#our head of operations sent me home after my dm made me come back in post urgent care

[signals-over-the-air]

hr calling me to cover a shift for her when i had to file for workers comp bc i needed stitches today is not fucking it

[theexistentiallyqueer]

It’s been a while, what with me being being more active on Twitter these days, but I had some thoughts churning around in my brain and this felt like a better place to post them rather than threading them over there.

This is a post about Persona 5 and restorative justice. Before I go any further, though, a note: this is meta about restorative justice and prison abolition as ethical philosophies only, how it can be expressed/structured in works of fiction, i.e., Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and what the importance of doing so is.

I should also note that I am not a philosopher, a legal scholar, or an activist, I just like to read, and I strongly encourage you to look into the topics I’m discussing in this essay. If you want specific recommendations you can DM me; again, this being meta about a video game, I think linking those titles here would diminish their importance regarding what they’re actually about.

Ready? Okay. Let’s get started.

what is restorative justice?

‘Restorative justice’ is a concept in ethical and legal philosophy that holds itself in contrast to two other kinds of justice: punitive and carceral. Punitive justice is justice as punishment, i.e., an eye for an eye, while carceral justice involves justice as the confinement of criminal offenders. While both have heavy overlaps with one another, they’re distinct in the generality vs the specificity of their outcome: punitive justice can involve the death penalty, property seizure, permanent loss of rights, etc., carceral justice refers strictly just to the incarceration of criminal offenders in institutional facilities (jails, prisons, etc.).

Restorative justice, in contrast, roots itself in the understanding of closing a circle: the best and most holistic way to heal harm one person inflicts on another is to have the person who inflicted the harm make reparations to the person they hurt in a tangible and meaningful way. This can take many forms, and if you’re passingly familiar with restorative justice already, you may have heard about it involving the offender and the victim meeting face-to-face. This does happen sometimes. Personal acknowledgement of the harm you’ve inflicted on someone is important, and direct apologies are important, but these need to also be coupled with actions. The person behind a drunk hit-and-run of a parent could help put their orphaned child through school, or a domestic abuser could be made to take counseling and go on to help deter domestic violence in other households, and so on. 

The vast majority of states across the world use punitive/carceral models, though small-scale community trials of restorative justice have been attempted, to varying degrees of success. No one is going to argue that it would be easy to implement, but it is important. Restorative justice is about recognizing that crime, specifically crimes against other people, are fundamentally still about two people: the perpetrator and the victim. And we have to look beyond the words perpetrator and victim to recognize that they are both human beings and challenge ourselves to build a society where our concept of justice means healing hurts instead of retaliation.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. It requires changing your own perceptions of justice and humanity and society and the big wide entire world to have the kind of mindset that allows it to be possible. But it is possible, and I know that from personal experience, because it’s my own mindset and I’ve been through trauma too.

prison abolition and the god of control

Persona 5 has an authority problem. By which I mean, Persona 5 has a problem challenging authority in any way that functionally matters.

The game is drenched in heavy-handed prison imagery, from jail cells to wardens to striped jumpsuits to cuffs and chains to an electric chair. Throughout the long build-up of the main storyline we’re treated to a confectionery delight of punitive justice, stick-it-to-the-man justice: the Thieves find a bad guy who coincidentally has personally hurt or is actively hurting one of their members, and they take it upon themselves to make the bad guy miserable and then send him off to jail. By the end of the arc you’re meant to feel like you accomplished something heroic, that by locking someone up you’re balancing the scales of justice. In the Kamoshida arc Ann even frames this in restorative justice terms, telling him he doesn’t deserve the easy way out of ending his own life and needs to live with his mistakes and repent, but he’s still sent off to jail regardless and Ann and Shiho are left to struggle through the trauma he put them through without anyone to really support them. This repeats itself, over and over: Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, Shido--expose the bad guy, bring him low, publicly shame him, and then send him away (or, in Okumura’s case, watch him die on live TV to riotous cheers from the public).

And what does this all accomplish, in the end? You get to the Depths of Mementos on Christmas Eve to find the souls of humanity locked away in apathy, surrendered willingly to the control of the state, and your targets right there with them, thanking you for helping them return to a place where they don’t have to think of other people as people any more than they did before. In prison, they can forget that they are human beings and that all of the rest of the people in the world are too. The Phantom Thieves march upstairs and defeat the Gnostic manifestation of social control, that being that masquerades itself with lies as the true Biblical god. And then you go back home and the adults tell you that everything is okay now, the system itself isn’t rotten, and you just have to sit back, stop actively participating in the world, and let them take the reins.

It’s one of Persona 5′s most ironic conceits. “Prison abolition....good?” the player asks, and Atlus swats you on the hand and says, “Silly kids, prison abolition completely unnecessary because you can trust the state to not fuck up anyone’s lives anymore ever.” All while using prison imagery to present prisons as institutions inherently divorced from what might constitute actual justice.

Prisons exist because hierarchies exist, and so long as hierarchies exist, inequality will exist and people will commit harm who otherwise likely would not. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Atlus. You can’t frame prisons as an inherently unjust institution used to control people because you didn’t do anything to get rid of the hierarchy. You just gave the hydra a few new heads.

restorative justice and rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is Persona 5′s favorite buzz word, and for all that it’s used the game never really clearly defines what it’s supposed to mean. Yaldabaoth uses it as a euphemism to describe the process by which he creates his ideal puppet, but Yaldabaoth bad, and by the end of the game, Yaldabaoth dead. We get barely any time with Igor after that for Igor to define rehabilitation properly on his terms, which is notable in that Igor is the one who’s supposed to be the spiritual mentor of the wild card within the Persona universe. 

We can only infer from that that it’s the player who’s meant to define what rehabilitation is by the end of the game, but because the game fails to take any concrete stance on its themes that could in any way undermine the idea that society isn’t functionally broken, it’s hard to figure out what conclusion we’re supposed to draw. As I stated above, the game immediately walks back any insinuations that it’s the institutions themselves that are rotten by having Sae and Sojiro step in and assume responsibility for making the world just by continuing to operate within the rules society itself has created. If you can’t beat them....join them?

If anything the closest we can get to coming up with a definitive understanding of what the game wants us to understand rehabilitation as is when the protagonist is in juvie. During those months we’re treated to an extended cutscene of all of your maxed out confidants taking action to get you out of jail, but because you can trigger this scene even if you haven’t maxed out all of your confidants, and because the outcome (getting out of juvie) is the same even if you haven’t maxed out any besides Sae, then we’re right back where we started.

