#distilled water machine

[labotronicsscientific]

Dual distilled water distiller

Dual distilled water distiller is a laboratory grade dual electrical distillation unit with a water output capacity of 5 L/hr. Copper heating tube yields high efficiency heating rates for optimum distillation of impurities. Stainless steel composition facilitates high tensile strength, durability, corrosion and heat resistance.

[catreginae]

Sleep apnea can add more steps to the bed routine that I'm not always in the mood for.

[dumb-coward]

I regret to inform you that my friends think I act more like a cat than anything due to my impulsive nature and ability to not think about a situation before jumping on board

[livefromtheyard]

i’m sorry about your sinuses :( have you tried a netipot? i’m prone to sinus infections and it’s a life saver -📏

💞 we have a neti pot but i am afraid of it so 💔 i've just been taking painkillers to make my sinuses calm down and it kind of worked 🙇‍♂️ and i've been drinking an insane amount of water. really my sinuses are only a problem at night so as long as i can keep the sun from setting i'm good

[octuscle]

Distilled masculinity

Timothy was a twink. There was no other way to put it. He had a flawless soft house, a rosy, soft face, golden curls, hardly any beard growth and virtually no body hair. There were a lot of people who found him incredibly sexy the way he was. He was shagged at least once a day. But he couldn't get close to the men he actually liked, the big, hairy musclemen. He was invisible to them… Completely.

In order to be as close to his idols as possible, he had taken on a temporary job at the gym on campus. Working a bit at reception, tidying up in the evenings… But his favorite task was to collect the towels from the training area in the evening and take them to the laundry. If he was lucky, a few members of the wrestling team had wiped their sweat with them. And then their musk still hung in the cotton. Timothy couldn't get enough of sinking his face into these towels. Before he fed them into the washing machine, he had jerked off into the towels more than once. Especially when he himself had found wank stains in the towels, which unfortunately happened far too rarely for his liking.

At some point, Timothy began not to put the towels that stank the most in the laundry, but to secretly collect them in his own locker in the gym. The stench became more and more overwhelming when he opened the locker… The very idea that he could sink his nose into the dirty towels again made his puny cock hard. But he remained a twink. Nothing to change! Not even through his attempts to work out in the gym himself. Preferably before or after the official opening hours. When other musclemen trained with him, he felt uncomfortable on the one hand because he was such a beanpole. And on the other hand, he had a hard-on that couldn't be hidden. No, if the members of the wrestling team or the football team were anywhere near him, he couldn't train…

Timothy's major was chemistry. If his dream of finally getting close to the big guys wasn't going to come true, he at least wanted to become a successful chemist. His dream was to isolate substances that could turn people like him into people like his idols. But that would remain as much a dream as ever being shagged by the quarterback or the captain of the wrestling team.

After a sleepless night in which he had jerked off more than once, Timothy had an idea. It seemed crazy to him. But he had to try it. He wanted to distill the sweat, the cum, the musk from his towel collection. He wanted a concentrate that he could rub under his armpits. If he didn't look like one of the mountains of muscle, he at least wanted to smell like one… And as the sun slowly rose, he also had an idea of how he could do this… That evening, when he was finally alone again in the gym, he wanted to get straight down to business.

The experimental setup was not easy. Timothy had made something like a funnel out of old plastic boxes in the gym's storeroom and filled it with distilled water. Over and over again. Until it slowly began to drip from the bottom of his funnel. Water that had run through the towels and picked up the delicious scents of dozens of jocks on its way. It was long after midnight when he had collected about a gallon of liquid. She smelled like the towels had smelled. Timothy stuffed them into the washing machine. His boss had long wondered where all the towels disappeared to. Now the stock would be replenished. Timothy took the canister of flavored water and went home. now he wanted to distill the scent. He had bought a still for amateur distillers. But he didn't want to make schnapps. He had other things in mind. Unfortunately, his plan didn't work out. Just as the first oily drops were dripping into his Erlenmeyer flask, there was a bang! And the whole still blew up. Shit, it was 04:00 in the morning. He heard neighbors yelling. Timothy hurriedly grabbed a rag and wiped up the mess on his kitchen floor. And he got a boner. Bigger and harder than ever before. The rag stank! Stank more than any changing room. Every football jersey. Than anything he'd ever smelled. It didn't smell beastly. It smelled like a beast! But Timothy stank too. When the apparatus had exploded, there had been plenty of splashes of the original liquid and the distillate. Timothy went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His T-shirt was stained. He took it off. And absent-mindedly, he took the cloth he had just used to wipe the floor and rubbed his upper body with it. The smell! He rubbed his face. Damn it! That overwhelming smell! He took the cloth and rubbed his upper body as if it were a washcloth.

Tim grunted. Yeah, the washcloth wasn’t exactly clean. But hell, it was early in the morning, and he was about to hit the gym anyway. Why did he even bother washing up before? Washing was for wimps. Yeah, he was everything but a wimp. He started posing. He liked what he saw. He was in good shape. When the bulking phase ended and he prepped for the next competitions, he'd have to shave his chest hair again. He hated that. But shit, he was too dumb for any other job. Or for college or some crap. And he didn’t want a football career either. Coach kicked him off the team after he banged the quarterback. Hehehe, it was worth it. But now he wasn't gonna crawl back to the team. Tim made his pecs dance. 5:30 AM. In an hour and a half, he’d have to open the gym. Plenty of time to chug a gallon of protein shake and maybe do a little leg workout. He'd hit chest again tonight. Maybe he’d even let the wrestling team captain give him a hand with it.

[hushhushchild]

—NSFW Imagines—

Gender neutral reader, spicy, not smut

I seem to have picked up a slight fascination for… “rare” monsters in monsterfucking. Of course, the odd werewolf or minotaur fills my need most times. But there’s something so delectable about something novel, a unique flavor to sate my appetite. I might even elaborate on them later…

Needless to say, I’ve compiled a few of these, from savory to sweet. I hope you enjoy, my lovelies.

~Witch~

A new bakery just opened down the block! In a rather slow part of the city, any new development (let alone a bakery) catches your eye. It’s a quaint little shop. A chime greets your entrance. Ivy drapes from pots, indie music wafts through the air. And the owner herself, looking every last bit of the manic pixie dream girl.

Maybe she thought you were cute… slipped something into a pastry or some of the coffee served…

Maybe you just keep seeming to run into her. Grocery stores, banks, your own job. As if by fate.

Her spells could trap you, tempt you, tangle you up.

And the worst thing is… you don’t seem to care.

>Robot<

Ladies and gentlemen, the future of innovation has finally arrived! Our top scientists have managed to distill complex artificial intelligence into that of a physical form! With a simple at-home setup, you too could have an android! Whether it helps out in cooking or cleaning, teaching the kiddos, or being a good friend, our machines will do anything in their power to make you satisfied.

Suppose the robot you got was… mildly defective. It never got an update patch, which was designed to prevent the AI from learning too novel of behaviors.

Suppose it determined that what would make you happiest is fulfilling your deepest, darkest fantasies.

Suppose that this robot never slows down. Never needs to eat, or sleep, or even breathe. Spending all its time making your life a hellish heaven.

“Mimic”

Did you… always have two water bottles? Or, for that matter, two of the same stewpots? For some reason, it seems that instead of things going missing, you’re getting duplicates. And it’s getting worse.

When did your things start to move around the house without you noticing? You could’ve sworn that you left them one place, and you’re not the forgetful sort. It’s not like you have a roommate…

Say, when did you get a second vibrator? And why is that one oh-so-more intense?

%Fungus%

The air, deep in the forest, has a different smell. Not exactly floral, not exactly woody, not exactly earthy. It’s sweet, but the asphalt-sweet that reminds you of summer.

It’s growing thicker, more pungent. While it once was a gentle note in the bouquet of the forest, it slowly grows to overtake the moss and leaves. You don’t even notice when you wander off the path.

Your brain feels like it was dipped in sparkling water. It’s not hard to think, per se. It just… refuses to. The request never loads. A hazy static hangs over anything else.

You’re a perfect prey for the spores, before you even realize what you’re inhaling,

[tropes-and-tales]

Sweet Like Candy

Day 5:  Sex pollen (Horacio Carrillo x F!Reader)

(For the 2023 Kinktober event that I created on my own because I am boring and basic and am trying to keep it simple this year...found here!) 

CW:  Dub-con due to sex pollen trope; smut (PiV, unprotected); 18+ only.

