#chunk of additional damage was a very 'we were not prepared for this' situation

[kelocitta]

I wanted to ask, I might have missed it, but how is the new Scav chieftain as a character? With her having to take over after her daughter’s passing, and the needed cleaning up after Artificers mess in this AU? It’s really interesting that shes now suffering a loss of a child, acting as a parallel to Artificer also.

Bolt of Silver (Although name has certainly changed) was an accomplished pirate* sharpshooter. Her particular skillset was in the execution of caravan/patrol captains from exceptional distances in order to induce panic for a followup assault. Her past is largely unknown, and as such she is not someone who would have ever been considered for the position of Chieftain had there not be a considerable amount of panic. She took the position because she, as an elder, is generally given respect of wisdom and also she herself showed quiet a bit of initiative and leadership during the panic that curried some favor- although she is notably more of a substitute than a properly recognized Chieftain, and will eventually step down once a replacement is formally put forth. Her daughter, in contrast, did not share her criminal history and was a rather accomplished explorer, archivist, and generally an upstanding Scavenger. The fact she acquired the position was a testament to her own skills, independent of her mother, who retired and integrated back into the larger community as a general assistant and expectant grandmother. *Pirate in the context of Scavengers does not refer to boat users, but rather caravans or groups of united thief or criminal rogue wandering groups. 'Unaffiliated' Scavenger groups are common, but many of them are merely small families, independents, or even particularly traveled traders and thus welcomed into the larger community even if they do not directly consider themselves a part of it. Pirate groups are distinct in that their activity is almost entirely criminal in nature, often violent, and ideally removed or pushed to the furthest fringes of territories.

[gabeswritingthingy]

A Slice of Life in Space (Sample Work, Short Story)

Log Entry – 07.05.2050

Everyone on Earth saw it with their own eyes. Yesterday’s events will not be forgotten for a long time. For my part, I saw it while I was preparing pasta for my dinner. At 8:00 pm last night, the moon exploded. The blast was so strong the shockwaves could be felt here on the planet, which resulted in a short 2.5 magnitude earthquake. Thankfully, little to no damage was caused. It also didn’t produce any casualties, either - at least if you don’t consider my carbonara a casualty, because one of the moon chunks fell on the damned thing just as I was about to eat it. Instead, I carefully put on my gloves and placed it in an airtight container immediately. I called my boss and told him about the incident, all worried. She assured me that they have prepared for such an eventuality and have begun The Lunar Restoration Program as we spoke. Since the advancement of technology has come so far, the astronauts at the United Global Space Station had no trouble replacing the damaged 75% of the moon almost instantaneously by getting a clean sample of a moon rock, cloning it, then reattaching it to the rest of the moon on a molecular level. The actual problem, my boss said, is figuring out what caused the moon to explode in the first place.

I also asked her if moon dust is safe for the human body to consume in the hopes that I can still eat my pasta, and she threatened me with bodily harm if I even thought of attempting to do what I wanted to do. I just hung up and went to bed, knowing the next day is gonna be busy.

As part of The Lunar Restoration Program, Stargazer Laboratories has now been tasked by the Global Alliance to find out the cause of the moon’s destruction. My boss, Dr. Valentina Petrova, will be the one leading this operation. I am quite excited to put my efforts toward solving this mystery because we may finally find evidence of intelligent life outside the universe; or maybe this is all a big conspiracy and an UGSS astronaut blew up the moon for their own self-interest. Whatever it is, it’s very exciting stuff.

My name is Dr. Leonard Anderson, and these personal log entries aim to narrate and catalogue what will happen as this operation is going on. Although I do want to emphasize that this is still kinda like my own personal journal, in case this mission blows up in our faces – figuratively or otherwise – and the journalist, historian, or whoever finds this is baffled by the loose language and unnecessary details that will be seen here. So yeah, that’s it. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 07.06.2050

Crazy stuff, you guys. The astronauts finally flew in all the chunks that came off the moon for analysis. I also gave them my pasta-stained space rock, as it is still apparently valuable. We also interviewed the astronauts working on the space station that day. They told us that they found no traces of radiation after the explosion, so the use of nuclear weapons is out of the picture. They also found no radio signals or transmissions presenting threatening messages coming from outer space or planet Earth minutes before the event, so there is no evidence of human or alien intervention. Not yet, anyway.

The actual analysis of the moon rocks had revealed little, but what we did find out was interesting nonetheless. We found small traces of purple slime in the craters and small crevices, including the ones in my rock pasta. Finding the damn things took all day because there were a lot of chunks we had to go through and we only found a few traces of it. As of today, we have no idea if it was synthesized in the moon naturally, or someone put it there. We called it a day after that. Chemical analysis will be done tomorrow.

After a long, boring day of getting purple goo out of moon rocks, I finally went to see the Hamilton premiere on Mars with Paolo, Sigrid, and Jane. I don’t know them very well yet since they’re new additions to the team, but they seem cool from the first few hours I hung out with them, so I invited them to go with me. It’s amazing that Hamilton is still getting staged after 35 years, but it’s not very surprising, is it? Holy crap, I’m still getting chills when I watch it. What is amazing, however, is that we were able to see it on Mars at all. The planet was only colonized 10 years ago, and terraforming only started two years after that. We’re only half-way finished with the terraforming, but a fully-functioning atmosphere has already been built, and a few thousand people are already living there, which is incredible. The musical is still awesome whatever planet you stage it on, though. The production turned off the artificial gravity and took advantage of that to its fullest when it came to the choreography. It’s even more amazing than when I saw it back when I was a teenager.

What’s even more amazing, however, is the fact that our boss was also there. Seriously. Because we didn’t think that Dr. Petrova, the scary, muscular Russian lady who looks like she bench-presses bears as a hobby, is a fan of musical theater. We almost snuck out undetected, but she saw us. She invited us to have dinner with her, and we were honestly too scared to refuse.

But now, I am fascinated by her. My boss turns out to be a very chill lady. She has a deep, scary laugh, but that’s the only thing kinda scary about her, along with the muscles and the brooding attitude. So yeah, I guess we only found her scary because she’s our boss, and we never really thought of building a relationship with her outside of work. After that, we sang some zero-g karaoke and had a few drinks. Paolo, the little weakling that he is, vomited after two bottles. Puke is very gross when you look at it floating around. We flew him home after that and went our separate ways. This day did a lot of good easing my anxiety about this moon thing. But man, I am very tired.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 07.07.2050

Fucking hell, my head hurts. Wait. Why am I recording this right now? It’s only 3 am. What? Oh, damn, I’m still drunk. [snoring]

Holy crap, was this thing turned on all night? Alright. I am now fully awake and sober. I’ll record today’s events after work, as I always do.

[end of audio log]

We finally did chemical analysis on the purple slime. It has some properties that aren’t found on anything else on the planet, but it strangely bears some resemblance to nitroglycerin. Although because of its baffling chemical traits, it does not ignite when lit on fire. Something else probably detonated the slime, although we’re still not sure what it is.

The analysis almost didn’t happen, though. The samples went missing when work started in the morning. We were all frantic trying to find them. Then we found Paolo, bless his hungover ass, standing over the samples with a knife, a jar of peanut butter, and some bread. Dr. Petrova yelled at him, “THAT’S NOT GRAPE JELLY YOU DUMBFUCK!” and some Russian expletives I couldn’t understand. He jumped in surprise and fell on his ass, but otherwise he’s fine. He was sent home for the day because of his hangover. He didn’t eat the samples by accident, fortunately. I think the boss also didn’t punish him or anything, which is fair.

After that clusterfuck of a morning, work went smoothly. The analysis was done, and we found out what we found out. Work ended after that, because all of us were at a loss at what to do. It really seems like it’s an alien object, but we still can’t be sure. For now, we just put it inside the observation chamber. I immediately went home after because I didn’t really feel like hanging out. Solving a mystery’s just too exhausting sometimes, ya know?

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.08.2050

I stopped recording for several days after my last audio log because work had been long and busy. I only started again now because the experiments finally yielded results. Well, kind of.

Fucking scorch marks EVERYWHERE, y’all. After almost a month of nothing, the goo exploded again. I had to wake up at 6 am today because of that. My boss called me, absolutely frantic. I just thought that if SHE is panicking, then we are ALL panicking. I showered, got dressed, and ate breakfast in the span of ten minutes and immediately went to the lab like it’s the 2010’s and I had to go there by car because warp gates didn’t exist yet. THAT is how urgent the situation is.

What happened was that the alarms went off because the observation chamber blew up. All my friends and the boss were already there. We looked inside, and the samples got out of their glass cases, but not the room itself. Large-ass scorch marks were seen everywhere. Good thing the entire room is made out of titanium alloys.

Another look-around revealed that most of the room is now covered with purple goo, which means they somehow multiplied. It doesn’t complicate things at all. The security cameras also showed that nobody broke into the lab. An inventory of the items revealed that no equipment was stolen or messed with. Knowing that the observation chamber was still airtight, locked under heavy security, and nothing in it was actually broken, the only conclusion we came to is that the slime slipped through their cases, somehow ignited, then multiplied.

After cleaning up, we put all the slime in titanium-alloy boxes instead of glass ones. We cannot observe it properly that way, but we can’t take any chances, either. Letting it have even the slightest means of escape is dangerous. The only thing we can do for now is to continue analyzing while containing the rest.

We also managed to recover footage from the damaged security cameras inside the observation chamber. What we saw is kinda confusing, and we still don’t know what ignited the slime in the first place. It turns out that it kept exploding inside the glass case and somehow got bigger ang bigger until it got all over the chamber. The source of the explosion is still a mystery. More analysis will be done tomorrow. Hopefully some progress will be made.

Our boss wanted to hang out with us again, and we did not hesitate to say yes. There’s a meteor shower that’s gonna pass through the solar system today, and we can see it up close on Mars. We went there after work, and it was beautiful. The zero-gravity environment and protective force field around the planet allowed us to observe the meteors up close. None of y’all have lived at all if you haven’t seen comets changing colors and streaking through the darkness of space so close you can almost touch them. I haven’t seen such beauty since the first spacecrafts that landed on Mars was televised. Three of us saw Sigrid holding on to Paolo’s arm while they looked up, all mesmerized. Is she in love with him, or, knowing how much of a klutz he is, trying to stop him from careening over the observation deck by accident? We didn’t know. We just let them be.

After that, I realized I forgot my laptop in the lab. My boss said she’d go with me since she wanted to do some last-minute security sweeps and make sure the observation chamber wouldn’t explode again. All my friends went home and I went with my boss. She said she wanted to go there by spacecraft instead of warp gate because she wanted to take in the sights when we travel between Mars and Earth. Being that I have no plans and it’ll only take about an hour and a half anyway, I said sure, why not? She took her craft out of her bag, unshrunk it, and we set course for Earth.

