Barely. “Yes, Don Eduardo.”

Lalo smirked and shook his head. “Oh, no no no. Not like that, mijo. Like a dog. Habla. Speak. Let me hear you bark, okay?”

You blushed, but you wanted to be a good boy. And good boys do as they’re told, no matter how embarrassing it may be. “Woof! Woof!”

Lalo couldn’t help but laugh. You were just so cute! “Oh, that’s perfect! Good boy!” He kissed your forehead again before standing up. He tugged the leash to get your attention. “Stand up. Levántate. Two legs.”

You rose to your feet and stood upright, hoping it wouldn’t be for too long. It was hard to act like a puppy when you were standing like a person.

Lalo could read your mind. His next command solved the problem you were thinking of. “All fours. Cuatro patas.”

You smiled and went down on your hands and knees for him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on the leash. “Ven aquí. Come here.” 

You crawled over to him and knelt between his legs. Instinctively, you rested your hands on his thighs, before realizing he didn’t tell you to touch him. You started to pull away, but Lalo interrupted you.

“You can keep them there. That’s fine.” He traced his fingers from your collar up to your chin and tilted your face up to his. “You’re a real lapdog, aren’t you? You want your master to take care of you, right boy?”

You nodded.

Lalo tugged the leash and gave you a firm command. “Habla. Speak.”

“Woof!”

He snickered again. God, you were just perfect for this. “Oh, good boy. I’m gonna have so much fun with you.” He tapped his hand on the bed. “Arriba. Up. Up on the bed, and then get in my lap.”

You crawled onto the bed, the smile never breaking from your face as you sat in his lap. Lalo’s hands dragged down your back, mapping the curves of your hips. He took his time admiring his new pet. “You can use words now, puppy. ¿Quieres tu patrón que te haga sentir bien? (You want your master to make you feel good?)” 

You whimpered and nuzzled into his neck, trying to translate and then answer him in Spanish. “S-Sí, patrón… (Y-Yes, master…)”

Lalo’s hand made its way back up your spine, your breath shuddering as he traced his finger up. “Mírame. Look at me.” He took a handful of your hair and tugged your head off his shoulder. You let out a soft gasp and met his gaze. He was staring you down. Before, you’d felt calmed and nurtured by his attention. At this moment, you felt weak. Exposed. He was just so intimidating. He had you quite literally in the palm of his hand, right where he wanted you. He kept you waiting for longer than you would have liked, almost like he was sizing you up, trying to see when you’d break. Once your anxiety reached its peak, he pressed his lips against yours.

You sighed into the kiss and collapsed onto him, your arms slumping onto his shoulders, gripping his silk shirt. Lalo’s lips enveloped yours, his tongue pushing inside your mouth to swipe across your own. His teeth tugged your bottom lip. Since he was holding onto you by your hair, he slipped his hand through the loop of the leash and let it explore, groping your chest, your ass, your thighs, eventually letting his hand rest on your front between your legs, cupping you through your jeans. 

Even though you were the dog, you praised your master, “Oh, fuck, Lalo...”

Your master yanked your hair back and reprimanded you. “No, no. You’re working. What’s my name?”

Panting like the dog you were, you tried to parse the meaning of his question. When you got it, you said it. “Don Eduardo…”

Lalo confirmed your answer, “Good boy,” and took your lips back in his. He released his grip on your hair and moved to unbutton your shirt, unwrapping you like a gift with his name on it, “Oh, chico, you have no idea how much I missed this.” He placed an open mouth kiss on your neck, just above the collar, “I missed that tight little hole,” and on the other side, “Always so wet and needy for me,” and bit down enough to leave you with a glaring mark. 

You wanted to moan his name again, but hesitated. Lalo seemed to roll off the tongue more easily than Don Eduardo, especially when you lacked the brainpower to talk more than absolutely necessary. Thankfully, you recovered. “La-ah… oh, fuck, patrón…”

Lalo peeled your shirt off and let it fall to the floor. “Yeah?” He asked, biting on the other side of your neck. “You like that, puppy? Habla.”

This time, your bark wasn’t loud and confident. It was akin to the yip of an overstimulated Pomeranian. “W-Woof, woof…” you whimpered. 

“That’s it…” He pried himself from your neck and tugged the leash. “Date la vuelta. Roll over. On your back.” 

You scurried off his lap and onto the full expanse of the mattress, flopping onto your back with your knees propped up. It was much softer than the prison bed you two were on last time you did this. Lalo climbed over you and worked your pants off, then everything of his except his boxers. He pushed your legs apart and smiled at the visible wet spot in your underwear. 

“Aw, perrito, look at you! I got you all worked up, huh?” He was honestly one to talk, judging by the tent in his boxers, but you weren’t about to argue, especially when his face was mere inches away from your core. Lalo slid your underwear off and threw it over his shoulder. He laid down on his stomach and pushed your thighs up to your chest, revealing your weeping, aching hole. He bit his lip at the sight, and flicked his eyes up to yours. “It’s good to see you again.” He said before diving in headfirst.

You gasped as his tongue swiped up and down your cunt, lapping up as much of your wetness as he could. He pulled away to warm you up some more, leaving wet kisses and sharp bites on your squishy thighs. The teasing made you whine, though not as loudly as he’d like. He took your t-dick into his mouth and started to suck, which gave him the exact response he was looking for.

“Ah! F-Fuck! Fuck!” You cried as your hands scrambled for something to hold on to. One found the sheets, and the other his hair. Keeping him still, you bucked your hips up and started to fuck his mouth, whimpering pure nonsense the whole time. Just combinations of “please”, “fuck”, “more", and the cutest little sounds he’d heard in a while. 

Lalo let you have your fun. He even winked at you, which you interpreted as a signal for “Yeah, you like that?” He took one of his hands off your thighs and brought it down. You didn’t realize why, until you heard some soft grunting. You felt the mattress bounce, just a tiny bit, and strong vibrations against your cock. He was stroking himself, feverishly so, to the point where he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Lalo ripped his head up and gasped for air. “Dios mío… (My god…)” He laughed breathlessly before getting off the bed and tugging his boxers down. “I hate to rush this, but… I don’t think either of us can wait any longer.”

He was right, of course. You’d been waiting for this moment ever since you got out of prison. No bars, no guards, no spectators, no worries. Just him filling you up and fucking you into the rest of your life, a life of luck, luxury, and lust. He hopped back onto the bed and positioned himself in front of you. You held your legs open for him, making it easy for him to slide inside. He gripped the base of his cock, and looked into your eyes for approval. You nodded, and he pushed in.

The sensation of being full was too much for you to keep quiet. Reflexively, you moaned his name. “Oh! Lalo! La-ah!” Your praise for him was cut short by a slap across the face.

“No! Bad boy!” He tugged you up by the leash to face him. “I told you, you’re working. And what’s my name when you’re working?” He snarled.

You hastily corrected your mistake. “Don Eduardo! Don Eduardo! I’m sorry, Don Eduardo!”

“Much better.” Lalo lessened his grip on the leash, allowing you enough slack to fall back against the pillow and hook your legs around his waist. He gave you a hard thrust, making sure he bottomed out inside you. Then another. And another, until he had a good rhythm going. His efforts earned him a slew of pathetic babbling from you.

“Don Eduardo! Don Eduardo! Ah! Fuck…! Fuck me! Please!”

As much as he loved hearing you beg, he didn’t want you bossing him around. He was the master here, not you. You were his dog, his bitch. He lowered himself down, pressing his elbows into the mattress, and shut you up with a kiss. You hugged him tight, whining into his mouth as he rutted inside you. He pulled away and growled into your ear. “Eso es. Tómalo. Tómalo, puto. Eres mío. Eres mío y de nadie más. Perteneces a mí, y voy a follarte como la perra que eres. (That’s it. Take it. Take it, whore. You’re mine. You’re mine and no one else’s. You belong to me, and I’m gonna fuck you like the bitch you are.)

You couldn’t hear a word he was saying over your own cries and the obscene sounds your bodies made. He held you tight against him as he used your body like a toy. You couldn’t move or fight him off, not that you’d want to, but you were completely powerless, and in turn, he had complete power over you. From now on, at any time he wanted, he could clip a leash onto your collar and take you for himself. You’d spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, knowing that you could be stripped naked and fucked senseless at any moment. Exhilarating, thrilling, intoxicating, none of these words seemed to fully encapsulate what you were feeling.

You choked on his formal title as you pleaded for mercy, mercy that you didn’t expect to get. “D-Don Eduardo! Don Eduardo! I’m gonna…! Oh, fuck, I’m gonna cum!”

“Oh, already? Is that right?” Lalo sneered and slithered one of his hands in between you two. He gripped your dick and started to stroke it, knowing that was the key to making you break. “Do it then! C’mon, puppy! Be a good boy and cum for me!” 

You didn’t need him to tell you twice, or even once, for that matter. You orgasmed on his command, squirting hard enough to force his cock out of you. You sobbed into his shoulder, overwhelmed and overstimulated, clinging to him for support through it all. When it was over, you collapsed back against the bed, gasping for air and relief.

Lalo sat up for a moment, admiring how beautiful you looked when you were too pleasured to think: your face flushed, chest rising and falling, tongue hanging out of your mouth. You really were like a puppy, all tuckered out from playtime. It was adorable. 

You stared up at the ceiling as you basked in the afterglow of climax. It was like lying on the beach at sunset. The warmth of your body heat being cooled by the dots of sweat on your brow; the oxytocin flooding your brain like waves on the shore. Blissful. Peaceful. Serene.

Yet you had no vacation time left to use. You were called in to work by your master slamming his cock into you and bringing you back to reality. You yelped and stared up at him in shock as he pumped in and out of your abused hole.

“What?” He scoffed. “What did you expect, doggy? You’re not finished ‘til I finish.”

You weren’t sure how many times he made you cum that night, but the last thing you remember was dozing off with his seed spilling out of you.

–

You woke up the next morning in Lalo’s bed, alone. On his pillow, there was a note. You reached for it and rubbed the sleep out of your eyes to read it. It said: 

Good morning, puppy! Great job yesterday! Come to the kitchen when you’re awake and I’ll cook you breakfast. 

XOXO,

Lalo.

You smiled. He was so sweet. You folded the note and stretched to put it on the nightstand, but suddenly, you felt a jolt of pain in your bicep. Right, the tetanus shot. The numbing had worn off. Oh well, at least you could take the gauze off by now. You unwrapped your arm, and just as you suspected, there was a nasty bruise at the injection site. Going against better judgment, you pressed down on the mark. Something you felt shocked you enough to recoil, not the tender bruise itself, but rather the foreign object implanted underneath it.

That’s when it hit you. 

When Lalo said you were gonna be his dog, he meant it. You were to be collared and at his beck and call 24/7, and in return he’d give you food, water, a place to live, companionship, everything a responsible dog owner should provide.

And what else do responsible owners do for their dogs?

They microchip them so they can’t run away.

[spockandawe]

First of all: I've been lurk-following your Binderary journey and holy shit Spock you're a *beast*. :O :O Second of all: how do you decide when to round the spine of a book and when not? One of the things that keeps me from trying to bind larger works is that rounding the spine seems scary and complicated.