But that cutscene still has a sliver of meaning to it despite it being largely window-dressing, because the game does push, over and over, the argument that it’s through your bonds with others, through building a community, that you’ll rehabilitate yourself and find true justice.

And that’s what restorative justice is about: community.

the truth: uncovering it vs deciding it

I can’t find enough words to convey how infuriating it is that Atlus comes so close to telling a restorative justice narrative and then completely drops the ball on displaying it at all in Goro’s character arc.

Goro’s concept of justice is fundamentally punitive, the textbook “you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you back.” In doing so he goes on to hurt a whole bunch of other people: orphaning Futaba, orphaning Haru, triggering a mental shutdown in Ohya’s partner Kayo, and also killing countless millions other instances of mental shutdowns, psychotic breakdowns, bribery, and scandal that caused people material harm and, in a handful of cases, killed them.

Yes, Shido gave him the gun, but Goro pulled the trigger. And in a restorative justice framework, you don’t bypass that fact: you actively interrogate it.

There’s been a lot of really great meta about what the circumstances of Goro’s life were like, including the Japanese foster care system, the social stigma of bastardy in Japan and the impact it has on an illegitimate child’s outcomes, and the ways in which Shido groomed and manipulated Goro into being the tool of violence he made him into. These things aren’t excuses for what Goro does, however: they’re explanations for it. They are the complex social issues that create a situation where a child feels his best choice, indeed maybe his only choice, is to take the gun being offered to him and use it on other people. If you want to prevent more kids from slipping through cracks into those kinds of situations, you need to understand the social ills that made those cracks appear in the first place and you need to fix them. Otherwise there will always be another kid, and another recruiter, and another bad choice, and another gun. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Even so, none of that bypasses the fact that it was Goro’s hand on that gun, that it was Goro who performed the physical action of killing Wakaba’s and Okumura’s shadows, and that, as a result of Goro’s direct actions, Wakaba and Okumura died. You can say Okumura deserved it all you like, but Haru doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Haru deserved to repair her relationship with her father. Okumura deserved the chance to learn and make direct, material amends to the employees he hurt and the families of those who died on his watch, and they deserved to have him give them a better way to heal.

But this isn’t about the loss of Okumura making amends to his family or his victims: this is about Goro Akechi, and the fact that even in Royal his fraught relationship with Haru and Futaba is never explored, barely even addressed. There’s not even any personal, direct acknowledgement from him of the pain he put them through.

You can say he doesn’t care, and that’s fine that he doesn’t care. And it is. He’s a fictional character, this is a video game, they are anime characters.

But Persona 5 flirts with the idea of restorative justice and never fully explores it, and it’s a weaker game for that.

the thin place, the veil between worlds, the line in the sand

This is the last part, I promise, and I’ll be short and brief here, because the truth is that none of this matters, at least not in the way that you think. Persona 5 is a story. It’s a lie that we buy. It’s all zeroes and ones and electrical signals and optical images on a blank black screen.

But art can be powerful. Art is like magic, the deepest magic, the oldest kind. We human beings are creatures of art and poetry, of images and patterns, of music and words. Good art, really good art, can allow us to explore new ideas and critique our internal assumptions about how the world works.

No, fiction doesn’t affect reality, not the way that you think it does.

But if you’ve gotten this far, I just got you to read an essay on restorative justice and prison abolition in regards to a Japanese role-playing game, and that is something to think about.

How do you define rehabilitation? What kind of justice do you believe in? Is the way you conceive those things really the best way?

And how much more interesting could a story that challenges those concepts be?

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 20: Super Exciting Library Adventure

We fight so many monsters in this one you guys.

Last time on the Cursewood: We ended up in the headquarters of the Cursebreaker Knights, which also turned out to be a vampire’s house. We were also given literature on how to care for large reptiles in cold climates. Ser Boris was concerned.

In the reading room at Castle Hoeska, Valeria shows Ser Brigid some of the arcane components we found while looting the spooky circus. “We have people who can examine it. Ludwig’s lovely descendant Isadora might be able to do an arcane analysis. She keeps to the library wing; she’s a mage and researcher of considerable knowledge and skill. We’ll have someone take you there.”

“Do not traverse the castle without a guide,” Ludwig warns. “This place is…tricky sometimes.”

“Does it also have outer space in it?” Shoshana asks, well aware of the Key’s nonsense.

“To be honest, my descendants have layered a lot of enchantments on it. It’s constructed on an arcane nexus, so the enchantments can intersect in odd ways. It respects me; it’s mine. But you are outsiders. I must confess that while I am the master of this place, I have perhaps not fully mastered it.”

The DM lets on that this is a Taint Free Zone, ironically. Already occupied! By hipster ghosts, they were undead before it got all popular.

Ser Quentin is waiting for us out in the hallway. “I must ask: how fares Mornheim and Lady Aubrey?”

“…I understand they’ve been better,” Clem allows.

“Please, as much detail as you would give me,” he says, uncharacteristically sincere. “I made a promise to carry a burden that her father could not. In my own way, I consider myself responsible for her. Therefore, I must ask how is she faring. She has been forced into a situation she was never prepared for, though she seems to be handling it admirably.”

“I mean, she did glass me in the face, and is kind of maybe drinking heavily? But considering the circumstances, that’s pretty good.”

We give him an update on Mornheim, and explain Lady Rosalind’s druidic ritual.

“We have yet to make friendly contact with druids,” he muses. “Ser Boris has tried, but they are a reclusive bunch. I knew Lady Rosalind for many years before this Curse began. To think she was hiding such a secret from us all…”

“A cynical man might say reclusiveness is a lie that druids find convenient,” Gral observes.

“Perhaps. I must confess that until today I assumed I had never met a druid in my life. If they do in fact operate in more populated areas in secret, there are likely far more than we anticipated, with much more complex motives…”

Maybe that’s not a bad thing, since they seem to be fighting the Curse. We describe how the artist’s Key ritual was disrupted by a druid, and what we know about the druid we met in Bad Herzfeld. Unfortunately, we know druids are just as susceptible to corruption as the rest of us, since the cult leader Zelig in Bad Herzfeld had once been a druid as well.

“Fear of corruption within their own ranks? Certainly an issue I couldn’t possibly be familiar with,” snarks Quentin tiredly. “Speaking of which! Sgt Haxan! I have some bad news for you.”

“Uh. Okay?”