There were some sights worth seeing, alright. Ever since humanity became capable of space travel 30 years ago, we developed a newfound appreciation for it. New quasars recently started to form between the empty spaces of Earth and Mars and I am ecstatic I live in a time I get to see them up close. Those beautiful gas clouds would eventually turn to stars and I cannot wait to see them.

I pondered a bit during that car ride. All this wouldn’t have happened if the planet didn’t get its shit together. 10 years before space exploration became a thing, Earth was on the brink of collapse. Thankfully, every country decided they had enough and actually worked together to finally put a stop to global warming. My parents said that to this day, they still can’t believe the sheer scale of unity that happened back then. From what I have read in history, I couldn’t believe it either. Holy crap, we can actually work together. All of those countries eventually became unified as the Global Alliance, one big-ass country with a big-ass, but more efficient government. All this happened a decade before I was born. I wish I could’ve seen it.

We finally got to the lab, and we did all the things we had to do. But my boss asked me if I can stay with her for a few minutes and have a couple of drinks. Turns out she has a secret stash stored in her office. It’s not late yet, so I said yes. I also wanted to know her better because she honestly seems cool.

We got to talking. I told her about myself; how I grew up in Washington, D.C., nearby what used to be NASA headquarters because my parents both worked there; how I saw the prototype for future spaceships being built; how all that inspired me to work in astronomy and join Stargazer Laboratories, all of it. To my surprise, she pressed further and asked me to tell her stuff about myself that has nothing to do with work or outer space or whatever. I mean… I guess she wants to be friends, too. Okay, sure.

Sorry to disappoint you, I told her, but there really is nothing else to tell. I can sing and play guitar a little bit, but I haven’t done those things in a long time because of work. They’re more of a hobby, really. She cut me off and told me that she actually kinda sings too, which just didn’t surprise me anymore considering she just seems like the type. I dunno, by this time I’ve just learned to throw away my initial impression of her that I got because she is clearly very different from the idea I had in my head. At this point, it’s getting very late, but we both didn’t care, so I just went ahead and asked her stuff about herself. She said she was born and raised in Russia, no surprise there. She also told me how her parents both worked in what used to be Roskosmos, the Russian space agency; how this also served as a catalyst for her to work in astronomy; and how she is also the eldest child, with four younger siblings. Now I know why she can lead a team so well. I thought this entire thing might be awkward at first, but man I am glad this happened. She gave me permission to call her Val outside of work, so I guess we cool now. We finally went home after a few hours. I should stop now. I still have work tomorrow.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.09.2050

As I predicted, I woke up super late this morning; 20 minutes before work started, in fact. It’s times like these I am very grateful for the existence of warp gates. I managed to prepare my tired ass in 10 minutes and get to work. I thought that would be the worst thing that’ll happen today. I still wish that I was right.

I got to work without incident. We conducted more chemical analysis on the definitely alien goo. Yeah, the others say there isn’t enough evidence, but I’m calling it right now; it definitely is. While in the middle of analysis, the power suddenly went out for a few seconds before turning on again. We checked the wiring and the generators after that happened; there was nothing wrong with them. Out of suspicion, I placed an EMP detector in the middle of the room and confirmed that there was an electromagnetic pulse that burst out in that spot — the exact spot where the purple slime was. We immediately contained it in the titanium-alloy box, and then I passed out.

I woke up in an ambulance, but thank heavens I was well enough not to go to the hospital. From what Val and the others told me, the slime exploded again the second we contained it. It was strong enough to break it open, which just gave me a lot of anxiety. Fortunately, it absorbed some of the impact and we were all just knocked out. Some of us have a few bruises — I have one on my left side right now — but aside from that, none of us were badly injured. We didn’t break any bones or anything like that. Aside from broken glass, shattered microscopes, and other things, none of our equipment was badly damaged. The construction crew said everything can be fixed by tomorrow, so most of us just went home early.

Jane went home because she can’t walk very well, but I saw Sigrid and Paolo going somewhere together. I am very sure they didn’t go home; not very surprising from what we’ve seen a few days ago. I also planned on going home, but Val asked me to hang out with her for some reason if I was feeling well. I said yes, since I can still walk fine and all.

She insisted on driving me there instead of just using a warp gate. I saw extreme excitement in her eyes, so I said yes out of curiosity. She said the trip would take about two hours, so I took a nap. I woke up and, to my surprise, we’re nearing Mars. I thought we were going to your house, I asked her. She said yes. Silence hung in there for a bit, then I realized. I mean, while I am kinda surprised that she lives on Mars, it still wasn’t that surprising. She seemed like the sort of person who would do it. But it turns out the surprise does not and there.

I got to her house, and my jaw dropped all the way to the floor of her spacecraft. It looked real fucking amazing. It was a behemoth of a structure. The middle looks like two giant gears. Surrounding it was what basically looked like a bunch of giant spears jutting out of the ground. The most insane part, however, was that the entire thing was made of glass. All of it. Made of glass. Oddly enough, it looked familiar, too; then it hit me. It looks exactly like the glass structure thingy Doctor Manhattan made in Watchmen! I said this to Val, and she looked quite surprised. She said that she planned it on purpose, and I was the very first to notice. Guess that’s another thing we have in common.

The landing bay was in the middle, so that’s where we went. The interior of her house — if you can call this thing a house — looks surprisingly normal. Well, normal for the head scientist of the world’s best space station, at least. It’s still big and all, but it doesn’t give off the scientist vibe. She took me to her living room surrounded top-to-bottom with bookshelves and a large-ass flatscreen TV. She served coffee, and we got to talking.

I saw her own copy of Watchmen and I lost my shit. It was a physical copy! The edges were a bit frayed, which showed that it was a well-read copy. She doesn’t keep it in a glass case because it’s a collector’s item or any of that bullshit, which is dope. Classics are meant to be read, not kept in a shelf to preserve it in “mint condition.” Physical copies of any books are rare these days — not that I’m complaining, since the almost non-existent use of paper did loads of good for the environment — but it’s still nice to see an actual book and not just a holographic facsimile. I saw her suddenly smiling at me like a maniac. “Nice to see you finally nerd out around me,” she said. “It’s nice that I can fully relax around you now,” I told her. She told me not to relax yet because she has a surprise.

She went into another room and gave me this huge box with wrapping paper. I stared at her like an idiot for a few seconds. She asked what was up, and then it occurred to me to look at the date. I felt like a moron in that moment and I told her why; I straight-up forgot it was my birthday today. Holy crap, I’m 30 years old already. She laughed at that. She laughed real hard. I mean, work’s just overwhelming and we might be dealing with eldritch alien horrors beyond our understanding, so it’s not surprising I forgot. After her fit, she finally handed me my gift. I opened it and my day got a whole lot better.

It was a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure special edition boxed-set. All of the anime adaptations were in it, parts 1 until 10. It’s surprising Jojo even ended at all, but I guess even Araki had to retire at some point. Guess he’s not a vampire after all. But how did she even know I’m a fan? To answer that question, she told me how much I talked non-stop about Jojo back when we got drunk at that karaoke bar on Mars. She got it on video, even; although it was blurry as hell because she was also drunk. Damn, it turns out I talk a lot when I’m hammered. The party got started after that. She suggested we watch it together on her big-ass TV since she also hasn’t watched it in a long time, so we did. Holy crap, the animation looks better on a TV that large. Another fact about Val: she cooks a mean pasta.

After binging season 1, she told me to close my eyes for a bit. Guess the surprises weren’t over yet. I opened them after a few seconds, and my face suddenly got covered in chocolate icing. Turns out she secretly invited Jane and the others while I was distracted. We celebrated some more; we bungee-jumped off her balcony; we ate more food; we jammed to some songs, with me and Val singing some songs while I played guitar. We blended well when we sang some show tunes. It felt good to sing after a long time. I didn’t know that I missed it this much. I can definitely say this is the best birthday ever. Work begins again tomorrow. But for now, I rest. Can’t wait to binge Jojo again after all this.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.10.2050

For the first time in a long while, we finally had a breakthrough! We had to finagle the experiment a bit to get there, too. We already tested for temperature and got no results; putting the goo through varying degrees of temperature does not do anything to it. Lighting it on fire doesn’t yield any results, either. Because of that, we thought that maybe it’s being ignited like an actual bomb by an outside force and not through natural means. The idea we came up with is to simply put a small radio transmitter inside the damn thing. Yup. That’s it. It seems too simple to work, but it surprisingly did.

The transmitter lit up five hours after we put it in. Holy crap, we were right! The goo is somehow receiving radio signals from somewhere we cannot locate. A few seconds later, it exploded inside the two layers of the titanium-alloy box we put it in, so we know that radio signals can pass through the box somehow. I’m quite relieved and excited by this because it means two things: we’re just dealing with a criminal with sophisticated equipment and not extraterrestrial forces or whatever, and the solution to this won’t be too difficult. We just have to track the signal with better equipment, track down the criminal, arrest him and finally get some answers. After that, we put the goo back in the observation chamber with some signal jammers to ensure that it won’t ignite again.

I prepared to go home, since Jane and Sigrid are both sick so after-work hangout seemed impossible. But Val pulled me into her office. Paolo was also there, and apparently, he needs our help. He said that he and Sigrid finally became a thing a couple of days back, after almost a month of dating. Props to them. He said he hasn’t told her about it yet because it’s supposed to be a surprise; he plans on taking her to the restaurant peak of Olympus Mons tomorrow for dinner as their first actual date, and he needs us to take her there. Being the good friends that we are, we immediately said yes. He was so ecstatic he ran out the building skipping and yelling in glee. I was about to leave as well, but Val held me back. Okay, I guess she wants to talk a bit more.

She looked flustered as hell for some reason. I can tell she was blushing under the moonlight coming from her window. She kinda looked cute, actually. She said that it’s already been a month since we became friends, which was true. She also said despite it only being a month, a lot already happened and we were kinda close already and stuff, which was also true. I told her that yes, I also do think we grew closer in that time and that I think she’s really cool, especially after she threw me that surprise party. This was also the point that I asked her where she was going with this, and I am quite aware that I should’ve seen it coming. She told me she liked me for already quite a while now. It all started when I nerded out over her copy of Watchmen, she said, and that she’s been hinting at that the past few times we were hanging out. What I’m about to say next would be an approximation of the play-by-play of my thoughts during that moment and how I reacted: “She was hinting at it? How did I not notice? Am I that oblivious? More importantly though, do I like her back? I mean, she is cool. She lives on Mars on a giant glass mansion. She’s an anime fan, a singer, we click together. She’s a bit loud sometimes. She’s also assertive as a boss and a very chill person outside of work and I am definitely into that. She’s a very good leader and also a great friend and person so what do I really think--?”