Awwww, thank you!!!! :DDDD

Okay, so my initial unhelpful answer is that it's kind of just a Vibe. When you start getting thicker, your books will start to look a little trapezoidal, because the thread at the spine starts to add its thickness to the paper. Technically, you CAN get away with this for as long as you want, but books look more elegant when the front and back covers are parallel, and it makes them easier to store on a shelf too.

When I did my single-volume tgcf, it was partly a challege to see if I could go that large in a book without rounding and backing. There's a little bit of a slope to the cover, but not much! And that book is over 2000 pages long. I did that with large signatures (40 pages/10 sheets of paper) and shopping around for thin linen thread to sew it with. I don't remember the way thread gauges work, but there's numbers for this. I pressed the HELL out of the book at every stage of the process, and it could be a bit stronger, just structurally speaking, but it worked out pretty well!

However, though, rounding really isn't a terrible part of the process. Usually these days, if I round a book, I back it too (the shoulders give it that mushroom shape and lock the rounding in place, which is a little stronger and easier to measure for a case), but for a while I was definitely rounding without backing. My old bindings of faraway wanderers are all done like that, I think, just as an example. In THEORY, these may slightly un-round over time, but I haven't seen much of that happening on my shelf so far, and I think it's been a year and a half?

Now, in backing, you need something to clamp your book in and hold it steady while you hammer the mushroom shape into the spine (nominally a press and boards, but I don't have the right press, so I use loose boards and g clamps), and it's kind of annoying, especially if I have multiple books in the pipeline, but rounding is MUCH easier. To round, you still hammer the spine, but you can probably get the shape started with your fingers before anything else. I'm doing a very disjointed job of explaining, apologies, but you just want your spine to be glued while it's in a curved shape, to mitigate the bulk of the thread. Here, one sec, the thumbnail for this shows rounding AND backing, but this is the video I learned to round from

I put glue on my spine, let it get a bit tacky and push the spine into a curve while I wait, and then it's a matter of flexing the book against the table and hammering the top edge of the spine. It's much easier to understand in motion, so I'll stop trying to describe here, but it's really not too bad, especially if you don't want to deal with backing!

Sometimes in das videos, you'll see him PLANNING to round and back the spine of a smaller book, so he'll use smaller signature and thicker thread, to give himself the necessary bulk to work with. If you try it on a very thin book (my first six-volume tgcf book four, for example), you probably won't see much of anything happen. No harm no foul! But since my thicker books there were looking very trapezoidal, I felt like I needed to try. Since I got that uneven effect, when I did a six-volume set again, I sewed all the books with big signatures and thin thread, so they could all be flat-backed. Rounding and backing is a really classy look once you get the hang of it, and it's very structurally strong, but if you're working with limited equipment or trying to get a lot done fast, you can DEFINITELY avoid it unless you're cornered. The faraway wanderers I bound this month is thicker than my old ones, but has a flat back. I guess my teal deer is that if you notice your book is more of a wedge than a rectangle, I encourage you to give it a try! But if you just don't want to deal with it, you can ABSOLUTELY plan your books to avoid the issue. I'm doing it more because I want to expand my skills than anything else, haha.

So there we go! I don't know how coherent I am yet, but I hope that helps a bit. It was definitely nervewracking to get into rounding and backing, but the rounding for sure is VERY attainable and much easier than it looks. Good luck, I hope this helps!!!

[mirandamckenni1]

Did fanfiction make us gay?! An InvestiGAYtion 🏳️‍🌈 Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code JESSICA for an extra 4 months free at https://ift.tt/1qoKI8B @SurfsharkAcademy One of the reasons I love fanfics is that fanfiction is so gay! Queer fanfiction certainly meant a lot to me in the ‘oh wait, we DON’T all fancy other girls?’ realisation stage. So in today's video, we are diving deep into the world of fanfiction 🕵️ 🔎 What is 'bury your gays'? Why do so many straight people read gay fanfiction? and most importantly... was it fanfiction that made us gay?! Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:48 A beginner’s guide to finding gay fanfic 08:15 Representation matters 15:29 Un-burying your gays 21:13 Exploring queerness through fanfic 27:00 Why do so many straight people read gay fanfiction? 32:27 Where is all the femslash? 38:20 Soooo, did fanfiction make us gay? 40:02 Wrapping up Is Taylor Swift Queerbaiting?- https://youtu.be/lSYNulz0Q6g The history of Queer Coding- https://youtu.be/GsO4fZYHQic FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Instagram ➭ https://ift.tt/gcV9OFJ TikTok ➭ https://ift.tt/JG1mgBy Facebook ➭ https://ift.tt/ctmEZsX Threads ➭ https://ift.tt/lkN3aLP How to JOIN the Kellgren-Fozard Club and SPONSOR this channel ➭ https://www.youtube.com/c/JessicaKellgrenFozard/join If you've enjoyed this video then feel free to buy me a drink to show your support! ➭ https://ift.tt/JKvGtjo Music by Epidemic Sound ➭ https://ift.tt/zdAZtm0 ---------------------------------------------------------- Bibliography: Why Women Love Making Fictional Men Have Sex (https://ift.tt/CRU0S6T) Alison Bechdel: ‘The Bechdel test was a joke... I didn’t intend for it to become a real gauge’ (https://ift.tt/DOpHQMl) “A Space Where Queer Is Normalized”: The Online World and Fanfictions as Heterotopias for WLW ( How Queer Fandom Took Control of Our TV (https://ift.tt/C20rgny) Autostraddle’s Ultimate Infographic Guide to Dead Lesbian Characters on TV (https://ift.tt/syNpzxO) How Fanfiction Helped Me Come To Terms With My Queer Identity (https://ift.tt/MEz7xUv) Toward an Understanding of Whether Straight Fanfiction Exists: A Study (https://ift.tt/MGjkPop) Why Do Queer People Write Fan Fiction? To See Themselves in Mainstream Culture. (https://ift.tt/XkLci9b) Who gets to write about gay men? (https://ift.tt/qS6Amwo) I’m done explaining why fanfic is ok (https://ift.tt/riPA4sZ) Fanfiction: An Ally to Queer Fans (https://ift.tt/ZJFwWqi) Why we're terrified of fanfiction (https://ift.tt/XvaLqHo) Canon, fanon, shipping and more: a glossary of the tricky terminology that makes up fan culture (https://ift.tt/ucNzb16) Lesbianism Is More Mainstream Than Ever, but TV Is Moving Backwards (https://ift.tt/OkTA4uy) Why Are So Many TV Shows About Queer Women Getting the Axe? (https://ift.tt/i8pLU6g) AO3 Ship Stats 2023: The Femslash Top 100 (https://ift.tt/ZItkKSR) Harry Potter is Gay: An Investigation of Queer Fan Culture (https://ift.tt/OJ4ialo) Aria Velz’s TikTok: https://ift.tt/POYF7Vc All 235 Dead Lesbian and Bisexual Characters On TV, And How They Died (https://ift.tt/dvJIZib) Pop Culture Fix: Is Lexa’s Death on “The 100” the Beginning of a Lesbian TV Revolution? (https://ift.tt/v9hnF7f) AO3 Ship Stats 2023 (https://ift.tt/S6wjNFn) Can TV stop burying our gays already? (https://ift.tt/h4RlMDZ) via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1xndMWUK0

[ananka-fasteners]

Nickel Aluminium Bronze NES 833 Part 2 - Ananka Fasteners

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[marmotish]

🎄👻 Duncan Christmas SQ 👻🎄

Part 3. The Crossing

(~2500 words under the cut)

The bus ride down to Cairnryan was awkwardly silent, with neither Duncan nor Freyja really ready or willing to discuss what had happened. Less awkward than actually speaking to each other though, from an outsider’s perspective.

Not a word was spoken until they had boarded the ferry, with the exception of Duncan hissing “one ticket!” when Freyja initially asked for two at the port.

With most passengers choosing to enjoy the onboard amenities, it was reasonably empty up on deck. No surprise though, given it was late December. The winds coming off the water were chilly to say the least, and the overcast sky did nothing to improve the scenery. But they would have to speak eventually, and better it happen out in the open, away from a larger crowd. That was when Freyja decided it had been long enough avoiding the subject.

“So what was it like?”

“What?”

“When you were inside -“

“DON’T SAY IT.”

Freyja stopped talking, and returned to watching the ocean. Looked like the blunt approach wasn’t the best way to start. But the question was still hanging in the air, unanswered. It was now up to Duncan to resume the conversation. But when? Who knew. Minutes ticked by without another word being spoken.

Well, if he wanted to spend the next couple of hours in silence then that was fine. Nothing was stopping her from enjoying everything else the ferry had to offer. If she got moving now, she could -

“It was really quick, I don’t know...”

OK, forget that.

“I didn’t even know what was happening, but then everything kind of hit me at once. The smell of the street, the cold air on my face, the clothes on my body, the ground under my feet... well, your face and all...”

He hesitated, as though he might have said too much. Freyja waited for him to continue, watching his face carefully.

“It was almost like - being alive again.”

Well FUCK.

Freyja didn’t know how to respond to that. Duncan had always seemed more life-like, more alive than any of the other ghosts she knew. The way he moved through the world was reminiscent of a living person.

Not like Professor Binns, who acted like he didn’t even know he was dead. Quite the contrary, Duncan was more than aware of the fact that he was dead. That was just the problem.

Sure, he floated around like any other ghost, but it was little things that Freyja noticed while they were in Glasgow that kind of set him apart. He never took shortcuts through walls, he moved through the appropriate doorways and corridors. He stuck to moving along the sidewalk. He waved away car exhaust even though he couldn’t smell it. When it had started raining, he pulled up the hood of his cloak, even though he couldn’t get wet.

All these behavioural quirks told of someone who was trapped in an existence they didn’t want, who was instead trying to hang onto any threads of humanity, of a real existence. But pretend as much as he like, he would never be able to replicate the feeling of really being alive. And he had never come closer to being alive than for the few seconds he had taken over Freyja’s body.

Choosing the blunt approach again, Freyja broke the silence with another question.

“Would you do it again if you had the chance?”

“What?!”

Duncan leapt back, putting plenty of space between them. Freyja raised her eyebrows in question, waiting for a reply.

No, it was a terrible idea. As much as he wanted to feel almost alive again, he didn’t know if he would be able to handle it. He barely made it to 5 seconds before.

“You know,” Freyja shrugged her backpack off her shoulders. “I’ve been up for almost 30 hours straight, and I’m just now starting to feel it. I wouldn’t mind switching off for a bit.”

Duncan almost imperceptibly shook his head in confusion, watching as Freyja pulled out an impossibly large blanket and sets it on one of the boxy seats on the deck.

“Think I’ll have a rest. Might be my only chance before we reach the port.”

“Up here on deck? In the cold?”

“well I could sleep inside, but then you wouldn’t be able to smell the salt in the air, or feel the wind in your face. Anyhow, this blanket’s thick and heavy enough to keep you warm.”

“You keep saying ‘you’, but -“

Freyja settled down on the seat, pulling the blanket around her shoulders while Duncan hovered from a safe distance looking understandably perplexed.