“As you know, I have been following the members of the Red Hand who are active in Valdia. My agents in Schotzengrad spotted your former comrade Sergeant Rusalka leading a mixed group of Red Hand veterans and others into the city. A few days later, there was an attempted break-in at the Kevan embassy. The ambassador was unharmed; he had received a warning ahead of time, and had taken precautions. The Ambassador was secured, though half a dozen guards were killed.”

“Were any of the intruders apprehended or killed?”

“No. Three intruders were discovered by the additional patrols and arcane wards, but they fled when the Greencloaks arrived on scene, accompanied by a dozen additional soldiers.”

“All things considered, that’s a bit of a relief,” Clem admits.

“The same night, our agents lost track of Rusalka and her group, and have been unable to pick up the trail again.”

“That’s…less of a relief.”

“Any insights you’d like to share into their tactics?”

Clem sighs. “If you’ve already lost track of her, you’re not gonna find her. She’s an experienced rogue; I’m surprised that even with forewarning she was unable to slip past the guards. Aside from keeping up the increased vigilance, there’s nothing else I can really tell you.”

“Very well. I will redouble my efforts on that front. I’m considering going to Schotzengrad personally to follow up.”

“I’d be astounded if there was no follow up attack.”

“My thoughts exactly. I assume their assassins left largely because they were not properly prepared for the increased security. They were caught by elven veterans of the Ascension War, a particular group focused on special ops deep within cultist territory. They have some techniques that Rusalka might not have been aware of, including their methods of securing an area. But now that Rusalka’s aware of that, the next attempt may be more successful. As always, I would appreciate assistance, but I understand if you have other priorities.”

We have reached a central room hung with tapestries and stuffed hunting trophies, where Ser Boris’s dogs are lounging in front of the central fire. Bjorn and Ingborn are sitting there as well, playing a game with a bunch of rocks carved with runes. Valeria initially thinks it’s her favorite game, Man-go, but the board’s the wrong shape and everything is in Jotunn. Valeria immediately wants to learn how to play.

Ser Boris, to the dismay of several servants, has spread out a mess equipment and is performing some sort of science. He’s squeezing foul smelling juices into various containers and generally making a stench.

“Ah hello! Yes come in!” he greets us. “How is commander?”

“She’s pretty cool.”

“Yes. Kyr Argent, over here please.” He hands her a pamphlet. “I write quick instructions. My Valdian is not great but I do not believe you speak Elven. Read this for your beastie. And if you would, smell?” He lifts a bottle, and Valeria dutifully sniffs.

“Ugh! Gross! What is that?!”

“Ah! Bits of Shusva!”

“E-excuse me?”

“The fiend! I have distilled scent!”

“You…certainly have,” she agrees ruefully.

“I am surprised you did not recognize, after it bit you so much. But tomorrow, I will track it back to lair and end it once and for all. Wounded it much today, yes? Tomorrow I will assemble hunting party. We will be able to reopen road!”

Gral asks Boris about what the Shusva’s weaknesses might be. He’s not sure. Ser Brigid told Boris it was probably a Shusva, and that there were books available in the library for further research. But Lady Isadora won’t let dogs in the library. “She say no to Xander face! He do the big eyes! She is clearly monster.”

We’re gonna head over to the library, then. Ingborg tells us that’s where we’ll find Lucinius, too. “It’s nice to see him not throwing himself face first into ghost filled tombs, for once. He is not an easy client for a bodyguard. Still, if you’re in there, make sure he eats? He forgets.”

Valeria channels her sister’s party planning instincts and talks to one of the servants about getting some nice spicy food like how you get in Draconia. They sniff about “decadent” foods with too many herbs, but it’ll be a nice taste of home for her and Lucinius.

Lady Isadora apparently has VERY strong feelings about food or dogs in the library, so we’ll have soup sent up to Lucinius’ room and try to drag him away from his research.

With a von Hoesk servant as a guide, we go down some stairs and then up some stairs and then down stairs that look identical to the first ones. Did we go through a basement at one point? But that was when we were like three levels up? This place does not make any kind of geographic sense. Eventually, though, we arrive at a grand doorway labeled Library.

When the door opens, we find ourselves in a tower, with ringlike floors leading upwards and downwards from the entrance. Each floor has shelves of neatly organized books and a small reading area.

A sharp woman in a dark dress levitates up to the floor we’re on, scowling. “I told you, Boris- oh. Are you here for the Professor?!”

We assume this is Isadora the arcanist. “We wanted to talk with you first-“

“I might have to talk to YOU. He’s taking books between the FLOORS, I have a SYSTEM. And who are you anyway? You’re not dressed like those damnable knights. You’re dressed like a completely different sort of damnable knights. I have no idea what you’re supposed to be.”

“Clem Haxan, a damnable knight, apparently.”

“Kyr Valeria Argent, a damnable Knight of the Rose, at your service!”

“I am Gral Omokk’du, a bard in service of Duke Shieldeater.”

“Uh, I’m Shoshana, I just hang out with these guys?”

“I am Isadora von Hoesk. This is my library – my family’s, currently mine, despite a certain LIZARD who is MESSING UP MY SYSTEM.”

“I mean, you could hire librarians?”

“No, they’d get it wrong. I have a system. I have magic to help keep it organized, but it ASSUMES people FOLLOW THE RULES. I’m informed he is a guest of the castle, so I won’t destroy him where he stands. You, though-“

Valeria interrupts gently. “First of all, I hear you’re an expert in arcane analysis, and I’d be grateful to get your opinion on something.” She hands over the crystal dust from the circus and gives a brief rundown of its origins. “I thought knowing its properties might be of interest to the Cursebreakers?”

“Well since you asked so nicely, I can take a look,” she snaps. “Like I don’t have anything better to do than be a walking Identify spell for Cursebreakers, I’ll be upstairs in my lab, at the top of the tower.”

Gral politely stalls her. “Before you go, can I have directions for proper library procedure? We are helping Ser Boris hunt a Shusva, and we’d like to do some research for him. He can’t, because dogs.”

“Floor 6, demonology. Leave the books you use on the table on that floor. Do not take the books to a different floor. Floors are organized by subject matter, which is a perfectly reasonable system that anyone should be able to understand. It has never occurred to us that somebody would wish to CROSS CONTAMINATE the FLOORS.”

“We’ll, uh, see if we can have a word with Professor Galvan.”

“Please do.” She snaps her fingers. A trapdoor opens at the top of the tower, and she floats up and through.

A helpful guard points us to the library’s Index, which consists of several large tomes.