That entire thought process went through my brain like lightning. My feelings for her immediately crashed down on me like a waterfall. It was insane. The reason my thoughts just stopped there was because I immediately kissed her suddenly, inside her dark office lit only by moonlight. I imagine she saw me blush after I pulled away. I profusely apologized after that and was almost out the door when I was cut off, this time by her kissing me back. Silence hung in the air for a minute after that.

So, she asked me back. “When did you start liking me?” I thought back, and I said it was probably the first time we drank in her office. We planned an actual date tomorrow, and we finally left the lab. I guess that’s that. I am quite surprised, although I know I shouldn’t have been. I went home feeling a bit giddy and at peace. I am gonna sleep well tonight.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.11.2050

[crying]

It’s been quite a long day. I… I’m not well. I’ll have to start from the beginning.

Work began normally, at first. When this day started, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I had a date after work and I was also gonna help my friends with theirs; I had things to look forward to. But that all changed, just like that. God, I can’t do this.

It all began when Val informed us that Jane had been missing since yesterday. She received a call from the police just this morning; apparently, it seems like someone broke into her house. Signs of a struggle can be found everywhere, and she’s nowhere to be found. So yeah, one can say it was a rough start. We went to work, hoping she eventually gets found.

The uh, the thing happened when we were supposed to start analysis again. Paolo and Sigrid went into the observation chamber to get the sample. The rest of us were setting up equipment when we heard the sound of metal tearing apart. We ran there as fast as we could; I wish I hadn’t got there first.

We were shocked to see Jane there, except by that point, she wasn’t even Jane anymore. Her red hair has been cut short; patches of bald spots could be found everywhere. There were cracks all over her face and body, all glowing purple. Her eyes were also glowing purple and [choking sounds] she was swinging a kitchen knife around. We tried to go in, but she ripped off one of the empty glass cases from the floor and threw it at us with ease. She screamed in a garbled voice that wasn’t hers and lunged at Sigrid with the knife. Paolo pushed her out of the way and he got wounded instead. Sigrid screamed in shock, but she suddenly got cut off when the creature held her on the neck and threw her at the wall head-first, instantly breaking her neck. I can still hear her screaming until now; the moment that scream suddenly got cut off for the last time is still fresh in my mind.

Before any more damage can be done, the creature suddenly collapsed. With all the commotion, we didn’t hear the alarm sounding and the police getting here. They said they used a small taser to take it down; when we investigated, we saw a small, circular thing around its neck. It was the size of a button and probably where the electric shock came from. We immediately worked with the police to restrain the creature, being that we had all the equipment we need. We contained it in a large titanium box, the ones used to transport dangerous criminals. The creature was also restricted in there by titanium straps around her forehead, waist, arms, wrists, legs, and ankles. As a final measure, the box also has electricity running through the outside so that it gets shocked when it breaks the restraints and tries to force its way out. The creature will be interrogated by all of us tomorrow. First, we took care of my friends and gave them a proper burial. After work, I just climbed up onto the roof of the building because the moon looked beautiful and I needed to be alone. Turns out Val had the same idea. We just sat there, alone, not saying anything. Eventually, we just cried with each other for God knows how long until our tear ducts simply dried out. Knowing I can’t bear to be alone right now, I invited her to sleep at my house. She agreed, and we went home.

She’s asleep right now, as I’m recording this. That’s where my life is at, I guess. We’re one step closer to solving this mystery, but my friends have died. That’s simply not fair. [choked sobs] God, I’m gonna miss them so much. We’ve been through a lot now, even though we’ve known each other for only a few months. I hope the creature that took my friend’s body gives us what we need tomorrow. I hope it pays dearly for what it did. [crying]

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.12.2050

Just came back from the interrogation today. I won’t record much. I feel a bit sick to my stomach from what I’ve just heard, and I don’t think it’ll go away soon. I’ll just listen to the audio log of the interrogation the ICD was kind enough to share with us.

[end of audio log]

Interplanetary Crimes Division

Interrogation Audio Log #48783

This is Detective Charles Chapman speaking for the Interplanetary Crimes Division offices located in Tromsø, Norway. Just yesterday, one of the scientists at Stargazer Laboratories had brutally murdered two other scientists there and had also caused significant damage to some equipment. Considering that the perpetrator seemingly has inhuman strength, glowing skin, and other physiological anomalies that cannot be found in other human beings, the possibility that the perpetrator is no longer human but merely an empty shell being used is being considered as a possibility. The creature is now properly restrained inside a titanium box with titanium straps. The cage is also lined with electricity and is inside a forcefield. The interrogation will be conducted with me outside the forcefield; communication will only be done through wireless communicators.

Detective Chapman: Who are you?

The Creature: [silence]

DC: Do you have a name?

H: I am called Helvig, but my people have given me the moniker of The Oncoming Storm, for all the planets I have brought destruction upon.

DC: If I recall correctly, your friends told me that your name is Jane.

Helvig: The one you call Jane is no more. What you see before you is nothing more than her empty body, hollowed out when I took possession of it.

DC: OKAY. I’m glad we cleared that up. I guess the next thing I have to ask is, how did you manage to infiltrate this planet?

H: I came here when I destroyed your moon using what you call the purple slime as my weapon. I hitched a ride inside one of the resulting debris then took possession of this biped’s weak body. Do you know how hard it is to control human brains? It took me almost a month to assert total dominance.

DC: Really? Well, if that’s the case, how come you’ve been able to manipulate your weapon before that?

H: I have been able to assert a tiny bit of control before, although this biped didn’t know it at the time. I’m just damned unlucky that the times I gained little authority over this body and attempted to kill you all didn’t amount to anything.

DC: I guess that answers that. So why are you here? Why this planet in particular?

H: Why do you think I am called The Oncoming Storm? I am here to bring destruction, nothing more.

DC: Now, why would you do that? Were you ordered to do so by your people?

H: My people are no more. My planet was destroyed when two stars near the place your people call the Kuiper Belt collided; the resulting supernova destroyed my home, and the blast was so strong it propelled my ship all the way to your moon. Had I not found this body to possess, I might have died. But I am here, and this planet shall be destroyed in the memory of my people.

DC: If I may ask again, why? What could the destruction of this planet possibly do for you?

H: Nothing! It will do nothing for me! My people are gone, and my planet is no more. Keeping up our tradition of destruction will be the only way of preserving their memory. After your planet, other ones that bear life will also fall by my hand.

DC: Well, thank you for answering my questions without any fuss. You are the politest criminal I have ever talked to; you know that?

H: Thank you, Charles.

DC: In return, I will extend the same courtesy; do not attempt to destroy this planet. Humanity has advanced beyond your imagination, and there are a lot of us. You will not succeed.

H: [laughter] None of you can stop me! The only reason I gave you information freely is because I know none of you will be able to do anything; you weaklings only managed to restrain me because my powers have not settled into this weak body yet! Give it a bit more time, and I will burn this place to the ground. After this, your planet comes next! [laughter]

I decided to end it there, because I’ve gotten all that I need. Orders from the top brass indicate that the next course of action to be taken would be a joint effort with Stargazer Laboratories to find ways to defeat this creature and save the planet.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 08.13.2050

I guess I was wrong. We are dealing with aliens. If not for what’s happened, I would be very happy right now. But not even getting a definitive answer to the question of “are we alone in the universe?” would excite me; especially because one of the answers to that question just killed three of my friends and is now controlling one of their dead bodies like a puppet. Work has been postponed due to the damages our lab has taken, so I honestly don’t know why I’m making the effort to record right now; it’s not like something’s gonna happen today, anyway. Maybe I just need to distract myself from the quiet.

I tried to distract myself by other means, of course. I attempted to binge that Jojo box set I have, but it didn’t work; memories of my surprise birthday party just resurfaced. It’s just too painful. [sobbing]

I… I can’t. I just… I just, can’t. It’s not fair! [crashing sounds] [crying] It’s not fa- [static]

[end of audio log]

There you go. So I, uh… I may have gone berserk earlier, but I’m doing kinda better now. I broke my audio log recorder, but I think I’ve fixed it. Before I stop though, something did happen today that’s worth recording, so… I’m glad for that.

After crying for I don’t actually know how long, somebody rang my doorbell. I looked through my security cameras and found Val standing in my doorway; which honestly came as a surprise, until it occurred to me that she probably wants to check how I’m doing. It stung a bit, knowing that I was too sad and didn’t even think about doing the same for her. I hastily prepared myself and went downstairs.

She looked kinda disheveled and sad, like she’s on a great rush to get here; she had that sad look on her eyes, too. But that’s hardly a surprise, is it? What was a surprise, however, was how beautiful she looked despite all of that. It just so happens that my house has an awe-inspiring view of the hills, and the sunset just happened to hit her as she stood by my door. My day got marginally better after that.

I let her in, and we talked. I asked her if she was okay, and she told me she’s holding up as well as I am, after a cursory look around the mess I made just before she showed up. My recorder was broken in some parts; furniture was everywhere; my glass table was in pieces, all that stuff. We sat in quiet for a while. She eventually told me if I wanted to have the date that we had to postpone two days ago. It took me about two full minutes to think about it, but I said yes; it looked like we both needed it.

We warped to the grassy, quiet park on Olympus Mons; I’m still amazed at how far humanity has gone in terraforming. She prepared a picnic and everything. I cooked some pasta, because of course I did I’m good at it, and I needed a win today. The whole thing wasn’t very eventful, but it was exactly what we needed. We talked, like we always talked. We looked down from the mountain we were on top of, and the view was exhilarating. We looked up, and stared in awe of the stars above us. We reminisced, and remembered the moments we had with them; how Paolo got drunk and vomited in zero gravity; how Sigrid bungee-jumped from the top of Val’s roof and the anti-climactic result of it as we remembered that the artificial gravity was turned off; how Jane accidentally got a face full of cake when I threw it at her; all these memories and others, we remembered last night under the stars on top of the tallest mountain on Mars. It stings, remembering them; but it’s also comforting, somehow.

The nature of our friendship was contemplated as well. If Earth didn’t get its shit together all those years ago, the Global Alliance wouldn’t exist today; all the space travel and huge technological leaps wouldn’t have happened, and travel between countries would still be a pain. We were lucky that we were all brought together in one place. Thinking about the unlikeliness of our friendship just made both of us sadder, considering what happened. We eventually got up and left the mountain.