“Though you’ll probably fall asleep before too long. If you were able to feel what my body felt before, then you’re going to feel tired too. Think of it like we’re 2 drivers of the same car, my body being the car obviously. If the car runs out of petrol, it doesn’t matter who’s driving. It’s not going anywhere.”

“JUST GET TO THE POINT.”

Freyja glared at him. “Oh NOW you want the blunt approach.” Rolling her eyes, she continued. ”Fine. I’m saying if you wanted to try the possession thing again, then that’s fine with me.”

OK. She really said it. He wasn’t really expecting her to.

But possessing someone just to fall asleep? What would be the point in that? Then again, it would be less intense than possessing a body that was being fuelled by pure adrenaline. Surely something like falling asleep should be enough for him to handle. God knows he was emotionally exhausted. Not being able to sleep and spending every moment with your own thoughts would be enough to exhaust anyone. Who knew that would also be the case after death?

“Why would you let me do that again?”

Duncan was wary. On one hand, he was tempted to take up the offer. But this didn’t seem to be an offer made from the goodness of her heart. From the past year, he’d come to realise that Freyja rarely did anything seemingly selfless without some kind of underlying motive. That or she was just bored, and he didn’t know which one worried him more.

Freyja shrugged. “Why not? Besides, I’m curious. I want to know if the theory about cars and drivers is right. I have two conditions though. One, that you get out before we hit port. Two, if you’re somehow able to cart my body around, don’t lose my blanket or any of my other stuff . That includes money. I’m on a budget.”

With that, Freyja dropped her backpack onto her lap and hugged her knees up towards her chin, enveloping herself in the blanket. She watched and waited for Duncan’s response.

He was grabbing at his own sleeves, unsure about what to do. It was strange to see him look so uncomfortable, and he was silent for so long that Freyja regretted ever making the offer.

“Hey, forget it-“

“I don’t even know if I can do it again.” Duncan started, rubbing his arm. “But - I want to try.

“Alright?”

“And I don’t want you watching me.”

Freyja nodded. “Fair enough.” She slumped a little further down on the seat and closed her eyes.

Duncan shut his eyes as well, and took an un-necessary deep breath. He took a moment to steel himself, then peeked out of one eye. Freyja’s eyes were still closed, but her legs were jiggling under the blanket. Impatience or anticipation? Hard to tell.

Screwing both eyes shut, he flew forward, meeting a sudden feeling of warmth followed by a shiver up his spine. Gasping, Duncan opened his eyes. He brushed a silver fringe out of his face. Seated in the deck chair now, he observed the world from this borrowed body. Steadying his breath, he closed his eyes, focusing on each new sense in turn.

Now, having spent more than a few moments in this body, he could also feel Freyja’s consciousness at the back of his mind, and it was slipping steadily towards sleep.

Well, she was right about two things. One, he could definitely feel the exhaustion from this body. It was a wonder she kept going this long. He could feel his eyelids drooping, try as he might to keep them open.

Two, this blanket was undoubtedly warm enough to keep out the winter chill. It was heavy though, weighing down on his body. Not that he minded, it was a comforting weight, like being held in a warm embrace.

He pulled the blanket up to his ears, slowly breathing in the salty sea breeze, feeling the gusts of winter wind across his face. Wrapping his arms around himself, he allowed the sounds of the sea to lull him to sleep.

---

The sounds of screaming (laughing?) children running across the deck jolted both Freyja and Duncan awake, with the latter being suddenly ejected from the former’s body, practically hurtling over the railing.

“Are we there?”

Duncan reeled himself back in on deck before taking a look ahead. “Not far off, the port’s further inland.”

“Ok, ok that’s good.” Freyja rubs sleep from her eyes, stretching herself out. “You have a good rest?”

Duncan turned his head sharply in Freyja’s direction, ready to catch any hint of mockery. But if she was being anything other than genuine, he couldn’t tell by her face. “it was fine.” He answered.

Freyja wandered over to the railing next to Duncan, carefully bundling up her blanket to avoid tripping. He waited for her to interrogate him about the possession, but she didn’t press further. She didn’t even look at him. Rather, she kept her gaze fixed on the water’s edge, taking in the sights. “Can’t wait to see the city.”

Again, Duncan tried to gauge Freyja’s tone. Was she being serious? Sure, a relatively neutral zone like the city centre was nice enough by comparison, but surely she knew the state of things once you ventured past the ring of steel. “You keep up with Muggle news, right?”

“If you’re talking about the situation over here, then yes, I’m aware.”

“I kept up with the news while I could, and I wrote to Gran while I was away as well. But I get the feeling she downplayed a lot of the stuff that happened when I wasn’t there.” Duncan shifted his gaze towards the approaching port. “Now I haven’t been able to write or keep up with the news since ... you know. But I can’t imagine things are much better than when I last came here.”

Freyja took a deep breath before answering. “It’s not the kind of thing that just blows over in a few years.”

“You know what was ironic though?” Duncan let out a mirthless laugh. “My parents told me it would be safer here with my Gran.”

Freyja frowned, but didn’t say anything. Duncan continued. “You know the First Wizarding War started not long after I was born? My family was scared shitless, and they didn’t even see the worst of the attacks, if you can imagine. Muggles were copping the worst of it at that time, and not just from the Death Eaters.”

Duncan’s jaw clenched, and he appeared to be gripping the railing tightly. “sometimes I don’t think my family ever stopped to consider what was happening outside their magical little bubble. Hell, they barely even paid attention to me until I started at Hogwarts. Then they saw that I could be a valuable, contributing member of the magical community.”

The children from before came running and laughing past them again, momentarily filling the silence that had fallen.

“Whether I was at home with my parents or with my Gran, it made no difference to me, safety-wise. There was no escaping what was happening out there. It’s funny - it all seemed so normal, I thought everyone’s childhood was like that. I guess if you never knew any different, you didn’t realise just how messed up it was. “

“By the time the Wizarding War ended, I was already at Hogwarts. I hadn’t been allowed to see Gran since First year. When we heard that You-Know-Who had been defeated, the first thing I did was run off to write a letter to my Gran telling her it was over. Asking if I could come over again.”

“But she said the same thing she’d been saying since I was 11. Not now, we’ll wait til it’s safer.” Duncan sniffed, his expression darkening. “It probably killed her to know that after all the effort she put into protecting me here, I died in a fucking explosion anyway...”

Oh God, things weren’t meant to get this heavy. Freyja had been silently pleading for him to stop talking. But it just kept coming, and she could say nothing. But what could she possibly have said? What input could she have given?

Like Jacob, Duncan’s childhood had been constantly shadowed by the War. Unlike Jacob however, Duncan was unfortunate enough to be caught between two different conflicts from two different worlds. It must have been confusing for him as a small child - not knowing where one finished and the other began.

Freyja racked her brains for something appropriate to say, when the arrival announcement sounded, alerting passengers to gather their belongings and prepare to disembark. Grateful for the interruption, she quickly moved back from the railing and started to fold up her blanket to pack it away.

She stopped mid-fold and ventured a look back at Duncan. He hadn’t moved from the rail, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

“Duncan, I -“

“Don’t bother hurting yourself trying to squeeze out an emotion, that’s not what I was going for.” Duncan turned to face her, his usual fed-up expression back in place. “But I do want to say that... I appreciate what you’re doing. I know Belfast isn’t exactly one of the top tourist destinations for Christmas right now.”

Freyja nodded in acknowledgment, continuing to pack up her blanket.

“Are you scared?” Duncan asked.

Her head snapped up, fixing Duncan with a stern gaze. She tightened the loops on her backpack with a little more force than necessary, and swung it over her shoulder. “An outsider walking into a decades-old sectarian conflict? Should I be scared?”

“Outsider or not makes no difference if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d be stupid to not be scared.”

Bristling, Freyja jammed her hands into her jacket pockets. She knew perfectly well that being from out of town wasn’t going to be her get-out-jail-free card. She knew that waving her wand around wasn’t going to be any help if she was outnumbered. But part of her just wanted to know if she could do this. A stupid, selfish, insecure part of herself. The same part that reared it’s ugly head when Jacob once again dismissed her as some sort of unnecessary baggage in the Portrait Vault last summer.

“And I know you’re not stupid. Bloody Ravenclaw, and all.”

“My stupidity runs deep, don’t let the blue and bronze fool you.” Freyja grimaced, studiously avoiding eye contact. “but I’m not so stupid to believe that this is going to be a walk in the park.”

The other passengers were filing past now, a more insistent cue for the two of them to get moving. It took two shoulder collisions to bring Freyja out of her reverie, and shake her head clear of nagging doubts. She looked up at Duncan and gave him a decisive nod.

“Come on. We’ll make sure the only one of us who gets back to Hogwarts dead is me, ok? There’s no way I’m sharing my bathroom with you for the rest of eternity.”

---

[crionic-soc]

I've spent the last year and a half kicking myself for choosing terror management theory as a framework to analyze popular diet culture, not because it doesn't work (I think it does), but because it applies so well to our current political situation that I can't sleep at night.

It's hard to stay narrowly focused on nutrition and related stuff when larger themes of neoreactionary thought and autocracy and the dismantling of democratic institutions keep intruding, over and over. It's hard to ignore the obvious immortality project staring me in the face.

[...]

I first made the connection between social hierarchy, health, and the fear of death many years ago, as a teenager, but it became really explicit to me in online arguments about body weight and health just a few years back. It was so obvious that people constructed hierarchies of "better" and "worse" people (along lines of body weight, presumed lifestyle choices, and other health indices) as a way of convincing themselves that they wouldn't ever do something as gauche as GET SICK AND DIE. A lot of this came from various alt-right types and corners.

I remember one of my twitter friends responding in the most perfect way ever to these attempts at bullying with "That's right, in this land of immortal highlanders only the weak die," or something like that. It cracked me the hell up, but it also pointed to something crucial which is a theme running through alt-right and neoreactionary ideas, a sort of ubermensch or superhuman ideal, but in the updated format of transhumanism or the technological singularity. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's okay, I kind of wish I didn't.)

[...]

I didn't make the connection between what I was studying/experiencing (people using body size and health to form social hierarchies that allow them to suppress the fear of death) and the weird stuff I'd run into online by accident (neoreactionary philosophy, alt right) until 2016

I had understood that there was some serious social Darwinist thinking at work underlying all forms of hierarchy and oppression, and that this was the alt right's "we hate everybody (except cishet white men) equally" stock-in-trade, but that was about all I had pieced together.

It didn't fully click until 2016, as I was taking notes on Ernest Becker's writings, watching the US election unfold, that neoreactionary, anti-democratic thought as a whole is a massive immortality project, and THIS is what it has in common w/ my topics (fat stigma,diet culture)

[...]

Whenever I say "immortality project" everyone's eyes glaze over, so let me explain a little - you could say immortality projects are humans' attempts to "leave a legacy" that endures when they are gone, or belief systems that offer the possibility of an afterlife in some form.

Becker, I guess, states that all cultural production and norms and technologies and institutions are immortality projects, because they are objects, or even ways of doing things, that get passed down from one generation to the next, that endure beyond a single human's lifespan.

The immortality projects that fascinate me, however, are the ones that create systems of inequality, and use the strategic oppression and marginalization of a group of people as the foundation upon which those who think of themselves as superior can stand and reach for eternity.