The index lists an enormous amount of books in an impressive number of languages, categorized by subject matter. There are many books on fiends, outsiders, demonic influences, and the like. Kind of a troubling amount about those subjects, to be honest? No, we don’t want how-to guides!!! But given that we don’t know much about the creature we’re researching, it’s hard to tell which books will specifically have information on the Shusva.

Shoshana goes with Gral to help translate Elvish and Old Valdian. The tanks, meanwhile, will go fetch Lucinius and attempt to cajole him out of the library.

“Can’t you guys just, like. Pick him up? Throw him over your shoulder?” Shoshana asks.

Valeria shakes her head. “We’re not gonna do that.”

“But it would amuse me!”

Looking down through the rings, we see Professor Galvan down on the third floor. In the quiet of the library, we can kinda hear him mumbling to himself down below.

There are staircases and ladders between floors, but it’s a hike down all those stairs. We can see why Isadora levitates around! Valeria has a ring of moon bounce, so she tells Clem she’ll meet her there and hurdles over the railing, landing several floors down with an enormous CLASH BANG CLATTER of armor.

“GOODNESS ME WHAT WHOA OH DEAR ME what’s that?! Hello? Is everyone okay up there?” we hear Lucinius shout.

Shoshana leans over the balcony and does an extremely sarcastic SSSSHHHHH.

We assume Valeria would be blushing, if scales could blush. “I’m fine, I’ll be there in a moment!” she calls, and walks the rest of the way normally.

Lucinius is barely visible behind teetering stacks of literature. “Ah, princess!” he greets Valeria in their native tongue. “Please, sit down!”

“Actually, we had some things we wanted to show you. First, I’d be remiss if failed to let you know that Lady Isadora-“

“Ah, the librarian! So kind, isn’t this place wonderful?”

“She would really rather-“

“She had a copy of the Treatises! The TREATISES! All six volumes! I didn’t think I’d see a copy of this outside Aurentium, and in such good condition! Annotated, even!”

“Isadora would really prefer if you kept the books on same floors they’re shelved on.”

“Oh, dear me. I don’t see why that should be a problem? My work really calls on multiple disciplines…”

“Uh, maybe put them back when you’re done with them?”

He looks around at the stacks and stacks of books spread across the table. “…that might be a difficulty. They should have put a sign up.”

The rules of the library are clearly posted on every floor, in large print, in multiple languages.

“Oh, well, I didn’t have time to read THOSE, this place is far too miraculous!”

We found some very interesting things we’d like to show you. And I managed to get cook to make something Draconian - not as good as what you’d get in Aurentium, I’m sure, but with the same ingredients! C’mon, come back to your chamber to look at some artifacts and eat soup!”

It turns out soup gives advantage on Persuasion. “I suppose I will reach a stopping point shortly,” he admits. “To be honest, I was worried I wouldn’t find any source like this about the history of Valdia. It appears my research before coming to the Greatwood was quite lacking in the intricacies of local culture. Luckily this library is a veritable trove of knowledge! There are some tomes here my colleagues back home would be very jealous of. I don’t know what this von Hoesk family DOES for a living, but they’ve amassed a collection of very fine books! Now, I believe there was soup!” He gathers up some books for the road. “A bit of light reading for my quarters.”

We decide not to tell Isadora, because we’d probably die.

Meanwhile, Gral makes a research investigation with the advantage of Shoshana’s translation help. They find a book that contains information on the Shusva!

There’s a sketch similar to what we saw in the forest. Apparently, they’re formed when a wolf or similar predator becomes engorged with demonic energies and becomes a fiend. Some are purely extraplanar, but most are regular planar creatures that have been corrupted. They’re immune to charm, fright, and poison effects, unfortunately. The book describes an “unwavering hunter and predator that knows no fear and cannot be beguiled or charmed away from its target.”

The book then goes on to describe the proper care and feeding of a Shusva. Due to the charm resistance, they are “remarkably difficult to bind to one’s service.”

Shoshana nods. “Huh, that’s a good tip – wait.”

(Maybe it would be neat to have a cool-ass animal, she thinks…)

On a whim, we also look up dybbuks – if anyone’s gonna know about spooky undead nonsense, it’ll be the von Hoesks. We find “Dybbuks: As Troublesome as they are Terrific” by [bloodstain].

There are plenty of descriptions, but we’re looking for weaknesses. Unfortunately, it looks like there aren’t many. In their true form they have resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder, and nonmagical attacks, but their biggest strength is their ability to flee, willingly abandoning their host bodies and disappearing in their ghostly form. Several techniques are described for potentially trapping one within a host body, to prevent it from running when it feels trapped. Unfortunately, we’d probably need a squad of clerics and paladins.

Clem, meanwhile, wandered off when she came across a medical textbook section, and tells us she’ll catch up with us later. Somewhat ominous looking doorway to basement of some sort next to that. Door is stained in some ways you find mildly disturbing. Her scalpel shudders as the ghost of Dr. Wendell emerges.

“I recognize some of these books!” he exclaims with interest. “That one, on the third shelf, the large one. Is that…hah! Check the inside cover, could this be-?”

Clem flips open the book. It’s Lessons from the Plague, by Dr. Leonard Wendell, Sturmhearst University Press. And it’s signed! “To my friend Ludwig. Thank you for your contributions!”

“You knew Ludwig? The vampire?”

“I knew a Ludwig! He helped us acquire Sturmhearst Castle for the school. It was originally intended to be a hospital during the plague, but he was very on board with it becoming a university after the sickness died down! He provided a lot of money and quite a few books, though I only met him a handful of times. Wait. Did you say he was a VAMPIRE?!”

“Dunno if he was when you met him, but he seems like one now.”

“I mean, that would explain a few things,” the ghost admits. “He did seem remarkably unconcerned about catching the plague.”

(“Some people are just LIKE THAT,” yell several Essential Worker players.)

“Baron von Sturm was resistant, then Ludwig met with him and he was totally amenable. I assumed it was just regular old powers of persuasion and a hefty bribe. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Clem pages through the medical books, looking through a volume titled “Plant and Animal Toxins of the Greatwood” to see if there’s any way she can use her med kit to craft an antitoxin for the Shusva’s venom. Valeria, meanwhile, looks for Order of the Rose books because they have guides to fighting fiends, but doesn’t find anything she hasn’t read before.

Isadora meets us outside her lab. “Find anything interesting?” Valeria asks.