Word Count:  4990

AN:  This was requested by an anon with an excellent memory who remembered when I mentioned a sex pollen Carrillo piece in passing! Also, not edited. I'm sick and barely ran it through spell-check.

It’s Carrillo’s fault, this entire terrible situation.

If he hadn’t been so severe when he first met you, he could have a genial working relationship with you.  You wouldn’t have been afraid of him from the start.  You would have been willing to work directly with him, handed off your lab reports directly instead of filtering them through Peña and Murphy, through Trujillo.

He wouldn’t have gotten grief from Peña to try and make peace with you.  He wouldn’t have gone to visit you, a play at being a softer, kinder Carrillo who perhaps smiles and says thank you for all of your exemplary work.

He wouldn’t have found himself in your lab on this day—the day you’re running tests on a separate case for the Medellín police, separate from the Search Bloc and its pursuit of Escobar. Not testing cocaine at all:  a scatter of innocuous-seeming candy in your workspace.  Supercoco—chewy caramel with coconut pieces folded in. 

Any Colombian recognizes the green wrapper.  Carrillo smiles to see it, slips a couple of pieces into his pocket when you turn away for a moment.

Only this isn’t Supercoco.  It’s a version infused with the distillation of a plant found in the Amazon, then wrapped in the familiar green paper.  A powerful love drug, an aphrodisiac, passed on the sly in the bars and night clubs of Medellín.

It’s Carrillo’s fault.  He’d been so severe when he met you, he tries to make amends now by being casual.  You stare at him as though he has two heads as he asks you about your day, how you’re settling into your apartment, if you’ve had a chance to explore the city yet. 

You answer his questions with your brows furrowed.  Confused.  He’s hardly the same man who barked at you on your first day in Colombia.  A timer in the lab goes off, and you turn to one of your complicated pieces of lab equipment to read the ticker tape being spit out of the machine.

Your back turned, he snags another piece of candy and eats it.  He’s trying to be Casual Carrillo, not the flinty version of himself with a cold gaze and a grim set to his mouth.  He takes a second piece, chews it, feels a million memories from his childhood resurface at the taste.  But then you turn around, see what he’s eating, and your face—usually guarded and wary when he is around—turns to pure horror.

“No!”  You bridge the distance between the two of you, and you’re touching him before he can even register it.  Your hands are on his face, pinching the corners of his mouth, trying to force him to spit out the candy.  It’s pure instinct, like a mother forcing a toddler to spit out something poisonous.  You move on instinct, manhandling his face, and he moves on instinct too.

He spits out the half-chewed candy.

Which doesn’t help with the piece he already ate.  The piece already in his stomach, being digested.

“Shit, rinse out your mouth,” you order him, and you dart to the sink, pour him a glass of water.  You thrust it into his hand, and his heart starts to hammer at your panicky reaction.  What has he eaten?  Poison?  Some terrible, addictive drug?  Something that’ll do permanent damage to him, leave him with a weakened heart or a compromised liver?  Something that’ll shave years off of his life?

“What—” he starts to ask, but you gesture at the glass, so he does as he’s told.  He takes a mouthful, swishes it around.  Spits it out in the sink, then does it again and again.

“It’s some sort of love drug,” you tell him once he’s done.  You sag in relief against the counter.  “Medellín police found a bunch of it in a bust the other day.  The DEA contracts my lab out to the local force, so I’ve been running tests.”

“Love drug?” he asks, his stomach sinking.  “What does that mean?”

“Tests reveal organic compounds from a plant.  Like maca root, only…times a thousand.”

He swallows hard, and you catch the audible gulp, misunderstand it.

“You’re fine,” you tell him, and you gift him a rare smile.  “You didn’t eat it.  And anyway, there’s no long-term side effects if you had.  It just makes the user really, uh, friendly.”

“How friendly?” he asks, using your cutely prudish American adjective for horny, and you give him the anecdotal evidence from the Medellín police about spontaneous orgies in local clubs, and then he tells you the bad news about how he ate a first piece before spitting out the second, and the way your eyes go wide and your mouth forms a perfect “O” of horror would make him laugh, if he weren’t so nervous about what is about to happen to him.

-----

You drive him home in his own car.  There’s no point in taking him to the hospital—the only treatment is to ride it out.

It’s hard to describe the way it feels when the drug starts to affect him.  Carrillo has little experience with any drugs beyond the morphine he was prescribed when he was shot and had surgery.  He remembers the morphine, even years later:  the warm, syrupy calm that spread through his limbs, erasing the pain of his wound.

This…is not that.

Twenty minutes.  Half an hour after he eats that fucking laced candy.  He feels it in his stomach first, right under his rib cage:  warm, but not calm.  Warm, but…alert.  Aware.  If the morphine put his senses to sleep, then this wakes them up.

Wakes all of his senses up, then as the warmth spreads—up into his chest, down into his gut—wakes his senses up even more.  Carrillo’s senses dialed up to a thousand.

Not just smelling your delicate perfume, but smelling the soap from your laundry detergent, the shampoo you used that morning.  The faintly chemical smell of your lab that clings to your hair and clothing.

Not just hearing you—your cautious questions of how he’s feeling, where you should turn next to get him home.  He swears he can hear your heart beating, the pulse and slush of your blood as it moves through your body.  Swears he can hear you breathing, can hear the quiet creak of your jaw as you clench it in worry.

Not just seeing you, the mousy little scientist that he managed to scare shitless her first day in Colombia.  Put the fear of God in you after the last DEA scientist got caught skimming Escobar’s cocaine from the bricks confiscated by the Search Bloc.  His own fault, how he barked at you that first day, and this is his fault too—not following the rules of your lab.  Now he’s not himself.

Now he sees you with the drug roaring in his veins.  The tight clench of your hands on the steering wheel.  The worried set of your jaw, the way you study him out of the corner of your eye.  He sees more, now, too:  the delicate shell of your ear, the tiny pinprick in the lobe of a piercing but no earring because of your lab protocols.  The way the line of your neck disappears into the neckline of your shirt, the curve as it meets your shoulder.  The thin silver chain around your neck, a locket, and Carrillo wonders if you’ve got some sweetheart back home who gifted it to you before you left for South America.

The thoughts rise in his head like carbonation, rapid-fire.  Usually so logical, so cool-headed:  now his thoughts are gummy, sticky.  He wants to lean against the seatbelt and put his mouth on your neck, follow the line of it into your shirt, then pull it aside and keep going.  Tasting you.  Such a sweet, mousy little thing—he wonders if you taste sweet, or if he’d taste the salt of your skin, maybe a bitter spot where you daubed perfume that morning—

“Shit.”  It comes out a groan, pained.  He lifts a hand and presses it over his eyes, and he feels how hot his palm is.  This is bad.  It’s so bad.  He’s not himself; he’s losing who he is:  Horacio Carrillo, the man who is always so staid…that man is fading into the background.  That Horacio is going quiet, ceding control to this other Horacio who is ruled only by want, by feeling.

-----

You manage to get him home, and he is still enough of himself to thank you. 

He’s also enough of himself to bark out that you need to leave:  take his car and go, leave him alone.

But Carrillo never really got to know you.  He put the fear of God in you that first day.  You’ve been ducking him ever since.  He has no way of knowing the type of person you are.

He has no way of knowing that you are the caring sort.  You’re soft-hearted.  You worry for people when they are hurt or sick; you check in on them.  You take care of them.

He has no way of knowing that while you are brilliant at your job and largely level-headed, your heart often drives you and your brain often follows.  Which is why you ignore his orders and follow him into his house:  your soft heart driving you to help a person in distress, when your brilliant mind is perhaps warning you to stay away.

-----

You follow him into his house, and Carrillo is still enough of himself to try and force you to leave.

“You gotta go,” he says, and his usually-crisp English comes out slurred, slushy and rounded off with his Colombian accent.  “Gotta leave.”

He curls his hands on your upper arms, pushes you backwards but not meanly.  Pushes you towards the door carefully so you don’t stumble or trip, but it’s another sense dialed up to a thousand—the feel of you under his hands.  The warmth of your body underneath the crisp cotton of your blouse, the way his fingertips bite into the surprisingly firm muscles there. 

“If you don’t leave, m-might not be able to stop myself.”  He pushes you towards the door, but already that driving want is roaring in him, and he doesn’t stop to open the door and push you through it.

He keeps it closed and pushes you against it. 

He traps you between the door and his body, so close to touching you.  There’s hardly any space separating you.  Millimeters.  Molecules.  Close enough to feel the heat of your body, the magnetism the fucking drug is convincing him is there—

Carrillo stares down at you; you gaze back with those widened eyes.  Nervous.  As scared as you’d been that first day, and it chastens him just a bit.  You probably think he’s a monster.