[...]

[T]his morning after I woke up from a night of twilight sleep where my brain kept gnawing on neoreactionary thought/Moldbug/Land/Thiel/Bannon/Dugin like a cud, I sat down in my thinking chair and noticed the index card sitting next to me on my bookshelf.

It says, "The gauge of a truly free society would be the extent to which it admitted its own central fear of death and questioned its system of heroic transcendence--and this is precisely what democracy is doing much of the time... The free flow of criticism, satire, art, and science is a continuous attack on the culture fiction--which is why totalitarians from Plato to Mao have to control these things, as has long been known." (Becker, Escape from Evil, p. 167)

It grabbed me is because I woke up troubled by one question: Why, in a supposedly egalitarian democratic society that is quite hierarchical and unequal, would those resting near the very top of the hierarchy (largely white, male technophiles) be the ones clamoring for more?

Why are the Thiels of the world, for one e.g., obsessed with upending the (barely functioning) democratic institutions that extend to the rest of us a tiny, imperfect modicum of liberty in favour of an explicitly autocratic vision that would have us be serfs and slaves?

Like WHY do the people who have EVERYTHING in the current system, WHY must their shitty futuristic fantasy influence an election, when there are tons of people who have more ethically defensible visions of a future with expanded rights and equality for all people?

Why do the people who have it all, who live on the bleeding edge of technological advancement, contribute in massively influential ways to our culture, who are massively financially rewarded, NEED EVEN MORE? To the point of doing away w/ enlightenment ideals and democracy itself?

It seemed impossible to understand, and then my index card reminded me: because when you can't navigate your fear of death, can't even SEE it, nothing is ever enough. You can reach the top of the existing hierarchy and at the end of it, you're still human, still going to die.

Thiel is terrified of dying, openly invests in technologies that offer immortality. The neoreactionary platform has several literal immortality mechanisms baked in: futuristic AI, the technological singularity, transhumanism. It's The Highlander all over again. Nerds.

But the current system doesn't offer as direct a path as they would like to this glorious, immortal future--even though it's the one the rest of us need (and need to fight tooth and nail to expand, given how un-egalitarian it actually is) in order to have any rights at all.

They've climbed to the top of the shitty hierarchy we currently have, that is at least democratic in name, and now demand an even less democratic, more hierarchical system. Because even though they have every systemic advantage a human can have, they're still not quite immortal.

The antidote to this is MORE democracy and egalitarianism, not less, and the hierarchical structure of our current system is what enabled these people to climb to the top and ram through their vision of an even less equal future, while others fought and died to have basic rights.

If you give people a ladder to climb to be nearer the gods, they will climb up it, realize the gods are still not near enough, then set the thing on fire until it consumes them like a pyre. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, except usually the ladder is made of other people.

I don't believe in immortality, and I don't consent to being a burnt offering. That's all.

- a transcribed Twitter thread by Michelle Allison (@fatnutritionist)

[vanilladyfics]

Pack Animal - Ch 2

Read the first chapter here!

Ship: Wolf!Kastuki Bakugo x Fem Hiker!Reader

Genre tags: Hurt/Comfort, childhood friends to lovers, omegaverse themes because wolves, aged up

Warnings: Sex reference, swearing, hording reference, divorce reference, slight angst

Word Count: 1.2k

Authors Note:

I had a plan and did not stick to it.  This is looking to be a four or five chapter fic.

Summary:

The reader meets up with Katsuki after their one night stand to explain why she left as a teen.  Turns out, wolves have never heard of divorce.  This chapter is relatively safe for work.

Do not repost.

You stopped by the laundromat before your visit with Katsuki.  Your father had a washer and dryer at home, but they were currently being used for storage, for rocks of all things, and likely needed to be replaced.  After checking that no one was looking, you gave Katsuki's borrowed shirt a deep sniff.  It still smelled like him, but what could he smell?  Wolves were known for their keen senses-- would he be able to guess the state of the house from smelling it?  You dropped the shirt in the wash, added an extra splash of bleach to the tub to be on the safe side, and pressed start.  The countdown started at thirty minutes.  You checked the time.  By the time this last load would be dry and folded, you would have three hours before your father got home.  Factoring in the drive and hiking time, you'd have two hours to talk with Katsuki.  More than enough time.

You slouched down in one of the cheap laundromat chairs and went over how you were going to have that conversation.  You decided last night that you needed to keep it simple.  Tell him only what he needed to know: Your parents divorced, you moved away with your mom, and didn't know how to contact him. You would not give any details he didn't ask for.  Under no circumstances would you mention the hoard.  With the fresh laundry safely locked in your rental truck, you went to the bathroom to change your clothes and slathered on so much sunscreen you looked three shades lighter.  You grimaced at your reflection, feeling guilty for going to the same lengths an alcoholic would to hide the smell of booze after their last bender.  You had no reason to feel ashamed.  It wasn't even your mess.  Maybe the guilt came from lying by omission.  Maybe because your father was hurting and you abandoned him in his time of need.  You pressed the thought down, taking practiced breaths.  On your way out, you noticed the battered condom dispenser by the door.  The conversation you were about to have would surely squash any chances at getting lucky tonight.  You bought two, anyway, and stuck them deep in your front pocket.  You didn't want a repeat of last time.  Well, you did want a repeat of last time, preferably with protection.

---

About half an hour later, you sat next to your old friend at the end of the fishing dock, your jeans rolled up to your knees, ankles dragging in the water.  You hugged your backpack to your chest as you apologized for the umpteenth time.

“Stop fucking apologizing and just spit it out.”

“I'm sorr--” You clamped your jaw shut, catching yourself.  You rehearsed this so well on the drive here, but something about seeing his face ripped your perfect monologue into shambles.  “This went so much better in my head.” What's worse is that he's being so nice about it.  Nice for him, anyway.  Seeing how much he had grown as a person only made the time you spent apart feel so much bigger.

You recalled your breathing exercises and tried again.  “My parents got divorced.  We tried to do the split custody thing, but it didn't work out.  When I went to my mom's that last time, I thought it was just going to be for a week, but then we moved further away, and I didn't know how to contact you. I'm... I want to say I'm sorry, but I know you don't want to hear it.”   Katsuki had been unusually quiet for a long time.  Anxiety seized in your chest.  “Please say something.”

You stared at his profile, trying to gauge his expression.  He seemed... confused.  His brow furrowed. “You lived at your father's den, and then at your mother's den.”

“Mm hmm”  You nodded, not bothering to correct his lupine word choice.

“Separate dens.”

“Yes.  Mom moved out after they got divorced.”

His nose wrinkled.  “What's 'divorce'?”

Your jaw dropped as you repeated his question in your mind. What's divorce?  This is not where you thought this conversation was going, but at least he wasn't asking about the house itself.  “Do wolves not have divorce?”

“Would I be fucking asking if we did?”

That's fair.  “Maybe you just have a different word for it.  Divorce is when... Divorce is...”  Your nose stung, and you could feel the tears coming.  You kicked your feet in the water to distract yourself, watching the fish scatter as you made waves.  You sighed.  “My parents were married-- you'd say mated-- and now they're not.  That's divorce.  Mom's with someone else now.  He's nice, so that's good.”

You could feel Katsuki still beside you.

“Kacchan?”

“Did your father die?”

“No, they're still alive, just--” You gestured vaguely, “separate.”

The wolf man stood abruptly, and started pacing the length of the pier.  “They were mated, and now they're just... un-mated?”  Bile rose in his throat.  He might be sick.  Wolves don't just up and un-mate their mate.

You watched him grow more agitated. “Close. ‘Un-mate’ would be an annulment.  Divorce is more like... ‘stop-mate.’  If that makes sense.”

“You have more than one kind?  No, it doesn't make any fucking sense!”  He raked his fingers through his hair.  Katsuki was pissed, and he didn't know who he should be pissed at.  He wanted to howl at the injustice of it all.  His quirk fired off in his hands, but he barely felt it.  Un-mate. Stop-mate.  It was complete bullshit.  He could have lived his whole life without hearing those words, and now he couldn't un-hear them.

You chased after him, “Katsuki! It's okay!  It was years ago.”

“It's not okay, it's fucked up!” He grabbed your shoulders and pulled you into a hug so tight your ribs ached.  You squeezed him back, tearing up again.  It was a hug that came almost a decade late, but you needed it the same, burying your face in his neck. “That shit should never happen.  I am so fucking sorry.  Fucking un-mate--” He spat out the distasteful word, combing his fingers through your hair.  “[Y/N], I would never un-mate you.”

Something about his scent sapped the fight right out of you.  Your father had mentioned something about certain wolves having calming effect.  Was this it, or part of his quirk?  You had been running on stress for so long; without it, you deflated against him.  He spoke as if you were a couple, but you didn't have the energy to argue.  He smelled so good, like the smoke rising from a snuffed-out candle.  You absently wondered if he tasted good, too.  “Kacchan...”  You turned your head, nuzzling against the same spot on his collar where he bit you last night.  You could do the same, you thought, licking your lips.  He'd probably let you. You could barely keep your eyes open.

“Don't go falling asleep on me now,” he warned, threading his fingers through your hair.

Too late.

[nitewrighter]

Heya, Mun!! :Dc

I absolutely adored the Thing fic with the fankids!!! And I was wondering if there would be a continuation/part 2/sequel to that fic? Or was the gang's leaving through the elevator them leaving to safety? I was just imagining them just unwittingly sinking deeper into the bowels of that lab for more terrifying encounters! I hope you're doing well!!! :DDD

(Referring back to this fic)

The elevator was supposed to be them going up to safety, but I think followup would be interesting...

----

Winston, Jack, Mei, and Mercy were all seated at the conference table, opposite of Marti, Aedan, Jaime, and Samir. A part of Aedan was relieved that the people looking at their debrief was mostly scientists, but it still made his stomach turn as Jack frowned at his tablet.

“...a blob,” said Jack Morrison, glancing up from the tablet that held the team’s debrief, “...you went into the Talon lab, and you were attacked by a blob.”

“A mass of nanites and human tissue, yes,” said Samir.

“A blob,” said Jaime.

“It’s unclear if it was attacking or attempting to communicate,” said Marti, not fully making eye contact with him. Jack’s wrinkled brow furrowed wincingly at her own words, lending further reality to the events described to him. Jaime had bullshitted him before, and Aedan and Samir both had a habit of launching off into multiple tangents that suggested muddled observation, but Marti had eyes on a mission that he could count on as his own--probably better than his own, with his age.

“Was--was this like back at Urdr, or--?” said Jack.

“You have to understand, this wasn’t a nanite amalgam,” said Aedan, “It had human DNA. In all likelihood, it had your DNA.”

“And Reyes’s,” Samir added in as Jack paled.

“So, what, this was a failed attempt before they made the woman that attacked you back in Japan?” said Jack.

“Andrea,” said Aedan.

Jack gave him an odd look, mulling over the name.  

“Her name is Andrea,” said Aedan.

“From the Greek ‘Andros,’ ‘of man,’” Winston chimed in, “Quite a clever name considering her--” Jack shot a look at Winston and Winston cleared his throat.

