#added a few extra tubes and wires because this boy is not well

[the-sky-queen]

Might ink and color him later, but for now, here's a drawing of Soniclizard. :D

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #239: Late Night of the Super-Stars!

January, 1984

1984! Can’t wait to make a bunch of Orwell jokes that are poorly thought out and land poorly!

But I guess it’ll have to wait since we’re on Late Night with David Letterman in this issue.

This sure is an interesting turn of events. Although the team we see on the cover doesn’t seem to be the actually active roster. They’re over in the corner box turned away - either from shame or because they’re off doing their own thing.

Because its Assistant Editors’ Month!

A fun-sounding non-event. Although, looking it up, very few books that were considered part of the event actually did anything with it beyond a slightly goofy issue box on the cover.

So we’re going to see some Avengers go on a talk show today.

Superheroes as celebrities! What a novel idea.

Anyway, I learned an interesting detail about the cover that would have totally missed me. The checkerboard strip at the top was a hallmark of DC comics around this time. And the round MC logo in the top right is an obvious spoof of the DC logo from this time.

It’s not much more than a goof for this book but the Captain America book released for Assistant Editors’ Month also had the checkerboard and logo and was a style parody of DC comics.

Last times: Vision went into a robo-coma from walking into an invisible dome created by Annihilus and only recently recovered the ability to talk. New Avenger Starfox hooked Vision up to ISAAC the Titan computer and overclocked Vision’s robot brain so now he can project himself as a hologram and has an even faster computer brain. At the end of Avengers #238, the Avengers got a call from Tigra about some nonsense going on in San Francisco involving Spider-Woman.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye got a whole miniseries all to himself where he met Mockingbird, lost his job at Cross Technological, his girlfriend revealed that she was paid to date him and also hated him, he teamed up with Mockingbird to uncover an evil scheme by Crossfire to kill all superheroes, Hawkeye lost his hearing by putting an ultrasonic arrowhead in his mouth but foiled the scheme plot, and married Mockingbird. He’s had a very busy week or so!

This time: Hawkeye comes back to the Avengers Mansion to show off his cool new wife.

Hawkeye: “Hey, everybody -- your wanderin��� boy Hawkeye has come home... And you’ll never guess what I’ve gone and done!”

I can just imagine Mockingbird replying “Me” with the biggest shit-eating grin. She feels the sort to do that.

When Hawkeye and Mockingbird arrive there’s no one to greet them except the floating disembodied hologram head of the Wizard of Vizh.

Hawkeye has also made the decision, for some reason, to not wear the hearing aid that Mockingbird got him so he can’t hear what Vision is saying when he compliments his new costume.

Mockingbird introduces herself for Hawkeye and Vision tells the two to join him in the medical labs so they can catch up.

When they arrive, Vision raises his volume so Hawkeye can hear and recaps everything that’s happened to lead up to him becoming a robot in a tube who can hologram around.

Vision: “[Starfox] set up a direct link between ISAAC, the world-computer of Titan, to better diagnose my condition. But, instead, my brain became overloaded with ISAAC’s energy-information matrix --!”

Hawkeye: “And you became several with the universe, right?”

Vision: “‘Several with the’ --? Oh -- hah-ha! Very witty!”

Overclocking his brain seems to have done wonders for Vision’s sense of humor.

He even finds Hawkeye funny now.

Vision also explains where the dickens everyone else is (because Hawkeye asks him where the dickens they are. Its so weird for Hawkeye to say dickens).

Jarvis was given the day off to visit his mother, Captain America and Thor are both busy with nonsense in their own books, and the rest of the Avengers are off to San Francisco because of that call from Tigra.

Hawkeye offers to fly out and give them a hand, which Vision declines since they’ll call if they need help.

Instead he asks Hawkeye how he met Mockingbird and Hawkeye recaps the miniseries in only five panels.

He’s better at this than I am...

Hawkeye: “Anyway, Mockingbird and I had made a pretty good team -- so when it was all over, we ran off and got married!”

Mockingbird: “What can I say? The big lug needed somebody to keep him out of trouble!”

That’s the task of a lifetime, Bobbi. But good for you two! Cute couple is what I say.

Vision: “Marvelous! I hope you two will be as happy together as Wanda and I have been!"

Vision and Scarlet Witch probably are the healthiest superhero marriage of this time.

Vision asks if Hawkeye and Mockingbird intend to stay in the mansion, which they do. But it’s cool because Mockingbird has security clearance from working with SHIELD so they won’t need to bother Mr. Sikorsky and agitate his hatred of living in the superhero genre.

After Hawkeye takes Mockingbird off on a tour of the mansion, Vision receives a call from his brain brother, Wonder Man.

Who, very reluctantly, is coming to the Avengers with hat in hand. So to speak.

Wonder Man: “Okay. Here’s the situation -- my acting career hasn’t been going anywhere lately! So my agent, without my approval -- used the fact that I’m a reserve Avenger to get me a booking on David Letterman’s show, and now, they want me to bring other Avengers along with me! My agent really put me in a tight spot on this one. I hate to impose, but -- !”

Vision: “It’s no imposition at all, Simon! I’ll personally call the network and confirm the Avengers’ appearance!”

Wonder Man: “You’re sure it’s no trouble?”

Vision: “None whatsoever! After all, we have many Avengers -- !”

You sure do! Not as many as you’ll have by the No Surrender days. But still.

Also, I love this can-do attitude from you, Vision!

This is a pretty low priority in terms of fighting crime and whatnot but Vision is like THIS IS EXTREMELY DOABLE, I AM THE INTERNET.

Although imagine how sad it is from Wonder Man’s perspective. His agent put him on the spot pulling sorta-rank to get Simon some media attention but the media is like ‘ok but do you have something better?’

This man is trying to improve his career and the David Letterman show looked at him and said ‘ok but what else have you got?’

Oof!

Anyway, Vision uses the superpower of being wired into the phone system to call up some extra Avengers who aren’t very busy right now.

He calls Black Panther, Beast, and Black Widow.

Their varied responses are pretty funny.

But Black Panther’s is probably the best. He interrupts a meeting with his advisers to take the call and then he’s like ‘yeah sure I can drop everything I’m doing to appear on David Letterman!’

T’Challa really would rather be doing anything but kinging.

Beast initially protests that he’s too busy with the Defenders to just jump on some Avengers business but...

Beast: “The Letterman show? Hey, why didn’t you say so?”

And Black Widow is unbusy sunbathing at the Waldorf Towers while between missions. She doesn’t really want to make a television appearance (it’s kinda counterproductive for a spy, I would guess) but Vision mentions something that has Natasha agree to be there.

Based on what happens later, I guess Vision mentions that Hawkeye will be there.

A couple hours later, ELSEWHERE, well if it isn’t our ol’ friend and punchline Fabian Stankowicz!

Remember this goofus? He attacked the Avengers right when everyone was feeling bad about Hank Pym? Iron Man easily beat him up while the rest of the Avengers breezed on by. Or when he attacked Wasp’s cool superheroine brunch? Which was a hilariously terrible idea because he got between She-Hulk and breakfast foods. Also, nobody took him very seriously there either.

I guess the Avengers didn’t bother to press charges either time because he’s not in jail. He’s at his home working on some machines while his dad criticizes how he spends his time.

Dads, amirite?

Granted, what he’s criticizing is Fabian’s tendency to pick fights with superheroes. And... granted. Not a great use of his time.

But apparently Fabian can afford all the robot suits he keeps attacking the Avengers with because he won the lottery.

So he has a pretty good position to shoot down his dad’s protests, really.

Dad Stankowicz: “Fabian, I’m glad your poor mother didn’t live to see what’s become of you... It would’ve broken her heart!”

Fabian Stankowicz: “Aw, gimme a break, old man!”

Dad Stankowicz: “‘Old man’? This is the way you talk to your father?”

Fabian Stankowicz: “What do you want, egg in your beer? Was it you who won the state lottery and got us out of the Bronx? No, it was me! I won the money, and I’ll say how it’s spent! And I’m gonna use it to make a name for myself! Me... Fabian Stankowicz!”

And when Fabian sees an ad saying that the Avengers will be on Late Night with David Letterman, he has an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

Also, who the heck puts egg in beer?

I’ve looked it up and I get that it’s a saying but apparently the saying is based on people actually doing that! Why??

The next afternoon, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the show 30 Rock and this issue of Avengers both happen, this issue of Avengers is happening.

A CBS page shows Black Widow to the green room where the other Avengers are already waiting.

Also: I know that it’s all the Avengers who weren’t busy (even though T’Challa really should have been?) but this is a fun roster.

Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Beast, Black Widow and Panther?

Heck, I could imagine this being the Marvel equivalent of the Justice League International team, one more geared for some light-hearted comedy?

Except we’re in 1984 so this predates that.

But you have Beast and Wonder Man, your comedy duo best buds. You have Black Panther and Widow being varying levels of straight man to the nonsense. And you have Hawkeye who can be very serious or very ridiculous depending on how hot-headed he’s being at the time.

This team could be hilarious!

(Avengers International. Think about it, Marvel.)

Outside the green room, our ol’ buddy ol’ punching bag, Fabian Stankowicz is in disguise as a repairman with a mustache as cover for installing some devices in the studio. Then he puts on a beard to disguise himself as Perfectly Normal Bearded Audience Member.

I appreciate his intiative although I doubt any of the present Avengers are gonna recognize this guy on sight even if he wore a t-shirt that said “I’m Fabian Stankowicz.”

Fabian Stankowicz: Boy, this is gonna be so sweet, especially after the way the Avengers made me look like a chump those last two times! This time, it’s gonna be different! This time, I��m going to have a ringside seat for the defeat of the Avengers!

Or at least the Avengers that were available to show up on the Tonight Show with David Letterman.

Y’know, I like Fabian Stankowicz. He’s just smart enough to be dangerous and dumb enough to be entertaining. I think there’s a place for an ineffectual doofus with delusions of grandeur in the foe Rolodex of any superhero team.

Meanwhile, back with said Whoever Was Availables, Black Widow and Mockingbird are meeting for the first time.

And luckily, they’re both mature adults who don’t act like you’d usually see in media when the missus meets the ex.

So with a fight to the death NOT happening in the green room, Hawkeye gets to asking Mockingbird about the errand he sent her on which was why she wasn’t in the room when Black Widow first showed up.

Presumably using every bit of skill in espionage at her disposal, Mockingbird got a copy of the questions Letterman will be asking during the show.

Because Hawkeye will be fielding the questions and he has made the decision not to wear his hearing aid. And has also made the follow-up decision that not only will he not be hearing anything tonight, he’s also definitely going to be fielding all the questions.

Mockingbird: “Why won’t you wear a hearing aid?”

Hawkeye: “No can do, sweetheart! The fewer people who know I’m half-deaf, the safer it’ll be for all of us!”

(I don’t really get this reasoning but okay, man)

Mockingbird: “Then why not let someone else be spokesman? This is supposed to be Wonder Man’s big night!”

Hawkeye: “Sure... but I’m the only active Avenger here! Give me a kiss for luck!”

Not for nothing does Mockingbird think that he can be impossible sometimes. And she’s only known him a couple weeks! She’s already come to the correct read on him in that short a time.

David Letterman starts the show with an opening monologue.

David Letterman: “Tonight... What can I say? Tonight is something really special! In fact, it’s probably the most special show we’ve had since our 'camping with Barry White’ program! Yes... hard to believe, isn’t it? But with all due respect to Mr. White -- I think that this show may be our greatest ever. But, as they say, ‘that’s for history to decide!’”

Imagine being a talk show host and getting to introduce the Avengers. Pretty neat.

I like that bandleader Paul Shaffer is wearing a Captain America jersey. Although that makes me wonder once again what merchandising is like for Marvel superheroes. 

Clearly it exists but did Cap sign off on a jersey mimicking his costume? Does he see any money from that? Or at least did he get to say that all profit goes to such and such charity?

Letterman introduces the Avengers for the audience.

(Fun how you can get a sense of their personality just by how they’re sitting. It’s the little touches that make a comic fun.)

Hm, I wonder how well the marvel public follows superhero roster changes.

I know that sometimes new Avengers rosters have gotten attention with press conferences and everything. And sometimes they just swap in and out members as personal business comes up.

Some of the people in the audience may not even recognize Black Widow as an Avenger. Becaaaaause, wait I don’t think she ever was one. She’s assisted on some missions and they were ready to vote her in when she vanished to go do a SHIELD mission.

Okay, better example, does anyone remember that Wonder Man- oh wait, he very publicly burst out of a crate in front of Avengers Mansion during press furor over a roster change. Also, he’s a pre-successful actor.

Black Pan- no, no. He was framed for killing the Avengers his very first day on the team. There was a manhunt.

And of course, everyone knows Beast was on the Avengers. He got around. Romantically.

David Letterman mentions that this group isn’t even all the Avengers because some couldn’t make it (read: were busy with more important things).

Which leads to a funny cut to audience where Beard Fabian is annoyed that this group is who got caught in his revenge scheme.

Fabian Stankowicz: Blast it, where’s Captain America? Where’s that &#%$ She-Hulk?

You better wash your brain out with soap before She-Hulk finds out you thought  that about her. She’s dunked people into the garbage for lesser offenses.