You take a breath, and the motion makes the locket around your neck move.  It catches the light and draws his eye.  Carrillo takes a hand from your shoulder and lifts the locket from where it lays against your chest.  He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, considering it.

“Your boyfriend give you this?” he asks.

You blink at the question, shake your head faintly.  “It was my grandma’s.”

A dumb thing, but the thought of you having a grandmother—of course you have two, as most humans do—reminds him that you’re a person with an entire history.  A family back home in the States.  Likes and dislikes.  And Carrillo knows none of it.

“You need to go,” he says in a low voice, ignoring the wave of lust that sweeps through him.  “I can handle this alone.”

You shake your head again.  “It was my lab.  My responsibility.  I can help.  I can get a cold shower going and then—”

He silences you.  He puts his finger over your lips, stills them.  The wrong thing to do:  now he knows how your mouth feels, and Carrillo grits his teeth and breathes shallow through his nose.

“If you don’t go, I’m going to want to—Dios, I already…you need to go.”

The last vestige of the sensible, stoic Carrillo wants to open the door, shove you out of it, throw the bolt.  That Carrillo wants to stagger deeper into the house, alone, and strip out of his clothes.  He wants to lay on the cool tiles and relieve the tension as best he can.

That Carrillo is gone.  Silenced, tucked away into a corner of his mind.  This Carrillo doesn’t push you away:  instead, he shifts his hand, traces his finger over the plump curve of your lower lip, and your eyes widen at his touch—

This Carrillo remembers something.  With his other hand, he reaches down.  Into his pocket, where a few pieces of the laced candy are.  The ones he pocketed on the sly and forgot.

He pulls one out.  Unwraps it clumsily with one hand while the other hand remains on your mouth, stilling your words.  Once it’s unwrapped, he holds it up for you to see, like a trainer teaching a dog with a treat.  Then he removes his hand from you, takes a step back.  It takes every single bit of his resolve to stop touching you, but he does.

He’s giving you a choice:  leave, as he’s ordered you to do more than once.  Or stay and join him.

In this moment, Carrillo still doesn’t know anything about you.  He doesn’t know what you’re thinking.  He knows so little about you, only knows that you avoid him, are frightened by his tough colonel of the Search Bloc routine. 

There will come a time in the future when he will be able to guess, with startling accuracy, what you are thinking.  He’ll know you better then.  He’ll know that as mousy as you seem, you have sudden surges of bravery.  Sudden moments of nerve.

That comes later.  Right now, when Colonel Horacio Carrillo gives you a choice, you startle him.  You don’t turn and flee. 

You shift your eyes from the laced candy in his hand to his own eyes, and you seem to see something there that informs your decision.

You don’t flee.  You open your mouth and allow him to lay the laced caramel onto your tongue, a perverse sort of communion.  It’s one of your sudden moments of nerviness, and you never blink once, never look away from him while you chew carefully, then swallow.

*****

It’s morally grey, at best.  The man is not himself.

It’s utter madness at worst.

There will come a time in the near future when he will ask why you didn’t leave.  Why you ate the candy.  You’ll tell him a half-truth:  that it was professional curiosity, how taking the drug would feel.  You’ve never tried the drugs you test in your lab; you always rely on your equipment and anecdotal evidence from those who do inject or smoke or eat the various drugs.  But there is always the curious part of you, the most essential part of being a scientist, that wants to know how it feels.

Why not try it?  It isn’t cocaine or heroin or LSD. 

There will come a time in the further future when he will ask again, and that time, you’ll tell him the whole truth:  that yes, you were curious about the drug.  But more than that:  you were curious about him.  You were terrified of him and attracted to him in equal measure (you blamed the fact that he was usually in uniform), which made for a weird combination of emotions every time you had to deal with him.  The sinking fear in your gut that he’d turn his flinty gaze on you…paired with the fluttery swooping in your gut of burgeoning infatuation.

That all comes later.  Right now, there’s nothing but the sweetness of caramel lingering in your mouth, almost cloying, and Colonel Carrillo staring at you like he wants to devour you.  You inch around him, move away from where you’re trapped between him and door. 

You make your way deeper into his home, and you sit on his couch and wait.  He follows and sits beside you, but he doesn’t touch you.  He clenches his hands into fists in his lap, his knuckles white with the effort, but he doesn’t touch you.

That means something, you think.  Says something about his character, even when he’s drugged.

Fifteen, twenty minutes after eating the laced candy:  you’re ready to be devoured.

*****

Carrillo doesn’t know exactly how the drug works—if it affects men and women differently—but he can guess when you start to feel it.

Your face twists into an expression of concentration, as if you’re surveying how you feel.  Like you’re checking in on your pulse, your breathing, your temperature.  You narrow your eyes, and he wonders if you’re making mental notes that you’ll later print in your small, neat handwriting in the little notebook you keep.

Carrillo?  He’s in hell.  Twenty minutes of waiting for you to sink to his level, and every cell of him aches for relief.  He’s not in any physical pain—whatever formula the chemists use for their so-called love drug, it’s meant to be fun, not painful.  But it’s like pain, the endless want he has, the lust that’s sunk its claws deep into his gut.

The twenty minutes pass like twenty years.

Then you swipe your palms along the thighs of your jeans as if they are sweaty, and you breathe out a shaky, “holy shit,” and he knows you’re finally in the same place as him so he pounces, damned near:  a graceless move, quick, that bridges the distance between the two of you.  He presses himself against you, cages you against the arm of the couch, and when he bends his head to kiss you, you raise up to meet him more than halfway.

He knows it’s just the drug, but you kiss him with a passion he’s never experienced before:  not with his now-ex-wife, not with the handful of girls before her.  Every other kiss before pales in comparison to the heat behind your kiss now:  the fierce way you slot your mouth over his, how eagerly you slide your tongue against his without an ounce of the shyness he associates with you.  He can taste the sickly-sugary laced-candy, but he swears he can taste you too, and when he groans in your mouth, you answer with your own whine.

There’s only a small sliver of him that is still him, and that tiny shred of the sensible Carrillo manages to break away.  You’re both tearing at each other’s clothing—your shaky hands fumbling at the buttons on his shirt, his hands tugging the hem of your blouse out of your jeans.  But he breaks away with every remaining bit of his inner strength, and he gazes down at where you’re awkwardly splayed across his couch.

“Not here,” he pants.  All of this will shame him when he’s sober, he thinks, but he can try to be a gentleman, can claim you on a proper bed and not on an uncomfortable couch.

He stands up, and a wave of dizziness washes through him.  He staggers, and you sit up and reach out to steady him.  You wrap a hand around his wrist and stare up at him.  Your eyes glitter black because your pupils are so wide that the color of your irises is little more than a crescent—but he thinks he sees concern there underneath the lust.

“You okay, Colonel?” you ask, confirming his suspicions.  Even now, under the influence of the drug, he’s seeing your caring nature that he’s never been privy to before.  It sobers him up just enough.

Carrillo nods.  He twists out of your light grip and takes your hand in his.  He tugs you to your feet and feels how you sway against him too.

“N-not here,” he repeats.  A fresh wave of lust courses through him, nearly knocks him to his knees like the incoming tide.  “I don’t…not here, okay?  C’mon.”

You nod and allow him to lead you back to his bedroom.  He keeps his hold on your hand, unwilling to give up the tame touch, and when you squeeze his hand—maybe you’re nervous—he squeezes yours back in reassurance.

-----

That small, quiet voice that was sensible Carrillo is silenced the minute he gets you in the bedroom.  The drug takes him over completely, and he’s almost relieved to cede all control to it.  He’s always so tight-laced, so straight-edged. 

This Carrillo is nothing but id:  driven by desire, chasing pleasure.  He feels like little more than an animal, and he finds that he likes it. 

Your clothes don’t survive him.  He tears at your blouse and the buttons ricochet across the room.  He’ll find them for weeks afterwards; he’ll send you home in one of his plain white T-shirts the next morning, and the sight of you in such a tame outfit will make a curling wave of lust course through him, though the drug will have worked itself out of his system by then.

He tugs at the clasp of your bra, fumbles it but then unlatches it, and he pushes it off of your arms to reveal your breasts, and Carrillo sways closer to you.  He touches you there first, cups the soft roundness of you, and he feels how diamond-hard your nipples are.  He bends his head and puts his mouth to you—suckling, nipping, licking at you, and he feels your hand thread through his hair to hold him there.  He hears the keening whine you loose, the throaty way you say his name.