“Yes--We’re pretty sure the lab was the site, or a site, where they were attempting to clone you and Reyes,” said Marti.

“And you said you sealed the lab behind you?” said Winston, looking at Marti.

“We could open it again, with decryption,” said Marti.

“Don’t really want to do that anytime soon though...” said Jaime.

“And you said it apparently ‘fed’ on biotics and... biomass?” said Mercy, looking at her own tablet.

“Our working theory is that it must have consumed several scientists, forcing Talon to abandon the site,” said Samir.

“If it made it out, it could spell ecological disaster for the surrounding area,” murmured Mei.

“Well, that might be dependent on how... resilient it is,” said Aedan, “I mean, just outside that lab is unforgiving snowy peaks and glacial ocean. If it has human DNA, it might be subject to similar limitations.”

“So it can be killed,” said Jack.

Aedan paled.

“If it’s sealed in the lab, it could just... starve to death on its own, right?” said Jaime.

“With the artificial aging on clones and biotics basically shutting down decomposition on the clones that were still in their amnio-tanks, it’s not actually clear how long its been down there,” said Aedan. His gaze had become fixed on the wood of the table, “But based on how it reacted to our presence...”

“I think it was hungry,” said Jaime.

Aedan could feel Mercy’s eyes on him, studious, discerning, and he wanted to shrink into his chair and disappear.

“If the lab is sealed, I think we can assume it doesn’t currently present a threat to the surrounding area,” said Winston.

“So, we just stick a pin in the secret lab in Cordillera Darwin that has a cannibalistic human-nanite blob lurking around in it?” said Jack.

“Well, we could call in Interpol,” said Winston.

Aedan tensed in his seat at the mental image of a wall of armed agents of some unknown country fixing their sights on the blob.

“We still don’t know the extent of how much Talon may have infiltrated the UN or different governments,” said Jack.

Mercy shuddered, “Just as well, if the existence of such an organism becomes mainstream knowledge, it could kick off a biological arms race. Even governments who abhor Talon’s biological experiments may see the need to create their own... projects... to try and counter it.”

“Keeping secrets never went particularly well for us, either,” said Jack.

“Mei and I could test the waters with other scientists in our correspondence,” said Mercy, “Get a gauge on how desperate other countries might be with regards to Talon’s research...”

“We could have Athena re-direct one of our satellites to send us more regular updates of imagery of the area if anything changes,” suggested Mei, “I could set up cryo-mines to stop it without too much damage to the lab...”

“If it could be frozen...” said Winston.

“if I had some samples of it... just to get a better idea of what we’re up against...” Mercy started.

“Why are we against it?” said Aedan, his voice came out as a flinch. “It didn’t ask to be made, but now we’re talking about killing it like it’s--it’s-- some sort of infection!”

“We didn’t say we would kill it,” said Winston.

“Only that it could be killed--” Aedan argued.

“It’s not an infection--” Mei started calmly.

“You said it was an ecological threat!”

“It consumes biomass---” Mei started.

“It has human DNA---” Aedan’s voice was overlapping with hers, “What, because it’s ugly? Because it’s a blob?”

“Even if it has intelligence, it’s highly likely that intelligence was also shaped by Talon’s brainwashing. If it’s smart, it could be as hell-bent on destroying us as that other cl--Andrea,” said Jack.

“But LaCroix came back from it!” said Aedan, “What, it comes into the world with no context except what Talon pumped into it and we just decide it’s a monster!? Let it be locked away in that lab or--?”

Aedan felt a hand on his shoulder and he glanced sharply over at Marti. “What?!” he snapped.

“...it tried to eat us,” said Marti.

“I--” Aedan inhaled and found his breath was short. Aedan wasn’t sure what he was arguing. He could remember the sheer terror of that thing pursuing him, the sheer horror that it came from an amnio-tank like he did. For a few mad flailing seconds he wondered if this was some instinct his mother implanted in him--an unconscious kinship with the monstrous, some mental building block for the world she wanted to build--no, no, too much speculation, too much spiraling. “I’m emotionally compromised,” Aedan said, standing up, “If you require further details on the debrief, you can call me but--I--I need some air.”

“Aedan--” Samir started as he stood up but Aedan was already out the door.

“...so... putting a pin in it?” said Winston, after a long pause.

----

David Bowie’s ‘Quicksand’ warbled through Aedan’s earbuds as he listened to the song on his comm and sat on the small bench in the Watchpoint garden. Aedan closed his eyes and took in the smell of upturned earth and orange blossoms on the ocean air. The sunlight glowed red through his eyelids, but he opened his eyes as he felt a shadow pass over him and startled slightly to see Mercy blocking the sun. He tensed a bit. “...is... there something you need, Doctor Ziegler?” he said warily.

“May I sit?” said Mercy.

Aedan scooted over and she took a seat next to him on the garden bench. A long silence passed between them.

“You know, we planted that olive tree over there when Rei was born,” Mercy said, pushing brightness into her voice and pointing at an olive tree with some canvas spread beneath it to catch the falling olives.

“Yes, she, um... told me when she gave me the tour,” said Aedan.

“Oh,” said Mercy. And they sat in silence a while longer. Aedan couldn’t recall a time when Mercy had ever actively sought him out, and she seemed too awkward to have any malice in her actions--not that it was really in character for her to go out of her way to be malicious to him, but he knew his presence in general made her uncomfortable, especially with regards to Rei. Mercy clasped her hands together in her lap.

“Aedan--” she started.

“Look--” Aedan started speaking at the same time but he caught himself and glanced down, “Sorry. You go first.”

“I... wanted to apologize for that debriefing,” said Mercy, “Of course it was standard procedure that those on the mission be present, and given the nature of the mission, it was important that you were there, but we should have taken more care.”

“I know... time sensitive,” said Aedan, slouching his elbows onto his knees.

“And... I apologize for the precedent I’ve set in how I’ve treated you,” said Mercy.

Aedan blinked. “What?”

“You threw all security and your entire future with Talon away to save Rei, but I still viewed you as a potential threat to us for months,” said Mercy.

“Well... that’s fair,” Aedan said a little helplessly, not really sure what to say, “I mean, given the history with LaCroix---”

“And we all rationalized it as that for all that time when it must have been incredibly lonely to you,” said Mercy.

“I was scared of it, too,” Aedan blurted out.

“What?” said Mercy.

“I--I was scared Mum put something in me. Something in my head. Some unconscious set of automatic orders that I would follow just when we’d all let our guard down,” his breath shook a little, “I even looked for it--Master Zenyatta helped me search for it in my head--some Shambali hypnosis thing--but it wasn’t there. But a part of me’s still scared of it,” Aedan threaded his thin fingers into his red hair, “Zenyatta said, maybe this fear is some... manifestation of having this-this consciousness just... propped up within me all at once. Like... I don’t have... the physical chronology so my brain keeps thinking there has to be something more and then jumping to the worst conclusion---” he curled his knuckles against his forehead, “Seeing that thing in that lab--Mum made me to prove that nanite organisms can survive infancy--and once Talon knew they could do that, they just started making....” His other hand unconsciously went over the point on his solarplexus where Andrea’s fist had torn out of him, “They just... started making...” He drew a steadying breath before letting his hand drop from his solarplexus.

He felt a gentle hand on his back and his head jerked over to look at Mercy. She was looking at him gently.

“I don’t know what I could say that could comfort you,” Mercy said quietly, “I wish I did.”

“Honestly I’m still kind of processing the fact that you’re even listening to me right now,” said Aedan.

Mercy snorted. “Fair,” she said with a slight nod before looking over at him, “Have you... mentioned any of this to Rei?”

“I’ve heaped enough clone hangups on her,” muttered Aedan, “And she’s scared enough about Mnemosyne nearly being used on her back in Urdr without me adding my anxieties to the list.”

“You shouldn’t think like that,” said Mercy.

“Like what?”

“Making yourself smaller and living with a problem rather than working through it,” said Mercy, “But... you could talk to me, or Genji, or Zenyatta about it. There was a time when Genji had a lot of anxieties about how human he was, as well.”

“Oh--Uh, thank you,” said Aedan, honestly more than a little intimidated at the prospect of talking to Rei’s father.

“You’re a part of this team, and you’ve proven that plenty of times,” Mercy went on, “And... we wanted you in that debriefing not just because you were on the mission, but I think... we thought you might know better than anyone how to deal with..”

“A giant cannibalistic human tissue nanite blob that we’re not even sure is sentient?” said Aedan.

“Yes,” Mercy caught herself, “But I don’t mean ‘deal with’ like--”

“I understand,” said Aedan. He paused, “I--I don’t want to kill it. Or hurt it. Not unless we have to, and not until we understand it more.”

“I agree,” said Mercy.

“Maybe it could even help you find that cure for Reyes,” Aedan mentioned offhandedly.

Mercy gave him a slightly shrewd look.

“I knew it crossed your mind,” said Aedan, he caught himself, “But--it can’t be a lab rat, either...” his voice trailed off a little, “I wonder if it’s in pain right now...Maybe it had been down there so long, the nanites in it couldn’t distinguish between loneliness and hunger...” 

A softness filled Mercy’s eyes and she tilted her head at him slightly. 

“What?” said Aedan.

“You know... your mother was always trying to push humanity to something... beyond human. I just think it’s very special that you try to see humanity in what we don’t understand.”

Aedan scratched at his temple blankly, weighing her words for a few long seconds. “Uh... thank you.”

Another pause passed between them, not uncomfortable, but both ruminating on passing over a threshold of mutual discomfort into a sort of cautious familiarity. 

“Does loneliness sometimes feel like hunger to you?” said Mercy, her brow crinkling slightly with some amused curiosity, “With your nanites?”

“Well, I don’t know if the connection is that direct, but sometimes I feel them... perking up when I’m with Rei, and I wonder if they’re responding to the biotics her body naturally--” Aedan realized he said the words ‘perking up’ and ‘her body’ regarding Rei to Rei’s mother, instantly caught himself, and noted that Mercy’s face had shifted from gentle curiosity to maternal alarm. He cleared his throat. “Er--I mean... it’s probably psychosomatic---It’s not like I feel the same around a biotic rifle---That is---nanites are--You know what? I’m going to stop talking.”

“Mm,” Mercy forced a nod, “Yes. I think this is a good point to stop.”

“Good talk?” said Aedan.

“Good talk,” Mercy huffed before standing up. 

“And--Doctor Ziegler?” Aedan said as Mercy started to walk away. She glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Thank you,” said Aedan, “Really.” 

Mercy smiled a little. 

[metricthreadgauges]

Balancing Between Annual Sourcing Budget And Custom Thread Gauges And Thread Taps Stock In Your Tool Room?

One of the key considerations in striking the balance between annual sourcing budget and custom thread gauges and thread taps stock in your tool room is understanding the specific needs and usage patterns within your manufacturing operations. Conducting a comprehensive analysis of the demand for custom thread gauges and thread taps allows for informed budgetary decisions. Assessing the historical usage patterns and anticipating future requirements are vital aspects in determining the appropriate stock levels and budget allocations.