One last thing we wanted to do before going home was to visit the places where they’re now buried. We already conducted a funeral for them after the creature got arrested and sent them back to their families, but we wanted to see them again, so we can properly say goodbye this time.

First, we warped our way to Brazil to visit Paolo. His family was there, watching over him. We quietly mourned with them for a few minutes, although it felt longer than that. We eventually gave our condolences and left. Our next stop was Sweden, where Sigrid is. No one was watching over her grave, but we did see a few freshly-lit candles around it. The cold winds were swirling all around us, but we hardly noticed them at all. We had no idea how long we stayed, but the cold did get to us eventually, and we left. Our last stop for the night was in Canada, Jane’s home. This visit just made us sadder because we know that her grave is empty; her family will never have a body to bury. No one else was there, which wasn’t strange, considering it’s almost midnight, but we weren’t alone for long when two young women came there; they were her two younger sisters, it turns out. They brought warm tea, and they were kind enough to share it with us. We talked, reminisced about the memories we have with her, and we mourned. Before leaving, Val and I promised them that while we cannot bring their sister back, we can put her to rest by putting the creature down permanently.

I brought her back to Mars. We said our goodbyes, kissed for God knows how long because we didn’t count, and we went home. I… I miss them. I miss them so damn much. [crying]

[end of audio log]

Stargazer Laboratories

Log Entry – 08.15.2050

[crying]

I’ll admit. Considering what I’m about to do, I am scared. I fear that I may not come back from this, but strangely, I am also at peace. This insane, dangerous plan has a high chance of success, and I am more than willing to do it. But first, let’s go back to the beginning.

Yesterday, I got a call from the ICD at 6 am telling me that the prisoner has escaped. Apparently, it got out of its restraints and simply destroyed both the cage and the forcefield using brute strength alone. The thing that is defiling my friend’s body got stronger, just like it said it would. It killed almost all of the police officers before everyone got out and put the building on lockdown. The entire building was then launched through the sky via rockets attached to the foundation as a last resort security measure; it is now floating just a little bit above the atmosphere, surrounded by a bigger forcefield. The creature will be kept in there, but not for long. I immediately prepared and went to the lab with the others; I imagine they got the same call.

We immediately started to formulate a plan to defeat the creature. According to the police, the forcefield will only last until about 4 am today until it runs out of power. There’s also the trouble of the creature getting even stronger than it is now, so we had to account for that, too. The only consolation we have is that it can only use its psychic powers to activate the slime and nothing else; it has to be near it, too. One of the police officers suggested that we simply just have the rockets push the building farther into space, but that was shot down; the rockets simply weren’t built for that, so it doesn’t have enough fuel. We also thought of just straight-up making the building explode, but Detective Chapman shot this idea down, too. Turns out he already fired a couple rockets at the creature and it simply kept walking, unscathed. Our last idea was to warp the entire building to the other end of the universe, but we realized it was also futile; warp gates were made with humans in mind. Creating one as big as a building has never been done before; it might collapse in on itself and implode, or create a black hole that will destroy the Earth. We came to the conclusion that there is only one way to solve this once and for all; one of us has to go up there and destroy the creature ourselves.

A drone was sent to fly near the building and investigate. The entire structure was reduced to rubble. The creature was jumping around, throwing large chunks of debris at the forcefield in an attempt to destroy it. That gave us the drive to really solve this as soon as possible. I remembered what the creature told us back then; how it got to Earth because a supernova propelled its ship here while it’s trying to escape. Then I had a crazy idea.

I told them that the energy of two collapsing stars was the only thing we know of that almost destroyed the creature; I remembered how it told us it was on the verge of death and only survived because it found a host. Then I told them my idea; find three stars that’s the nearest to Mars, put an artificial gravity drive between them, wait for them to move towards each other, then siphon off the energy from the resulting supernova into the engine of a laser cannon. This is the easy part. The next step is that said laser cannon with the energy of three collapsed stars now have to be attached to a spacecraft and fired directly at the creature. The resulting recoil may destroy said ship; or it won’t. This is something no one has actually done before, so none of us are quite sure how this will happen. None of us can come up with a new plan, so this is what we have to go with.

We found three stars near each other just beyond the outskirts of Mars. Siphoning off large amounts of energy in a supernova was terrifying, but not actually that difficult. I, and two other scientists, finished the job in just a couple of hours. Val and I worked together to design a laser cannon strong enough to handle the energy of three stars. The next thing we have to do now is to decide who’s gonna fly up there and do the job. The ICD can’t do it; only two of them are left. One has no combat experience, and the other is Detective Chapman, who’s simply too old for the job. We can’t ask for help from the military, or the other offices of the ICD, either. All of the warp gates in the lab had been damaged, and the personal warp gates we’re carrying had also been messed up due to the star radiation we had to work with. We’re all alone in this.

I looked around the room and realized that the only person who can do this is me. I told this to the others, and Val vehemently opposed it, as I expected. After a shouting match, I told her we just have to talk it out in private. It didn’t really work; we just shouted at each other louder since no one was around to hear us. We finally ran out of energy and just sat down.

So… yeah. After calming down enough to talk, she asked me why I thought I’m the only one who can do it. I told her it’s because I built both the cannon and the modified ship with her, so I’m the only one who can use them. I also want to be the one to personally put the creature down. She got angry at me, told me that she’ll be the one to do it instead, since she knows the machines as well as I do. I tried to talk back, but she was still so angry and started speaking Russian, like she always does when she’s mad. I did something I didn’t expect to do; I laughed. It was real, too. I haven’t had one like it in what feels like a long time. She started laughing, too. We just did that until we ran out of breath again.

I explained to her that this was exactly what she did when I asked her if I can eat my rock pasta; it was also what she did when Paolo almost ate the purple goo. I told her that I love this about her; how passionate and caring she is for the ones that she loves; how I do not want her passion to be snuffed out of this world too early; and how I am sure I am the only one who can do this because she can still lead Stargazer Labs further into the future. I told her how I wanted her to see Earth and the rest of humanity go further into the reaches of space. Finally, I told her the simplest and most important reason why it has to be me; I told her I love her. I love her very much and I cannot bear to see her die and that is why I have to do this. After that, we just broke down together. The tears just kept flowing. She told me she loves me, too. She told me she can’t bear to see me go, either, but I told her she has to go on. I told her again how the lab needs her, and after this, probably the world. We just kept quiet, savoring each other’s company for what might be the last time. We eventually slept for two hours, in each other’s arms. We got up and made the last preparations. We had another short meeting on how things would be done. I simply have to fly up there and aim directly at the creature. Sounds too easy, but we all know it isn’t. After saying goodbye to them, I excused myself for a bit and ended up here.

It is now 3 am, August 15, 2050. I will do what I need to do half an hour from now. From what we’ve seen of the drone footage, the forcefield will last until 4 am, as predicted. I wish I was recording this at home, using my own recorder, but I have no way to get there, so here I am, using the only functional one in the lab. I’m gonna end it here, so suffice it to say the next words I’ll be saying may be my last.

Val, I love you. I know you’re my boss, but I’m glad we did away with the professional awkwardness that might have arisen and just found the time to relax with each other. I am so happy that we met outside of work during that Hamilton premiere on Mars. I thought that I have what I wanted out of life, working in a space station; I am happy you were the one who proved me wrong. [crying] I love you, Val. If these are the last things I will ever say, then I want them to be these words. I love you, and I always will.

[end of audio log]

Log Entry – 10.15.2050

It’s been two months, Leo. Two months. Two long, agonizing months since you passed. [crying]

It’s still clear as day, what happened. I remembered the kiss we shared before you took off. I remembered seeing the blast from the cannon finally incinerate the creature after a minute. I remember how we cheered when we saw you succeed, then suddenly get silenced when your engine blew up. I remember being horrified seeing you fall back down to Earth, then zooming in on the cockpit and seeing you smile one last time before the drone was destroyed by the blast.

The charred remains of the ship landed just outside the lab. Although burned, you somehow managed to stay in one piece. After that, we did what we were supposed to do. We cleaned up the lab and the ship, and we had your funeral a few days later. I was the one who gave your eulogy, you know that? I hope you heard it, and I hope you liked it if you did.

This is the first time in a while I came back to Olympus Mons. I finally had the courage to go after hearing the message you left for me. Your parents let me have a copy of the other audio logs you did. I’ll admit, I haven’t been doing well in a while, but hearing your voice again really helped me.

I think it’s finally time. You said you wanted me to see space travel advance further, right? I already have an idea. Since we now know that life exists outside of Earth, I thought of how maybe we can come up with ways to reach them. I know the last species we interacted with almost destroyed us, but I know there’s more of them out there. Perhaps they are kinder. Perhaps they’re willing to break bread with us. I was thinking of calling it “The Cosmic Unity” project but it sounds too tacky, doesn’t it? I just hope I already have a proposal I can pass to the Global Alliance in a year or so. All of this is for you, Leo. All of it. It’s for the sake of the planet’s progress, too, but it is for you I do this, most of all. [sobbing]

I love you, Leo. I love you more in every day that passes.

[end of audio log]

[australiacorghi]

Driving Tips: How to set Proper Tyre Pressure

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[syncogon]

[QZGS Prequel TL] Ch 2: Please, Sir, Enter the Urn

info and links for the prequel Top Glory / The Summit of Glory / 巅峰荣耀

summary: Wei Chen, leader of Blue Brook Guild, finds an audacious Blade Master attempting to kill steal their wild boss. 

characters: Wei Chen, Huang Shaotian

Please read and comment and enjoy!

Translated by: Syncogon

“Team 2 stay close, continue damage output!”

“Team 1 close-range, make space! Long-range has no angle!”

“Healers keep up, don’t just wait for people to move aside!”

Wei Chen’s voice filled the surroundings, and the team chat flashed with his additional instructions. This Boss fight was reaching its climax, so it was natural that the guild leader of Blue Brook Guild was directing with both his hands and his mouth.

Windguard City. 

Lonely Mayor Shanbei.

Wild Bosses each only spawned once a week. The location wasn’t fixed and the time was variable, so even just finding one was already a valuable event, let alone being able to kill it uncontested. Wild Bosses were the source of much of the conflict between the various large guilds and powerhouses – after all, everyone knew that the strongest equipment and the rarest materials could only be obtained from a Wild Boss.

Killing a Wild Boss was very difficult, even more so when there were many competitors. To have one quietly and peacefully fall into their hands like this was truly a golden opportunity.

But the easier it seemed to be, the more careful Wei Chen became.