Beast decides that this Late Night interview is the best time to reveal that he’s quitting as a reservist Avenger to focus on his version of the Defenders.

Letterman: “Wow, that was some bombshell the Beast just dropped, Hawkeye! You’re group spokesman... What do you think of that?”

Hawkeye: First question -- ! “Well, David, the Avengers is a non-profit organization, fully sanctioned as a peace-keeping force by just about ever international organization you could think of!”

Letterman: “Eh-heh-heh! You don’t say!”

Oh god, Beast’s bombshell messed up the order of questions and Hawkeye is firmly sticking to script because he can’t hear.

My god, Hawkeye.

Letterman: “You know, I was just about to ask you something along those lines. You wouldn’t be psychic by any chance -- ?”

Hawkeye: “No, of the founding members, only the Wasp and Thor remain as active Avengers.”

Letterman: “You little dickens! You’ve been peeking at my question sheet, haven’t you? All right, I might as well as my next question which is... ‘I hear you were recently married! Is that true?’”

Hawkeye: “Yes, Dave... just a few weeks ago!”

Letterman: “How about that!”

Did Hawkeye just think they were going to blaze through the questions? Even if Beast hadn’t preempted the first question, did Hawkeye think that there would be no follow-up questions? No discussion?

I’ve been on the fence on whether the jokes about Hawkeye not hearing the questions are poking fun at deaf people or at Hawkeye and yeah, Hawkeye is definitely the butt of this joke.

Fabian Stankowicz loses patience for this very dry question and answer session and decides to start his attack nnnnow.

One of the studio cameras is secretly A GIANT LASER. Because. And it blasts the stage.

Mockingbird is watching this on a tiny screen in the Green Room and goes out to help only to run afoul of some kind of mechanized steamrolling dumpster.

Back in the studio, Wonder Man has found his new nemesis.

Move over, Grim Reaper. You’re one-dimensional and everyone especially me hates you. Hello, laser blasting camera.

Wonder Man: “Let me at that thing, Beast! It’s ruining my guest-shot!”

Beast: “You’ll have to wait your turn, Wondy! It just shredded my favorite shirt!”

Priorities!

You know, this was supposed to be about Wonder Man and he only got to say two words during the interview portion.

Dangit, Hawkeye.

Apppppparently, the audience is just assuming that this is all part of the show. A cliche, sure. But it makes sense.

Would you really have the Avengers on a talk show and just have them talk? That’s a waste of perfectly good superheroes.

Also.... apparently? David Letterman used to run things over with a steamroller a lot? So a steamroller looking contraption crashing through the wall to attack the Avengers does seem like something that might happen?

Also, Paul Shaffer decides to just roll with it so as not to panic the audience.

The show must go on, after all.

The steamroller also starts firing missiles at Beast, as ya do.

Beast: “Hunter missiles? I don’t believe this is happening on network tv!”

Wonder Man tries punching the steamroller to no avail but which does give Black Panther a chance to pull out the tried and true “Wonder Man’s fists carry as much bludgeoning power as Thor’s hammer!”

Y’know, originally, that was a flex that set Wonder Man as a threat to the team but after he joined, that never really seemed to actually be the case.

Imagine if Wonder Man always hit as hard as Thor’s hammer? Like, he’s minding his own business and then the Gorr the God Butcher arc happens and Wonder Man is like ‘huh, why do I suddenly feel like my punches could destroy planets light years away? That’s a very specific feeling!’

Fabian Stankowicz takes advantage of the spectacle chaos to walk out of the audience, plunk himself down into one of the interview chairs, remove his entirely convincing beard, and introduce himself to David Letterman as the guy who is definitely to blame for all the action setpieces going on.

Letterman, like Paul Shaffer, just decides to roll with it. Humor the guy. Ask him why he’s doing this.

Fabian Stankowicz: “Why? To prove it could be done! To show what one incredibly gifted individual can accomplish...”

Letterman: “... To get your name in the papers?”

Fabian Stankowicz: “That too! After all, the Avengers have battled Zodiac... the Masters of Evil... Doctor Doom! I want to make as big a name for myself as those guys!”

Letterman: “Seems to me that ‘Stankowicz’ is already a pretty big name!”

Badum pish?

He asks Fabian to explain all of his devices and Fabian is happy too.

I mean, he’s being a supervillain for the notoriety and supervillains already love to hear themselves talk so he’s double dipping into the ‘I will exposit everything at the drop of a hat’ well.

And imagine, Fabian built all this stuff in his garage with lottery winnings.

The steamroller thing isn’t just a steamroller, it’s also got a gravity generator. Which, I guess, makes sense if you’re expecting to go against a She-Hulk or a Thor. A regular steamroller isn’t going to do more than annoy.

Wonder Man fighting so hard against the roller makes it increase gravity so much that Simon and steamroller just fall through the floor.

Hm. I wonder what’s filmed in the studios the floor down. They’re about to have an exciting guest star in that steamroller.

Black Widow (still tangling with the laser camera) points Hawkeye towards Fabian. Although she has to shout and Hawkeye still doesn’t really get it but is happy to shoot an arrow at someone that Black Widow is vigorously gesturing at.

Alas, Fabian is one of those prepared villains we’ve been hearing so much about.

He built a force field too, and the arrow just bounces right off.

(Hey, uh, Hawkeye? What kind of arrow was that? Because it looks technological and you just shot it at this guy’s head)

Truly, can nothing stop this insidious yet not very menacing criminal genius?

Oh, I guess David Letterman can.

Knocks him out with a big knob.

It’s just plain big.

Prop comedy, amirite?

The audience seems to love it anyway. I looked up a clip of the big doorknob and it didn’t meet with this much applause. Maybe its because it was used to do violence this time?

Was the giant door knob a beloved part of Late Show lore?

David Letterman: “I guess that’ll teach you not to mess with David Letterman!”

That’s a line with weird energy to it.

Anyway, it would be a sad day for this random assemblage of backup Avengers if they were upstaged completely by David Letterman and his big knob.

Black Widow and Hawkeye finally manage to blow up the laser camera.

I’m not sure why it took them this long. Sure, the camera could apparently move, based on motion lines in previous panels. But the world’s best marksman couldn’t nail it sooner?

But the important thing is that eventually, they did do it.

The floor starts rumbling as well as Wonder Man flies back up with his belt-jets with the trashed roller and a shit-eating grin.

Wonder Man: “Sorry this took so long -- But I guess I’m a little rusty at tackling big hunks of tin like this!”

Fabian Stankowicz: Rusty? It took me a month to design that, and he totaled it in less than five minutes!

But since everyone’s focus is on Wonder Man (for once), Fabian tries to sneak away.

And runs smack dab into Mockingbird who has a lot of justified anger over almost getting run over by the roller earlier. But she just throws him over to some police that have finally shown up.

Letterman tells the audience not to try any of this at home, just in case any of them have gravity-generator osmium steel steamrollers lying around? And cuts to commercial, presumably so that some basic tidying can happen.

Hours after the filming of the show concludes, the Avengers TV Squad have returned to the mansion, with Vision wishing he could have taken part of this assistant editors month special issue.

Vision: “What became of Stankowicz?”

Black Panther: “Well, with all the charges NBC is leveling against him, the only machinery he’ll be dealing with for some time will be in the New York State Prison library!”

So, he attacked Avengers Mansion. He attacked Wasp’s superheroine brunch at the Van Dyne residence. That’s all well and good. He attacks the Avengers again in the NBC studio and the man is going to jail forever.

I guess the Avengers really haven’t been bothering to press charges on Fabian. But a massive media corporation isn’t so kind.

Since Hawkeye is technically the active Avenger (even though Vision’s hologram head is RIGHT there) he has to follow up on the thing Beast said about quitting the Avengers reservists.

Beast says its not right for him to be an Avengers reservist if he’s also trying to turn “the Defenders into a for-real group!”

Uh, Defenders fans? Wasn’t the appeal of the Defenders them being the not-team team? How did people feel about Beast going ‘ok but what if they were more like other teams instead?’

Meanwhile, Wonder Man is pacing, waiting for the Late Show to come on so he can see how he did when WOMP WOMP the show is interrupted by a special news bulletin.

Wonder Man is aghast that his big break isn’t even airing but when the special news bulletin is about a burning chemical barge, his hero instincts that he has suddenly swell up.

Wonder Man: “This... This is awful! What’re we standing around for? Let’s do something! We’re Avengers, aren’t we?”

Black Panther: “That we are, Simon! Let’s go!”

Beast also decides, hey, one more time won’t hurt and accepts his Avengers ID card back from Hawkeye.

And as they’re headed off to the Quinjet, Beast has a hopeful note for Wonder Man.

Beast: “Hey, Wondy -- remember, there’s a three-hour time difference between the coasts! If we can get this mess cleaned up in time, maybe some folks in California will still see you get your big break!”

Wonder Man: “And if we don’t -- ?”

Beast: “Well, that’s show biz!”

Pretty enjoyable issue! Like, sure, its a good for Assistant Editor’s Month. But if you’re going to do a goof, then you can do worse than bringing back Fabian Stankowicz for a third time’s not the charm.

Speaking of charm, having the Avengers appear on a talk show is a charming concept. Not a whole lot was done with it except the joke about Hawkeye answering the wrong questions but its still a fun idea.

And having the Avengers off busy lets us brush off some Also Avengers that haven’t been in play for a bit. That’s a fun idea that I wouldn’t mind seeing some more.

Have the reservists called in because of a situation happening when the Avengers are already busy.

Heck, I’d like to see a situation where the silliest and least regarded Avengers are the only ones available to respond to an emergency. Have them bounce off each other as a group. Maybe they’re mutually aware of their bad reputations.

Anyway, I expected this issue would be ridiculous but it was also enjoyable. Didn’t mind it at all. And (though by a different writer) the Hawkeye miniseries was very enjoyable too.

This is just feeling like a good era for the Avengers team.

Next time, apparently The Ghost of Jessica Drew. So she’s some kind of ghost spider? Nobody tell Carol Danvers.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I typed this post partially while a cat was lying on my wrist. That’s dedication. Which you can’t spell without cat. Also, like and reblog if you think its likeable and rebloggable.

[imagineyoungjustice]

1.5k Followers Milestone Drabbles 4/10

D r a b b l e please! Maybe where the team is on Internet lockdown and have to come up with a way to keep entertained? -Anonymous

So I went a bit off-prompt because the only instance I see any form of internet lockdown being an issue for the team is when it interferes with their hero job because they accidentally locked themselves out of the system and are too afraid to go to one of the League members for help. So I know it’s not quite what you wanted but I hope you still enjoy it! Also this is set just a little extra bit before season 2 so Jaime hasn’t yet joined the team! -Terra

Tags: @ljblve @loverbug1123 @aworldwideapart @wallywestie

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           “How could you manage to lock us out of the entire system?!” Cassie shouted, throwing her hands up in the air.

           “With a lot of skill and an astounding lack of intelligence mixed with a heaping side dish of Murphy's Law.” Robin replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his gloved hand.

           “This is why I told you we should have waited for the older members to get back from their mission! What are we supposed to do now?”

           Robin just kept staring at the red screen in front of him, the bright text of “access denied” blinking back at him almost mockingly. He really hated himself right now. He was so confident that he could perform the upgrades to the Cave’s computer systems himself despite Dick’s warnings for him to wait for when he, M’gann, and Conner got back from their mission with the League. Batgirl was currently away on a solo mission for Bruce, leaving him as the only Bat on the team for the week. He just wanted Dick and Bruce to be proud of his skills and to stop treating him like he was some fragile baby bird that would break under the slightest use of force. He wanted them to stop treating him like a future Jason Todd.

           “Earth to Robin! You there or are you just going to keep ignoring me?” Tim blinked as his mind was pulled back to the present. He felt his face flush as he realized he had been ignoring her for probably a good while now.

           “Sorry, what were you saying again?”

           “I asked how we were supposed to do our jobs in the meantime if we can’t get into our own computer system?”

           “That would be… a really good question. I guess watching the news would be too much to hope for until we can get this fixed?” He tried to smile and lighten the mood, but by the look on Cassie’s face she wasn’t having it with his attempts at humor and in all honesty, he did deserve the resulting smack to the back of his head. “Guess that would be a no then.” He mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else.

           “What are you two fighting about in here?” Tim cringed as he heard Karen’s voice drift into the room, Mal, Garfield, and La’gaan trailing on her heels, all of them equally curious to the commotion in the training and mission debrief room.

           “Boy Wonder over here managed to lock us out of the Cave’s systems while upgrading everything on his own even though Nightwing told him to wait until they got back. So unless we figure something out we’re basically without internet for the whole week.” Cassie huffed and put her hand on her hip, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “You normally handle monitor duty Mal, is there anything you think you can do to fix this?”

           “I’m not really the guy you’d want to be asking. I can try, but this system is a lot different than any I’d be familiar with. I haven’t had the time to learn its in’s and out’s yet, not like the Bat’s have. I mean I could try turning it off and on again but that might be the extent of what I can do.” Cassie audibly groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose a little harder.

           “Why should we waste time trying to figure this out on our own? Let’s just contact the League and have them send Red or someone else to clear this up for us.” Karen remarked, already bringing her hand up to her earpiece.

           “Wait no!” Tim yelled, stretching his hand out to stop her before she could make the call.