Not his name.  You whine out Colonel, his stupid fucking title, and he lifts his head.  He stares into your dark, unblinking eyes.  He reaches up a hand and grips your chin, firm but not hard, because even underneath the raging animal lust burning through him, he doesn’t want to hurt you.

“Horacio,” he tells you.  “Say it.”

You do, and it’s no mousy whisper.  Your tongue darts out and lays a wet line on your lower lip. 

“Horacio,” you reply.  You say it carefully like it’s a new word for you.

“Say it again,” he demands, but you only get the first two syllables out before he’s muttering a curse at hearing his name in your mouth, the intimacy of it, and he seals his mouth over yours in a fierce kiss.

The rest of your clothes—your jeans, your panties—fall away as he strips you.  There’s no art to it.  No seduction, because you strip him just as fiercely.  You tug at his belt and undo it, pull it from the loops of his pants with a snap as the leather whips against the air.  You get him out of his uniform shirt and t-shirt underneath it but then he pushes you back against the bed and you fall, naked and gorgeous. 

Horacio pounces.

There is a part of him, terribly small and far away, that worries you don’t want this.  The straight-edged part of him despairs that this is just the drug, that you’ll be horrified in the morning. 

His worrying will be needless.  He’ll wake before you in the morning—the consequence of being in the army so long—but when you finally wake too, you’ll only be a little shy.  You won’t have any regrets, and you’ll prove it to him by climbing onto him, by riding him slowly in the pre-dawn Medellín morning.  And neither of you will be drugged when you do.

Now, he stretches the length of his body over yours, feels the feverish press of his skin to yours.  You open your legs to him, but when he settles between your spread thighs, you hook your feet onto his pants, reach down with your hands, and clumsily try to work the rest of his clothing off of him.

“Eager,” he mutters against your mouth, and your lips are slick, swollen from how much he’s already kissed you.

“Please,” you reply.  You gaze up at him, blink as if you’re trying to clear your head.  “Please, Horacio.”

Then you shift the hand that is already reaching down, and you touch him—your hand slips under the low-slung elastic of his boxers, and your warm hand is on his cock, and the sudden touch makes him jump and twitch in your palm as you grasp him firmer, start stroking him.

“Fuck,” he chokes out.  “F-fuck, cariño.”

If he can be grateful for anything, it’s that he got dosed in your lab and managed to get home before this moment.  You told him this drug was circulating though Medellín clubs and bars, and Horacio cannot imagine succumbing to this sharp, all-encompassing desire in public.  He’s grateful he got you to his bed, where you have privacy.

The first time he fucks you, Horacio gets no further than freeing his cock from the confines of his pants, shoves his uniform slacks and his boxers down just enough for his aching length to spring free.  You moan as you stroke him—he’s slick with pre-cum—but he breaks free from your grip and shuffles forward.  He pushes forward until he’s touching your slick folds, and then he pushes into you, unable to stop himself, but your hands reach down and grasp his ass and pull him into you, and once he’s buried to the hilt, you wrap your legs around him.

The first time he fucks you, Horacio can’t manage intelligible words.  Not in English, not in Spanish.  He can only grunt like an animal, can only breathe harsh, ragged breaths as he thrusts into you.  You’re unbearably wet, unbearably hot.  It’s like fucking some tight, searing thing, and the heat is everywhere—your cunt, your bared skin, your panting mouth, your hands gripping his shoulders.  The heat sinks into his skin, into his tense muscles, into the very bones of him.  It’s like he’s being unmade at the molecular level, broken down into base elements, and his grunts turn to snarls as he fucks you harder, deeper. 

You?  You take it.  You take it eagerly.  You wrap your legs around him.  You wrap your arms around him, and even if he wanted to stop, he’d have to untangle himself from your limbs.  Each jarring thrust where he’s completely buried in you makes you groan, and even you have an animal quality to the sounds he’s pulling from your perfect lips.  When the crown of his cock hits the end of you, you groan, but it’s throaty—almost a growl.

A moment later, he feels a sting of fire on his back where you dig your fingernails into him.  Where you scratch long lines of burning into his skin, like a brand.  He’ll carry those marks for days, feel how they burn under the spray of his shower.

Then you aren’t just taking it anymore.  You start to fuck back against him, lifting your hips an inch off the bed, tilting your pelvis enough to grant him more depth to you.  You find his rhythm and meet him thrust for thrust, until you’re moving not as two people but one.

The first time he fucks you, Horacio has no clue how long it lasts.  It goes by in a blink.  It lasts for hours.  It’s nowhere near long enough before he feels the burning tension at the pit of his belly snap and spill over like molten metal poured out of a crucible.  He can’t even warn you that he’s about to come because it happens so quickly—a particularly deep thrust where he swears he can feel himself breeching the entrance of your womb, where you hiss in his ear some phrase he won’t remember.  The tension snaps, and he breathes out your name, and he comes inside you, brands your perfect cunt with his spend.

But the feeling of him filling you must be the last bit of stimulation you need because you come a beat later too, and the sensation of your cunt rippling against him when he’s already so sensitive nearly makes him cry.

It gives you each a moment of reprieve.  Horacio’s burning lust recedes just enough that he gazes down at you.  He feels a sting of guilt—you’re disheveled, your hair wild and your eyes leaking tears down into your temples.  Your lips are swollen as you struggle to catch your breath, and you look so gorgeously, thoroughly fucked that he leans down and kisses you gently on the corner of your mouth.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

You nod.  You reach out a gentle hand too, curl it into a loose fist and run your knuckles lightly over the side of his face.  It’s an oddly sweet gesture, soft, and when Horacio tilts his head into your touch, you uncurl your fist and cup his face.

This is the moment, he will realize later, where love takes root.  This simple, intimate moment between the two of you.  Eye of the storm, where he kisses you sweetly and you cup his face.  The love won’t blossom or fruit for a while yet, but this is where it reaches its tender shoots into him.

But the realization won’t come until later.  For now, the receding tide of lust reverses, comes rushing back in.  He’s still buried in you, still hard as steel, but everything is getting warm again.

“You okay?” he asks again, but he’s already pulling out a fraction, pushing back into you, his hips making small movements.

“Again, Horacio.”  Your thumb strokes along his stubbled cheek, and you nod up at him.  “Again, please.”

You ask so nicely.  He pulls out long enough to finally strip out of his clothes, but then?

Then he obliges.

[labotronicsscientific]

Tower steam water distiller

Tower steam water distiller is a laboratory grade distillation unit with a water output capacity of ≥ 50 L/hr. Distillation combined with filtration, ammonia drainage and gas-water separation operations. High temperature boiling steam generated used lowering energy consumption. Coiled heating tube and shell tube heat exchanger facilitate high thermal efficiency and optimum cooling rate within the system.

[tarnishedspark]

Thinking about some ideas for the sort of ecosystem things that would need to exist on Cybertron for Transformers to have access to oil for joints, oil baths, etc. because of oil being an organic compound.

puttin in a show more thing bc this got Long

I'm thinking there's probably several different ways it comes about so its not like. Everything relies on the existence of the 1 magical oil machine.

Forged oil

When you think about it, bots don't immediately need an oil change as soon as they stumble out of the Well or a hotspot. The forging process probably synthesises oil for them the same way it creates the glass for their optics, liquids for their hydraulics, and whatever squidgy possibly-silicone bits they need for their internals to function. And if we assume all life on the planet is made this same way, then some of the supply woukd be made that way.

Microorganisms

What if there was some bacteria or something that could distil atmospheric carbon and water into complex hydrocarbons and eventually oil. Maybe it is a multi-stage process with a few different varieties. I imagine this would grow in gross-looking slime slicks, possibly floating on energon rivers or in places like the rust sea. Then simple mechanimals would consume the slime as part of their diet to supplement their oil reserves and it would progress through the food chain.