“Watch it watch it, about to reach Red Blood!” Wei Chen reminded the team. After the Boss reached Red Blood status, its battle power would increase explosively, as programmed by the Glory creators. Many Boss hunting teams had gotten the Boss down to ten percent, only to fall under this final burst of power. 

But Blue Brook Guild’s elite team was famous in the Glory world. They had battled Lonely Mayor Shanbei countless times, and with a wealth of experience under their belts, they had made preparations early on.

Seeing everyone listening to his reminder and preparing themselves to defend against the Boss’s attack, Wei Chen finally allowed himself to relax just the slightest. But soon after, he sent another message to a smaller squad: “How is it, what’s the status?”

“Don’t worry, both of them are still here, haven’t left,” a squad member replied quickly.

“Good, keep a close eye on them. Don’t let your guard down until we finish this,” said Wei Chen.

“Understood!” That squad member wouldn’t even think to mock Wei Chen for being overly cautious. After all, the two players whom he was currently watching had interfered with Blue Brook Guild’s progress countless times in the past.

One Autumn Leaf, Autumn Tree!

If a Glory player didn’t know these two names, it was a sure sign that they were a newbie. When discussing who the current best player of Glory was, these two names appeared the most often. Others like Blue Brook’s boss Wei Chen’s Warlock Swoksaar, the famous Striker Desert Dust, or the master Exorcist Peaceful Hermit were all famous experts, but compared to these two, they still seemed just slightly lacking. 

As Wei Chen directed the Boss battle here, he had also sent out a special squad just to keep an eye on One Autumn Leaf’s and Autumn Tree’s movements. Without a doubt, it was because he felt that they posed the greatest threat to their Boss kill.

After hearing that the two of them still hadn’t moved, Wei Chen allowed himself to relax slightly further. To him, the threat of these two players was even greater than the threat posed by the Boss going into Red Blood.

“Team 1, ready!”

“Team 2, ready!”

“Team 3, ready!”

…

All of the team leaders were keeping a careful eye on the Boss’s health bar. In the instant the Boss reached 10% health and released its explosive power, they would all have different responsibilities, and they all began to remind their respective teams to ensure they were one hundred percent ready.

10.23%.

10.21%.

10.2%.

10.18%.

…

…

…10%!

“Block!” the leader of Team 1 roared, and the Knights lifted their shields to meet the incoming death.

Boom!!

The quartz-paved ground shattered and flew outward in a wave. By the time the fragments fell back to the ground, the Boss had seemingly disappeared.  

No one was surprised; this wasn’t the first time they had witnessed this scene. The splintered ground, with the Boss at the epicenter, was just to show the strength of Mayor Shanbei’s leap into the air. 

Lonely Mayor Shanbei was preparing his powerful move – Rock-Breaking Earth-Shattering Strike! 

But because of the Knights’ protection, the first part of this brutal attack was successfully endured. 

“Fire!” ordered the leader of Team 2. The long-ranged attackers of that team, whether Gunner or Mage, all sent their attacks flying at the Boss. At the same time, Team 4, which was tasked with healing, was already furiously restoring the health of the Knights of Team 1. These next few moments would be crucial.

“Forward!” Team 1’s leader ordered, and the group of Knights advanced forward in an impressive display, gathering beneath Lonely Mayor Shanbei, who had leapt high into the air. The Knights lifted the shields they held to form one giant shield, then quickly began performing all of the defense-boosting, damage-absorbing skills they knew.

Blue Brook’s Knights were preparing to meet Mayor Shanbei’s attack head-on, using their vast defensive power to directly stop this Rock-Breaking Earth-Shattering Strike.

Rock-Breaking Earth-Shattering Strike dealt large-scale damage, but it relied on contact with the ground to propagate; if held up by the Knights’ shields like so such that it couldn’t spread through the ground, then the damage dealt by the shockwave would decrease by 70%.

So as long as this one attack was blocked, the team’s rhythm wouldn’t be disrupted, and they would be able to kill Mayor Shanbei before he launched his next big attack.

Falling!

Mayor Shanbei held a heavy hammer in his hand. This wasn’t a weapon available to any of the classes, but it followed the moves of a sword-type weapon, and this Rock-Breaking Earth-Shattering Strike was just a massively powered-up version of the Berserker’s Earth-Shattering Strike. When the Boss fell, it directly connected with the large shield composed of eight Knights linked together.

Bang!

The noise was so loud that the players felt like their eardrums might burst, and a striking light burst forth.

Wei Chen’s Swoksaar was walking around in a circle, making sure that there were no flaws in the positioning of the eight Knights as they held up their shields against the Boss’s attack – the attack wasn’t just a brief moment of contact, it was a continuous outpouring of damage that had to be endured. But as Wei Chen watched, he suddenly saw a silhouette darting toward the site of the collision. 

“Who the hell is that!!” Wei Chen scolded immediately. It still wasn’t the time to attack, so which team did this impatient guy belong to? The light was too bright, so Wei Chen was unable to clearly see the ID on the player’s head.

What happened next only made Wei Chen even angrier. That guy who had charged forward suddenly lifted up a cold light that struck one of the eight Knights right on the body.

That Knight was instantly sent flying into the air and was battered by several more waves of slashing attacks.

“Fuck, we have an infiltrator!” Wei Chen shouted. But right now, the infiltrator wasn’t the biggest issue. 

Mayor Shanbei’s attack was still pushing against the eight Knights. And now, one piece of the defense had chipped away.

The eight Knight formation had been researched and developed – one more, and they couldn’t squeeze into this circle; one less, and they couldn’t endure the damage from the attack!  

Although the Knights had already absorbed some of the damage from the attack, the attack had yet to finish – losing a piece of the defense at this moment, the power from the Rock-Breaking Earth-Shattering Strike instantly swept toward this opening!

“Block!” Wei Chen realized that the infiltrator should not have been the first thing to which he directed everyone’s attention. 

The remaining seven Knights quickly tried to close this gap, but it was already too late. It was true that only the direction of the attack had changed – it hadn’t gotten stronger or anything – and the Knights had already absorbed a sizable chunk of damage from the attack. But still, this situation was outside of Blue Brook’s plan.

The seven Knights were each taking greater damage because of the opening, and they couldn’t withstand it – like flower petals, they were scattered to the sides. And the power leaking through the gap in the defense demonstrated the specialty of this Earth-Shattering Strike, mercilessly spreading through the ground toward the players.

But at this point, there was already no path of retreat.

“Block, attack!” Wei Chen ordered.

The healers quickly became the busiest players on the field. Because the power was residual, it didn’t deal one-hit-kill damage; because the power was splintered, the damage it caused as it spread through the ground was significant in some areas and nonexistent in others…

The attackers of the various teams dodged as best as they could as they began launching their attacks, and the healers frantically tried to keep up. 

Wei Chen yelled and typed and felt that his hands and mouth weren’t enough – if only he had another way of issuing orders! And then, in the midst of this chaos, he once again caught sight of that earlier player.

This guy, after causing such a big mess, still hadn’t left? He was still mixed in with the crowd?

Troubling Rain!

Wei Chen quickly memorized this character’s name, and then checked the class – it was a Blade Master.

When had he appeared?

Wei Chen realized that he truly had no recollection; this wasn’t someone he recognized. This sort of unknown name – when had he mingled amongst them, without a single person noticing?

And what about now?

Wei Chen discovered that aside from himself, not a single person had noticed the presence of this Blade Master. In this chaos, everyone was worried about keeping themselves alive – they had no time to care about him.

No… It wasn’t that simple!

Wei Chen saw that this Blade Master was still moving, still changing position. This guy… he even went up and attacked Mayor Shanbei, but none of the Blue Brook players noticed him doing so, as though he were an invisible man.

Of course, he wasn’t really invisible. He was just constantly jumping between gaps in the formation – despite the chaos of this scene, he was able to swiftly detect which positions would allow him to go unnoticed.

He has some skill!

Wei Chen found that this opponent’s skill surpassed what he had imagined. But he didn’t move his character, nor did he immediately alert the team. Wei Chen, who wasn’t in the thick of battle at the moment, simply gained another target of observation.

That Blade Master named Troubling Rain was still darting through the crowd, still using that gap-jumping method, and Wei Chen found himself more and more impressed. He always believed himself an expert, with skill surpassing the average player, but it was quite possible that even he didn’t match up to this guy’s acute judgment and ability to capture empty space.

“Who in the world is this person?” Wei Chen was growing curious, and so finally sent a message to the team: “Pay attention to my orders, don’t hesitate.”

Blue Brook was used to their boss suddenly pulling off some crazy strategy, and so with this kind of seemingly arbitrary direction, they understood his intent and listened closely.

“Team 1 retreat. Team 2 at 4 o’clock. Team 3 opposite. Teams 5, 6, on top. Team 4, stay close to 1!” Wei Chen issued directions uninterrupted as he laid out the formation. At this moment, in his eyes, Mayor Shanbei wasn’t their only opponent – that Blade Master had to be dealt with as well. This guy’s gap-jumping attack method gave Wei Chen chills the more he watched, because he already figured out this guy’s intent – this guy was planning on getting the last strike on the Boss! And with his skill, if Wei Chen hadn’t noticed his presence earlier, he likely would have succeeded with ease! Glory’s rewards for killing a Boss involved complex calculations, but there was a set reward for dealing the killing strike, and it absolutely could not be taken away by an outsider like this.

The team moved according to his directions, and the attacks directed at Mayor Shanbei naturally lessened. Wei Chen was carefully guiding that Blade Master into the trap he had established, when suddenly, he heard an angry and exasperated voice. “Fucking hell do you guys know how to play this game or not?”

“You’re just about to take down the Boss what are you doing now?”

“I thought Blue Brook Guild was an elite group? Don’t you guys know how to work as a team?” 

“Who’s leading you, could he be any more of a dumbass?”

The word speed was even faster than Wei Chen’s, and more importantly, there were no repeats. In fact, there was even coordination – as the voice spoke, speech bubbles popped out, and although the contents of the voice and the speech bubbles were entirely different, they connected to each other.

At this point, there was no way that the surrounding players couldn’t notice. Once the crowd noticed this Troubling Rain, there was suddenly chaos again: “Fuck who’s this!”

“Damn this is that infiltrator from earlier right?”

“Kill him!”

Quite a few attacks had already been launched, but at this moment Wei Chen was stunned. What was this! Was this really the time to blabber and complain like that? Would it kill you to hold it in for just a while longer! And if you really need to say something, fine, but you talk so much! Dumbass, I’m killing you today no matter what!

The formation Wei Chen had ordered was specifically made to target this Blade Master, and so when everyone started attacking, they felt that it was especially convenient, and that coordination was especially easy.