           “What now? Did you knock out our communications too?” Karen asked, one of her eyebrows raised.

           “We just barely, convinced the League to let us oversee ourselves for a week without an appointed ‘Den Mother,’ what would that look like if barely halfway into our first day we made a call to them because we locked ourselves out of the computer system?”

           “You mean you locked us out of the computer system, the rest of us did nothing.” Cassie remarked.

           “Technicalities. Besides you think the League will care? If you make that call they’ll never trust us to look after ourselves again.”

           “He does have a point.” Gar said, looking up at Karen. “They were already really reluctant in the first place.”

           “I’m sure Robin will have figured it out before the week is over. He’s a Bat, they practically live and breathe tech.” La’gaan added.

           It was quiet for a few moments as Karen considered the situation. She narrowed her eyes at Tim, “You sure you can get the system back online before the week is over?” When he nodded, she just let out a defeated sigh. “Alright then, I won’t contact the League, but you better get that system back online, priority: alpha do you understand me?”

           “Yes ma’am.” Tim saluted, barely able to hide the rush of relief he felt that followed upon knowing they were in the clear from him having to explain this mess to Bruce.

           “That’s great and all we still need to figure out what we’re doing for missions now.” Cassie interjected. “All our mission data was on file here and now we have nothing.”

           “Actually, we do have some of it.” Tim replied, fishing in his utility belt and tossing her a flash drive. “Bats teaches us to always be prepared, so I tend to make copies of current info in relation to our current missions. If we need anything else, I can always rip whatever we need from the Batcomputer back at the Batcave.”

           “And I supposed you call this your Batdrive?” She teased turning the small flash drive over in her hands, the black bat logo catching the reflection of the lights.

           “No.” Tim snapped. Yes. She didn’t need to know that though.

           “Right old school it is then. I’ll go grab a laptop for us to use in the meantime. Everyone be ready for debrief by the time I get back.” Karen called, already halfway to the Zeta-tubes with Mal not too far behind her. “Oh and Robin?” He turned his head to look at her when he heard his code name. “Try not to shut off the lights or something else in the meantime.” With that, the tubes flared to life and he was left to deal with the barely muffled laughs from his teammates. He deserved that, he concluded, and went back to work on checking the wiring of the Cave’s computer in their absence.

           “This is going to be an utter disaster this week.” Cassie deadpanned.

           “I’m sure things will turn out swimmingly.” La’gann remarked, patting her on the back of her shoulder. Somehow, Cassie wasn’t all that convinced, and neither was Tim if he was listening to that quiet, honest voice he currently had shoved in the back of his mind in favor of the sweet, sweet, serenade of the voice of denial at the forefront.

          In reality, they were both completely correct. Things were indeed not going very well at all. Tim was currently racing through the jungles of Santa Prisca the sounds of bullets hitting the trunks of the trees a little too close for comfort all around him. Most of the week had been much like things were now. The Batcomputer had a lot of information, but it often lacked just that tiny bit of useful data that would have been on the team’s computer in the cave, especially for missions and locations the team had been previously.

          Karen would do her best as acting leader, but all of their plans never made it far past the drop zone. Tim’s little mess up had them walking in largely blind to most of their operations, and every time they paid the price for it, just barely securing what they set out to accomplish before having to make a hasty retreat. Speaking of mess-ups, after almost the whole week Tim was still no closer to accessing the Cave’s computer than he had been when this had all started. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t get the system to let him in. Tim was ready to start banging his head against a wall if only that would be what it took for the computer to call out that beautiful “access granted” and they could all get back to their lives a little worse for wear but largely unharmed.

          If only.

          Once they were back at the cave, Cassie rounded on him. “How could you still have no idea how to fix the computer!?”

          “You’ve been watching me the whole week Cassie! You know I’ve tried literally everything I could think of short of an entire system reset! There’s nothing we can do!”

          “This is why we should have just called the League! But noooooo, you wanted to save face and fix this yourself! We’ve been getting our butts handed to us this whole damn week because you said you could fix it! Well guess what? Nothing’s changed since this first went down!”

          “Cassie has a point Robin,” Karen said, peeling off her Bumblebee mask and rubbing her temples, “we’ve still got nothing a week later, we should have just contacted the League. Nightwing and the other’s will be back from their mission in the morning, you’re going to be the one to tell them since this was your doing in the first place okay?”

          “Yeah, I understand.” He really wasn’t looking forward to how that was going to go tomorrow.

          “Good, team dismissed. Everyone get some rest.” Tim didn’t wait around for too long, just wanted the morning to come quickly so that he could deal with it and get it over with.

          It was every bit as embarrassing and awkward as he knew it was going to be. He had pulled Nightwing aside as soon as he entered the next morning and fumbled his way through the events of the week. The entire time he refused to look him in the eyes, but he could tell from body language that Nightwing wasn’t too pleased with him.

          “Look, Tim,” he braced himself for what was coming, “I’m not mad that you locked yourself out of the system, we’ve all done it at some point, but I am disappointed that you didn’t ask for help, and as a result put yourself and the rest of the team in danger. You’ll get a proper reprimand and punishment for that later on.”

          He looked up then, a little shocked at how calm he was being about the situation. “That’s… completely fair, I won’t let it happen again. I’m sorry.”

          “Like I said it’s okay, but see that you don’t put the team’s health in jeopardy like that again okay? Now, let’s see if we can’t figure out what it is you did to lock yourself out.” Tim just nodded and followed Dick back out into the training room, watching as he went through the motions of checking the Cave’s internal systems. Dick was quiet for a moment as he observed the virtual keyboard.

          “Hey Robin, you did know that caps lock was on, right?”

          What.

          His face must have given his confusion away. “The caps lock is on. You did try putting the password in without it right?” With a few taps of his fingers, the system was back online, the red screen of denial fading away to the green of granted access that had the last of Tim’s soul dying inside of him. “System looks to be in order… Oh! Looks like the upgrades went in smoothly, good job Robin.” There was a bit of a pause as Dick continued to check the system. “Please tell me you guys weren’t locked out of the system the whole week because you didn’t check to see if the caps lock was on.”

          Tim just hid his face into his hand and prayed to whatever deity may or may not exist that an alert would go off somewhere or that he would spontaneously die to escape the embarrassment of his current situation. As fate would have it, no such thing happened, and Dick’s smirk only grew wider on his face as the realization set in.

          Tim was never going to hear the end of this.

[voidselfshipp]

The Copper Wars

Chapter 4

Okay to rb!

For once,engenieer was not in his workshop, wich meant that jerico arrived Next.

He grabbed the Copper metal sheets, taking a good look at them,and the rest of the lot.

Would he have enough?.

--Sorry for bein' late--engies voice grabs his attention--Was uh,makin tea, I know ya dont exactly like coffee....

--Aw, thanks engie--jeri grabbed the cup--Well..I guess we should get to bussiness.

And that they did.

They spent most of the day assembling the wiring and the mechanisms,that would impulse the big robot.

When the sun was setting both decided to go Grab dinner.

Jer Ate his food on silence,noticing that spy and sniper werent there.

Well,they did seem more secluded than the others.

He politely said thanks,and washed his used dishes, taking vica,who was sleeping on the couch in his arms, and went to highest floor of the base, a watchtower that had a door leading to the roof.

He sat there, leaning on the handrail of the watchtower, as vica was sitting on his shoulder.

The cat purred and nuzzled his neck, he laughed and scratched under their chin.

--Whats on my mind you ask?--he said,looking up at the Sky--i have everything and nothing at the same time, I guess, these days have been very rough--The cat mewled in response--man, now that I think of it,I havent written to dad in a good while, I should do that...

The cat then jumped to the handrail,somehow balancing theirself while on the thin metal tube, their dark purple eyes met their owners, and licked his hand.

--Youve been very cuddly these days vica,not complaining,but Its weird...--he just shrugged, and looked at the time in his watch--Hmm I guess I can stay like this a bit longer...

He spent the rest of the hour talking back and forth with his familiar,who answred with purss and hisses.

--yo Jerico?,wake up--A voice called his name, jer groaned,and leaned on his side,his Back facing the person that was calling him.

--i told jou zo vake Him up softly

He did recognize that voice, he opened his eyes and yawned,now moving his body to rest on his back, he Turned to see scout and medic--Hey guys...whats up?--his voice sounded raspy and deep, as he rubbed his eyes.

--jou overslept, its almost afternoon

--Man....-- he sat up stretching his body, causing his two companions to blush suddenly--Guess I was tired huh?--he smirked and got out of bed,thankfully he had some shorts on--thanks for waking me up,otherwise id be sleeping till noon

--Uh dont mention it

And with a confused look he saw medic and scout bolt out of his room.

--Weird....

He decided to brush it off and grabbed his things and headed for the shower room.

As the water hits his body,he heard the pure chaos that was going down in the rest of the showers.

He couldnt help but giggle as he washed his hair,softly singing to himself, he dried his hair and body once he was done,and wrapped the towel around his waist.

--Can I know what in the name of god was going on?--he grabbed his shirt and pants while looking at the mirror where some of the guys were shaving or combing their hair.

His eyes met medics, realizing his german friend had some blush on his cheeks.

--scout dropped his soap, pyro zried zo help him by setting said soap on fire,we all had zo stop pyro from doing zhe same vith Scouts deodorant

Jerico started to laugh while heading to the changing room--I wish I could have seen it while it was happening that sure was something

After changing he went to eat a quick lunch and getting to work on Forge.

So,the past few weeks he spent his time working with engie.

None of them,except maybe pyro, would admit it,but jericos presence did really make itself be missed, he had been Cooped up with work,barely even greeting and eating breakfast with them.

Engie assured his team jeri was alright,he was working very hard to finish this proyect.

But eventually,the team went with imaginary pitchforks and torches to engie.

-- "The townsfolk got together and they figured out a plan

They knew they'd have to do their best to save their fellow man--Jerico sung while hanging off a harness,soldering Forges faceplates--

And, though they had no weapons, they all had a lot of brains:

They'd build machines to leave their villain in a world of pain!

So Wilbur brought the copper, old Frank supplied the steel;

Bob and Sue had extra chains, and Tommy brought the wheels;

They knew they'd have a chance with these, they knew they'd win the fight

And they worked all through the night!--engie went up the scaffoldings, the robot was huge,thirty feet off the ground was giving him the chills--So saddle up your steam-bike and put your goggles on

We've got to be prepared or else we'll all be dead by dawn

Copperplate is coming and his eyes are seeing red

And he's after Wilbur's head!--his singing was stopped as engie called his name.

--Hey jerico! The guys really wanna see ya,they Came to me like an angry mob!

Jeri stopped what he was doing,and smiled--aww they miss me?thats adorable!--He answered lifting His soldering goggles-'okay lemme finish this and ill be down there in a bit!

Engie sighed in relief,mostly because he could go back down to the safety of the floor.

Jerico finished his work for the day,and descended to the floor, taking off his Gear covered in Grease.

He Walked to the dinning room where everyone was expecting him.

Yes even spy and sniper.

A Sly smile crossed Jers lips--Well well well, a little birdie told me you guys missed me

--yea and what if we did huh?--scout defensely said.

--Well thats just cute!--blacksmith hugged scout tightly with a huge grin on his face.

The Bostonian boy patted his back,red as all hell.

--Well,im here,actually I might go take a shower,im all sweaty,covered in Grease and just disgusting overall

--Youd make us all a favor-spy commented taking a drag from his ciggarette.

--Yeah youve missed me so dearly spy--jers mocking tone got a small chuckle out of the frenchman.

And without much wait blacksmith headed to the shower.

--Im not sayin anything...but he hugged me first!first!-Jeremy commented,bragging about the fact that well,his crush hugged him.

To no-ones surprise,other than jerico himself who didnt know,the mercs new coworker Turned into their crush.

Some just accepted it,others denied it until jeri errased himself from the face of the earth for a while.

--oh ye?when he comes back ill be the very first to hug 'im!--demo barked Back.

A quick shower later,jer quickly changed, and Walked back to where everyone was.

--And im back hi!--his words were cut by demo hugging him tightly,his cheeks Turned bright Pink, and started to giggle--Hey demo wassup?

--Nothin much--his face turned to scout who was green with envy.

--Would ya look at that,actually smelling like a normal human being--sniper added his snarky comment with a playful intention behind it.

--De orejas habla el burro(about ears spoke the donkey)

Spy and engie smiled smugly,and looked at sniper.

--Wot?--the aussie asked to no-one in particular.

--Jerico said like youre the one to talk,pardner

What followed was the longest 'ohhh' coming from the mercs, except of course spy and sniper),like if they went back to their teen years.

--Okay children,behave--blacksmith added,coming out of the kitchen with his tea Cup.

The Next two hours they all sat and talk peacefully,thats until tiredness for the best of jeri,and he Walked down hes room.

--jerico!wait up!--scout ran behind him--jeesus youre fast--this is the first time jer had seen him actually somewhat exhausted.

--Scout whats up?

--First uh,im Jeremy, second I am just...happy youre back,even if its for a bit, at least....we all have missed you, I...I've missed you--jeremy said, scratching the back of his neck--the room changes completly when youre around and i--, what im trying to say is...

Jers brows furrowed,until he heard his companion mutter a soft 'fuck it' and kissed him briefly.