“Where did you find that powder?” Isadora demands, skipping the pleasantries.

“A cursed circus of the Pale King.”

“Well, it had powdered bone as its central component, interwoven with illusion and enchantment magic. Definitely a ritual component.”

“That tracks with how we saw it used.”

“As far as its magical origin; this is quite old. It hasn’t been crafted with a Valdian arcane technique, but I can’t quite put my finger on its origin. I’d be curious to see the process of how it was created.”

Nothing we didn’t already guess. Valeria still graciously thanks her for taking a look at it.

“Oh, you’re making him leave,” Isadora observes frankly, seeing Lucinius trailing us.

“Ah, Lady Isadora!” he exclaims. “Thank you for your assistance!”

“I literally told you to go away.”

“Yes, but you curated this wonderful place! Please don’t touch anything I left on the table on the third floor, my research is still in progress-”

Isadora stares daggers as we drag him off. At least he didn’t try to bring dogs in here.

We head to Galvan’s room. There’s soup! The soup is EXCELLENT.

“My, it feels like forever since I’ve eaten! I suppose I’ve gotten lost in research again. The history of this region is far more complex than I’d been led to believe from outside accounts, or even interviews with locals. I’m quite sure my hypothesis is correct: the story of the Untameable Greatwood does not quite line up with the historical record! Now, I hear you have a few artifacts you wish to show me?”

Valeria pulls out the Aquilian religious icons we found in the Trollstones.

“Yes, these are very well made. Late imperial period, from the looks of things, but pretty standard. I know plenty of collectors back in Aurentium who’d love them. I have a similar set myself. They’re crafted with a nonstandard technique – I say! These are made of Valdian granite, aren’t they? Most Aquilian icons of the time would be made from marble. Fascinating! Where did you find them?”

“Well, we found them in some ruins. Which were inside even older ruins.”

He nearly knocks over his soup bowl. “What? Where?! What type of ruins, from what century? What was their purpose? Tell. Me. EVERYTHING.”

Valeria, whose mom is apparently way into architecture, knows enough technical terms to describe the site’s features fairly well. Lucinius is baffled. An underground structure? For Aarakocra? We recap the purpose of the Trollstones as well, including Urdemak’s story and the blessing against the undead. He paces around the room, firing off questions.

“The ruins were north of Mornheim, you say? Underground? Within an important local site? Such a thing could not have been done without – hmm. I have some suspicions. How accessible was it for birdfolk? Was the site visible from the sky?”

“Well, no, I assume that by necessity-“

“No, you don’t understand the implications. And within the tomb of a king! A troll king, to be sure, but a king nonetheless. A subterranean important local site had evidence of Aquilian development. This proves what I’ve been suspecting for some time!”

He digs in his satchel excitedly, coming up with a handful of notebooks. He flips roughly through them until he’s pointing emphatically to a specific page, which is covered in incomprehensible doctor handwriting in a language ¾ of us don’t speak.

“The classic story is the Untameable Greatwood. The Aquilians attempted to occupy it and were thrown out by the beasts and wild men and trolls that live here, or did not see the land as valuable enough to wage war for. Similar to what happened to the elves, much more recently! But from what I can tell in my studies, that simply does not add up. The Flying Legions did not leave places unconquered – either they took it or completely destroyed it. As proud as Valdians are of their resistance, there’s no archeological evidence of a large scale Valdian resistance to an Aquilian incursion. Such resistances are often hard to locate – on principle, Oberok would obliterate them; Let the Defeated be Forgotten, so they say. But to do that would require them to subjugate the Greatwood, which they did not! And the Valdian records of the period mention no organized resistance or throwing back Flying Legions. So any Aquilian construction would have required some level of cooperation between the Valdians on the ground and Aquilians in the sky!

“And now you tell me of a full installation constructed within a significant cultural site undiscoverable from the air. Now, we saw this before with the tattooed mummy you described to me. He could have been dismissed as an outlier. There are always those who choose to collaborate with their invaders; his tattoos could have been a symbol of local cooperation with his Aquilian superiors. Although once again, I found no mention of such individuals in the histories, which is in itself very odd. If the Empire was good at anything, it was very good at rewarding those who showed the proper deference. The fact that he is tattooed in Old Valdian is another puzzle. The Aquilians considered themselves superior to all others; a linguistic fusion like this would dilute the perfection of Oberok.”

“If they built this place inside a sacred site, it must have been more than a single local assisting them; somebody showed them this place and allowed them entry. What was the structure used for?”

We explain the significance of Urdemak’s tomb, and the blessing of a demigoddess so no dead would rise. Something had been contained in there, and sometime in the last 15 years, there was a “containment breach” from the Aquilian structure.

We show him the scroll we found in the tomb. He translates it for us:

“First Prisoner, Item #5

Containment Procedure: Keep submerged within waters blessed by local spirits with protection against undeath. This should suppress the influence of the Prisoner.

As per request by [unintelligible], we are required to keep disruption of the site to a minimum.

Description: A silver crown, a powerful ritual object of The First Prisoner.

Let the Vanquished be forgotten, let the Victorious reign eternal.

Glory to Oberok”

“Is this ‘Prisoner’ a thing you know of?” Valeria asks, hoping maybe our Curse has answers in ancient Aquilian lore.

He shakes his head. “Well, there’s plenty of mention of prisoners of war, criminals – Oberok, as the god of law, was very into prisons, but not in this context. This document is written with the assumption the reader knows what is meant by ‘First Prisoner.’”

A “powerful ritual object,” huh. Fuck, did we leave that shit in a foot locker? We could probably keep the crown better contained by submerging it in holy water, Valeria thinks, but we’d need a lot. She’s pretty sure she could get a crew of clerics together, but it’d take time. Maybe all those clerics could help with our dybbuk problem.

There’s some other stuff on the scroll Lucinius can work on, seeing if he can cross reference other Aquilian and Old Valdian texts to look for more containment areas. “I suppose I could put a pause on some of my research to look into this; the Cursebreakers have graciously allowed me use of their library, so it stands to reason I should contribute knowledge to their cause!”

Lucinius grills us about everything we saw in the ruins, but eventually it gets late and he’s clearly just come off of at least a fifteen hour research binge. We let him get some rest and head back to the common area for guests, where another goliath has joined Ingborg and Bjorn at their board game, chatting to them in Jotun. He’s far scrawnier than the two berserker bodyguards, though by human standards he’s still enormous. He’s also wearing a familiar bird-beaked mask, which means he’s almost certainly the Sturmhearst professor that Brigid told us about. Assuming that whoever has the most stones in their cup has the most points, the professor is winning handily against Ingborg. Meanwhile, Ser Boris is asleep by the fire in a pile of dogs.