Troubling Rain also suddenly realized the reason for Blue Brook’s adjustment in formation, and since he was already exposed anyway, he didn’t hold back in his chatter. “Fuck, so you guys stopped attacking the Boss in order to attack me! That’s such a cheap move!”

“Over here, over here! Haha, you guys didn’t succeed, there are still gaps!”

As he hollered, this guy continued to maneuver around by darting between gaps in the formation.

“Let me teach you a lesson, brat, this one isn’t called a gap, this is called, ‘please, sir, enter the ern’!” Wei Chen’s Swoksaar flashed with light, and a Hexagram Prison accurately formed over the gap that the Blade Master had leapt to, successfully trapping him inside.

“The fuck is an ‘ern’, isn’t it ‘urn’??” Although Troubling Rain had no chance of escape, his mouth still didn’t shut as attacks from other players rained down upon him.

“Who cares what it is!” Wei Chen channeled his embarrassment at his mistake into anger. “Just go die!!” 

“Just you wait, Blue Brook, this isn’t the last you’ll see of me!” Troubling Rain was still yelling when his health finally dropped to zero.

“Next time,” said Wei Chen, “remember to lie low.”

endnotes:

Hello, I’m back with your irregularly-scheduled prequel translation!

Disclaimers: Boss name, location, and battle terminology may be inaccurate. In describing the battle, I tried to clarify what was going on in the way I understood it, which may or may not be correct. Also, regarding the title: it’s a proverb that apparently means something like the English “get a taste of your own medicine” but it felt different enough that I didn’t feel comfortable using that as translation. It’s like, voluntarily entering a funeral urn? /shrug

As always, let me know if there are errors, and reblog/comment if you enjoy!

[fireandgloryrpg]

Congratulations Tilly and welcome! We’re so happy to accept your application to play Celia Doherty with the faceclaim of Natalia Dyer in Fire & Glory RPG! We can’t wait to begin roleplaying with you so please remember to look over our checklist!

!! tw: depression, gore, blood,  suicidal urges !!

Name: tilly

Pronouns:  she/her

Age: 19 - birthday is feb 19

Timezone: gmt +1

Triggers: none that aren’t on the list yet

Activity: i’m a full-time uni student and i’m going to apply for a job next year; so most of my activity will take place in the evenings. i’ll be online a few times each week, but i’m basically always lurking (re: my discord activity you know me lol) so i’d say a solid 7/10

Anything Else?: i blame rosie and dana for dragging me back in pjo hell i didn’t plan it

also i have a pin board for my girl here

Original Character Information

Name: Celia Edith Doherty

Age and Birthday: 18, born on June 27th, 1999

Faceclaim: Natalia Dyer (alternatively; Sabrina Carpenter)

Heritage: Daughter of Asteria

Abilities: Prophetic dreams, smoke screen summoning, excellent night vision (former), photokinesis (former)

Affiliation: Former legionnaire of the third cohort; now part-time legionnaire of the fifth cohort.

Headcanons:

Celia got her guide puppy, a samoyed, who was kicked out of the guide dog program. She took pity on the thing (and the fact that he had perfectly soft fur helped a lot) and devoted her life to training him, together with Puck. She named him Mozart, because Tchaikovsky is her favorite composer but his name is too complicated for her to pronounce.

Her life motto is the dog Latin phrase ‘illegitimi non carborundum’, or ‘don’t let the bastards get you down’. Celia was depressed for a long time after losing her sight and her third cohort family, and lots of Romans are surprisingly cruel to blind girls alone in the city, which didn’t exactly help. After shedding many tears for her deplorable situation, she picked up the pieces of who she used to be and glued them together into a new version of herself, with a little help from her friends.

Due to her dyslexia, Celia was never a big fan of reading, but when she discovered audiobooks and braille, her whole life changed. Words didn’t swim off the page and she found another way to fill her head with stories - even though she still has to take breaks after ‘reading’ giant chunks of text in one go.

Biography:

!! tw: depression, gore, blood,  suicidal urges !!

Asteria, the goddess of nocturnal oracles and falling stars, was also known as the personification of the island of Delos, otherwise known as the birthplace of the archer twins, Apollo and Artemis. However, anyone who truly knew the titaness, also knew that this was complete bullshit: she wasn’t an island. Sure, she blessed Delos and became its patron goddess. No one ever saw Poseidon as literally being the sea, so why would they see her as an actual island? The fact that she loved Delos was true, though, which was one of the reasons why her child was born there, even though she was conceived all the way in Phoenix, Arizona. Quickly after her sister Leto made her realize that raising a little demigod wasn’t something a goddess was supposed to do, she dropped the baby off with her father, Ronan Doherty, who still lived in Phoenix. After he got over the initial shock of being a father without asking or any form of preparation, he raised the child, whom he named Celia, with as much love as any parent would.

Ronan always knew his daughter was a little different, but Asteria had not revealed her identity to him. The reasons why his daughter stood out, therefore, remained a mystery to both of them. Celia, now a talented ballerina, was put in a special program at both her primary school and high school, because she was such a slow learner. In addition, she saw a psychologist twice a week for additional support. Around her thirteenth birthday, she had enough of people prodding at her and feeling like the odd one out, so she ran away from home with her father’s permission, who received a dream vision from Asteria, telling him to let their daughter go. She would soon find the wolf house and train there with Lupa until she was ready to make her way down to Camp Jupiter.

Unsurprisingly, Celia flourished at Camp. She joined the ballet school in New Rome, and quickly became one of its top students. After saving a centurion from poison, which she foresaw in her prophetic dreams, she was taken off probatio and placed in the third cohort, which appreciated her myriad of valuable skills as a demigod. Her smokescreens protected the legion during the war games and, in combination with her photokinesis, could cause temporary blindness to the opposing teams. She was also an excellent tracker because of her night vision.

Of course, this would all prove to be terribly ironic. When she was sixteen, in her third year of service, while on guard duty outside the Caldecott tunnel, a drakon made its way to the Roman entrance. The alarm was sounded, but before the first javelin could hit the massive drakon that had pinned Celia to the ground, the acidic venom from its open mouth had dripped into her eyes. The healers tried to save her first, then the specialized medics, then the surgeons of New Rome, but to no avail; she was permanently blinded, her retina damaged beyond repair. The third cohort had too much pride to be concerned with the burden of a blind legionnaire, so she was kicked out and forced to move to the city and learn how to live her life differently.

It was hard, as was to be expected. Her ballet teacher took her in when she had nowhere else to go, because Celia was practically homeless after the legion rejected her. After staying with her teacher for about half a year, she realized that her situation was never going to change, and she might as well give up her ballet dreams, which all seemed so childish in hindsight; who would care if she danced the part of Giselle, when her life was being threatened every day, as a soldier? Inevitably, she would just disappoint her teacher or give her false hopes, so she asked her best friend Puck for help; he persuaded his cousin to take Celia in, which is where she lived for the next year and a half.

Now that she’s eighteen, Celia deemed herself worthy of joining the legion once again. She trained with her best friend, who taught her everything he learned in the fifth cohort; her four remaining senses are heightened to what she believes is their maximum; and her smokescreens are even stronger than they used to be. Still, only the fifth cohort would take her, but this wasn’t a big deal. Even though it’s only part-time, and she still lives in New Rome with Puck’s cousin the majority of the time, she’s still a legionnaire again, and she found new purpose and room for her dreams. Even her feet are itching to stand onpointe again.

Para Sample:

“Celia, do you see that?”

She squinted against the light of the sun. In the distance, vaguely, she detected a whirlwind of fire - was that hair? - chasing a boy. He couldn’t be much older than sixteen, judging by his height and the way he was built, but he was running at lightning speed. Rapidly, Celia flipped through her mental index of monsters, searching for the species she would face in about three minutes.

Empousai. Vampire ladies that like to suck boys dry (but let’s be real, they probably hated girls too). Danger level: probably a seven out of ten. Weakness: mismatched legs, imperial gold, celestial bronze.

Your basic average monster, really. Readjusting her helmet, tightening her grip on her sword and focusing her gaze on the demigod running towards them, Celia stepped forward, before being stopped by her fellow guard. “He’s a graecus,” Marcus said, and she could see his frown deepening as he pointed towards the orange stripe that was faintly visible beneath the sweater. “What? Who cares, he’s gonna die if we don’t help him! Octavian is dead, so get your segregation bullshit away from me,” she hissed, after which she ran towards the Greek demigod, sensing that Marcus was following from the constant thud on the ground.

Every few steps, the demigod turned to slash at the empousa, but to no avail. She could see cuts on his arms, his sweater torn in multiple places, now that she was closer. “Edward Cullen would be very disappointed, lady!” she shouted in an attempt to distract the monster. Monsters. There were three of them. Marcus fought alongside her, yes, but very halfheartedly, and all while throwing insults at the Greek. Things about where he could stick his celestial bronze, how he should go back where he came from because he was the reason those monsters attacked now, and more stuff like that, but the new demigod had some very witty comebacks Celia was impressed by. “Can you boys maybe get over yourselves and… I don’t know,” she grunted, blocking a kick from a bronze hoof with her shield, “Help out a little?”

The rest of the battle was a blur, because her ADHD and instincts took over. When the monsters had crumbled to dust, finally, she cleaned some of their weirdly-colored blood from her sword with her shirt, staining it. Badass. Still panting, she ignored both of the boys and walked back towards the tunnel entrance, expecting them to follow. “I’m not letting him in,” Marcus grumbled. “Don’t be an asshole. Please, just let me in? I’m hungry and tired and I was almost vampire dinner.” After more protests from Marcus, Celia interrupted. “We’re taking him in, and that’s final. He’s not dying on my watch. What’s your name, Speedy?”

“Puck.”

“Cool. I’m Celia.”

“Celia, do you see that?”

Another day on guard duty, but this time, there was no demigod running towards her. Jake had joined her instead of Marcus, who’d been placed back on probatio after his little incident in the winter. The beast in the distance was bigger than they’d ever seen near camp, and the summer sun glinted off its scales, blinding Celia. “We can’t take it alone. Sound the alarm,” she said, already bolting towards the horn. Immediately, the battle cries of the Romans could be heard in the distance, but the drakon was accelerating. It would get to them before the campers did. She gulped. Jake, the bloody coward, had run inside the tunnel, screaming about the lizard to the coming troops, leaving Celia alone to deal with it. She had half a minute before it could get there.

Drakon. Do not confuse with dragon: much larger, much more deadly. Has its own sub-species, some of which can only be killed by children of Mars. Spews acidic venom. Danger level: solid 10/10. Weaknesses: none.