A critical factor in this delicate balancing act is the variability in demand for custom thread gauges and thread taps throughout the year. Seasonal fluctuations or project-specific requirements may influence the consumption rates, and aligning the annual sourcing budget with these variations is crucial. Adjusting stock levels based on anticipated demand variations helps avoid overstocking or understocking, ensuring that the tool room is adequately equipped to meet operational needs without unnecessary financial strain.

Another consideration in balancing the annual sourcing budget and tool room stock involves evaluating the lead times associated with procuring custom thread gauges and thread taps. Understanding the typical turnaround times from suppliers allows for strategic planning in aligning stock levels with project timelines. Businesses can optimize their budget by avoiding rush orders or excessive stockpiling, aligning the procurement schedule with the lead times to maintain a lean and efficient tool room.

Technology advancements and innovations in precision machining may also impact the equilibrium between the annual sourcing budget and tool room stock. Staying abreast of technological developments ensures that the stock in the tool room aligns with the latest requirements and specifications. Investing in state-of-the-art custom thread gauges and thread taps may require adjustments in the annual budget, but it ensures that the tool room remains equipped with cutting-edge tools that enhance efficiency and precision.

Ensuring a seamless flow of information between these departments allows for real-time adjustments in stock levels and budget allocations based on evolving operational needs. The procurement team must have a clear understanding of the production schedule and project timelines to align sourcing decisions with the trapezoidal thread taps demands of the tool room.

Implementing a robust inventory management system is instrumental in maintaining equilibrium between the annual sourcing budget and tool room stock. Leveraging technology to track stock levels, monitor usage patterns, and generate timely reports facilitates data-driven decision-making.

[boymeetsweevil]

sleeping bags (and other unconventional cures for insomnia)

Grouping: Reader x Hoseok

Word Count: ~2.5k

Warnings: i think it makes the cut for PG-13, idk... Sort of enemies to lovers if you squint, cuddling!!! BUT also talk about money troubles and insomnia. Sorry for the weird title

Summary: This is my contribution for the @bangtan-bookclub holiday fic swap. This is based off the prompt “snowed in with your enemy at a ski resort” and this is for @hoseokiehopie. Hey Megan! Sorry for the wait, I hope you’re having a good holiday season! 

A/N: also thank you to @b-angst-tan for reading my first 3 drafts and getting me to redirect my frustrations

“Get in the bed, please.”

“N-no.”

The sound of teeth chattering from the cold is just barely audible above the sound of the fire that Hoseok started earlier in the evening.

“Please get in the bed. They said the temperature’s gonna drop another 10 degrees before midnight.” “I’ll focus better if I’m at the table. Stop trying to sabotage me.”

“Who’s trying to sabotage you?” 

Hoseok’s voice booms over the small space of the cabin, but you ignore him in favor of scanning through your 15th court case and scribbling on a notepad. The cold is starting to get to you, but you fight through it as best you can. Your fingers seem to have other plans, though. The pencil you were holding drops for the millionth time because the cold has made your fingers rigid. You bend down to grab the pencil and hear Hoseok sigh, followed by the sound of his approaching footsteps. He swipes up the pencil just before you can grab it. “Get in the bed or I’m shutting your computer down.”

“Stop! I’m on a strict schedule.”

He examines you further for a second before throwing his hands up. “Your lips are turning blue. That’s it, I’m taking your computer.” “If you so much as touch my computer, I’ll—” In that moment, your computer screen turns black and shuts off. You’d ignored the low battery warnings for too long, apparently. Hoseok laughs and shakes his head at the irony while you look on in horror. At this rate, you’d have no time for a power sleep if you wanted to finish all the cases before daybreak. “Serves you right.” The shock of your computer dying makes you pliant enough to allow Hoseok to maneuver you away from the table. He brings you to the side of the bed before getting in on his own side and quickly shimmying back into his sleeping bag. It seems to be professional grade from the logo emblazoned on the body of the bag. Not that it matters to you at all. Stubborn, you sit stiffly at the side of the bed, back ramrod straight and lap facing away from Hoseok. “Are you really going to just sit there all night? You might as well try and get some sleep since you can’t work.” “I can’t not work, Hoseok. If I don’t, I can’t prove to Professor Kim that I should be going with him to visit the client to gather testimonies.”

“Why can’t you just go with the flow,” he asks as you run to your bag to see if the printed copies of the cases are there. “Not all of us live a life where good things just fall into our laps. Some of us have to work for it.” He watches as you rifle through your bag several times. There are no printouts to be found and you walk back to the bed with a defeated slump in your shoulders. “I don’t understand why you work so hard, though. You’d probably do fine even if you weren’t first in line for everything. And you’d probably still get into a good firm even if you didn’t participate in all the law extracurriculars available on campus.” You flop down onto your back because there’s nothing else you can do. The wood grain on the ceiling makes an interesting pattern from this vantage point. Too bad it won't get you un-screwed. “I can’t do the bare minimum. I’m a scholarship student. Everyone already thinks I don’t belong at the school because I’m a freeloader.” You make air quotes to the ceiling. “I can’t not be rich and then not get good grades.” “That…makes sense, but does it have to be number one?” You nod. “Why?” You shrug, hopeless. “No one can say anything bad about you if you’re number one.” Hoseok tilts his head and looks at you. Really looks at you. You look a little more frazzled than usual after having the week that you’ve had. First, the toughest professor on campus tasked you to work with Hoseok for the rest of the school year as partners in his student research team. Only one person is ever ahead of you in terms of test scores, GPA, or being fast-tracked to the best internship positions and its Hoseok. Hoseok is, for all intents and purposes, your competition and he doesn’t even see it because he doesn’t ever have to try to earn his number one position. He’s rich and brilliant and chill and you hate it. Everything got slightly worse when the first task of the year was for the two of you to go spend 3 days in isolation at a ski resort. The original intent was so you could survey the suite your professor booked before he went there with an important potential client of his firm. But the peak of suckiness then came when you realized you were given the keys to the wrong lodging: an economy cabin for 1 instead of the luxury suite that could comfortably house 8. Things went further downhill when you couldn’t duck out of the resort to go do outside work at home because a sudden blizzard struck. And since you didn’t think you were staying, you didn’t even pack for the weather.

Now you are trying to meditate away the chill that was seeping into your bones. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you knew when you were getting dressed this morning that just a sweat-suit and a windbreaker wouldn’t be enough for the weather at a ski resort, regardless of how long you were staying.

There’s nothing you can do now, as you wait for morning to come and hope the constant chattering doesn’t make your teeth fall out. “You didn’t pack a blanket or anything?” “No,” you sigh. Another large shiver wracks your body and Hoseok can’t help but feel something inside him reaching out to you. “I thought I would just stop by and get the inspection over with in a few hours and leave.” “And you don’t want try going to sleep?”

You lock eyes with him and immediately tense up. “I can’t,” you whisper. Your voice is muffled through your hands while you breathe onto them to warm them up.

Everything about the moment is oddly conflicting. You’re so frustrated and so cold, but Hoseok’s gaze is so sympathetic that it feels like its burning holes through your lame knitted beanie. Combined with the dull yellow firelight cast on his already bronzed skin and his coppery hair, he seems like warmth itself. No, he feels like the sun because you can’t bear to look at him. Briefly, you wonder if it’s possible to cry when your tears are frozen.

None of these feelings make any sense.

His brows raise slightly and he turns to you in his sleeping bag. You turn subconsciously towards him as well. “What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” “Oh, come on,” you snort. “You’ve never heard those rumors that people spread about me? Or heard the jokes about me never sleeping and being addicted to coffee?” “Those are true?” His mouth drops open at the prospect of you actually popping pills before zooming around the library at night like a sped-up ghost. “Well...no. I just can’t ever really sleep. I think it's insomnia, but I never got it officially checked out.” “Why not?” “Couldn’t pay the consultation fees even at Campus Health because I had to waive my health insurance. And I can’t get a job right now, otherwise I’ll jeopardize my scholarship.” You play with a loose thread on the bare mattress underneath you. The shame makes your hands itchy and restless. “Oh.” The sounds of the logs Hoseok put into the fireplace earlier getting eaten by the flames takes over for a while. It’s almost nice, but it doesn’t do much for you. For Hoseok, though, the sound is lulling him to sleep. He’s a natural early-riser and sleeps early as a result. Knowing that you’ll be up all night with nothing to do, trying not to freeze makes him feel awful. He unzips the side zipper on his sleeping back and scoots closer to you on the bed. “Get in.” “What? Hoseok, I can’t.”

“I’m not asking if you can. You’ll freeze if you don’t. You don’t have any other options, and the guilt will probably kill me faster than the cold will kill you.” When you don’t budge, he tries one more time. “Get. In.” “I won’t fit.” “Yes, you will. This is an extra-large. Get in.” “This is so inappropriate.”

Hoseok snorts in reply before tugging on the loose fabric of your shirt as a silent ‘hurry up’. Even still, you wait until he’s opened the bag up more and then wriggle your way in so there’s still enough room between you to be respectable. Given that he’s had some time in the bag by himself, it’s already significantly warmer than the air outside it. As soon as you’re fully in you realize the tapered shape of the bag means your feet have to touch Hoseok’s. Somehow that’s more intimate than the fact that your faces are less than a foot apart. You’re still shivering, though. Hoseok takes note and moves closer to you.

“What are you doing?”

His cheeks color. “I’m just—you seem like you’re still cold.” “R-right.” He presses closer and you instinctively look up to gauge his features. With the fire slowly dying, the light has changed. This soft red light still suits him and lends a subtle softness to his otherwise sharp bone structure. His hair also matches the flames crackling in the background.  The sound of his breathing is deep and steady, but slow. His arm brushes yours as he shifts onto his side. Everything is very...cozy. You’re struck by a strange feeling. It’s a familiar one, but you can’t remember where you’ve felt it before. While you contemplate, Hoseok takes a moment to look you over as well. In all truth, he’s sad he hasn’t gotten to know this much about you until now. He didn’t want to believe the rumors that he had admittedly heard floating around since his first year in the law program. Part of it was because he knew what it was like to be the subject of jealous rumors. He knew what people said about him and his parents’ wealth and his accidental success both in school and outside of it. But he also just didn’t believe some of the stuff he’d heard about you. They called you the girl that never sleeps. He supposes that’s because, like him, you’re always in the top 1% of class. But he’d also heard people say that you’re the girl who breezes through the stacks late at night like the ghosts rumored to haunt the ancient school halls. The girl who allegedly has 4 different fake prescriptions for Adderall and extra-strength caffeine pills. The girl who is always the first one to show up for classes, for exams, for office hours, for the legal colloquium meetings. Perhaps the name is the only accurate thing attributed to you. He knows your pride wouldn’t let you take the easy way out and that, as a result, you could be found at any hour outside of class in the stacks, studying. But he can’t imagine you being as conniving as everyone makes you out to be. Just a little insecure and a little sleep-deprived. The dark circles under your eyes that are always there are a clear sign of the price you pay to keep your high spot in class among your cohorts. It’s a little sad.