Before scout can run away he grabs his hand and pulls him in for an actual kiss.

The Bostonian wraps one ar around his waist and the other is used as support as he hovers over his crush.

Jeri hugs his neck, pulling him closer.

--oh thank god--scout whispered hiding his face on the crook of blacksmiths neck.

Jerico caresses his hair and smiles--Im going to have to go okay?

He heard scout grunt but nodding,breaking the hug.

They said their goodbyes and jeri went to sleep.

What a day it was...

[apocvlypsed]

( wiz khalifa vc )  yeah... uh huh, u know what it is -- linc is addicted 2 bringing new muses !

hello hello my loves, i present to you my socal sweetheart, shiloh correia! tap the clickity click to read more about this chill dude !!

reece king. — oh, have you met shiloh correia? he is a twenty two year old cis male that is feeling phlegmatic about the planet’s imminent doom. a gym receptionist, this leo is known around town as the viscerotonic, because he is bona fide & mellow, as well as distrait & extemporaneous. hopefully, loh will survive. 

alright here we go: a very rushed, disorganized draft of his background because i have to leave for a doc’s appointment soon!! ( tw for illness, mentions of possible death, mentions of hospitals, mentions of homophobia )

backstory:

his name is shiloh, he's 22, and he works as a receptionist at the local boujee gym!! he moved to hawley when he was 19ish because he was in pittsburgh for testing and like... decided he might as well stay in the area a while to escape his smothering family? 

born & raised in los angeles, so he's got one of those very chill, relaxed personalities. like... someone spills coffee on him? 'it's cool, man, really. good fashion statement.' survive a 5-year battle with leukemia? 'awesome, great, thanks doc.' just... very easy-breezy, chill vibes. he can often be misinterpreted as caring too little, but he’s just a very serene soul.

he kinda didn't have much of a real childhood after he got diagnosed with leukemia when he was 13. he was in and out of the hospital for a couple years before things got to be too taxing on his parents, and they sent him to a live-in treatment center shortly after his 15th birthday. they couldn’t handle Seeing Him Like That when things took a turn, but they said the real reason was the transit bills. going back and forth added up so much, and with not a lot of money to spare, it was too much for them to shoulder. shiloh didn’t question it because like... he knew how hard this was on his parents and younger sisters, he could see it. it saddened him to go to this treatment center though, because every shred of normalcy was ripped away. he could no longer go to school when he felt up for it -- his parents suggested getting lessons at the center, but shiloh insisted on staying enrolled at his high school. he learned mainly through emails and work brought to him by his friend elijah.

his younger sisters ( twins, sara & mackenzie, about 8 at the time ) would visit him in the center because they missed him? shiloh was very ill, but his siblings would take the bus across thecity and bring books for him to read to them like how he did at home. so this 15-16 y/o kid would be hooked up to chemo, literally reading harry potter quietly to his little sisters, making sure to do every single silly character voice, and look at them to gasp at the scary parts. admittedly he was quite low energy, but he put considerable effort into seeming 100% for them, so they wouldn’t worry. ( one time sarah asked him if he was going to come home sometime soon, and saying he didn’t know literally broke shiloh’s heart. after they left, he cried a lot. )

that’s kind of shiloh in a nutshell too. going above and beyond for others, not quite at what he would call his expense because it doesn’t bother him... but it kind of is at his expense in instances where he was ill and he pushed himself to extremes to quell peoples’ worries. he’s always been a charitable soul. 

he returned home when he was 17, successfully in remission, and he would spend every waking moment with his sisters when he wasn’t at school. but remission was short-lived. he was at a party with his best friend elijah when the nausea and nosebleeds hit, and his classmate delayed calling an ambulance until all the alcohol was hidden. during that delay, shiloh lost consciousness. elijah fought his way into the ambulance. he held shiloh’s hand all the way there, right until the moment he woke up.

treatment gradually picked up again. some chemo visits turned into constant returns to the hospital. shiloh picked up pneumonia at one point, and school was just out of the question. elijah visited him on weekdays and his parents on weekends, so it worked for a bit, keeping their relationship masked. linking fingers in the stupid hospital hallway, taking slow walks along the terrace. but then shiloh’s family surprised him on his birthday. so did elijah. and it was a mess.

after elijah left, his parents were basically like, ‘we love you, but no. no. you can’t be This and That. you can’t be both.’ meaning sick and gay. his mother spent an extra hour there lecturing shiloh and crying about how the doctors said his prognosis wasn’t looking good, why would he do this to himself if he knew he could be passing soon? why would her boy purposefully deny himself entry to heaven? shiloh should have been angry, livid. but he... wasn’t. his natural disposition wasn’t conducive to getting defensive and he just didn’t have that kind of energy in him. so he just sat in his hospital bed and listened to his mother crying and cursing him, cursing their situation, praying to god for forgiveness on his behalf. when she finished, he offered her a tiny, tired smile. he squeezed her hand and murmured, “thanks ma.”  after she left, shiloh had to sit with that. all of what she’d said. and it kind of changed his attitude about the leukemia. his test results came back worse, and things took another, more drastic hit. things really got bad for the subsequent six months. it was a rapid decline, probably the worst he’d ever experienced over the course of his illness. he couldn’t be as sociable, or as vibrant. smiles of ease became grimaces because no amount of painkillers could keep him comfortable. one time, when his sisters came to visit, he stood up to bring them to the cafeteria for ice cream and fainted in front of them. he slept for days, but the bags under his eyes never ceased. he got thinner. his hands shook when he held elijah’s hand. and for the first time in all of this, shiloh realized he truly might not make it.

elijah kept things normal. well. as normal as they could be. aside from a quiet “how’s it going?” and a couple minutes of leukemia-talk, they’d indulge in other things. watching netflix curled up in shiloh’s bed. sneaking peanut m&ms in for shiloh. bringing homework because shiloh insisted he was going to graduate that year, with elijah, with their friends. sometimes elijah’s visits consisted of watching shiloh sleep. and that was fine. every time that happened, he’d leave a note, so shiloh knew he’d stopped by.

if asked now, shiloh wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the day when things stopped getting worse and started getting better. maybe it had something to do with elijah asking him to their own prom and getting the nursing staff in on it. maybe it had something to do with being able to leave the care center, just for the night, and forget that his own body was the enemy.

on his 18th birthday, shiloh no longer looked like a shadow of himself. he looked healthier -- not 100%, but certainly not as terrible as before. “you look hot,” was elijah’s response when he came in after a week of not visiting -- training for soccer, he’d said -- and shiloh greeted him with a smile that was, for the last few months, unusually void of pain. 

on a warm, golden march day, shiloh got results of his blood test saying he was officially in remission for a second time. and god, it felt so good. so freeing. he pushed through the last of his graduation requirement and was able to walk with his class to receive an honorary diploma -- his real one came two months later, after completing some online courses.)

naturally, he and elijah broke up so they could venture off and do their own things. shiloh didn’t want to be a burden. elijah went to school abroad. they still talk sometimes.

the correia’s, however, are worriers. they weren’t convinced that shiloh was alright, that he could go off somewhere far away and come back in one piece. so they spoke to his aunt and uncle in pittsburgh, pa and worked out a deal -- he could go stay with them for the summer working for their law firm. the east coast had better treatment if he ever needed it during that timeframe. but at the end of the summer, they expected shiloh back in la with them.

there were a few scares in pittsburgh, but the bloodwork never showed any dangerous levels that couldn’t be fixed by some isolated treatment, or rest. by his 19th birthday, shiloh had been steadily in remission for half a year. aside from some long-term side effects from treatments, he experienced no lingering discomfort. 

while browsing the welcome center at the airport, waiting for his flight home, shiloh stumbled upon a brochure for a small town called hawley and just... fell in love with the way snow dusted the small streets in the cover photo? the freshness of the air, or how the pamphlet described it, at least. so he called his parents and spoke through their protests. “ma, dad... i’m gonna stay out here a while.” and then when his mother attempted to power scold her way into getting her son home, he hung up the phone. 

he moved into a small studio apartment and landed a job as the receptionist at the local upscale gym! he honestly adores his job. sometimes dealing with stella from yoga is a bit much, but the contact and the stories he hears... it’s worth it. plus, the gym is super awesome and there might be a cute boy there he’s kinda into, on the down-low. ;)

shiloh’s just very easygoing and can converse with anyone. he’s agreeable and it takes a lot for him to get offended because honestly, everything kind of pales in comparison when you’ve barely survived your own body attacking itself.

he lives paycheck to paycheck most of the time. gladly. he’s enjoying his simple life, his normal life, existing without being tethered to wires and tubes and hospital cleaning smells. he probably always burns sweet-smelling candles because the scent of those hospital rooms is kind of ingrained in his memory. he just... he loves absorbing it all. the mid-afternoon sun, the silly coffee shop people, the way the panels of hawley sidewalks don’t always align just right. he’s thriving here, just breathing minute to minute.

headcanons

all in all, he’s very unbothered by the asteroid because he just... feels so lucky to be here? and he can’t change anything about a big rock careening toward the planet. so he’ll enjoy his time and not worry about it. because worrying is forfeiting valuable time he can just be spending having a laugh or enjoying the fresh air.

he’ll say he doesn’t care about snapchat streaks but then bombard you if your streak is in danger.

he sings! he’ll like, loop piano chords and a mellow beat and make up some r&b song about the pasta he’s making for dinner. he sounds like... a mix between daniel caesar and kevin garrett. just v chill and like warm honey. he can also lowkey rap really well but... shh... it’s a secret.

he kinda dresses very stereotypically la despite being in pennsylvania now? a lot of basics with loud details. he also really likes painting his nails in those cool holographic colors? yee

the first thing he did when he moved to pittsburgh was teach himself how to cook super well because he needed to make up for all the Shit he ate while in treatment. so get ready... ya boy’s gonna make you a masterpiece for dinner !

definitely doesn’t mention his illness a lot. his parents are constantly calling worried about the status of his remission so like... if someone acts really worried he’ll be like, “i’m fine, no symptoms, chill” and not even realize he didn’t tell them about his past. he’s just... all about living in the moment so things get lost in the shuffle.

he shamelessly plays words with friends while at the reception desk. pls tell him a good 4-letter word he can make with Z, K, I, and N bc he is struggling.

his footsteps are straight up silent. he moves so gracefully like.... he could sneak up on even the most alert people, and it’s mostly always by accident. he’s just got that calm air about him where he commands attention but in a subtle way. so people won’t notice him enter the room, but they will be locked in by his intrigue once he’s inside.

“pls remember to hydrate today xo” -- an actual text from shiloh correia.

he wears a LOT of hoodies layered with denim jackets. don’t judge him, it’s COLD here !!! (he says when it’s like... literally 60 degrees out... yikessss.

refuses to buy snow boots. his combats will suffice. and tbh buying snow boots feels like admitting defeat? even tho he chose to live here? he doesn’t want to seem like that wimp cali boy that can’t handle the northeast. *cue shiloh buying yet another heated blanket*

never learned how to drive?? so that’s super fun ! someone try to teach him, i’ll cry

as for connections, like.. anything? he’s been here for a solid 3 years, so there’s def potential for lots of stuff! aight i gotta run but i will be on mobile/discord !!  pls come love me, i love u xoxo

[notepadramblings]

Let’s talk about rats!