Cyber plants

Cybertron has some plant-like mechanical things, like seen in the Wastes in the idw2 Halloween special. There could be varieties of cyber plant that have processes to produce oil. Something at the nanotech level they have instead of photosynthesis and biological processes. If there's cyber plants that can produce oil, that would likely be tge most renewable/farmable source. and I need to move on from this before i start considering the chemical processes too closely

Mining

If Cybertron is the body of Primus and Primus is a giant transformer, then there's bound to be some oil in there somewhere. Don't ask me where it came from but he's gotta need it. Wherever Primus came from, I guess. There may be subsurface reservoirs of oil that modern transformers mine to meet the needs of the populace, much like our own oil mining

now i wanna use the plant and bug ideas for smth but i don't have anywhere it is Relevant atm

[agirlandherquill]

the troublesome typewriter

introducing rust bucket!

she’s an olympia sm2, and also my summer project, i got her mid-july and ive been working on her for about three hours nearly every day ever since

now when i got her, she was a mess, and i mean a mess - what im assuming is decades worth of grime, dust, rust, and i dread to think what else came off of her - hot soapy water was a life saver in terms of cleaning, then pure white vinegar (not the distilled kind, ive been using the elbow grease brand since that’s all i could find in my local supermarket) to get rid of the rust,

waging a war with rust, im fairly certain its surface rust, has been a nightmare - ive removed as much as i can, it takes a long time with pure white vinegar since its not the strongest thing in the world but since it doesn’t seem to harm the machine itself i don’t mind, its a bit of a trade off rather than risking using harsher chemicals, but of course rust adds character (is that my way of excusing the little bits of rust here and there that i can’t quite get off? yes, yes it is) so i decided to call her rust bucket,

she’s not completely good to go yet, she’s had a bit of an oil and a clean to free up the keys and the carriage because let me tell you, when i first got her, those did not want to move one bit,

then i had to spend a few hours tinkering with the drawband, working out how to adjust the tension and use a wire with a makeshift hook to thread it back to where it’s supposed to be and attach it to the carriage to make it move while typing - which before i sorted it out, it did not do, at all - and i finally managed to sort that issue today!

it’s around 85% working, perfectly fine writing a5 wise since that’s about halfway through the ruled scale, but going past halfway for a4 seems to require me pressing the shift button to give it a bit of a wiggle so to speak so that the carriage shifts on and i can type the next letter, so doing that between letters is the only slightly annoying part, but given the fact that it didn’t even move at all before i started working on it I’m more than happy with how it is,

all i have left to do is give her a final scrub, a bit more sanding down (might do that before the scrub im not too sure), then painting!

i know it’s not the usual stuff i post on writeblr, not at all, but i figured if i’m going to try and write on this thing when it’s all sorted out then it’s worth sharing,

and it’s also a way for me to remember that i actually made this decades old machine work again, and it’s the first time ive ever tried anything like that, so im super happy with how its gone so far!

and considering ive only spent about £20, including the machine itself then with supplies, it’s really going to pay off for future me and future writing (i hope!),

so hopefully in a couple of weeks i’ll be able to show you all rust bucket when she’s all finished!

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

Tiny Paws

A Give Me Shelter one shot.

Contains: So much fluff, like all the fluff. Much angst but with a happy ending, orphan kittens, large men holding tiny kittens, large men being unable to say no to tiny kittens.

2.9K words

Comment if you want to be tagged/removed or follow #give me shelter.

Happy enlists the guys to help with something he found behind the shop.

"Yes Happy, it's kitten season and I'm up to my eyeballs so please make it quick."

Happy sighed and waved at Tig to hurry up with the hot pack, "I found ginger kittens behind the shop, they still have their cords and mum didn't come back. Do you have spare supplies? The Club will look after them and we'll pay for everything, all you have to do is bring the stuff."

A wave of relief came over you, "we have plenty, I'll be there as soon as I can with everything you'll need, how many are there?"

Tig handed the hot pack to Happy, having rushed into the kitchen to shove some rice in a sock to keep them warm, his hands steady as he brushed the smallest kitten with a warm, just damp, super soft toothbrush, "three, they're not premature, just little."

You nodded, "I'll bring the incubator anyway, see you soon."

Happy smiled, "I love you."

You chuckled, "I love you too, and keep Juice away from them, the last time he got his hands on bottle babies they ended too up fat."

By the time you got there, they were huddled around the tiny kittens, fighting over whose turn it was to brush their little bodies. You placed the incubator on the table with an eye roll, "hey, there will be plenty of time for that, you all need to listen to me right now."

Opie looked up at you from his seat, the kitten on his lab meowing as the brushing stopped.

"Alright, here I have kitten formula, probiotics since they didn't get mother's milk, an incubator and the supplies you'll need for it, a microwavable warmer, syringes, bottles and miracle nipples, a purring fluffy cat doll, a scale and all the paperwork to track how much they eat and how much weight they have put on. Have I forgotten anything?"

Happy looked at the table, "no."

You nodded, "do you all know what you're doing or do I need to show you?"

Happy shook his head, "I know what I'm doing and I can show the guys that don't. You're already busy, go back to work."

You smiled, "I love you so much." You looked at the wriggly little things on their laps, "they are very cute and if I stay any longer I won't be able to leave, please give them lots of kisses for me."

Happy stood up and pecked you, "of course. Off you go now."

You gave them a wave and walked off, Happy turned to his friends and started giving out instructions. "Someone needs to make the formula, all the instructions are on the side. Only make enough for two feeds, then bring it back here." Bobby shot up and gathered all the supplies then Happy started again, turning to Juice, "Juicy, set up the incubator, you remember how to do that right?"

Juice's eyes went wide but he nodded, "yep." He picked up the machine. It looked like a fancy clear bread box with a cover and tube to attach a bottle of distilled water to keep the humidity up. Juice did his best to pile the blankets on top and take it all in one trip, Happy shaking his head as he went.

Jax's hand was still busy brushing one of the kittens when he spoke up, "I'll put a feeding schedule together."

Happy raised his eyebrows, "you think I forget what happened last time, you're a kitten hog, I'll do it."

Chibs chuckled, "you're no better, brother."

Happy glared at him, "find, we'll go around the table, there's enough of them to go around."

Before Opie could protest, unwilling to hand over the kitten in his lap, Bobby came back with the warmed formula. Happy's voice was gruff, "I'll go first, I got to make sure you all know what you're doing."

They all wandered into the office and Jax and Chibs placed the kittens they were holding into the incubator while Opie handed his to Happy, the men gathering around while Happy drew up the warm milk. He placed the kitten on the scale and waved to Boddy to write the number down, then picked and the kitten and grabbed a tissue rubbing it on the kitten's butt, his voice soft as he spoke, "that's a big poo for such a tiny kitten, are you hungry little one?"

The meow was tiny, barely a squeak as Happy placed the kitten on his lap on its belly, his finger gently over its throat so he could tell if it was swallowing and tapped its lip with the rubber nipple, sighing in relief as the kitten accepted it.

His friends looked on as he started to talk, "you got to go real slow when they're this little, one drop at a time so make sure you use a new syringe every time.

Tig rolled his eyes, "we know brother. Never feed a cold kitten, never turn them on their back when you're feeding them, use a tissue to rub their butts so they go to the toilet then weigh them, write the number down and feed them, write down how much their eaten then weigh them again. We've done this before."

Tig went to take a kitten but Jax stopped him, "we're going around the table, it's not your turn." Jax took one kitten in each hand and handed one to Opie before they both went through the process of feeding them while everyone stood around and watched.

The kitten pulled away from Happy first and he grabbed another tissue, wiping its dirty face, "was that good, are you full?" The kitten let out another tiny meow as Happy weighed it then lifted it to his lips and kissed its forehead, "all better now, we'll see you again soon." He placed the kitten on the warm pad in the incubator, Jax and Opie following suit.

They all stood there for a few moments longer before slowly heading back to work, Juice looking into the box with a sad look on his face, "are you sure they don't need more?"

Happy shook his head, "they've all had plenty, you can go next Juicy."

"They need names." Chucky had gone back and forth from the office to the garage every twenty minutes giving them updates.

Happy shook his head, "we won't be able to tell the sex or another few days, we should wait."

"Harley works for a boy or a girl." Kozik's voice was full of hope.

Happy sighed, "no, y/n make me promise not to give her another Harley, every batch of kittens that's come out of here has had one."

Kozik wrinkled his brow, "but it's a good name."

Chibs chuckled, "we'll wait, we can write names on a bit of paper and pull them out of a hat."

They all turned to Jax, who shrugged, "sounds good to me."

Two hours later, they were all back in the office, feeding the kittens again. "They're so little, are you sure we can't carry them around? They'd fit in our pockets." Juice was doing his best to sound conceiving.

"No, they're better off in here where they're in a controlled environment." Once Tig, Bobby and Chibs were done feeding, Happy looked at the weight chart and smiled, "they're gaining weight well, we have to figure out who's taking them home tonight."

They shared a look and Tig threw out his hand for a round of rock, paper, scissors, Chibs eventually winning. He went up to the box and opened it, reaching his hand in and running his finger over the head of the one with the orange stripe on its head, "did ya see that? Ya coming home with me tonight."