Hoseok finds himself wondering what you look like when you’re carefree and smiling. He wants to know what you look like when you’re just lying in a patch of sunlight because you can and there’s nothing you want more. He wants to see what you look like when your eyes are drooping with contentedness. “You’re staring. Is there something on my face?” He snaps out of his musings and realizes he’s been spacing out while staring directly at your forehead for some time now. When he shakes his head, you only give him a suspicious look before you turn your back to him. “Let’s give the sleep thing a try, okay? If it works, tomorrow I’ll let you read all your cases unbothered.”

He sets his phone on airplane mode to conserve battery since the storm killed the power. He sets the phone alarm next and then gets up as carefully as he can without letting too much cold air in so he can extinguish the fire. By the time he comes back to the bed, you’re already missing his heat. You’re tempted to turn to face him again so you can seek the warmth out at the source, but the potential misunderstandings would be too much for you to deal with right now. So you settle for scooting back an inch or two until his body heat radiates more strongly against your back.

“I’m just cold. Don’t read into this too much.” You’re glad that he can’t see the mortified way your face heats up in embarrassment.

“I won’t,” he says to you before slinging an arm around your middle and bringing you closer. “As long as you don’t misinterpret this either.”

“You’re still cold?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the syllable.

Then, for the first time in months, you feel the cottony weight of sleep taking over your body. Suddenly you can’t seem to care that you haven’t finished reading the 30 court cases you brought with you to be prepared for the meeting next week. All you care about is letting the feeling wash over you until you end up somewhere else. The last thing you see before your eyes shut is Hoseok’s hand pulling the hood of the sleeping bag over both of your heads.

When you wake up, you’re cuddling Jung Hoseok like your life depends on it. Somehow you’ve migrated completely on top of him, with his chest pillowing your head and your leg thrown across his. His arm is still wrapped around your middle, though it’s more tightly holding you than before. You hold your breath and wait for the embarrassment to come rushing in, but it never does. Instead all you can focus on is the fact that your head feels clearer than it has in a long while. In fact, your whole body feels more refreshed. 

Reluctantly, you try to pull away, but the arm Hoseok had thrown over you squeezes you lightly. You freeze up in his grip and he relaxes his hold a bit. “Sorry for, uh, getting in your space,” you mumble into the fabric of his thick sleep shirt. “Are you uncomfortable?” “Actually? No.” He shifts so he can roll over and rest his cheek on the top of your head. “Let’s sleep in, then.”

“But shouldn’t we talk about—”

“Do you wanna get dinner with me as soon as we’re not stranded here?”

You stammer for a second and Hoseok takes the moment to adjust the sleeping bag around the two of you once more. Under the cover of darkness, he probes again.

“So, dinner?”

[krishnasteel190-blog]

C276 suppliers in India

C276 Round Suppliers in India

C276 Round Suppliers in India (by and large called Branch Connection Fittings or Outlet Fittings) which give an outlet from a more prominent funnel to a humbler one (or one of a near size).

C276 Round Suppliers in India are fanning fittings made by biggest producers of metal fittings like us. C276 Round Suppliers in India offer a substitute technique for interfacing into the essential run and don't require fortress or fortification. Krishna Steel & Alloys are pre-formed to the twist of the run pipe. Level based weldolets are open for interfacing with pipe tops and vessel heads.

The chief channel onto which the branch association is welded is generally called the Run or Header measure gauge. The funnel to which the branch alliance or affiliation gives a channel is known as the Branch or Outlet measure. Branch associations are in all sizes, sorts, types, bores, and classes, in an expansive arrangement of treated steel, chrome-molly, and particular amalgams mixes.

C276 Round Suppliers in India are for the most part used for stretching on high weight and high temperature applications. Most extreme acceptable weight of a fitting is same concerning associated straight steady or consistent run channel of proportionate material.

C276 Round Suppliers in India uses Materials and Grades (Weldolets, Threadolets, Sockolets)

1) Stainless Steel Olet Fittings - ASTM/ASME SA 182F GR. 304, 304L, 304H, 304N, 304LN, 316, 316L, 316H, 316N, 316LN, 309L, 310, 317, 317L, 321, 321H, 347, 347H AND UNS 31254 (254SMO)

2) Carbon Steel Olet Fittings - ASTM/ASME A105/A350 LF2, ASME SA105, A694 - F42, F46, F52, F60, F65, F70, A36, A516 GR. 70, 60

3) Alloy Steel Fittings - ASTM/ASME A182 GR. F1/F5/F9/F11/F22/F91

4) Duplex Steel Fittings - ASTM/ASME SA 182F GR. F44, F45, F51, F53, F55, F60, F61.WERKSTOFF NO. 1.4462

5) Nickel Alloy Steel FittFlangeings - ASTM/ASME SB 256 GR. NICKEL ALLOY 200, NICKEL ALLOY 20, MONEL ALLOY 400, INCONEL ALLOY 600, INCONEL ALLOY 625, INCOLOY ALLOY 800, INCOLOY ALLOY 800H, INCOLOY ALLOY 800HT, INCONEL ALLOY 825, ALLOY 20, HASTELLOY C-276, HASTELLOY C-4, HASTELLOY C-22, ALLOY 6XN

6) Low Temperature Pipe Fittings- A/SA 350 LF2, LF3

 C276 Round Suppliers in India is Fittings are likewise accessible in other metal like titanium, aluminum, bronze, Lead, tantalum, zinc, metal and so on.

 Application or Uses of Krishna steel & Alloys are are utilized in wide scope of businesses. Some of them are :

·        Force Plants

·        Water Pipelines

·        Treatment facilities

·        Nourishment and Beverages

·        Pharmaceuticals

·        Materials

·        Railroads

·        Petrochemicals

·        Atomic Plants

·        Sugar factories

 Types of our Products:

1) Brazolet - Brazolet is utilized for the most part and for the most part to interface or partner the continued fittings. Brazolet is same like a weldolet, and is a marvelous fitting for metal channels, copper tubing and iron funnels pipes with metal.

 2) Coupolet - Coupolet fittings are gotten ready for use in fire/fire assurance sprinkler structures and other low weight diverting applications.

3) Elbolet - Elbolet is utilized on 90° Long Radius Elbows (can be conveyed for Short Radius Elbows) for thermo well and instrumentation affiliations

4) Flexolet - Flexolets take after weldolets with a minor refinement for example flexolet has straight bore while weldolet has lessened bore.

5) Insert Weldolet - Insert Weldolet is the most extensively seen of all branch affiliations, and is welded onto the outlet pipe.

6) Latrolet - Latrolets are a variety of weldolets. You have to relate it in same manner, anyway these Latrolets make a 45-degree relationship with the standard channel as opposed to a 90 degree.

7) Nipolet - Nipolets is only a blend of olets with pipe areolas. These olets work like the weldolets or threadolets, yet are with areola.

8) Sockolet - Sockolets are in a general sense like weldolets and threadolets; close to the course that in Sockolets there is unique association fit welding.

9) Sweepolet - Sweepolet is a framed, essentially continued; butt-weld branch relationship with a low pressure elevating part for low loads and long consumption or depletion life.

10) Threadolet - Threadolets look like various olets; the essential contrast is that this olet is equipped with female strung affiliation.

11) Weldolet - Weldolets or welding olets or welding branch affiliation fittings are the most comprehended among all the olets. These are for the most used and organized as buttweld fittings, as these are welded into the branch pipe.

 Assembling Standards

ASTM A182 - ASME SA182 - Standard Specification

ASME B16.11 - Forged Fittings Socket - Welding and Threaded

[marcopolorules]

Una hebra más delgada que el pensamiento,⠀⠀ un hilo con calibre de nada,⠀⠀ une nuestros ojos cuando no nos miramos.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Cuando nos miramos⠀⠀ nos unen todos los hilos del mundo,⠀⠀ pero falta éste,⠀⠀ que sólo da sombra⠀⠀ a la luz más secreta del amor.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Después que nos vayamos,⠀⠀ quizás quede este hilo⠀⠀ uniendo nuestros sitios vacíos.⠀⠀ _____________________________⠀⠀ A thread thinner than thought,⠀⠀ a thread with nothing gauge,⠀⠀ Join our eyes when we do not look at each other.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ When we look at each other⠀⠀ all the threads of the world unite us,⠀⠀ but this one is missing,⠀⠀ that only gives shade⠀⠀ in the most secret light of love.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ After we leave,⠀⠀ maybe this thread is left⠀⠀ joining our empty sites.⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ Roberto Juarroz⠀⠀ Poesía Vertical II / Vertical Poetry II⠀ & Ariana Papademetropoulos @arianapapademetropoulos (artist)⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ #surrrealportrait #surreal #surrealart #surrealism #surrealismartcommunity #popsurrealism #lowbrow #lowbrowart #weird #weirdart #lowbrowpopsurrealists #surrealpainting #surrealismo #surrealista #surrealist #illust #illustration #illustrations #illustrationart #illustrationartists #illustrationage #beautifulbizarre #retroart #jesuislesurrealisme #beautifulbizarre #vagabondwho #marcopolorules #arianapapademetropoulos https://www.instagram.com/p/B7_ac7rIezP/?igshid=1ewd4ofab50oh

[threadgauges-blog]

Thread inspection - What should you know?

If you are manufacturing or fabricating machine parts that include threaded components you will need to make sure that your quality control checklist includes thread inspection as one of the top test items. Whether it is a nut and bolt or any other threaded component, highest level of accuracy needs to be maintained. You will need to adhere to the specifications document to the last details. You cannot deliver to approximate values but to exact specifications.

Before sending out the products that are manufactured in your unit, it is essential that the parts you have manufactured are subjected to stringent quality control tests. You will need to make use of metric thread gauges or UN thread gauges that are still in good condition to check the accuracy of the thread.

Very often the purpose of testing is totally forgotten and the test process is handled very mechanically using worn out UN thread gauges. What is the use of running such a test process if it is not going to establish whether the threading in the components manufactured meets the required specifications or not? Always make sure that the thread gauges are in top-notch conditions.

In order to get the best value for your money, always go for the best quality gauges. Poor quality gauges will not only be manufactured to meet the expected standards but it will also not be able to withstand the wear and tear.

The technician using the thread gauges should be adequately trained in the testing process and on how to handle the thread gauges without damaging the gauge. For example, if the manufactured component is not accurate and slightly bigger than the standard size the untrained person will try to force the threaded part into the tool and thereby damaging the thread. It will in turn affect the accuracy rate of the gauge after a few such attempts. The thread gauge should therefore be handled by someone with at least basic knowledge on the testing process.

It is also equally important in storing the test equipment in the right conditions. It should not be exposed to moisture but stored in dry places. Moreover, while buying your thread gauges, you should go only for the best quality gauges. If you order from a reputed supplier of gauges, you need not have to worry about the quality.

At times you may need to go for custom thread gauges. Not all suppliers are cable of supplying you with custom gauges. You need to screen carefully to identify dependable custom thread gauge supplier. While placing your order, you will need to make sure that you are giving them accurate requirements. You cannot send them approximate specifications but the exact measurements. When you place orders for custom thread gauge, you will not be able to get an exchange or return your tool if something goes wrong unless the mistake is committed by your supplier and you can prove that. You are required to be extra cautious here.

[ahnsael]

I'm really interested in hearing how this Jim Hill dude came to be regarded as the supreme oracle of park changes.