Just her luck. It was closer now. Her hand, the one holding her sword, was trembling. She’d never let her fear take over before, but she was paralyzed. Later, she’d learn that it wasn’t her fear, but the monster’s eyes that had caused her paralysis. She had no way of escape as the monster leaped at her, digging its claws into her shoulders and -

She screamed. All she could do was scream, even as the pressure left her chest after ten seconds, the drakon dropping dead after thirty, with approximately seventeen golden spears sticking out of its sides. At least, that was what Puck told her. Because she couldn’t see it.The pain wouldn’t leave her eyes for a solid month, the venom eating away at her retina, and eventually turning her eyes entirely white.

“Celia, do you see that? Oh, shit. Sorry.”

No. No, she doesn’t. And she never will.

[glaedrlol-blog1]

SKT vs LZ Season 7 LCK Finals

So we got a crazy playoffs run from SKT after what seemed to be one of the worst slumps SKT has ever had in the regular season, including a great reverse sweep against their telecom rivals, but what if it wasn’t really a slump? 

This seems to be the same SKT that lost those four matches in a row after seeing their performance against Longzhu. When SKT can take a finger, they go for the whole arm, but when presented with a Goliath sized beast that is Longzhu, those games don’t work anymore. SKT went with the same strategies of attempting to make ridiculously aggressive proactive plays against an unsuspecting team with the help of massive frontline tanks, but it simply wasn’t coming to fruition against an opponent whose top laner understood his role and how to shut down the weak links of the team along with a supporting cast who played intelligently around presented information. 

SKT appears to have stagnated while their opponents have gotten better over the past split. They may have demolished SSG in two games forcing three players to get substituted for inferior players in a high pressure situation and punished an overly confident KT Rolster after banning away their Kalista, but the puzzle that was Longzhu was not solved in this series. 

Game One

In game one SKT went with a pick comp with a first draft of Ashe and Gragas which lead into Faker’s Leblanc being supported by Wolf on Tahm Kench and Untara on Shen. This style of draft would normally dominate any lower tier teams across other regions, but Longzhu has been preparing Khan to rise to a superstar position and gave him Jax which Longzhu knew SKT would not be able to match with this teamcomp. 

Twelve minutes into the game a fight breaks out which results in a 2 for 2 with Untara even getting a kill on Khan to even out the bad matchup into a Jax, but a series of misplays on SKT completely destroy any lead they had hoped to gain this game. After having no vision on Cuzz’s Zac for over an entire minute, Bang felt safe enough to engage on Pray for what he thought was an easy kill. If only he remembered he’s fighting the bottom lane who were his biggest rivals just last year. It was incredibly obvious that this was a bait when playing against a team of this caliber, but Bang latched his mouth onto that hook instantly only to have an instantaneous reaction from the enemy Zac and Jax.

SKT had backup prepared for the contingency of Zac appearing thanks to Untara’s Stand United, but they clearly did not prepare for Khan to react faster, resulting in two immediate kills onto Wolf and Untara. Bang was able to retreat to his tower after the sacrifice of his team mates, but Peanut feeling he had to make a hero play and equalize the situation used the Explosive Cast which knocked LZ’s two tanks right next to Bang and himself. This mistake cost the game.

Faker was able to arrive to get one kill as a participation prize, but it simply was not enough to turn this game around. Throughout the next several minutes SKT makes plays to catch members of LZ, but they go after the members which have flash and cannot confirm any kills, which furthers Longzhu’s lead in this horrendous game one performance. In a desperate attempt to match Khan’s now 4 kill Jax at 23 minutes, SKT assigns Faker to challenge him in bottom lane and halt his splitpushing rampage which Untara has no chance of staying in lane with. This results in the demise of SKT as Faker gets solo killed and LZ takes Baron.

Longzhu then proceeds to knock down the gates to SKT’s base with no contest from SKT as Bang made the decision to go with a crit build against two tanks and an incredibly beefy fighter. SKT without a consistent damage threat falls in 31 minutes.

Game Two

With Peanut’s play in the bottom lane that resulted in two completely unnecessary deaths and a tower given to Longzhu, he was swiftly subbed out for Blank. Not wanting to deal with the overwhelming Jax again, SKT bans it out immediately only to be met with an even worse matchup for Untara of Shen into Jayce. The draft doesn’t matter at this point because Untara is not strong enough to handle the pressure of these types of matchups. 

The game begins with SKT going with an extremely slow and predictable dive onto Khan which gives Longzhu an abhorrent amount of time to respond immediately resulting in Blank’s death and Untara’s flash. 

One of SKT’s few chances to make a successful play and give Bang a dominant lane this series is blown ten minutes in when Blank’s Sejuani and Wolf’s Rakan successfully lock down Pray with chain cc, but Bang has poor target selection opting to go for Gorilla instead which results in Pray escaping with his Featherstorm. SKT manages to confirm the kill with another play on Pray two minutes later, but this game could have gone much differently had Bang had that additional kill to snowball his lane on Twitch.

Immediately after killing Pray SKT decides to push aggressively into Longzhu’s jungle for a blue buff and potentially a dragon afterwards, but they did not respect BDD’s Weaver’s Wall and got three-man body slammed into a clean up with the Threaded Volley. Faker escaped, but this is again another overly aggressive play with lack of information from the side of SKT which is the whole story of this series.

It’s still anybody’s game despite those mistakes, but Khan is still a ticking timebomb as he builds up a 40 CS lead against Untara in 20 minutes. The game moves to domination by Longzhu with another mistake of Bang and Wolf as they decide to push for a 2v2 all-in. This is swiftly countered by Gorilla hooking Wolf before he can even use The Quickness while Khan completes his teleport cast before Untara even reacts to cast Stand United on Bang. 

Fast forward to 30 minutes and Khan outclasses Untara again while in a superior lane matchup resulting in a solo kill. This leads to baron and Longzhu close out the game five minutes later with no threat from SKT outside of Faker attempting to save the game on his Ekko.

Game Three

SKT has a dominant performance in their only victory against LZ with a sub-in for Huni along with a good matchup for him with his Gnar against Khan’s Camille. SKT won the game off Cuzz’s inexperience which lead to him crumbling under the pressure of Blank and Faker’s early harass in his jungle. 

The third game of the series quickly ran out of control once Cuzz died twice in the jungle along with BDD and Khan sacrificing their lanes in a desperate attempt to keep him relevant. With SKT’s bottom lane winning off a single gank, Cuzz seemed lost not knowing what to do to negate the losses after all three lanes fell behind.

Nearly thirteen minutes into the game Cuzz seems prepared to commit to his first gank against Bang and Wolf, but his laners die before he can even channel his Elastic Slingshot putting SKT up six kills to nothing. 

There’s really not much else to say about this game, it was lost from the very start once Huni could hold lane in a good matchup leaving Cuzz clueless on where to focus his attention throughout the game. SKT cleans house in 29 minutes.

Game Four 

After the third game and SKT seemingly finding an effective strategy for a reverse sweep, there are only question marks with how they drafted this game. As a spectator it’s easy to look at a draft and think “What the hell are they doing?” when not given the context of scrims or what has been played in solo queue practice, but I was truly at a loss as to how to explain why SKT would choose a massively losing lane of Cho’Gath into Jayce after opting to wait until LZ’s top lane pick before that decision.

Bang and Wolf have not been performing well at all this series with the only game they won lane being the result of a successful gank from Blank, so I could only hope that SKT opted for a triple damage threat that would also equally match Khan in the top lane, but they went back to their old draft in the previous games to just leave it to Faker and Bang, one of which who has not been pulling his weight. 

As expected looking at the previous games, top lane was a lost cause in under five minutes. Khan chunks out Huni to 300 HP while Cuzz rotates up to SKT’s krugs to harass Blank resulting in a kill and Faker’s TP being drawn out. Once Longzhu tasted weakness in toplane, it was party time up there and Huni was promptly slain just one minute after Blank’s death. Just one minute again later, guess what happens. Time for Huni to die again!

There was nothing SKT could do with a nonexistent top laner and a bottom lane that simply failed to at least hold lane for more than 10 minutes. SKT has much work to do if they don’t want to lose again in 25 minutes at Worlds.

[propertyhold]

The Den: The Big Reveal!

Exactly four years ago today, I became a homeowner. That decision could be characterized in a lot of ways: crazy, stupid, optimistic, deluded, exciting, terrifying, and maybe a bit ambitious. I loved this house from the second I saw it, and if I was going to buy a house (something I was not particularly equipped or intending to do), it was going to be this house. There were no other contenders.

That part—the period of falling for a property and feeling committed to its acquisition—felt easy (the actual purchase part was not, but that’s another story). The stuff that came after it wasn’t quite as easy. I’m not sure I have much in the way of original thoughts on this topic: yes, it really does take twice as long. Yes, it really does cost twice as much. Yes, at times it’s satisfying, frustrating, overwhelming, thrilling, and challenging. It’s a process that can variably bring out both the best and the worst, exposing your weaknesses and fears as much as it reveals the heights of your capacity for joy and contentment. It’s a long, strange, intensely humbling trip.

None of this is immediately pertinent to this post, I guess, but it felt weird to not acknowledge the milestone of four years! Some days it feels like the house has come such a long way, and other days it feels like the amount of remaining work is insurmountable. So with regards to the den, this is a space that—until very recently—contributed to that whole insurmountable feeling. This room has never really been anything. For a while it had a bed in it for guests (who got to wake up looking at a half-demoed water-damaged acoustic tile ceiling…how charming!), but mainly it’s just been a place for stuff to spill into as other spaces got worked on. Which feels…weird! There’s this whole space in my house that, functionally, might as well have been some off-site storage facility (which certainly would have felt cleaner and more manageable!), and now it’s an actual room that I’m actually sitting in and actually writing this blog post and actually not seeing anything crumbling around me or making me feel crappy because “oh-my-god-I’ve-lived-here-for-this-long-and-this-room-is-still-a-total-dump.” Particularly on a DIY pace and budget, stuff just takes a long time, and it’s not always easy (or, necessarily, especially productive) to pinpoint exactly why. It just does.

SO! Shall we take a looksie around the new room? Let’s do it.

Ba-boom! If it looks like a different room, that’s almost because it is. That bay window situation in the “before” shot was not original to the house and I removed it last summer as part of a larger exterior renovation, and I believe this is actually much as the room would have looked when it was built! Time saw the addition of electricity, hardwood flooring laid over the original subfloor, and hot water radiator heating, but ya know—that stuff’s not going anywhere. The rest of it is just cosmetic—one of the ways I try to approach renovating vs. decorating is by renovating with more of a restoration mindset, and decorating however the hell I want. Somebody could move in here and swap out light fixtures and repaint (or wallpaper), furnish, and have themselves much more of a time capsule vibe, but I guess I’d rather just have a…me vibe? This room feels very me, to me. ME ME ME.