As the game ends and the goliaths exchange a friendly punch to the shoulder, Bjorn notices us. “How is Professor Galvan?”

“He enjoyed the soup!”

“Good. I worry. Although I will admit it is much easier to guard him if he stays here. Tell me you did not tell him about a fascinating monster-filled pit to jump into?”

Valeria grimaces. “Oh we, uh, definitely did that.”

“Is he going to seek it out tonight?”

“Probably not? We asked him to do more reading.”

“Then I am going for a drink,” Bjorn declares decisively. He and Ingborg head off together, presumably to wherever they keep the liquor around here.

“Hallo!” the professor greets us, in our DM’s most half-assed Swedish Chef accent.

“Hi! Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Professor Hjalmar Bjork, of the Sturmhearst College of Engineering!”

Bjork has a supersized Handy Haversack, which looks like it’s been mostly unpacked. He has several heavy pieces of metal equipment inscribed with the logo of the Valdian Tree Company and the Sturmhearst University crest. Notably, some sort of short-barreled musket with TC etched on the side and scorch marks around the barrel, with a bulbous metal tank at the other end. There’s a boiled leather helmet inscribed with faintly glowing Jotunn runes, as well as all manner of bombs and some kind of weird gauntlet thing.

He sees us checking out the goods. “Yes, I wanted to stop by and offer the latest inventions of Sturmhearst to the Cursebreakers! I am here to demonstrate our newest innovations, to see if they might purchase or fund future development. I wanted to bring a few with me into the library today, but the woman there-”

“The librarian has opinions about that, yes.”

Clem squints at the gadgets. “By any chance, did you build flamethrowers for a Professor Ulmus?”

“Ah yes, the TC Mark 2’s, with the big packs! This is a Mark 3. They’re named after my Ventallan colleague, Don Toretto Chikal. How is Professor Ulmus, by the by?”

“Oh, she’s doing great.”

“Good to hear! I have designed many weapons. Weapons are not my passion, but they are good business and there is much need. And what good is engineering if not to fill a need? Unfortunately, the Cursebreakers were not very interested in the invention I was most excited about.”

He pulls out the leather helmet, the one with runes on it.

“You’re familiar with the Curse, how it appears to corrupt the mind and exploits extreme emotionality? Are you familiar with the Calm Emotions spell? We put that into the device, to make the wearer resistant to fear and charm effects, so they can resist the corruption. I call it the Mood Cap! Our first test subject was subjected to many terrifying and exciting stimuli with no reaction! I feel the idea has a lot of promise. It just requires a bit of funding for further development, you know, it’s theoretically perfectly safe once we figure out how to tone down the effect!”

That sounds concerning.

“Usually Calm Emotions is cast on multiple people; the runes we originally used turned out to be too strong for one individual for an extended period of exposure.”

“You just sit around doing nothing forever, huh?” Gral asks.

“Oh, the test subject is fine, he mostly recovered after 48 hours. He still occasionally spaces out sometimes. The Dean of Medicine has taken him under observation and expects a full recovery. It will be perfectly safe, once the kinks are worked out! Sadly, Lord Ludwig disagreed, and he’s the one with the money.”

(We don’t like the Mood Cap, but we do liek it.)

“Did you have any trouble traveling here?” Valeria asks politely.

“Yes, but I have a large construct as bodyguard. I built it myself! I prefer things I constructed with my own two hands. And the hands of several assistants and grad students, admittedly. Travel is not especially difficult with those things. To be honest, it’s good to get away from Sturmhearst for a while.”

That piques our interest. “Oh? How are things at Sturmhearst?”

“They’re….fine…” he equivocates.

Everything is definitely not fine.

“Nothing strange is going on.”

Valeria hmms. “That sounds unusual for Sturmhearst, to be honest. Ser Brigid told us to ask you about some strange findings?”

“Oh, she told you. I have to be careful; the walls have ears.”

“Like, literally?” Shoshana asks. “Because I’ve seen stranger.”

“Well. Hmm. The last few times I have been at the university, a package arrived for me. What do you know about Sturmhearst?”

“You have bird masks!”

“Yes, we do wear those.”

“We have a scalpel that helped found it!”

There’s a long pause, while we watch formulas and the volume of a cone float in front of his bird mask. “….okay.”

He presses on. “I received a package on my desk. It contained several equations, a strange device, and some metallic samples, with a note asking for my opinions. The device was incomprehensible, but the equations and samples have been invaluable in my work. The note was signed by Headmaster Trevor Twombly, who has been on sabbatical the last two years. I have only been working for them for the past five years or so, when I was invited as an expert in artificing – a runesmith, as we say in my homeland.

“A few years after I began my tenure, the headmaster went on this unplanned sabbatical completely out of the blue. I have not seen him since. Since then, his second, the Dean of Medicine, Elana Damrosch, has run things. I asked where he had gone, as I wished to discuss funding, and I was deflected, told he was simply traveling. I asked for an opportunity to send a Sending, and was informed that it would be difficult, but they would try. No response. Now, there are any number of explanations for that, especially with the Curse mucking things up.

“So you can understand my surprise when several of my colleagues and I received these odd packages. They’re all distinct, but similar enough that they seem to come from the same source. Since then, I have received three packages of things useful in my work! This,” he gestures to the TC Mark 3 flamethrower, “contains an autonomous refueling mechanism based off one of the samples I was given. The Mood Cap, too – I am applying my own rune lore, but using techniques I’d never seen before I received these formulas.

“As well as making my sales pitch, I came here to use the library for research; Sturmhearst is not a college of magic, though we do make use of it. This library has a much deeper knowledge of the arcane. I’m trying to figure out where Twombly got these techniques. Lady Isadora has seen nothing like them.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at one of those samples?” Valeria asks.

He pulls out a few bits and bobs. One is a metal plate in an odd shape. “The purpose of this one is obvious,” he says, which it is not. Shoshana notices the odd way the metal shimmers in the candlelight, though – just the same as the huge wrench we pulled out of the spaceship in the Key zone.