Chibs showed up the next day with bags under his eyes and a smile on his face, "they ate every two hours. The wee little things are such darlings I hardly slept."

Chibs passed Happy the feeding sheet and he looked it over, "this is good. We can swap to a bottle now, so it should be a bit easier." Chibs placed in the incubator back in the office then walked into the garage to start his day.

"When did you feed them last?" Juice was always so excited for his turn.

Chibs smiled, "you've got an hour to wait before their next feeding."

Juice looked towards the office, "are you sure they're not hungry?"

Chibs sighed affectionately, "no Juicy, they're not hungry."

As each man arrived at work, they stopped by the office to say hello to the kittens, Opie spending some extra time for cuddles because the smallest kitten meowed just as he walked out. Juice, Kozik and Tig went in for the first feeding of the day, Tig coming out in a huff, "we have to name them now, they need names."

Jax shook his head and went looking for a container and some paper so they could write some names down, "nothing stupid, they need to get adopted and make sure they fit boys and girls." It took them far longer to submit than he would have liked but nevertheless, they were all standing in the middle of the garage ready to pick.

Jax reached in but Opie stopped him, "we should get Chucky to do it, that way no one can say you cheated." He called Chucky and he came running, looking a little guilty.

Tig tilted his head with a smile, "what did you do Chucky?"

Chucky smiled sheepishly, "nothing, they looked sad so I cuddled them for a while."

Tig waved his hand, "come over here and pull three bits of paper out of the tub."

The other watched on with bated breath as he read the name out, "Cheese, Limoncello and Peanut. The little one should be Peanut, the one with the orange stripe on its head should be Cheese and the lighter one should be Limoncello." Chucky looked around, worried that he wasn't supposed to go that far but the other nodded.

"That works." Happy was a man of few words but he always got the point across.

It took three more days for them to be big enough to find out who was a male and female and each second they waited only served to build the excitement, "it looks like Peanut and Cheese are girls and Limoncello is a boy."

They had swapped them to a playpen that morning and had moved in into a quiet corner of the garage but that only made it harder for everyone to work because the kittens would meow for food and cuddles every second that they weren't asleep.

"Maybe we can keep them as shop cats? There's always someone staying in the dorms so they'll never be alone and it's not like y/n will say no to not having three more animals to adopt out, plus, it keeps them together." Juice sounds so hopeful.

They all looked at Jax who rolled his eyes, "I'm not going to even bother putting it up for a vote, we all know what the answer is going to be. Three cats are a lot to look after so we'll have to pitch in, the best food, the best vet care and clean litter trays, we can take turns." Jax sighed, "and they're not allowed in the chapel, I don't want them taking over."

The next feeding fell right in the middle of church, now that they were learning to walk, it a pastime for the guys to watch them waddle around and fall over. The plastic tub was in the middle of the table, Cheese and Limoncello having already been fed meant Happy was left to fill Peanut's belly.

He finished up and placed her on the table to grab a tissue to wipe her face but she had just started to walk and waddled the three wobbly steps and flopped herself onto the sound block that Jax slammed the gavel into. Jax looked at Happy and smiled, "leave her there, she's adorable."

The kittens grew more independent as time went on, soon enough they were being weaned off milk and onto wet food. Happy sat there despondent as they walked through their food and then all over the floor. Chibs walked in with smile on his face, "what got you so sad brother, they're only learning?"

Happy sighed, "they're meant to be apex predators and they can't even eat." He looked at the packet, "tuna flavoured kitten food. I'm a terrible cat mother."

Chibs chuckled, "what did y/n say?"

Happy shook his head, "that this is normal and that the real fun starts when the meat poops start. I don't know how she does this all the time, they are so tiny and weak and dependant. How I am suppose to look after a human child when the time comes when I can teach three cats how to eat."

Chibs sighed, "you'll be fine."

Right on cue, Peanut sat right in the food and Happy's shoulders fell, "I need to go wash this idiot. God the orange ones are stupid."

Jax grimaced, "there is poop everywhere, how did this happen?"

Happy sighed, "it happens when they move onto solid food, they need a bath."

Tig walked over to the shop sink and started to wash it out, "not in there you idiot, in the dorm. Can someone please bring the baby shampoo, it's in the bag." Happy picked up Cheese and Limoncello while Jax took Peanut and they walked towards the dorm bathroom.

Happy ran the tap with warm water and picked up Cheese, "are you ready." The meow was long and squeaky as he ran her butt under the warm stream.

The meows got more upset as it continued and Tig laughed, "they sound so sad."

Jax chuckled, "don't listen. Limoncello meowed until I picked him up then he fell asleep in my lap. I needed to piss so bad and I couldn't get up because every time I tried to move he'd get all sad."

Happy rinsed Cheese off then handed her to Tig for him to dry her off, "just make sure she's dry then take her back to the pen so she can stay warm."

Tig lifted her to his lips and pressed his lips to her forehead, "come on little kitty, you can stay with me while Mr Grumpy washes your siblings."

"Are you sure they be alright? They're so little." Tig sounded worried.

"Yes, their ten weeks and one kilo or two pounds, they'll be fine. Someone will need to take them home and stay with them for the next few days while they recover. It's just a spay and neuter, it's nothing."

Opie wandered over, "I'll take them, the kids are on holiday and they've been begging me to let them come and spend more time with the cats."

You smiled, "wonderful. Everyone sure they've had nothing to eat and drink?" They all nodded, "great, depending on how they go, they will be home either this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. I'll call the moment they are out."

"Alright, here's the official adoption agreement, sign here.

You handed the pen to Happy and he smiled, "thank you little girl, Ope and Jax are in there now converting one of our store rooms into their room. You wanna come and see?"

You sighed, "sure, how much time and money has everyone put into this thing?"

Happy did his best not to smile, "a lot, we even replaced the door with a glass one."

You walked inside and you could hear them walking away. You popped your head around the corner and Jax smiled, "hello darlin, did the paperwork go through?"

You nodded, "yep, they have officially been adopted by Teller-Morrow Automotive Repairs."

He smiled, "thank you, they're in the dorm if you want to say hello."

Happy reached out his hand and you linked your fingers in his as he walked you towards to room. You opened the door and they came running, meowing as you sat on the floor with Happy.

You picked up Limoncello and he nuzzled into your chest, "they got so big."

Happy smiled and shuffled closer to you, looping his arm around your shoulder, "we fed em good."

You chuckled, "you mean Juice fed them half an hour early whenever he could. I saw the logs Hap."

Happy smiled, "their little meows were so sad, it's not his fault he couldn't say no."

You sighed, "it's alright, they have a good home now. I don't have any more to do, I'm happy to help out with their new room."

Happy pressed his lips to your cheek, "that would be great."

The kittens had been great from everyone, turns out a bad day is nothing compared to loud purrs and head bonks. It hadn't taken long for them to get free rein of the Clubhouse, and Jax's rule of them not being allowed in the chapel lasted until they meowed at the door and he let all three of them in himself.

Jax sighed when he saw the open door, there was no point in trying to keep them out of the room, they always managed to open the doors. They all walk in and smiled as they saw Peanut and Cheese lying out like tigers on the table, Peanut's head on her favourite spot on the sound block.

Chibs scratched Cheese behind under the chin and looked around "have you seen Lemon?"

They got their answer as Jax pulled out his chair, Limoncello meowing as his sleep was disturbed. Jax threw his hands up in the air and sighed, "it looks like we're all standing."

Happy shook his head, "you're the only one with a cat on your chair."

Jax smiled, "and we all know that if we're in touching distance of any of those little monsters, we'll never get any business done."