Here’s where we were at the beginning of March!

And today! Much improved, yes?

Sorry, I’m a sucker for a before-and-after comparison. Did we get it out of our systems? I really wish I had taken more pictures of the room before it started getting torn apart! It’s like I had learned nothing four years ago when I had the opportunity to take true “before” photos. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I saw much more of the house as a straightforward renovation/redecorating project than what it’s become.

So, maybe this room looks crazy and maybe it is crazy and maybe I have no ability to form an objective opinion on it, but I DO know that it’s filled with so many things I love and is so comfortable and cozy that I literally do not care at all if it could also be considered stylish. I think it’s pretty. I don’t know.

I’ve mentioned lots of these things before, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but…

This sofa!! I bought it from Susan and Will Brinson (of the obscenely inspiring blog, House of Brinson). 400 bucks! For a secondhand, high-quality, all leather sofa that is the most comfortable thing in the world, I think that’s a great deal. Even though this room isn’t really a guest room (it was supposed to be when I started working on it!), the cushion section of the sofa is roughly the size of a twin sized bed, and I can tell you from firsthand experience (of Netflix and chilling so hard that I fall asleep) that it’s SO comfortable. I wouldn’t feel bad asking a guest to sleep here because it really does sleep like a bed, not a couch. I love the wear on the leather, and I love that I don’t have to be insane about it because it’s already been lovingly broken in by two large dogs before my own dogs, so they just add to the patina.

Womb chair, womb chair! I love this chair but Mekko REALLY loves this chair. When I was a kid, my mom looked for a lounge chair for her bedroom for literally a decade, and as a teenager I recommended this one…which she purchased…and then hated…which I was secretly kind of excited about because it meant that if she didn’t get around to reselling it as she said she would, I could ask for it when I eventually had the space to accommodate. MY SCHEME WORKED and now it is mine and it’s the most expensive dog bed in the world.

The original (well, original to the house being heated by radiators—before that it was wood stoves!) radiator got a few coats of glossy black spray paint, and I love the pairing of the black-black with the blue-black walls! I don’t know why! Particularly with more ornate radiators like this one, I think black paint is a great way to really highlight the fancy Victorian scrollwork on each fin.

Above the radiator is a collection of frameless antique mirrors, which I hoard just because. When the foil backing starts to disintegrate on an old mirror, I think the effect is so beautiful and interesting and I just buy them whenever I see them, assuming the price is good and they meet my rigorous quality standards of being in one piece.

I always thought it would be cool to display them in some kind of grouping, and this steel ledge isn’t quite what I had in mind, but I bought the ledge almost four years ago (it was supposed to go in my first kitchen renovation, but I changed my mind!), so it was nice to finally put it to use since I didn’t get my act together and send it back to CB2 at the time.

The tea light candlesticks are originally from Dwell Studio, but I picked them up a few years ago secondhand. I love them so much! The wooden tray that they’re sitting on I bought in the fall when I was in Austria. So simple and pretty.

On the wall to the right of the window, the top little piece of art was made by my mommy as a kid! I stole it out of a box of old stuff in our basement years ago, and I’ve had it hanging somewhere since. I love it—someday I’ll upgrade the frame, but an IKEA RIBBA never hurt anyone. The muscleman below it came out of my grandparents’ house after they had both passed away, and nobody knows where it came from or who the artist is.

The light is from my internet pal and long-time design crush, Logan at One Forty Three. I’m so proud of that dude! Watching his business expand and grow, and all the things he’s created since I first became aware of his work, has been so exciting. I’ve had the lamp for…probably 5 years at this point, and it still looks and works like the day it was packaged up and sent to my then-home in Brooklyn. I’m so happy to have it hanging up again.

The dark walls do swallow up a lot of natural daylight (perfect for a chill zone room like this, I think!), but that can make houseplants difficult. I’ve never had a problem keeping one of these ZZ plants alive though—perfect for low light and thrive on neglect. The pot is vintage, found somewhere around Kingston. The candlestick is also vintage and used to be half of a set of two, but I MAY have not realized that absent a metal liner in the part where the candle goes, a candle will burn down and then light the candlestick on fire, and then that will burn until somebody notices.

I’m a hazard.

I bought the dog on a trip to China in 2005. I bought the side table a few years ago from JC Penney, when Terence Conran did a really nice collection for them, and then it all went on clearance, and then I panic-bought some of my favorite pieces from the collection just BECAUSE I HAD TO and I don’t regret it because I think it was like $30 for this cast iron and white oak side table that is just so cute and very well-made.

Also you can kind of get a sense of how the Diamante wallpaper from Hygge & West in the adjoining little office looks with this room. I feel like the two play well together!

You might recognize the two pieces above the sofa from my Brooklyn bedroom and then again from my current bedroom that I showed you just a few weeks ago, but naturally I’ve already moved them and I think THIS is where they belong! These hung in my grandparents’ bedroom at least throughout my lifetime, and it’s an honor to have them here.

Also, ORANGE NAKED LADY!!! Evidently, I wrote a blog post about her back in 2013 after I bought her at an auction, but she’s never really had a permanent home until now. I’m still exactly as tickled by her as I was when I spent $60 real-life dollars on her and got made fun of by other auction attendees for it.

SPEAKING of auctions…now is the part where if you didn’t hate me already, I give you license to hate me now.

I went to an auction shortly after I started working on this room.

I saw this rug.

I wanted this rug. Immediately. Intensely.

I prepared myself to spend $400-$500 for this rug, which is a chunk of change but actually a good deal for a rug of this age and size (and, I’d argue, uniqueness), and I’d been looking for one for this room, and here it was.

The bidding started.

Nobody bid.

I bid. $45. And won.

FORTY. FIVE. DOLLARS. That’s, like, a fancy tea towel. That’s, like, five burritos.

The guy next to me literally turned to me and asked what possessed me to buy that rug. ARE YOU BLIND, SIR?

OK I’m done gloating. I love that rug so hard. The colors are so weird and good. The wear is everything I want.

I haven’t painted the door yet (since it swings into the hallway, I can convince myself it’s part of the hallway restoration, which I’ve been great at putting off indefinitely), but you get the idea.

This space is pretty narrow, and that couch is ENORMOUS, and the space between the righthand corner and the door trim is about a foot, so I needed something very slim for under the TV.

I searched and searched and racked my brain for something I could just buy and be done with. I didn’t want to build a thing. It felt like…I just built a ROOM, do I really need to make myself crazy over building something big FOR the room?

Then I built a thing and I’m so glad I did because I actually really like the thing I built! It’s essentially just a plywood box that’s covered in lath from my very own walls and ceilings. I think I started it on a Sunday morning and had it hanging on the wall by Monday afternoon, and it holds a bunch and looks cute and cost me all of about $10 for the piano hinge. Also, it was really fun! Since buying the house, it’s actually very rare that I just kind of make something that isn’t part of a much larger renovation project, and I forget how fun it is to just play around with some tools and some wood and see what happens.

By the way, on top of the cabinet thing on the far left sits a Sonos speaker, and my Apple TV is turned sideways between the speaker and the stack of books. That’s all the technology! I’ve tried to make it a tradition to buy a Sonos speaker upon the completion of each room to spread the cost out—it’s kind of spendy for me, but I do really like the system and I love that the speakers come in white or black so it’s usually possible to keep it very inconspicuous.  The speakers all tie back to the Sonos app on my phone, and can be controlled independently or in unison to play music, adjust the volume, play/pause, etc. I recommend it!

I didn’t do anything particularly nice about finishing the inside (I made it! for me! and I don’t care!), but it holds a ton! I decided to put all of my weird pottery and figurines and candlesticks and stuff in there, along with extra tea lights and candles for the room. It’s so nice to have all this kind of stuff in one place! I find that I love too many things and can’t display them all at once without my house looking like a thrift store that somebody lives in, but if I rotate stuff in and out of display it keeps things looking more sane and ALSO makes me appreciate stuff more when I don’t see it all the time. Kind of like shopping in my own house when I get the itch to move stuff around, which is an extremely frequent event because I love to futz.

LEST you had not hit your limit with me over RugGate 2017 (scroll up a few photos; it literally just happened), a few weeks ago I was tromping through some funny antique mall kind of place in New Jersey and spotted this little fella for a dollar. So tiny! Those delicate little brass feet! Immediately I was charmed. I picked him up and then couldn’t put him back down, so I shelled out my George Washington to take him home.

Fast forward a couple of weeks into our new blissful life together, during which I had unofficially named him Herman, and I posted an Instagram of him, and was immediately informed from multiple sources that little Herman is…kind of valuable. Oddly enough, Herman was designed by Jacob Hermann (how weird is that!) in Denmark in the 1950s, and is highly collectable, and seems to sell for a few hundred dollars up to several thousand for a grouping.

Lesson: never pass up a good tchotchke. Just build a cabinet to store all the tchotchkes.

Finally, the light! THE PINK LIGHT! PINKKKKK LIGHTTTTTT!

Here’s what had happened. I went to Germany in the fall. Essentially I landed from my red-eye flight, dropped my bag at the hotel in Berlin, and immediately went to a flea market. I was so tired and so not thinking clearly and before I knew it, I had blown my entire souvenir budget on three vintage rugs and this 1950s chandelier. This is what it means to travel with me, and I am considering the first clause of this sentence as fair warning to anybody who might someday travel with me.

I carried the light through Germany and into Austria, where I disassembled it and shipped it home via DHL, which was FREAKISHLY fast. It arrived before I even got home! Between the purchase and the shipping I ended up spending about $250 on this thing, which is typically more than I’d spend on…most things, but I REALLY WANTED IT for no reason in particular. A month ago I worked up the nerve to unpack the box—knowing that one broken shade would pretty much render the entire thing worthless—but luckily it had arrived intact so then it was just a matter of rewiring the whole thing, remembering how everything fit together, and hanging it up.

I love you, pink light. Never leave me.

Annnnnnnnnd, here is my attempt to keep up with the bloggers and make this post “shoppable”: A THING IN THIS ROOM THAT I THINK YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY! I love this little candleholder from the Modern by Dwell Magazine collection for Target. Mine was on a clearance rack at a store in Virginia that I visited to buy clean underwear after the Baltimore kitchen renovation, but it’s still for sale online. So cute!

Is that it? I think that might be it. Opium den—check!

The Den: The Big Reveal! syndicated from your-t1-blog-url