So in ditching inspiration, i may as well pick something i know and love to talk about! Is this post going to be poetic? Hell no! Informative? Maybe! Fun? Sorta. Long? God yes! Rats! Rattus norvegicus - the fancy rat are the ones I’ll be chatting about, especially in relation to owning them as pets.  The most important thing to know about pet rats is that they are highly sociable animals and live in pairs or larger groups called a Mischief (which, if you know rats, you’ll find is a rather appropriate term!). While yes, they can bond deeply with their humans, there is nothing like the companionship of their own kind. When keeping rats, it is advisable to do so in same-sex pairs or groups to eliminate the chances of breeding. A doe can have 4 babies or 13 depending on her lineage and if mated too young this can have serious health implications for her as well as raising the chance of losing the litter; the babies can then mate with each other, or with mum, at only 5 weeks when sexing them is still difficult for most amateurs. Most pet shops will therefore refuse to sell a male and a female together to promote responsible ownership. An adult male rat can weigh up to 600g, with their female counterparts only weighing up to 500g at a healthy weight. Boys tend to become more sluggish with old age and gain an appreciation for cuddles, whereas girls tend to stay more adventurous and active; that being said, the exact opposite can also be true! Males have particularly large testes relative to the size of their bodies, which a lot of prospective rat owners find off-putting, but that is the only significant visual difference. Male rats also produce a substance called buck grease that is a hormonal excretion. This leaves little oily marks in their cage where they spend a lot of time, and causes their coat to be rougher than a female’s. Some people can be allergic to this substance. Any group of rat (male, female, mix of both, neutered or un-neutered) will have some degree of social hierarchy, so it is expected that they will tussle to establish and maintain it. This often includes violent grooming behaviours, shoving each other out of comfy places and screaming loudly at each other although no physical contact is being made. This is normal and healthy! The only times when an owner may need to be concerned by the group dynamics of their rats is when one or more is ill or physically hurt. If a rat is truly upset with their companion they can and will bite to injure, at which point separation is the safest option for all involved. If one rat feels threatened or bullied, even without injury, they may become ill. This could include weight loss from being bullied at feeding time, or a respiratory infection due to the stress causing a mycoplasma flare up (more on that later).  Integrating rats or groups of rats is very possible! A lot of owners start with a pair and end up adding a few more same sex companions to their mischief over time. This can be beneficial to a pair of rats who aren’t particularly fond of each other , or to provide an older rat whose partner passed a friend. A larger mischief lessens the blow of deaths as each rat who is left has companions to mourn with; a lone rat mourning can fall into depression and pass soon after their cage mate, especially in old age. This can of course be avoided if their human(s) spend a significant amount of time comforting them with cuddles or play or their favourite food, but it is a harsh reality many of us have to face. The introduction of rats remains pretty uniform no matter the age, sex or number of rats. However, the most successful introductions tend to be when adding younger rats to the mischief, as adults tend to be exceptional uncles and aunts! (Mums will even share litters in breeding situations, or even take on a whole new litter that’s been abandoned by it’s true mother!). Mixing neutered males and females also tends to be more successful as they are naturally inclined toward opposite sex matches (for breeding) in the wild. Introductions must be slow, or over several sessions, and in neutral territory as rats are very protective of their home environments. Ideally, said territory should be confined so they are forced to interact with each other but easily accessible to the supervising human in case of violence.  Be aware that the larger the mischief, the larger the cage you must have for them! While this seems obvious, as a pet shop clerk myself, i find there are many people who simply do not make that connection. One rat should have 2 cubic feet of space to his or herself at a minimum that you can fill with hides, hammocks, toys and enrichment. My general rule when advising on cage size is to get as large as you can afford and as large as you can fit in your home. A cage is an investment, as your rat is going to spend its whole life in there. Also be realistic! How available are you to let them out of the cage? Someone retired who can spend more time with them free roaming is more likely to need a smaller cage than someone who works 9-5 with kids to look after. A cage should be crammed with things for the rats to do while you’re not about. Plenty of hiding places for comfy sleeping arrangements or times when they need to get away from each other, they love being high up so utilise that space with hammocks or hanging tubes or toys, as well as ground-dwelling chews and toys. Rats enjoy toys small enough to be picked up, as they can carry them around the cage as well as home made treat-hiding toys such as a biscuit wrapped in paper in a toilet roll tube, and they can even learn to open simple boxes if there’s something yummy inside! Nesting materials should also be in abundance, scattered around the cage as well as in bedding areas provides them something to do as well as plenty of extra warmth if they need it.  Free roaming or out of the cage time is another huge part of owning rats. These guys need a surprising amount of exercise as well as constant mental stimulation! Rats thrive when let out of the cage to explore and forage and run for long periods, they even have a happy run-jump called popcorning when they’re in a happy or playful mood! Some rats love chasing cat toys or being chased and wrestled by their humans hands, and others are content to sit on your shoulder or snuggle in your jumper - this is all enrichment. Most of the bonding with your pets happens during free roam time as well as opportunities for training. However, before letting your rats run free, you must make sure the space is rat-appropriate. If allowed a whole room, wires must be tucked away and protected, hidey-holes must be blocked off and any precious belongings should be kept elsewhere; rats have a destructive streak and there is nothing more attractive than ripping wallpaper, eating wires and peeing on important documents! Free roam can also include having a sofa or a bed to run around on, maybe even with some tunnels and toys placed on it for that extra interest, the key is that it’s somewhere to play that’s not their cage. Early stages of getting to know each other are a crucial stepping stone during the bonding period with your rats and set you up for trust in the rest of your lives together. It can be absolutely intimidating, but one thing to always keep in mind is to respect their boundaries. As with any animal, if it has teeth, it can bite you, so not respecting them can be painful. Hell, get a human angry enough and they’ll bite you too! In the wild, rats are prey animals which means generally their “fight or flight” instinct leans toward flight, which is why you will find nervous or young rats tend to be more skittish than violent. As a rule, rats do not want to hurt you, they just really want to get away, and sometimes biting the person preventing that from happening is the most logical thing for them to do. Keep in mind, though, that they also figure a lot of stuff out with their teeth because their eyesight isn't very good, so a gentle “hmm, are you food?” bite is nothing to be afraid of. Because their eyesight is so poor, a giant open room is intimidating for them, let alone with an unfamiliar person in it so try to keep bonding in a small area, or start by simply introducing your hand to their cage. This also lets them smell you and learn your scent, rather than trying to identify a big blurry blob. Treats are a great way to tell your rats you’re friendly, but a finger being chomped instead of the treat you’re holding isn’t uncommon amongst owners, so be cautious at first. When picking up your rats for the first times, make sure they have an escape, so they understand you are not keeping them there against their will (or, you know, going to eat them). Keep introducing yourself for short durations on a frequent basis so you don’t stress them out, and they’ll figure out how lovely a human can be. They may not speak in any of our languages but our little furry friends are constantly communicating with us through their body language. A stressed out ratty can be cowering, highly tense, perhaps sitting on its haunches, making a high pitched scream, or tucking it’s back end into a corner. This rat should not be approached directly as they will feel attacked and are likely to lash out, a rat with its mouth slightly ajar is definitely going to bite. An offering can be made to coax them out of that position, but a hand that enters the space they are occupying is an unwelcome guest. An angry rat has their fur all fluffed up to look big and scary, and (especially if directed at another rat) will be moving in a direction leading with its bottom. A happy rat will be audibly bruxing, which can sometimes be so intense that their eyes wiggle (called boggling)! They might also quiver, and many rats will groom you by licking and gently nibbling at your skin. A playful rat is going to be bouncing along instead of walking or running, often doing so very quickly, and might even gently nip you to instigate hand wrestling! A boy, or sometimes girl, that urinates a tiny dribble on your skin is marking you as theirs, too. Rats can live on average for 3 years, and in that time there are several illnesses that can affect our little friends. The most notable is respiratory. All rats carry a bacteria called mycoplasma that sits dormant in their bodies until aggravated by stress and/or other health issues. This bacteria opens the door for secondary infections particularly in the lungs. Thus, rats with any form of respiratory issue (which they are prone to due to the presence of the bacteria) are at further risk of it developing into a more serious issue that can cause permanent damage if recovered from. Respiratory issues can also come with ear or eye infections as they are all connected by the sinuses. Rats are rodents, which means their teeth are open rooted and constantly grow. Generally they maintain the length of their teeth on their own through bruxing, or teeth grinding, but in the case that their teeth do not grow straight, this is not possible. Teeth that grow waywardly can cut the inside of the rats mouth and cause abscesses, as well as on their own making it too uncomfortable for them to eat, causing weight loss. Unfortunately, they are also at risk of external parasites. Fleas, lice and mites are the most common parasite that can plague rats although their origin is rarely ever known; such tiny bugs can travel to our pets on the back of store bought bedding, food or toys. Some rat owners will freeze all incoming produce before giving it to their rats for this reason. These skin invaders can cause bald patches from either scratching or over grooming, as well as anaemia in the case of blood-suckers. In terms of wounds, rats in general heal extremely quickly, so small shallow cuts are not a cause for concern unless an infection forms. Then in old age, many rats fall to cancerous growths. Some can be successfully removed, but there is always a risk of it either growing back or your ratty not doing well under anaesthetic.  Rats are hoarders!!! So when you feed your animals don’t freak out if they empty their bowl in 10 minutes. You will find that their food is stashed in their bed or their litter tray. They need constant access to fresh water, and fresh fruit and veg can be added to their diet as enrichment and to bump up their vitamin C intake that helps with the immune system. 

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Noodles Quotes

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• 3 years ago I was stocking shelves at Target, living on Ramen noodles, and crashing at Billy’s house. Now I’m on tour – Benji Madden • A lot of people in this country are obese because of a form of malnutrition. One thing I’d like to do is to help people understand the correlation between a steady diet of empty calories – though you may not experience hunger pangs, you can’t really function well if all you’re eating are things like ramen noodles, or chips, cookies, and sodas, things that are quite typically inexpensive and affordable because of the way we subsidize the ingredients that go into them. – Lori Silverbush • A professional player is smarter than a college man. He uses his noodle. He knows what to do and when to do it. He rarely goes up in the air as is the case with most of our college players when they get in a tight place. – Red Grange • All the dreamers in all the world are dizzy in the noodle! – Edie Adams • Almost anything can be stretched to serve more people by being added to a white sauce or canned gravy or undiluted or very slightly diluted canned soup and served over noodles or rice. With chops or chocolate eclairs, however, the only solution is to claim you don’t like them. – Jo Coudert • And what have I done?” What? WHAT?…You’ve stolen them.” With that, Cornelia fled, but Buttercup understood; she knew who “them” was. The boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattledskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed BOYS. – William Goldman • As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that’s what I do, too. – Richie Sambora

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Noodle', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself. – Bohumil Hrabal

• But I couldn’t draw as fast as she requested. Thus, I tried to create the worst abomination of a comic that I could, so as to make her not want comics anymore. That abomination, my friends, was Happy Noodle Boy. – Jhonen Vasquez

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• Can’t make chicken salad out of chicken noodle – Mike Ditka • Carbohydrates, and especially refined ones like sugar, make you produce lots of extra insulin. I’ve been keeping my intake really low ever since I discovered this. I’ve cut out all starch such as potatoes, noodles, rice, bread and pasta. – Cynthia Kenyon • Censure is a limp noodle across the wrist of the president. I think the way we vote on the articles will express the way we feel stronger than any censure vote. – Larry Craig • Even now, when I do a slide show of the Geek Squad story, the first slide is a photo of ramen noodles. Because for me, ramen noodles are the international symbol for struggle. – Robert Stephens • He’s smaller than me, did you see him? He looked like a noodle next to me. – Adrien Broner • I can make things, but I don’t cook them, exactly. Like salmon, I can stick that in a pan. Or the other day I made noodles, but they were hard. It never occurred to me to check them; I just stopped cooking them when I felt they were ready. Really, I’m too absentminded. – Paula Poundstone • I cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles. – Ted Allen • I don’t put cream in any pasta noodles ever. I would use a little butter, but I don’t ever use cream. – Mario Batali • I hate to admit this but I don’t even know how to make a cup of tea or coffee. I can boil a kettle for a pot noodle and I’ve been known to warm up some food in the microwave. – Michael Owen • I have a rescue dog named Fideo, which means ‘noodle’ in Spanish, and a cat named Hutch. – Ana Ortiz • I love Chinese food, like steamed dim sum, and I can have noodles morning, noon and night, hot or cold. I like food that’s very simple on the digestive system – I tend to keep it light. I love Japanese food too – sushi, sashimi and miso soup. – Shilpa Shetty • I remember when I couldn’t afford to eat like this. It was ramen noodles and the San Francisco Treat [Rice-A-Roni]. Dessert? Get you a honey bun and put a slice of cheese on it. Put it in the microwave for 45 seconds and you had the gift of a lifetime. – Rick Ross • I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘cooking’ but I can make noodles. That means I can boil water, put the pasta in and wait until it’s done. – Devon Werkheiser • I’m not as good as a man as you are, Sundown. I find it hard to give an enemy my back under any circumstance.” – Ren “Oh, I didn’t say I was giving her my back. I’m not lacking all my noodle sense. But I’m not holding a grudge neither. Sometimes you just got to let the rattlesnake lay in the sun.” – Sundown “Men? You do know I’m standing in this little box with you and can hear every word?” – Abigail “We know. I merely don’t care.” – Ren – Sherrilyn Kenyon • If it’s possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head – the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play. – Ai Weiwei • If you think you can lead your flock of sheeple and peeps to some glorified noodle fest on the mall, you got another thing coming, mister. – Stephen Colbert • I’m Italian. I love to cook Italian food, so I learned from my dad how to make sauce and meatballs and all that stuff. With my wife and kids, I started making homemade pasta. The very first time, I didn’t have a pasta maker, so I had to cut it with a knife, the old-school way! The noodles were all jacked up, but it was fun. – Joey Fatone • I’m layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE. – Jandy Nelson • I’m not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I’ll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it’s rare. – Scott Ian • Instructions for Adam Look after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keyes. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible. – Jenny Downham • It turns out that Molly wasn’t her mother’s daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly … Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don’t know how. – Jim Butcher • Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the ‘Forsyte Saga’ was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room. – Simon Hoggart • Memory, in my opinion, is a complete noodle. It hangs on the silliest things but forgets the stuff that really matters. – Ellen Potter • My grandmother was a kind of Scarsdale, New York, society woman, best known in her day as the author of the 1959 book ‘Growing Your Own Way: An Informal Guide for Teen-Agers’ – this despite being a person whose parenting style made Joan Crawford’s wire hangers look like pool noodles. – Sloane Crosley • My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she’d make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5’8″ and weighed 165 pounds. – Carol Alt • Noodles are not only amusing but delicious. – Julia Child • OH KYO KUN! Isn’t it said that eating pink noodles turns you into a horny pervert?! – Natsuki Takaya • Once you’ve started a film you don’t become a wet noodle. You must have that conflictual interface because you don’t know, and they don’t know. It’s through conflict that you come out with something that might be different, better than either of you thought to begin with. – Jack Nicholson • Peace will come to the world when the people have enough noodles to eat. – Momofuku Ando • Ramen is a dish that’s very high in calories and sodium. One way to make it slightly healthier is to leave the soup and just eat the noodles. – Masaharu Morimoto • Sam was starting to feel anxious. Nutella and noodles were fine. Great in fact. Miraculous. But he’d been hoping for more food more water more medicine something. It was absurdly like Christmas morning when he was little: hoping for something he couldn’t even put a name to. A game changer. Something…amazing. – Michael Grant