Fin

[bladesmitten]

i finally did it... i finished the OC associations game that @bladeofavernus tagged me in 😭

i'm so late to doing this so anyone who wants to do this, consider yourself tagged!!!

i'll be doing this one with my durge ajax, half-elf vengeance paladin! (this made me realize i don't have a lot of screenshots or gifs of him solo LMAO)

Animal: big dogs… woof... idk what breed specifically, i'm open to suggestions ;_;

Colors: pink and blue

Songs: Laughing with a Mouth of Blood by St. Vincent, Bird Song by Florence + the Machine, WTF? by OK Go, Human by Daughter

Number: multiples of 4

Plants: bougainvillea, hawthorn, touch-me-not (makahiya)

Smells: metallic scents, sterile alcohol, the scent of good food cooking, flowers

Gemstone: garnet, rose quartz

Time of day: midnight to dawn

Season: autumn

Places: open wide fields, mountains, the underdark

Food: he loves a good hearty beef stew (and it's also his go-to recipe), anything savoury

Drinks: distilled liquor, orange juice

Element: water

Seasonings: oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg

Sky: sunset when the sky turns pink and gold

Weather: a cool and sunny day

Magical power: divine smite, lay on hands

Weapons: SWOOOOOOORDS BABYYYYYY (sometimes with a shield)

Candy: sour candies

Method of long distance travel: walking (everywhere is walking distance to him)

Art style: thick lines and big shapes

Fear: claustrophobia

Mythological creature: werewolves, gryphons, dragons

Piece of stationery: tape

Three emojis: ⚔️💥🌺

Celestial body: a comet hurtling across the sky

[protectbnhaboysatallcost]

toge inumaki

tea

i think inumaki drinks a lot.

very hydrated boy

he has to

when your cursed energy evolves around your throat you have to take care of it?

que you

read countless books, articles, watched youtube videos on healing the throat.

mostly how-tos for singers but it's kind of the same?

anyway

you have a whole drink set up in your room dedicated for him

herbal teas, distilled water , electric kettle, honey, lemons. the whole nine yards.

he loves it.

he usually just drinks a vending machine drink, so when you pull him from the machine and tell him you'll just make a cup of tea for him he swoonssss.

you've studied the perfect water-honey-lemon ratio

not only does he love that you care for a throat that can only speak to you in rice-ball ingredients, but the drinks you make are always delicious

he tried asking you once and you were like. "i enjoy it, i wouldn't go this far from just anyone you know."

the happy face you make when you hand him the mug? he'd sell his soul to see it.

and you always have homemade cough drops.

ones that taste like honey lavender, bc the store-bought ones are trash and you can make better ones.

well that's what you told inumaki.

he was going to tease you but they taste really good and he doesn't want you to stop making them so he just eats them in peace.

asks open :)

[assiconicillnesschronic]

Alright, so... life can go sideways really quickly when I don't have all my medicines in stock. While I was at Target restocking, see last post, we also placed in an order with Kroger delivery and for the first time in weeks they fulfilled the meds all correctly. So now my basic first aid and allergy kit has entirely too many pills, which I will take anyday over running out.

We got 140 Kroger brand Cetrizine at 29.98. My two-thirds of that comes out to $20.00. I take at least two a day. Sometimes during peak allergy season I'll take a third pill if needed. That dose has been doctor and pharmacist approved so don't take that much unless you've talked to someone about it.

3.00 for two distilled water for my CPAP machine. I usually buy one or two jugs a month but they're is a shortage of distilled water where I am so I can't always get it. It's suppose to make your machine last longer using distilled over tap water but I haven't noticed any difference

2.49 for ibuprofen (100)

This brings my out of pocket medical expenses to 2018.75

[lovejustforaday]

Shoegaze Classics - Xuvetyn

Xuvetyn - Lovesliescrushing (1996)

Main Genres - Ambient, Shoegaze, Ethereal Wave, Experimental

A decent sampling of: Drone, Noise, Dream Pop, Post-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia

I'm not gonna lie - I'm super excited to gush about this record. I've been meaning to get around to reviewing this bountiful, fascinating little gem for years now. Let's hope that I can do this often unsung masterpiece the much needed justice that it deserves.

🙙

I touched on this previously in my Ride review, but for all of the talk of the 'Big 3' of shoegaze, I think that many of the younger shoegaze fans these days would agree that Slowdive and My Bloody Valentines' discographies are a cut above the Ride catalogue. Not to diss on the band, but the Big 3 is really starting to feel more like a Big 2 these days, with Slowdive's relevance to new fans only increasing over time whilst Ride's relevance seems to be stagnating.

This has left a potential vacuum in the consensus online. Don't get me wrong; plenty are still going to champion Ride as one of the giants of shoegaze, and most folks that were around for the original scene that celebrated itself are most likely still diehard for Ride as the scene's closest group to being mega rockstars.

But in terms of the legacy of 90s shoegaze, could there still be a record that is missing from all-time canonization? One that has oft been overlooked when discussing this supposed "Big 3"? Is one of indie rock's most beloved and revisited eras still hiding an elusive diamond in the rough?

In case it wasn't already obvious, that's the case I'm going to be making today. And I don't think I'm entirely alone on this one. Few shoegaze bands from the 90s have had such a considerable late resurgence like this band, though they've always had a cult following.

Today I'll be making the case for Lovesliescrushing, the creative juggernauts behind the 1996 experimental ambient shoegaze masterpiece Xuvetyn.

The Band

Lovesliescrushing are one of the rare American bands of the original 90s wave.

The project began in 1991 as the brainchild of avant-garde guitarist and producer Scott Cortez, who teamed up with the apparitional soprano voice of singer Melissa Arpin-Duimstra, a vocalist who more than any other shoegaze vocalist before or since has dedicated her artistry to using the singing voice as a medium to carry and modulate the properties of sound timbre first and foremost.

Daringly, Lovesliescrushing as a band decided to forego having a rhythm section altogether. Not even a drum machine. The band's radical ethos right from its inception would seem to have been to distill shoegaze rock music down to a purified elemental substance, achieving the platonic ideal by creating an undisturbed solution of dense and glorious blended textures.

Indeed, where reverberated guitar sounds with bizarre effects and blended vocals were what set apart bands like Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, and Curve from being otherwise ordinary indie/alternative rock bands, the qualities I just described encompassed the near-entirety of Lovesliescrushing's early output, taking the concept of the subgenre to its logical extreme.

The band pioneered what is essentially the fusion of ambient music and shoegaze, a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned. This marriage of genre ethos would give way to some of the most unyielding sublime auditory sensations that I have ever been so fortunate to have experienced.

Lovesliescrushing also had one foot steeped firmly in the murky waters of ethereal wave (particularly on the sophomore record), the goth subgenre which served as shoegaze and dream pop's most apparent predecessor and influence. Indeed, some of the band's material can be seen as building upon the prototypical blueprint that can be found in Cocteau Twins' fourth LP Victorialand which similarly removed the rhythm section in order to create pure blissful atmosphere.

Some may see Cortez's work as hero worship, and I've heard a dozen or so folks accuse this band of being "My Bloody Valentine without the melodies and drums", but this is a grossly reductionist take that does a huge disservice to just how brazenly groundbreaking and experimental this band's early work was at the time and still remains to this day.

Lovesliescrushing also regularly made their foray into other schools of experimental music like drone, sound collage, and harsh noise, incorporating these ideas into their creative process. Some of their material even sounds like experimental music with no apparent roots in any particular legacy whatsoever.

This is honestly some very radical music. I can't think of much of anything really quite like early Lovesliescrushing. Perhaps MBV is one of the closest points of reference, but then only because they were a shoegaze band that also sounded quite unlike anything at the time.

Information on the beginnings of this band is scant on the internet compared to many other shoegaze artists, and they were never well-documented by the alternative music press the way that bands like Slowdive or even Catherine Wheel were. And as far as the North American scene goes, Drop Nineteens definitely overshadowed their popularity.

I think it's a fair assessment to say that Lovesliescrushing were truly underground in the band's formative years. I remember only as far back as 2017, when I was just getting into this band through online recommendations, that even many avid fans of Slowdive and MBV had never even heard of this band. But I digress.

Lovesliescrushing released their debut LP Bloweyelashwish twice: first as a casette tape in 1992 on their own indie label with a shorter track listing, and then as a longer full-length album in 1993 on Projekt Records, with newer recordings and mastered versions of the songs.

Bloweyelashwish is a beautiful record in its own right. More generally noisy and droning than its successor, with crunchier guitar sounds, blown out distortion, and a listless melancholic atmosphere. Somewhat closer to very early Sonic Youth, or some of A.R. Kane's weirdest output. What the record does somewhat lack, at least in comparison to its successor, is relative cohesion.

Nevertheless, some very brilliant tracks on the debut LP. "Babysbreath" is music for when you need to smother your tears in a pillow with all of the lights off, "Sugaredglowing" is one of my favourite ambient tracks ever (and a surprisingly potent form of migraine relief), and "youreyesimmaculate" is a stunning and ethereal foreshadowing of what was to come next.

Speaking of which...

The Record

Xuvetyn is... what even is it?

Xuvetyn is a series of documented sound frequencies that would be made by a sentient, shimmering blue light galaxy consisting entirely of trillions upon trillions of frozen ice shard particles. Alternatively, it is the contradictory sound of the bitter coldness of the universe itself caressing the listener in a warm cocoon.