“And there is this!” he says, pulls out another object, a rectangle with several buttons on it. “This is a fascinating device. My analysis indicates the use of electricity!” (One player guesses a tv remote. It is, indeed, a graphing calculator.) “It can do math – some sort of calculating engine. Very useful in my work. I have had to translate symbols into actual numbers; the characters aren’t an alphabet any of our researchers have seen before. But I have spent long time with device and have been able to determine its function!” Valeria immediately detects magic and uses her divine sense on it. It does not ping them, because it is a calculator.

“If Headmaster Twombly is away, traveling, then where are these coming from? Dean Damrosch says he must be shipping them in – I enquired in the mail room, but nothing from the headmaster has come in. What’s more, I was experimenting with an arcane surveillance system, which indicated that a single individual, who was not fully humanoid, did enter my office and drop off a package. I told Dean Damrosch this, and she told me not to worry, that perhaps my device was malfunctioning. My device did not malfunction! I had tested it thoroughly!”

Valeria pulls out our adamantine wrench to show him the strange metal. He pecks it with the beak of his mask, which is tipped in metal. “This is the same material as one of the samples! Where did you find this?”

“Uhhhh. A very cursed house.”

“Here in Valdia?”

“Yes…and also no. It’s complicated.”

“I am very intelligent. I have a degree and a mask,” he points out.

Valeria grimaces. “Well, I’m not sure if I’m intelligent enough to explain. How familiar are you with the different ways the Curse manifests?”

“Not at all. I am an engineer.”

Shoshana awkwardly tries to explain the in-between spaces created by the Key, and how they link to other worlds with other logic. The space between, Gral tells him, is enlightening but toxic to the mind.

“Perhaps the Headmaster is using these portals you describe, then? That’s actually a bit of a relief. To be honest, I suspected that the Dean had killed the Headmaster and was doing some sort of elaborate cover-up.”

Something worrying has occurred to Gral, given that Sturmhearst is apparently having Key shenanigans. “Since you wear masks all the time, would you immediately notice if someone had more eyeballs than normal?”

“…No? I suppose that would be an odd thing not to notice. This habit of masks – I’m surprised how much Sturmhearst has adhered to it; I understand it is a tradition from the school’s origin as plague hospital. I suppose it’s become a symbol of our profession!”

“Okay, but like. Could you TELL if someone had too many eyeballs. Especially in places where eyeballs don’t usually go.”

“Well!” he says, clearly a little unsettled by the question, and noticeably not answering. “Perhaps I might try to stay at this castle for a bit. I may want to stay away from Sturmhearst for a while.”

“I mean, has other weird stuff been appearing at Sturmhearst besides the packages?”

“Well, there have been stories of things in the catacombs. Experiments that have escaped, that sort of thing. And as long as I have studied there, the hallways have been a bit illogical to navigate – rather like this castle, in fact.”

“…Is that normal for Sturmhearst, or what?”

“My understanding of the school – I am a recent arrival, after all – is that until recently, it was substantially less odd. Their work was more practical, less experimental. I admit my own work has advanced by leaps and bounds with the insights from these packages; I’m doing far more experimental work of my own than I ever have before. But monsters in the basement? That’s relatively new. If it had to happen anywhere, though, Sturmhearst is certainly much better armed than any other university I’ve visited…”

“Speaking of weapons, is there perhaps any chance you might be willing to part with a flamethrower for a few brave adventurers fighting the Curse?” Clem inquires hopefully

“Well, I did come here with intent to sell. The Cursebreakers were not interested, so I suppose I could part with a mark 3. You would like a demonstration, yes?”

He provides us a rather exciting demonstration of the flamethrower out in the courtyard, unfortunately for several training dummies, spouting off facts and stats about its refueling capabilities and its range and how reasonably the fuel is priced. Clem’s counting her gold.

(Bonus: Did you find Professor Bjork’s – or should I say, Birch’s – starters? Toretto Chikal = Torchic; Tree Co. = Treecko; Mood Cap = Mudkip.)

It’s late, so we head up to bed. We are waited upon by a few of the von Hoesk servants. Clem, Gral, and Shoshana are absolutely unused to this level of luxury, and amazed that there are people who actually live like this. Valeria is like finally, some civilization.

The next morning, Ser Boris kicks down our door at the crack of dawn, blowing a hunting horn. As we all groan and retreat under the covers, we cut session for now.

[smoothshift]

My Junkyard Mustang Project: A Story of Regret and Fun via /r/cars

My Junkyard Mustang Project: A Story of Regret and Fun

I've seen people post pictures of their new projects, so I figured I'd post pictures of mine along with it's ridiculous story about terrible luck and people from the car community coming together.

TLDR at the end for those who (understandably) don't wanna read a super long story.

In May of this year, I made a terrible/amazing decision. I bought a '99 Mustang GT automatic convertible that (barely) ran from a Pick N Pull for $1,000. It ran and drove from the yard, however not quite as well as I thought. http://ift.tt/2Epnx67 (picture from the lot)

I thought she was beautiful, except that the convertible top's plastic vinyl window was so dirty that it was impossible to see out of, even after washing it dozens of times.

Being an enthusiast who hadn't had a project before, I was super excited to start doing mods immediately and getting the car into better shape. Then, about two days in, a rod came a-knocking on the engine. I realized I would have to put in a new one, and the next day found that a shift solenoid in the auto transmission had blown out and that there was metal in the pan.

I figured that since I had wanted to at some point, there would be no better time to swap the car's transmission to a manual than when the transmission would have to be removed anyways.

$1,200 later, a fresh 4.6 and TR3650 were sitting in my (parents) driveway, and my car was thrown on jack stands to start this project. http://ift.tt/2FhnDOl

I had a family friend/mechanic help me with the project, and although he was charging me next to nothing and I was paying him what I could, he had to work 7 days a week to support his household and I ran out of money once the old engine and trans were both out. At this point, the car begins to sit for a few weeks, as I had nowhere near enough knowledge or skill to reinstall an engine and transmission.

At this same point, during this limbo, I rode with my friend to a car meet. He decided to meet up with some friends in a little group on the way so that they can all drive together to the meet. One of those friends, some guy named Frank, also had a sn95 mustang, so I introduced myself and followed him on instagram. He had a really cool car he called the "stealth mare" and I loved what he had done with it. Anyways, moving on.

A couple weeks later, I was not sure what to do to keep this build moving. I couldn't afford a "real" mechanic or a shop, and I couldn't do the project myself even though I had basically all the tools. Out of sheer desperation, I sent this Frank guy a DM hoping he could help me. He was super open to giving me a hand on the project (more accurately me giving him a hand since he actually knew what he was doing, but I digress) and a day or two later we got to work. Even when I offered to pay him when I could, he was super nice and refused to take some money for helping me.