• She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls. “How does that thing even work?” Percy asked. “No idea,” Annabeth said. “And I’m the only one besides Leo who can operate it.” “That’s reassuring.” “It should be fine. It’s only threatened to blow up once.” “You’re kidding, I hope.” She smiled. “Come on. – Rick Riordan • Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in. – Karen Marie Moning • Spaghetti… I can’t eat spaghetti, there’s too many of them. No matter how hungry I am, 1,000 of something is too many. I’ll have 1,000 pieces of noodles. – Mitch Hedberg • ‘Tampopo’ is a deeply odd film about Japan, ramen noodles, love and sex. It made me very hungry and desperate to travel to Japan. It started my love affair with this amazing country, its culture, its food, its cinema and made me buy my first ticket to the land of the rising sun. – Jamie Cullum • The boys. The village boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dimdomed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed boys. How could anybody accuse her of stealing them? Why would anybody want them anyway? – William Goldman • There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire– He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, And munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets out a roar If you open the door. And it gives me a scare To know he’s in there– That Polary Bear In our Fridgitydaire. – Shel Silverstein • There’s only one rule in photography – never develop colour film in chicken noodle soup. – Freeman Patterson • We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much. – Richard Siken • When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles… …they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. – Dr. Seuss • When I would feel down…I’d have some noodles father prepared, and all the worries I had that day…Poof! They would all disappear. – Kim Young-kwang • Yes, but I’ve already made my fortune in other things. (Solin) Such as? (Geary) Viagra. My brother learned to take a personal problem and profit by it. (Arik) It’s true. It pained me to see a man as young as Arik stricken with impotency. Therefore I had to do something to help the poor soul. But alas, there’s nothing to be done for it. He’s as flaccid as a wet noodle. (Solin) How creative of you to project your problem onto me. But then, they say celibacy is enough to make a man lose all reason. Guess you’re living proof, huh? (Arik) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You can’t be wishy-washy. That’s the most boring thing in the world, to be a middle-of-the-road wet noodle. That’s my greatest fear, to be like, “Oh, whatever.” That’s just not who I am. – Chris Black • You have to find a group that really desperately cares about what it is you have to say. Talk to them. They have something I call otaku. It’s a great Japanese word. It describes the desire of someone who’s obsessed to, say, drive across Tokyo to try a new Ramen noodle place ’cause that’s what they do, they get obsessed with it. – Seth Godin • You noodle around with tempo and sound until you get the perfect fit for that particular song, and then, so long as you can sustain it, God is on your side and everything comes easily and even the waiters smile. – Wilfrid Sheed • Zen is to religion what a Japanese “rock garden” is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks “What is Zen?”, the master’s traditional answer is “Three pounds of flax” or “A decaying noodle” or “A toilet stick” or a whack on the pupil’s head. – Arthur Koestler • Zerts’ are what I call desserts. ‘Trée-trées’ are entrées. I call sandwiches ‘sammies,’ ‘sandoozles,’ or ‘Adam Sandlers.’ Air conditioners are ‘cool blasterz’ with a ‘z’ – I don’t know where that came from. I call cakes ‘big ol’ cookies.’ I call noodles ‘long-ass rice.’ Fried chicken is ‘fry-fry chicky-chick.’ Chicken parm is ‘chicky-chicky-parm-parm.’ Chicken cacciatore? ‘Chicky-cacc.’ I call eggs ‘pre-birds,’ or ‘future birds.’ Root beer is ‘super water.’ Tortillas are ‘bean blankets.’ And I call forks ‘food rakes.’ – Aziz Ansari

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Noodles Quotes

Official Website: Noodles Quotes

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• 3 years ago I was stocking shelves at Target, living on Ramen noodles, and crashing at Billy’s house. Now I’m on tour – Benji Madden • A lot of people in this country are obese because of a form of malnutrition. One thing I’d like to do is to help people understand the correlation between a steady diet of empty calories – though you may not experience hunger pangs, you can’t really function well if all you’re eating are things like ramen noodles, or chips, cookies, and sodas, things that are quite typically inexpensive and affordable because of the way we subsidize the ingredients that go into them. – Lori Silverbush • A professional player is smarter than a college man. He uses his noodle. He knows what to do and when to do it. He rarely goes up in the air as is the case with most of our college players when they get in a tight place. – Red Grange • All the dreamers in all the world are dizzy in the noodle! – Edie Adams • Almost anything can be stretched to serve more people by being added to a white sauce or canned gravy or undiluted or very slightly diluted canned soup and served over noodles or rice. With chops or chocolate eclairs, however, the only solution is to claim you don’t like them. – Jo Coudert • And what have I done?” What? WHAT?…You’ve stolen them.” With that, Cornelia fled, but Buttercup understood; she knew who “them” was. The boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattledskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed BOYS. – William Goldman • As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that’s what I do, too. – Richie Sambora

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Noodle', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_noodle img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself. – Bohumil Hrabal

• But I couldn’t draw as fast as she requested. Thus, I tried to create the worst abomination of a comic that I could, so as to make her not want comics anymore. That abomination, my friends, was Happy Noodle Boy. – Jhonen Vasquez

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• Can’t make chicken salad out of chicken noodle – Mike Ditka • Carbohydrates, and especially refined ones like sugar, make you produce lots of extra insulin. I’ve been keeping my intake really low ever since I discovered this. I’ve cut out all starch such as potatoes, noodles, rice, bread and pasta. – Cynthia Kenyon • Censure is a limp noodle across the wrist of the president. I think the way we vote on the articles will express the way we feel stronger than any censure vote. – Larry Craig • Even now, when I do a slide show of the Geek Squad story, the first slide is a photo of ramen noodles. Because for me, ramen noodles are the international symbol for struggle. – Robert Stephens • He’s smaller than me, did you see him? He looked like a noodle next to me. – Adrien Broner • I can make things, but I don’t cook them, exactly. Like salmon, I can stick that in a pan. Or the other day I made noodles, but they were hard. It never occurred to me to check them; I just stopped cooking them when I felt they were ready. Really, I’m too absentminded. – Paula Poundstone • I cook everything. I love Mediterranean cooking, I love Asian cooking. I do lots of Japanese noodles. – Ted Allen • I don’t put cream in any pasta noodles ever. I would use a little butter, but I don’t ever use cream. – Mario Batali • I hate to admit this but I don’t even know how to make a cup of tea or coffee. I can boil a kettle for a pot noodle and I’ve been known to warm up some food in the microwave. – Michael Owen • I have a rescue dog named Fideo, which means ‘noodle’ in Spanish, and a cat named Hutch. – Ana Ortiz • I love Chinese food, like steamed dim sum, and I can have noodles morning, noon and night, hot or cold. I like food that’s very simple on the digestive system – I tend to keep it light. I love Japanese food too – sushi, sashimi and miso soup. – Shilpa Shetty • I remember when I couldn’t afford to eat like this. It was ramen noodles and the San Francisco Treat [Rice-A-Roni]. Dessert? Get you a honey bun and put a slice of cheese on it. Put it in the microwave for 45 seconds and you had the gift of a lifetime. – Rick Ross • I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘cooking’ but I can make noodles. That means I can boil water, put the pasta in and wait until it’s done. – Devon Werkheiser • I’m not as good as a man as you are, Sundown. I find it hard to give an enemy my back under any circumstance.” – Ren “Oh, I didn’t say I was giving her my back. I’m not lacking all my noodle sense. But I’m not holding a grudge neither. Sometimes you just got to let the rattlesnake lay in the sun.” – Sundown “Men? You do know I’m standing in this little box with you and can hear every word?” – Abigail “We know. I merely don’t care.” – Ren – Sherrilyn Kenyon • If it’s possible, I will have some noodles in the morning and start talking to people, start to think about a few things in my head – the project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play. – Ai Weiwei • If you think you can lead your flock of sheeple and peeps to some glorified noodle fest on the mall, you got another thing coming, mister. – Stephen Colbert • I’m Italian. I love to cook Italian food, so I learned from my dad how to make sauce and meatballs and all that stuff. With my wife and kids, I started making homemade pasta. The very first time, I didn’t have a pasta maker, so I had to cut it with a knife, the old-school way! The noodles were all jacked up, but it was fun. – Joey Fatone • I’m layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE. – Jandy Nelson • I’m not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I’ll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it’s rare. – Scott Ian • Instructions for Adam Look after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keyes. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible. – Jenny Downham • It turns out that Molly wasn’t her mother’s daughter in that respect. Charity was like the MacGuyver of the kitchen. She could whip up a five-course meal for twelve from an egg, two spaghetti noodles, some household chemicals, and a stick of chewing gum. Molly … Molly once burned my egg. My boiled egg. I don’t know how. – Jim Butcher • Life was so much simpler in pre-video days when everyone refused invitations because the ‘Forsyte Saga’ was on. Now we all just have a long list of unwatched shows, all of which, it seems, our friends are raving about. I feel as outdated as if I wore a Fair Isle sweater, ate Pot Noodle and had a two-bar electric fire in the sitting room. – Simon Hoggart • Memory, in my opinion, is a complete noodle. It hangs on the silliest things but forgets the stuff that really matters. – Ellen Potter • My grandmother was a kind of Scarsdale, New York, society woman, best known in her day as the author of the 1959 book ‘Growing Your Own Way: An Informal Guide for Teen-Agers’ – this despite being a person whose parenting style made Joan Crawford’s wire hangers look like pool noodles. – Sloane Crosley • My mom cooked pot roast with noodles and frozen vegetables. Or she’d make spaghetti or hot dogs, or heat up TV dinners. Before I started modeling at age 19, I was 5’8″ and weighed 165 pounds. – Carol Alt • Noodles are not only amusing but delicious. – Julia Child • OH KYO KUN! Isn’t it said that eating pink noodles turns you into a horny pervert?! – Natsuki Takaya • Once you’ve started a film you don’t become a wet noodle. You must have that conflictual interface because you don’t know, and they don’t know. It’s through conflict that you come out with something that might be different, better than either of you thought to begin with. – Jack Nicholson • Peace will come to the world when the people have enough noodles to eat. – Momofuku Ando • Ramen is a dish that’s very high in calories and sodium. One way to make it slightly healthier is to leave the soup and just eat the noodles. – Masaharu Morimoto • Sam was starting to feel anxious. Nutella and noodles were fine. Great in fact. Miraculous. But he’d been hoping for more food more water more medicine something. It was absurdly like Christmas morning when he was little: hoping for something he couldn’t even put a name to. A game changer. Something…amazing. – Michael Grant

• She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous, mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables resembling giant metal noodles snaked across the floor and ran up the walls. “How does that thing even work?” Percy asked. “No idea,” Annabeth said. “And I’m the only one besides Leo who can operate it.” “That’s reassuring.” “It should be fine. It’s only threatened to blow up once.” “You’re kidding, I hope.” She smiled. “Come on. – Rick Riordan • Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in. – Karen Marie Moning • Spaghetti… I can’t eat spaghetti, there’s too many of them. No matter how hungry I am, 1,000 of something is too many. I’ll have 1,000 pieces of noodles. – Mitch Hedberg • ‘Tampopo’ is a deeply odd film about Japan, ramen noodles, love and sex. It made me very hungry and desperate to travel to Japan. It started my love affair with this amazing country, its culture, its food, its cinema and made me buy my first ticket to the land of the rising sun. – Jamie Cullum • The boys. The village boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dimdomed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed boys. How could anybody accuse her of stealing them? Why would anybody want them anyway? – William Goldman • There’s a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire– He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He’s nibbling the noodles, And munching the rice, He’s slurping the soda, He’s licking the ice. And he lets out a roar If you open the door. And it gives me a scare To know he’s in there– That Polary Bear In our Fridgitydaire. – Shel Silverstein • There’s only one rule in photography – never develop colour film in chicken noodle soup. – Freeman Patterson • We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much. – Richard Siken • When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles… …they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. – Dr. Seuss • When I would feel down…I’d have some noodles father prepared, and all the worries I had that day…Poof! They would all disappear. – Kim Young-kwang • Yes, but I’ve already made my fortune in other things. (Solin) Such as? (Geary) Viagra. My brother learned to take a personal problem and profit by it. (Arik) It’s true. It pained me to see a man as young as Arik stricken with impotency. Therefore I had to do something to help the poor soul. But alas, there’s nothing to be done for it. He’s as flaccid as a wet noodle. (Solin) How creative of you to project your problem onto me. But then, they say celibacy is enough to make a man lose all reason. Guess you’re living proof, huh? (Arik) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You can’t be wishy-washy. That’s the most boring thing in the world, to be a middle-of-the-road wet noodle. That’s my greatest fear, to be like, “Oh, whatever.” That’s just not who I am. – Chris Black • You have to find a group that really desperately cares about what it is you have to say. Talk to them. They have something I call otaku. It’s a great Japanese word. It describes the desire of someone who’s obsessed to, say, drive across Tokyo to try a new Ramen noodle place ’cause that’s what they do, they get obsessed with it. – Seth Godin • You noodle around with tempo and sound until you get the perfect fit for that particular song, and then, so long as you can sustain it, God is on your side and everything comes easily and even the waiters smile. – Wilfrid Sheed • Zen is to religion what a Japanese “rock garden” is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks “What is Zen?”, the master’s traditional answer is “Three pounds of flax” or “A decaying noodle” or “A toilet stick” or a whack on the pupil’s head. – Arthur Koestler • Zerts’ are what I call desserts. ‘Trée-trées’ are entrées. I call sandwiches ‘sammies,’ ‘sandoozles,’ or ‘Adam Sandlers.’ Air conditioners are ‘cool blasterz’ with a ‘z’ – I don’t know where that came from. I call cakes ‘big ol’ cookies.’ I call noodles ‘long-ass rice.’ Fried chicken is ‘fry-fry chicky-chick.’ Chicken parm is ‘chicky-chicky-parm-parm.’ Chicken cacciatore? ‘Chicky-cacc.’ I call eggs ‘pre-birds,’ or ‘future birds.’ Root beer is ‘super water.’ Tortillas are ‘bean blankets.’ And I call forks ‘food rakes.’ – Aziz Ansari