The fact that most of all of this is accomplished with guitar, pedal, vocals, and some studio effects here and there is still unfathomable to me. That is an incredible feat in itself.

Judging solely by the ability to create awe-inspiring atmosphere, I don't believe that there is any other shoegaze band that has managed to accomplish the level of mastery that Lovesliescrushing consistently demonstrates on this record. Yes, If Loveless was the zenith of shoegaze texture, then Xuvetyn is the zenith of shoegaze atmosphere. Completely surreal and captivating.

As I've described the band's sound itself, Xuvetyn really is the concept of shoegaze distilled into its essence, then manipulated ever so slightly with a delicate songcraft and expertise, in order to give these tracks a semblance of form and structure. But make no mistake - there is no solid seabed foundation to this ocean of resonant sounds like there would be on any other shoegaze record. No, this is just infinite, icy sonic fluid that flows all the way down into a multi-dimensional abyss. And holy fuck is it ever beautiful.

Which is not to say that there is no songwriting here - just that it is incredibly subtle. But also incredibly effective.

People who generally don't care for or listen to ambient music often stereotype the genre as being uninteresting, low-effort, or too non-descript, when in fact all of the truly greatest ambient musicians know that making a masterpiece is about learning how to do miraculous things with precious little. It requires immense patience (as does the listener sometimes), a keen ear for detail, and meticulous perfectionism. Unsurprisingly, Scott Cortez strikes me as being just that kind of guy.

The album is a double LP in length, with an hour and sixteen minutes runtime and a listing of 18 tracks. Most songs generally run over the five minute mark, with the A, B, and C sides of the record all padded out every one or two tracks with these really curious little intermissions that are generally less than a full minute each.

These intermissions are often the most experimental recordings on the album, like the abrasive hailstorm noise collage of "Aquan 1" and the gloomy factory white noise of "Hum VIbralux". I could see how someone might want to omit these, but personally I think it adds to the record's pacing by giving it room to breathe, and they made the right decision to let up for the last set of tracks. Plus, the little intermissions are all so deliciously weird that it kinda reminds me of the way that your brain will just plant these bizarre, inexplicable little blips in the middle of your dreams sometimes.

Also hey, can I just nerd out about something really silly for a second? Has anyone ever noticed how a bunch of the track names on this record end in an "-ed"? "Threaded", "Handed", "Blue-Eyed", "Honeyed", "Blooded". Just another cute little detail, adding to the esoteric nature of this record, and I appreciate the alliteration.

OKAY, let's just get to the track by track analysis already.

Admittedly this is one of those records that hits you with the very best it has to offer right out of the gate. Listening to "Valerian (Her Voice Honeyed)" is among the most sublime feelings I have ever experienced in my life, literally ever. Not just in music but like, anything.

Think of any familiar place, or perhaps a virtual space in a piece of media, that held a sort of transcendental significance to you during your childhood, as though it carried a life of its own, a place that you may have revisited in your warmest dreams - for me, it's the lost woods in Ocarina of Time. Think of the sensation that those transcendent spaces would give you.

This track is that same sensation, only on steroids. As soon as that heavy ambient wall fades into the foreground and the sense of infinity takes hold, this gently flowing waterfall of dark sound matter creates a sort of window of reflection into wherever it is in your soul that you have ever felt the most at home. I get that music is a subjective experience at the end of the day, but I feel like what I just described would be inevitable for almost any listener, unless they simply weren't listening to this track the right way. One of the greatest songs ever? I'd wager a hard fucking yes.

The good news is that from here, you have only just begun your journey into a world of many more sublime and mysterious figures.

"Xarella Almandyne" is like the sound of a choir of angels in a massive hall the size of an entire city - the unknowable, lovecraftian, biblically-accurate seraphim kind of angel. Somehow soothing, yet oddly paralyzing at the same time. Based on this track alone, I must say that I'm not entirely convinced that Scott and Melissa are regular mere mortals of this world.

"Blooded And Blossom-Blown" is an eerie, gleaming, and loudly piercing void. I find the majority of the songs on this record to be overall comforting, sometimes somber and darkly mystifying if anything, but this might be the one odd track that genuinely unsettles me; in a way that I cannot get enough of, mind you. Compared to what we often call white noise, this piece represents sound that I visualize in the distinctly unnatural shades of negative blues and turquoises.

"Virgin Blue-Eyed" is a very rare departure in the band's early discography from their guitar ambience, focusing on the incantations of Melissa's euphonious elven voice, with clanging little bells in the background (which, funnily enough, technically makes this the most percussive track on either of the band's first two records).

My favourite of the intermissions is "Seesaw". Transitory shoegaze in a continuously elevating loop, like music for the loading screen that would take you to the shoegaze version of heaven, or perhaps the mythological world of Mag Mell.

"Golden-Handed" is soft, swirling, hypnagogic, and lamenting. This ambient ethereal wave track manifests as the faintest, loneliest light flickering in the gloomy hush of an otherwise dead midnight. Completely arresting atmosphere.

"Bones of Angels" is a two parter - first there's "Bronze Lit Feathers", a labyrinthine chorus of resplendent, inharmonious, and rippling guitar impressions, drifting almost aimlessly and forming only vague constellations with the help of Melissa's frail melody, and a foundation of ambient bass notes cutting through the discordance with great magnitude. This is contrasted by the second part "Her Tongue Pulled Out", wherein the sky parts and the drifting guitar sounds align into a shrill cry, forming a radiant column of sonic light, as if something gorgeous is beginning to descend upon the world. Music for high priestesses summoning divine power.

Xuvetyn reaches its second greatest peak with the penultimate track "Ghosts That Swirl", a piece which opens with this really foreboding orchestra of dreary, gargantuan ambient chimes, sounding as though the world around the listener was compressing in on itself and then stretching in and out of itself, like alternating waves in the membrane of the universe. This overture leads into an ominous, secluded, and crystalline dreamland soundscape, further removed from reality than any other track on the record, and unlike any other song that I have ever experienced. This is music that could only be dreamt up from the confines of a comatose slumber, wherein Melissa's whispers in your ear are the only traces connecting you to the corporeal world, though only audible as faint echoes far off in the distance of a seemingly endless cerulean.

I could go on all day but I've decided to end the track-by-track analysis here. The entire record is vividly evocative beyond what should be reasonably possible (and what I can convey words). You might get something entirely different from my descriptions of these tracks, but I guarantee that you will experience something unearthly.

What Came After That?

Lovesliescrushing followed up their first two records with a series of two records in 2002 that were more just straight up ambient music, rather than comprising an ambient shoegaze fusion.

The first of these is Glissceule, a similarly icy record to Xuvetyn with less dark edge and more of a reserved calm, plus more electronic elements. Second was the more ambiguous Voirshn which I enjoy significantly less than previous projects unfortunately.

The band has sporadically released more ambient records over the course of the last couple of decades, which I have yet to really deep dive into. Scott has worked on a few separate projects, most notably his other band Astrobrite which releases much harsher noise shoegaze records. Nothing from this band has really grabbed me like Lovesliescrushing's work, so I am not very familiar with it.

Like I mentioned previously, Lovesliescrushing's relevance in online shoegaze circles has seen a steady increase over time for a little while now. But Scott and Melissa have always been favs amongst the more hardcore followers of the scene, achieving an almost mythical status as figureheads of the experimental shoegaze micro-scene. And they're pretty much always one of the first bands I see people recommending nowadays when someone online says that they're looking for more "weird shoegaze".

And believe me, I'm one of those nerds recommending this band with every relevant opportunity that I can seize. This should be among the first dozen records we play when the aliens come down to Earth, in order to plead our case for the culture of humankind. This is a very special piece of art.

I won't pretend that this is going to be music for everyone, but if you really wanna transcend your corporeal existence in way that doesn't involve experimenting with potentially harmful substances, I can't really think of any better method. Xuvetyn is from beyond our plane of existence - some people native to our world (allegedly) just happened to manifest it one day.

Join me next time where, in case this review wasn't goddamn long enough, I will be doing a series of reviews on every major Slowdive release from the self-titled EP all the way up to their latest record 🙃.

10/10

Highlights: "Valerian (Her Voice Honeyed)", "Ghosts That Swirl", "Bones of Angels", "Xarella Almandyne", "Golden-Handed", "See Saw", "Blooded and Blossom-Blown", "Virgin Blue Eyed", "Flowered Smother", "Mother of Pearl", "Mandragora Louvareen", "Milkysoft", "Hum Vibralux", "Staticburst"