Here's a snazzy little timelapse of us once we finally got to the point of mounting the engine/trans into the car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da_QlJqPoYg

After around a month's worth of weekends, we finally got everything done. However, I had gotten some misinformation and Ford is evil. I thought that the car would be completely unable to start with the auto trans' computer, and had bought an ECU from Pick N Pull which I had installed. Thus, the car wouldn't start. I loaded the car up on a tow truck and sent it to a dealership to reset the evil PATS anti-theft system (because I didn't know most locksmiths could do it).

After 4 days of waiting, they said the car still wouldn't start even though the PATS was reset. There was also a decent exhaust leak from a missing nut, you'll understand why I'm saying that soon enough. I got the car towed back to my house in defeat. They told me the car would crank but not start. I was heartbroken, being so close yet so far. After around a day of it sitting on my driveway once again, I dejectedly got into the car because at that point I at least wanted to hear the car crank after all the work I had put in.

However, everything in the car just sounded off. Electronics weren't quite right, and the car didn't do squat when I turned the key. It seemed to me that after sitting for 2-3 months, the battery was out of wack. I took it over to my auto parts store (where it had a warranty, thank God) to get it tested. They gave it back to me and said it tested fine and charged right up. I threw it back into the car, still no dice. I thought something was still wrong, so I took the battery out of my Grandma's Mercury Sable (Basically a rebadged Ford Taurus) and shoved it under the hood. After so much work, I was just desperate to hear the car crank. However, I got a lot more than a crank when I turned the key. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCxWh017G4Q

I remember literally shedding a few tears of joy. I texted Frank about our little victory, and he came right by to see our project finally roar to life. To be honest, I wish I could have kept the exhaust leak a little bit because the sound was fantastic.

Unfortunately, it wasn't all that easy after that. Time for less pictures and more problems.

I took the car for a test drive, and it drove great. Except that shifting into reverse was a nightmare. Grinding non-stop and sometimes it just refused to let me shift into reverse. After driving it around for a couple days, fixing the exhaust leak, and getting the required paperwork for move permits (bought the car with absolutely no title) to drive it on the road, I had 2 days to decide whether or not the car would be ready for me to drive it to University, as I would be moving to Riverside from the San Francisco area to start classes.

Sadly, the next day it refused to go into any gear without a battle, and I realized the car wasn't in the mechanical shape to drive 400 miles to school, or to survive in its current state after that. I had to make the super tough decision to leave my newly running car at home to be checked out in my absence by, dun dun dun....a shop.

Sure enough, the transmission that I had gotten from the wrecking yard was trash, the clutch I ordered for it was all messed up, and the valve covers were leaking oil from a crack. I let them go ahead and change out the transmission (family friends, gave me incredibly good rates and did a perfectly fine job), and try to put everything back together.

Then came the issue of timing. After being at school for around a month, the car was almost back together (it took them a while because they were doing it after hours for insanely cheap for me). I wanted to bring the car to Riverside, to finally drive my baby. I was flying home on a Friday, and on the Monday before they found that after trying to patch one of the cracks that was leaking oil, the entire valve cover needed to be replaced. I ordered one from a dealership in my area that could be picked up Wednesday, and I was hoping it would come in in time. Sure enough, it came Wednesday....and was the wrong bolt pattern. Damnit Ford.

I decided then to instead order aftermarket valve covers from Trickflow (10/10 would recommend BTW), as they were the correct pattern, and were a pair of aluminum covers instead of ugly plastic. These looked way nicer and cost the same as a single cover straight from Ford. I ordered them on whatever the fastest shipping method was for an extra $50, and they were set to arrive the same Friday I flew in.

My goal, if everything went perfectly, was to get the new valve covers and get them installed Friday, use Saturday and Sunday to stress test the living hell out out of the car to make sure it would survive the drive down to SoCal, and then Monday to take it to my school in Riverside.

Somehow, everything almost went perfectly according to plan. Friday night, I picked up the car in perfect running condition, and proceeded to put ~300 miles on it over the weekend before I was to drive it 400 more to school.

I did mention that I got the car with no title. This meant that to get plates/a title, the car needed to pass a brake/light inspection and a smog test. The Brake and Light was done, but the o2 sensors didn't seem to have all their information dialed in before leaving Monday. However, my 60 day failed smog pass (needed to drive the car on the roads) was about to expire at that point, since I got it before the first manual transmission gave up on life. I thus decided to get the car smogged on the trip back to school, approximately an hour's drive away.

A side note, the car's air conditioning wasn't running at the time due to electrical adaptation issues with the new computer. The day climbed to over 100 degrees, and after my stop for my smog check (which I passed) I began to head towards my school.

This was also my first manual car, so I wasn't used to operating a clutch. This meant not only that I was bad at it, but that my leg was not used to the workout that is an SN95 clutch over long drives. I got on the freeway to sit in agonizing, blisteringly hot LA traffic for about 15 minutes before I realized that I wouldn't survive if I tried to do this all the way home. Thus, I got off the freeway and tried to used main roads to make my way to school. I knew it would turn an hour into probably two, but there was little traffic (all based on stop lights, so tolerable for a new clutch operator) and it was much less hot/stressful as the car was actually moving.

Then things went wrong yet again. About 45 minutes (in that traffic) from my school, I was driving through a city called Azusa, when I heard a super loud hissing sound and saw yellowish smoke billowing into the car's cabin. I assumed my car was overheating and that it was coolant, and I thus pulled over and called trusty AAA to come take my car. I wanted to check the cooling system and all, but I had no tools/method at school and thus had a shop pressure test the system to find that everything was alright. In reality, I had melted a piece of a rubber air conditioning line, shooting Freon everywhere. Thankfully, no big issues, got the car back on the road.

Then, after a lot of time and money spent on some mods and cleanup, the car began to take shape into what it is today. I'm super happy with it, and even though it was more painful and expensive than I ever could have imagined, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I met so many new friends from the car, learned so much about how to work on cars, and now have a project I'm proud of.

Here's the car as it sits now:

http://ift.tt/2EsmdPX http://ift.tt/2FmdT5k http://ift.tt/2Eqx6BH http://ift.tt/2Fn1wWH

TLDR: Bought a junkyard mustang for a grand, the engine and trans died immediately after, swapped it to a manual and put in a new engine with help from the car community in my area, and now have a dope project that's accumulated around 5K miles in the past 3 months with no issues.