There’s an interesting thread (from 2012) at https://www.disboards.com/threads/who-is-jim-hill-disney-historian.2920598/, where someone asks this very question. It devolves into people loving and not loving Jim hill.

At one point the OP comes back and mentions that everyone is giving their opinion on Jim Hill, but nobody seems to be able to answer the question of “who is he, exactly?”

The most thorough answer was this one:

Was he a former Disney exec? Imagineer? I did a little bit of digging on Google and found, well, not a heck of a lot, and I suspect many others have found the same thing. Soooo, you have this guy with an absolute avalanche of fascinating anecdotes, but very little indication that he would be in a position to have it.

Another said that the only biographical info they could find described him as an “illustrious and infamous Disney rabble-rouser and rumor-monger who knows a little something about the company’s Dark Side.”

Jim Hill himself, on his blog’s about page (the blog itself hasn’t been updated since April 2018, though his podcast network is still quite active), describes himself this way:

Background:

Writer, stand-up comic, U.S. Army Journalist, theme park buff, animation enthusiast, storyteller and father

And now:

Blogger, podcaster, theme park historian, entertainment news hound, guy who loves connecting the dots, long-winded storyteller and father

Those of you who have known me here for a while know that I fit all of those “and now” descriptions as well, with the exception of podcaster and father. I mean, we’re all bloggers here, and quite a few of us in my circle of tumblr friends definitely qualify as theme park historians, and y’all know that I tend to be a long-winded storyteller.

But enough about me, back to Jim Hill. One person on the message thread did a great job of highlighting what rubs me the wrong way about him. They put it this way:

I think the one thing I don’t care for in Jim’s predictions is that he does not present the information as if he heard this the other day or someone slipped him some information. He states the information as if he was in the planning meeting and he is the authority on the subject.

I don’t mind reading and hearing rumors. That’s why I still look at WDWNT, which is about as (un)reliable as Jim hill. I enjoy thinking about what could be coming down the pipeline. The trouble isn’t when people report on rumors, it’s when the rumors are treated as established fact that it really bothers me.

There’s a lot that Jim has gotten right over the years, hence his perceived credibility. But there’s a whole heck of a lot that he’s gotten wrong, too, while framing it as a sure thing, which is why I do not personally see him as a credible source. It would be one thing if he acknowledged when he got it wrong, but it always comes down to “plans changed” or something along those lines. He forgets that sometimes someone in the company will leak something in order to gauge public opinion on the thing. That doesn’t mean it’s an actual real life plan that is definitely in the works. Reporting those leaks? Groovy. Taking them as gospel? Not so much.

And some people may remember one time on my old Disney blog where I mentioned that Jim Hill is not a reliable source, and an anon (who I still think was either Jim Hill or a close acquaintance of his) got REALLY angry at me about it. I responded by highlighting some of Jim’s many miscues specifically (which I don’t really have time to go find again right now – sometimes I wish I’d just mothballed my old blogs instead of deleting them, especially the Backstage Magic one).

I know that’s a long-winded story that doesn’t truly answer your question, but I hope that helps a bit.

[adangerousbond]

Hidden in the Moonlight

First attempt at writing Blindspot, so hopefully haven't butchered it too much.

Tag to Episode 4x05 that I couldn't get out of my head. Wrote this out pretty quickly so may have some mistakes.

I own nothing.

Read below or at ff.net or at AO3

Enjoy!

Opening the door to his apartment, he noticed once again that the flap to his security was down and had the distinct feeling he was not alone. He scanned the room, finding the source of the disturbance watching him from the furthest corner of his couch, sitting cross-legged and looking smaller than usual.

"What do you want now Tasha?" he asked, his gun trained on her as he slowly made his way closer, casing his apartment to see if she had her friend with her again.

"I'm alone." She spoke quietly, placing her hands up as to show she wasn't a threat.

"I should call this in." He lowered his gun slightly, just enough that it wasn't trained on her but enough that he could defend himself if she wasn't in fact alone.

"You won't." Her words sounding more like the Tasha he knew than the one he had heard all day.

"How can you be so sure?" He asked, making his way around his apartment, thoroughly checking that her partner wasn't anywhere to be found.

"Same way I know that deal you offered me was real." She answered, her head tilted upwards with the slightest hint of a smile.

"Is that why you're here? To take the deal?" He sat on the opposite side of the couch, finally convinced she was alone, leaving the lights off as if turning them on would make the situation more real, more against his agency.

"No." Her response coming quickly and assuredly as she turned to face him.

"Then why?" Reade sighed, watching her reaction in hope to gauge some sort of an answer. He watched the way she looked away for a moment, before glancing back at him with less certainty than before.

He realised that his words had hit closer to home than he had first thought, not only was she in way over her head and terrified, but whatever it was that she had gotten herself into, she had no idea how to get out.

"What have you gotten yourself into Tash?" He pressed further, he had spent more time that day worrying about her than about himself, and that was only continuing.

"It doesn't matter." She shook her head, focusing her attention to the bike on his wall, to the chair across from her, anything that wasn't him.

"Bullshit it doesn't! I have half the FBI out looking for you." He exclaimed, a hint of guilt rising in him as he remembered he had good agents working hard to find the person sitting next to him.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come." She stated, making no move to leave.

"Then why did you?" He repeated once again as if he expected an answer, something they both knew she didn't have.

"I know I shouldn't have, I just needed to make sure you were okay." Tasha tried to explain, she hadn't understood fully why she had risked coming back, but she just needed to see her best friend, complications or not.

"You tied me to a chair and forced me to give you access to the FBI and now you wanted to make sure I was okay?!" Reade fired back, anger clouding his tone.

"If I didn't, she would have hurt you." She tried to reason, the whole day she had been terrified of what would happen to him if he wouldn't give her the information and if it come down to it, how far she would have to go to pick a side.

"You hurt me Tasha." He threw back, rubbing his hand across his brow in frustration with the circles they seemed to be going in.

She hated that she knew he was right and that as much as she tried to ignore what she had been doing to her friends, to her family, she had known the time would come that what she was doing with Madeline would force her to cross lines she didn't want to.

"I know I have no right to, but when you asked if it was real, that hurt." Her quiet words breaking through the silence that had taken over the apartment.

"Damn right you have no right, you slept with me and then ran off to Blake Crawford without even a word." Her sentence threw him for a moment, making his response harsher than he had meant.

"And what, that offsets everything we have been through?" She fired back even though she knew full well that he had every right to be annoyed at her.

She had tried to stay away that night, tried to simply ignore her feelings, but she hadn't been strong enough; breaking and showing up at his door barely an hour after she had gotten home that night. The next morning, she had woken with the knowledge that she had just made things so much worse for them both, but the thing that had hit her the most was the lack of regret.

"You threw it in my face." He continued with anger, everything that had happened today draining him more than he wanted to admit.

"You made me." She responded, eyebrows raised in defiance.

Her statement made him realise that for all the information that she had manipulated to try and gain the password from him, she had not brought up their feelings for each other, hadn't used it against him until he brought it up and even then he had seen how much of a struggle it had been for her. At the time he had put it down to her not wanting her masked friend to know, but now he was realising it was too much for her to use it against him.

"Let me help you." He spoke softer than before, as he near pleaded with her.

"I don't need help." Her shaky voice not fooling either of them.

"Yes, you do." He told her sternly, wishing that she would listen to him, that she would let him have her back again.

"Do you trust me at all still?" Her question came out as if she feared the answer, she knew that she was losing her best friend due to her own actions, but it still stung.

"I'm not sure." He sighed after a moment, giving her the most honest answer that he could, he trusted her enough not to call her location in, but he wasn't sure if he trusted her past his own safety.

"Okay, that's fair." She blinked back a tear that threatened to fall. "Can you at least try and trust me for just a while longer?"

"Do you still love me?" he asked after a pause, the question throwing her as he turned to face her, watching her closely as the words sunk in.

"Yes." She whispered out, similarly to the way she had admitted earlier when he had questioned if it was real.

He leant forward, ignoring the voice at the back of his mind reminding him that she was the enemy; that it was a bad idea, as he traced his hand down her face, wiping away the lone tear that had betrayed her and fallen. He watched her hesitation at his touch and he understood she was worried about his reaction and hurting him more than she would let on.

Closing the gap between them, he kissed her gently, the action causing her to push past the voices in her head and to ignore the reasons why not to, bringing her arms around his neck to draw him as close as possible. As he pulled her up into a standing position, she growled at the height difference, allowing him to direct them to towards his bed without any hint of hesitation.

The soft buzz of her phone brought her out of her light sleep, sitting up she threaded her arms through one of Reade's shirt off the floor and made her way over to her phone. Picking it up she hated the fear that ran through her veins the moment she saw it was from Madeline but read the instructions for their way out of the country anyway.

Making her way back to the bed, she couldn't help but smile as she caught Reade's eye, a lightness had taken over the apartment, giving them a chance to pretend that all the complications from the day and their jobs didn't exist.

"What are you doing?" He asked tiredly, watching her curiously.

"Setting an alarm." Tasha told him, smirking at the mundane task as she played with the phone in her hand before placing it on the bedside table.

She slid back under the warm covers, curling in to his side in a very un-Zapata way, bringing a smile to his face for what felt like the first time in a long time. He wrapped his arm around her to bring her even closer, right now she needed to feel safe and he needed to know she was safe.

"How's the team?" She broke the comfortable silence that had fallen around them.

"Missing a member, but otherwise doing well. Jane's taking it well but she's seemed off lately, I guess knowing you're dying changes your prospective on everything." He continued to speak freely, giving her a run down on all that she had missed and how her old team was going. The load on his shoulders feeling lighter and lighter with every word, knowing that he had his best friend back for at least the night was enough to make him forget about his usual stressors.

She watched as the bright light from her phone lit up the dark apartment, she was used to waking up before her alarm goes off, but for the first time in a while she didn't want to, for the first time in a while she actually felt like she was refreshed and the last thing she wanted to do was step back into the reality that she had created for herself.

The sound of her alarm had half woken him, but the sound of his shower running woke him fully, a part of him was surprised that she hadn't snuck out while she had had the chance. He couldn't help but feel that even though she was still in his apartment that he had already lost his best friend again and a small voice at the back of his mind was questioning if this could be the time he loses her for good.

"Morning." She greeted him with a sad smile, putting her stuff into the small duffle bag she had left sitting next to his couch the night before.

"Not sure that it is morning yet." He pointed out, trying to joke but the humour was missing from his tone.

"I've got to get going." Tasha explained as she stood at the end of the bed, watching the man in front of her, she felt sadness but also a hint of hope; hope that he could still forgive her actions and maybe by the end of it all, she might still have something to come back to.

"Call me if you need anything." He albeit demanded, standing up and making his way over to her, he pulled her in closely for a hug. "I mean it Tasha."

Pulling back, she hated and loved that she knew the truth behind his words. Moving toward the door to put some distance between them, even if only for a moment, as she was reminded of the fact that she was about to have to leave her best friend once again. She thought about telling him the truth, if only for moment, but the fear of putting him in even more danger quickly diminished that thought.

"Good-bye Reade." She repeated her words from the day earlier, leaning upwards she kissed him gently before slipping out the door quickly, not giving herself a chance to second guess her entire plan.