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[topicprinter]

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Jackson Jesionowski (u/productiverobot) of FullBodyZen, a brand that makes cbd/hemp productsSome stats:Product: CBD/Hemp ProductsRevenue/mo: $17,000Started: March 2019Location: TucsonFounders: 1Employees: 0Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Jackson Jesionowski. I am 21 years old and am 8 months into owning FullBodyZen, a CBD/HEMP manufacturing company.My whole business started with CBD Pods compatible with the Juul, this soon became hemp flower, prerolls. and hemp cigarettes. Now, 8 months later we are doing $17K in revenue a month and have 14 total products.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Eight months ago I crashed snowboarding. Not your typical crash, the last thing I remember was thinking “I'm going too fast” approaching a jump and the next, waking up in a hospital throwing up violently. Afterward, I did not feel like myself, there was a substantial concussion and my cognitive abilities were lacking. I thought there had to be SOMETHING I should be taking.imageThrough my research, I found marijuana, CBD specifically, reduces the swelling that is causing damage to the neurons. I went shopping and boy were it expensive, to get the most bang for my buck I settled on vape juice, given its high bioavailability compared to oral products.Fraternity friends took notice of my new toy and I explained that it was CBD juice, a friend tried it and loved it but the only vape he had was a Juul.Luckily my dorm room years of hustling served me well, I was all too familiar with deconstructing Juul pods filling them for resale. I made one, he loved it and bought 10. Talk about a small minimum viable product, I reinvested the funds right away buying peoples empty pods and stocking the vending machine I had placed in the fraternity right away.At this time I would have been a junior but I had dropped out in the middle of my sophomore year due to the mild success of betarian.com. And for the fact that school was proving to be worthless to me. I started out in MIS which was basically an advanced Excel class. I realized “Business” in school did not mean entrepreneurship as naive as I was to think that. So I opted for a skill that could not only get a job but be utilized in any business I did and went with computer science. Sadly my codecademy course had proved all too well and the lecture did not take attendance. I just came for the tests and submitted the homework, getting marks off for using functions we had not learned yet.To top this off I was a pledge at the time for my fraternity and was sharing the homework with older active members in the same class. At the end of the semester, I was called in to be shown that one of them did not change ANYTHING. I would have to retake the class I already learned nothing from. I decided to opt for minimum credits of a topic I love (neuroscience) and to work on Betarian in my freetime. I also built thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe9YHBk6YKkBusiness is my passion anyways so the second I started making a decent income it was all the backing I needed to win the argument with my parents. That also meant being cut off from their income, something I argued against but realize was necessary to keep me hungry and fighting.Betarian had taken a turn in the first two months it had done $30,000 in revenue with a 20% margin. 5,000 of that revenue being from one person buying consistently over the 2 months. Sadly, his passport he verified himself with was fake, and he charged back every transaction from 2 months as “not his”. Paypal sided with me, but because he went Bank -> Paypal -> Me. Paypal did not have the authority to deny the return of funds.Lesson learned, more verification measures added, and restrictions limiting daily purchasing power. Also limiting the income I would receive was the fact that I now had almost no money to keep Ethereum stocked in the site and purchasing through a bank meant 2-3 business day wait times. From this point forward the site was side-lined.I tested many new ideas prototyped an AUX to Lightning charger bracelet but did not put forward the 3.5k needed for the first order. Then “247mediabooster.com” I resold Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Soundcloud, Youtube likes plays and retweets. On top of that, I made a simple bot followed and liked users from specific hashtags and followers of other users on Instagram. This software was doing decently well, at peak I had 15 clients paying 20 to 140 dollars per month to be signed up for it at the same time. Signing up new clients was proving to be hard, door to door sales were failing and I was not 100% confident in the software as some accounts would get blocks from bot detection.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Once the idea was validated in the fraternity I contacted my friend who owns a smoke shop and pitched it to him. He gave me a price they would pay and crunching the numbers I could make 300% margins. Great!I ordered 100 empty pods, plastic clamshell packaging, higher mg CBD vape juice and paid a friend to design a label.imageimageimageI ended up listing the empty pods and sold half of them covering the cost of the other 50. I took my packaging to the dollar tree and found a 3 compartment plastic box and that was the display. I sold a pack of 15 pods to a friend, then went smokeshop to smoke shop.imageimageI left a sample at stores where the owner was gone, and when an owner was in made a sale.imageAt this time my product cost was $2.5-3.5 and I was selling them depending on mg for $6-8. REINVEST. I took all that money and bought more pods and packaging, extra pods to list for sale on offerup of course. My mother owns two clothing stores at the U of A, she asked her landlord and got permission to sell the pods at the front desk. She sells them for 14,16,18 and takes a generous $4 cut. To this day I get a check over a thousand dollars every month from her.imageI got a couple of my fraternity friends filling and packaging the pods at this point. One of the first store owners gave me a jar of hemp when I came in, said it was flying off the shelves. Driving home, looking down it was no different than looking like I had a jar of marijuana. It even smelled the same, at first, my brain sparked a more mischievous idea.imageHere’s my grandma with a few lbs of the hemp. Note this is a VERY Christian ladyTo produce the jars and labels for my fraternity so they could avoid MIPs. I decided to shoot the owner a text and ask how much he was paying. $24 at the time, I quickly did some research and said I'll sell better quality, nice looking jars of hemp to him for $22. It would cost me $7.imageDescribe the process of launching the business.This business fell into my lap and calling any portion of the business a “launch” like saying the day Santa comes to your house is on Christmas. I sold a few pods to a friend, then put them into a vending machine I had in my fraternity, then into a retail store. After I got into enough retail stores I had shake from the pounds of hemp I was buying. I had a bunch of cigarette tubes laying around, and some cones and decided to test out making some new products.imageSince launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?99% of the DTC (Direct to consumer) sales is out of my hands. As I stated before I started out by going smoke shop to smoke shop with a tray of product and an invoice. It was not until I went to hollywood I have used my friends as small focus groups, and my Instagram following to decide between labels and even in choosing our company logo. The polls are such a useful feature that I feel is underutilized by many companies.imageI have a good friend in LA who I had given a couple of CBD pods to while he was in Tucson. He ended up posting it on his Instagram story and someone reached out to him about my company. I arranged a trip to LA to meet this possible investor and figured I would go out to local smoke shops there too. We even set up a stand on Hollywood BLVD. It was a HORRIBLE stand though and I was surprised to still make 100/hr.imageThe direct store sales did not fare so well. On Hollywood Blvd, none of the store owners were in at the time. The one store that an owner was in for, ended up buying a display of the pods. They have reordered since and you can find them on La Brea and Hollywood Blvd.imageOne worker asked me, why do you not go downtown to the wholesale market? I said “the what?” this was news to me. I arranged to go tomorrow not knowing what to expect. I went into plenty of stores, felt underprepared but managed to land a 12k order with a store called Calikulture.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?This Friday I will receive a 65K wire from fraternity alumni who was intrigued by my business at a homecoming reunion. He met me at the very start when I had just made my first few jars of hemp. I texted him later and after a month got a reply, I kept him up to date as my company grew and we continued talks of investment.imageI took my mom's car up to LA with 12K of product to a distributor Calikulture a couple of weeks ago. This was our largest order to date. On the way back I was actually stopped when a dog sniffed the car, luckily we had barely any product. Just king-sized prerolls I had made to try and land a white-label deal with a company “Bolt” eventually we got through after showing enough licenses and border patrol getting approval from their higher-ups.imageThis will continue to be the main focus, selling straight to distributors but this past week I did place a $100 ad on a hemp forum that has already paid for itself 10x over in mid-sized wholesale orders. The idea of an MLM keeps popping into my mind. The local CBD stores are price-gouging customers and many companies' products do not contain as much CBD as advertised. This was a funny thing I saw, where I was selling my CBD pods (150mg per max) and there were pods advertising 1000mg. Well, these pods can hold .7ml even if you put 100% pure CBD isolate (which then you cannot vape) into the pod you could get up to 700mg. Not to mention it needs to dissolve into the vapable liquid.With the investment we are looking at cargo-vans, I have trained a couple of friends to the point that the manufacturing shop can run autonomously. I will have them fulfill website orders, and create product after filling the van and will take off myself to distribution networks across the nation.imageSo far I have not made it past of LA as a distributor there has bought us out never allowing a surplus of product to go after more distribution. I am in the works of fixing this by hiring new employees. I am having a girl help me arrange gift baskets that I will go to fraternities and sororities at the U of A with in order to recruit.imageThrough starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?One thing I never expected was to be any decent at graphic design. Throughout the last 8 months though, minute changing to labeling based on regulations and feedback that I was too impatient to explain to the friend I was using for design caused me to become quite decent with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.What platform/tools do you use for your business?We host our website on Shopify and use FollowPlanner for Instagram.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?Waitbutwhy.comThe Millionaire FastlaneZero to OneJobsAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Start now, get the mentality that all effort is progress, it truly is. Once you can stomach that fact things change. Produce things and put them into the world, understand the value of being a producer over a consumer.Conquer your inner demons and try and remove wasteful high-dopamine activities from your life,Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?If anyone is in the Tucson/U of A area I am definitely hiring more minimum wage positions. Besides that, I am open to the idea of higher-level positions like marketing, distributors in other states but this would work on a commission basis to start as all profits are being reinvested into material goods.I am thinking of building out an MLM but have no experience if someone wants to take over that department and do a rev share. Always open to new possibilities.Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteEmailInstagramEndorsement from NFL running back.If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

[itsworn]

This Custom 1966 Box Nova built to move out!

Chevy lover Mitchell Laucks had every intentions of building a radical street/strip ’66 Nova with the help of his hot rod lovin’ father, Bruce. They even went as far as locating a sweet starting point for the build, which the twosome dug out of long-term hibernation and then towed back home to their garage in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania. But their plans changed dramatically when Mitchell’s mom, Lisa, got an eyeful of this needy Chevy compact. She saw the potential for her own brazen, hot-rodded muscle ride hiding deep down inside the beat-down Box Nova.

“This one’s gonna be mine … right boys?” She firmly asked, adding that “it’s not really a question” inflection on top of it. Mitchell and Bruce were stone silent. With that query the father/son team knew that they were in big trouble. Neither answering yes nor no here would ever work in their favor when dealing with Mama Laucks. They both now had to face the fact that they just might have just lost their new toy to the queen of the household.

But hey, all was not lost … yet. You gotta look at the bright side here. Even though Mama “poached” the Nova for herself, the Chevy was still in their house. And who knows … the boys might just be just a “pretty please” away from getting the keys, and the chance to drive her new hot rod. You’d figure that was a definite possibility, especially since Mitchell and Bruce were going to do all the labor on her new “super car” anyway. So the threesome joined together, battened down, and came up with a bulletproof plan to take this basic Box Nova and turn it into a Chevy that rocks.

The Nova was found in Manheim, Pennsylvania, not far from their home. It was a little less than a complete car. “It was missing the whole front end, but we didn’t need that stuff anyway,” states Mitchell. And that’s the truth, since the plan was to make this ride into a wild custom with power to spare and not some meticulous 100-point OEM restoration.

When they checked out the Nova before purchasing, Mitchell used a magnet to scan the panels. Their “high tech” imaging system showed that the car was pretty much rust free. Good deal they thought. However, once the car was stripped they found that newer metal was welded right over the old rusty panels. The last “sheetmetal technicians” didn’t even try to remove them at all. Mitchell realizes now that he might have to upgrade his rust analyzing equipment. So the boys were behind the eight ball from the start. But that didn’t deter them at all, as they knew Mama was expecting this ride to be the hottest Chevy compact this side of the Mighty Muddy Mississippi.

So Mitchell and Bruce soon found themselves elbows deep in a near total restoration of the Nova’s sheetmetal. The job included replacing the roof skin, the quarter-panels, a complete set of floors (including the trunk), sourcing a new cowl-induction hood, and, to top it off, welding a myriad of patches throughout the body. It seems like the rust was the only thing holding this little Chevy together. But they forged on.

When they made their way to the front end, a Martz Chassis bolt-on front clip was purchased and installed, which brought a major improvement to the overall strength and look of the semi-unibody construction. Once the front end was set up, the boys continued with the theme by adding a Martz Chassis bolt-in rear suspension with a four-link setup, and installed a healthy Ford 9-inch rear. Homemade round tube subframe connectors were fabricated in house and used to tie the chassis and body all together. Before moving on, the rear wheelwells were mini-tubbed in preparation for some big meats.

Soon the boys had to start thinking about what powerplant would propel this rocket ship down the strip for Mama, or whomever else that could wrestle the keys out of her hands for a drive. “First thought was to build a traditional small-block, but dad thought the Chevrolet Performance LSA would be badass,” says Mitchell. Well guess what? Father knows best, and so the duo bought a Connect & Cruise LSA engine package complete with a 4L85E transmission.

The insertion into the Nova engine bay was way easy, but packaging the engine cleanly was the real trick here. The duo spent plenty of time cleaning up plumbing, wiring, and hiding intercooler hoses. The latter being run through the firewall, under the dash, and under the fender to the tank and heat exchanger in the front of the engine bay. They added a Cadillac CTS engine cover for an offbeat modern touch. Church Boys headers remove the spent gasses and send them through a pair of DynoMax Ultra Flo mufflers.

The differential is stuffed with 3.70 gears, which spin the big rubber out back. To get this ride down the road, 18×10 Budnik Shotgun G wheels shod in 285/35/18 Continental tires do the damage. Up front, 18×7 rims wrapped in 215/45/18 skins keep this ride pointed in the right direction. Wilwood disc brakes, with 12-inch rotors up front and 11-inch in the rear work with a Wilwood master and booster to do the stopping on this wild Chevy.

Mitchell did all the finish bodywork and prep himself. When it came to the paint, he did that, too. He sprayed the DuPont Hot Hues Purple Rhapsody on the Nova’s flanks right there in the family garage. “When Mama picked this color, my dad and I tried to convince her to try something else, but we lost out. But now we realize how awesome the color is,” he gladly states. Good job Mama, you did well. The car’s color and finish are judged to be an undisputed knock out in our book.

Mitchell wanted the underside of this Nova to be as nice as the top side, so he made sure that he gave the belly a little love as well. He sprayed the undercarriage with SEM bed liner tinted to match the Chevy’s new body color. To finish off the chassis, he skinned all the suspension parts in Sterling Gray metallic, and then gave them a few coats of satin clear to give them some extra toughness.

The interior was next on the list. Mama made her demands and the boys carried them out to perfection. First off, a Dakota Digital dash was installed for a more modern look at the vitals. To take control of the climate in this fast but comfy Chevy, Dakota Digital HVAC controls were used in conjunction with the Vintage Air A/C system. When it came to the overall look and feel of the Nova’s new cockpit, well, that was left up to Chris McClintock and Corey Lyba over at Bux Customs in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. “These two guys really made the car what it is and totally blew my expectations out of the water,” states Mitchell. They pieced together one beautiful interior, using black and gray leather to accent the wild purple paint, while repurposing buckets out of a ’11 Buick Regal. Overall, the results are just stunning to say the least.

Mitchell and Bruce finished off the car, adding the subtle touches that are rarely noticed, but important nonetheless. Stainless steel brake and fuel lines were plumbed in, and a stainless Rick’s Hot Rod Shop gas tank was added as well. This choice ride sends go juice by way of a CTS-V fuel pump out back. Billet hood hinges add some bling under the hood.

After four years of hard labor, the car was finally ready for testing and tuning. The twosome racked up many hours on the Nova, with Mitchell working 2-3 hours on it every day after doing his regular 12-14 hour shift. When the car was finished, they had Dennis Wheet troubleshoot, fix some minor issues, and then tune the car. They were quite happy with the 500 rear-wheel-horsepower that the LSA made. And Mama … well, she was downright giddy.

Today, the Nova sees plenty of road time. And yes, Mama has been good to the guys, letting them partake in the fun whenever they like. “I built this car, and I drive this car often,” states Mitchell. So don’t feel sorry for them because they lost this one to the queen. There’s always another one for the taking, and maybe Mama will let the guys keep the next one. Maybe.

The post This Custom 1966 Box Nova built to move out! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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Innokin Ares MTL RTA Review | Easy to Build, Wick and Fill

Innokin Ares MTL RTA intro

Mouth-to-lung vaping never went out of style. In fact, the MTL market has only been getting more competitive recently. Today we’re looking at the Ares RTA, from Innokin’s Platform series, a line of products catering specifically to MTLers, beginning vapers and smokers. Phil Busardo and Dimitris Agrafiotis (VapinGreek), two popular vaping YouTubers, worked together with Innokin to design this tank.

Busardo is a well-known MTL vaper, so I have high expectations for the Ares. The tank is 24 mm in diameter and holds about 4 mL, although it’s listed at 5 mL. It’s designed for single-coil building and incorporates some of the top features from the best RTAs on the market. I’m not going to get into the YouTube drama about where the tech concepts originated though. I’m more interested in its performance.

Price: $35.99 Colors: black and stainless steel

Innokin Ares MTL RTA gallery

Innokin Ares MTL RTA specs and features

Kit Content

Innokin Ares RTA

3 mL glass Section

Smoked tank section

Drip tip set

Hex key

Meter of wire

Pre-built coils (2)

Spare part pack

User manual

Specifications

24 mm in diameter

Push to fill system

4 mL e-juice capacity

Two-post single-terminal build deck

Side-mounted screws

Dual wicking ports

PEEK-insulated positive post

Single internal air tube on build deck

9 separate airflow holes

Rounded bell chamber – reduces air turbulence

Adjustable bottom air slots

Four different airflow holes – 2 mm /1.5 mm /1 mm / 0.5 mm

Delrin drip tip with 5 mm bore

Gold-plated 510 pin

Notable Remarks

Aesthetics

If you like simplicity, then you’re going to like the way the Ares RTA looks. It has a clean design, nothing crazy or fancy, which appeals to me. Its most noticeable characteristic is its bell-shaped conical reduced chamber. Other than that, it just looks like your average rebuildable MTL tank.

Innokin has included green and clear o-rings and a tinted glass section for those who want to spice things up a bit. I love how it looks with the lime green o-rings and the clear glass section. It reminds me of the old SMOK TCT tanks, but its 24 mm diameter gives it a more modern look.

The branding on the conical chamber prominently features the Platform and Ares logo in black. The Innokin logo is subtly etched into the top cap. On the underside of the top-fill cap, there’s a little romantic tribute to the famous bromance between Phil and Dimitris. A nice added touch.

The Ares includes two different black Delrin drip tips — a regular straight one, and a curved one reminiscent of the Nautilus mouthpiece. You can also use any 510-compatible drip tips.

Features and functions

The Ares RTA has a sweet top-fill system reminiscent of the Eleaf Melo 3 or the new Wismec Gnome tank. It snaps open with authority using a ball bearing. The fill port is insulated with food-grade silicone. The downside is that this silicone piece cannot be removed for cleaning, and if it tears then you’re screwed. The fill port is large enough to accommodate anything from fine tips to larger glass droppers.

The tank utilizes a conical reduced chamber, which is supposed to enhance the flavor and throat hit. This bell-like design supposedly reduces turbulence to provide a smoother hit. They claim that its rounded shape also allows your juice to easily flow into the tank when filling it up.

The Ares disassembles into four main components; the base which includes the build deck, the chimney/top-cap, the glass section, and the drip tip. I appreciate the simplicity of this design for cleaning purposes. It’s not a humpty dumpty tank that feels like a puzzle to put back together. The o-rings appear to be thick and durable, and there are only two, which is ideal for cleaning.

Extras and goodies

The Ares MTL RTA is made with beginners in mind. Dimitris and Phil made sure to include everything you need to get started. That includes a spare glass tank, two sets of o-rings, two drip tips, a hex key, 26 g Kanthal wire, two 1.0-ohm coils, cotton, and two flathead screws.

You also receive two building rods, one for contact coils and the other for spaced ones. For beginners, I would start by installing the prebuilt coils as a guide, then use the build tool to create your own coils for the tank. Dimitris’ build tool makes building spaced coils easy while Phil’s tool allows you to build 2.5 mm or 3 mm contact coils, depending on which side you’re using.

Innokin also offers video tutorials which are accessible through a scannable QR code. In addition to that, their customer service seems to be exceptional, especially on the Platform series. You can see how responsive they are on their website to concerns from their customers.

The build deck

How ‘bout that deck? Innokin is calling it a “drop-in coil sky build deck”. This is just a fancy way of saying it’s a GTA-style deck in which the platform is elevated from the bottom of the tank. It requires your coils to have the leads going in opposite directions, so you can just drop your coil into place and tighten the screws. If you’ve ever built on the Digiflavor Siren (1 or 2) then you’ll be right at home with the Ares.

The cotton doesn’t need to be tucked into a hole like the Fumytech Rose. The Ares deck has c-cutouts for your wicks that are sealed up when screwing on the chamber. The only issue is that you can get some cotton stuck in the threading, but it won’t be a problem if you make sure your wicks are contained inside the cutouts. The underside of the deck slants downwards, which Innokin claims is more conducive to wicking (as opposed to the underside being flat). We’ll see about that…

Building on it has been a breeze. You don’t even need to bend your leads around the posts or anything sneaky like that. The included screws are nice and beefy and will trap just about any wire from a thick fused clapton all the way up to 28-gauge round wire. You could probably even pull off a build with 30 gauge wire, but 26 or 28 gauge seems to be the optimal gauge for this type of build deck. I recommend building a coil with a 2.5-3.0 mm diameter, so it doesn’t touch the inner chamber.

The deck also features a liquid barrier to prevent juice from splashing and leaking all over the place. This barrier is essentially two walls that sit perpendicular to the deck’s build posts. At least they are not that tall, so they don’t make building on the tank any more difficult for me.

Airflow

As with the Digiflavor Siren V1, just underneath the coil is a short round cylinder with small airholes resembling a showerhead. It looks like the airflow reducer from the Siren, except with more holes, no knurling, and it isn’t removable.

The airflow control ring features four different size holes ranging from 0.5 to 2 mm. Like the Siren 2, you can either use the cyclops airflow slot, or select them individually using an additional hole. The ring has a stopper on each end and does not click into position. It may loosen up when using the tank, but after a good rinse, the tolerance will revert to normal.

I was surprised to find that even with just the 0.5 mm hole selected, the draw isn’t as tight as I expected. For me, this isn’t an issue because I honestly prefer a restrictive lung hit, but for some hardcore MTL enthusiasts, this tank might not cut it. You can try closing off the 0.5 mm hole, but that introduces another issue that I’ll be addressing in the performance section of this review.

Performance

The vape that I get off the Ares RTA has been solid and dependable. I found it works best with a 1.0-ohm coil at around 15-20 watts before the mouthpiece gets too hot. You can get away with as low as a 0.5-ohm coil, but it’s not ideal for that. Good news: a DL version is in the works.

I tried a few different wicking methods. First, I tried it with the cotton hanging almost to the bottom of the tank, which worked out fine. Then I realized that you can cut the wicks flush with the bottom of the build deck, and it still has no problems wicking down to the last drop.

No dry or burnt-tasting hits to be found, and I have had no issues so far with leaking. The flavor is consistent and comparable to the Aspire Nautilus 2. I was able to vape anything from 50/50 to thicker juices containing up to 75 percent VG. It wasn’t a struggle to find the perfect balance of cotton (like the Zeus RTA), but I highly recommend using less cotton with thinner blends, and a bit more with the higher-VG juices.

I enjoy using this tank on the largest single airflow setting or rocking it wide open. The only issue I found is that it makes a slight whistle, especially when taking hard puffs on the two smallest holes. Other than that, the draw is smooth and enjoyable with minimal airflow turbulence. I think the whistling is caused when the airflow gets restricted by the “showerhead” airflow reducer.

The throat hit is there, especially with higher-nicotine juices. It’s not as defined as a tank with tighter airflow, but I think Innokin achieved a nice balance between a sharp hit and a smooth one. If you’re looking for that extra kick, I’d recommend chucking some nic salt in this bad boy. Overall the performance is smooth and quiet, aside from the faint whistling that I previously mentioned.

Likes

Easy deck to build on

Awesome top fill

Quality machining

Lots of airflow options

Smooth and consistent flavor

Easy to install coils

No leaking/gurgling

Easy to clean

TPD version available

Dislikes

Slight airflow whistle

Top-fill insulator isn’t removable

Could have a tighter draw

Verdict

I would recommend this product to fans of the Digiflavor Siren series, or Nautilus lovers who’d like to build their own coils. If you’re looking for a super tight draw, I’d recommend looking at something more like the Kayfun Prime or Beserker. I can’t say this is the ultimate MTL tank, but for the price and what you receive, it’s well worth the money for its consistent performance and quality.

I think Phil and Dimitris did an excellent job overall designing a rebuildable tank with Innokin that accommodates both seasoned vapers and beginners. I can see smokers gravitating more towards the Zenith, due to the pre-made coils. But if you’re new to building, the Ares is a great place to start. Are you a hardcore MTLer? Share your thoughts on the Innokin Ares MTL RTA!

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