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boyrobott · 7 months ago

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i had the best day with you today

"You guys—?" Astro stares around the penthouse kitchen in total disbelief, turning slowly on the spot to try and take in everything at once — colorful streamers draped haphazardly over every available surface, and a paper banner clumsily tacked up over the arched entryway, one side noticeably lower than the other, and a cake on the table, topped with white icing and blue sprinkles and flickering candles, a handful of presents wrapped in bright yellow gift paper beside it. "You guys threw me a birthday party?"

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Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper, because everybody is talking about it again, and the reminders are everywhere he goes — President Logan wants him to make a speech about the whole thing, for crying out loud, and he knows the guy means well, but he really wants to say no, except he's not sure if he can do that politely, and he's not sure if he can do it at all, actually, because this is the president he's talking about, and the last time he said no to the president, he died twice in as many hours, and he'd prefer not to repeat that experience, please and thank you.

On top of that, every reporter in the entire city is trying to corner him for an impromptu interview about the year-old battle, armed with cameras and microphones and notepads, and he doesn't want to be rude to them when he knows they're just doing their job, but he doesn't want to relive that day again, either, so lately he's been taking every backroad and byway he knows to avoid them.

Things aren't much better at school, either, where it's an even fifty-fifty split between the classmates who pepper him with way more invasive, uncomfortable questions about the Peacekeeper than the reporters ever have, and the classmates who never wanted a robot around in the first place, and now they're seething about all the renewed interest in the fight, which means they're being twice as nasty as usual — TJ Porter, the unofficial ringleader of that second group, had a "conversation" with his friends in the school cafeteria yesterday about Astro's "future career" as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up metal in the junkyard.

(Astro tried his hardest to pretend he didn't hear TJ at all, and tried even harder than that to not think about this time last year, when he actually was facing a future as a worthless pile of rusted, used-up scrap metal in the junkyard.)

The HRA just recently published a brand-new and characteristically scathing article about the upcoming anniversary, too, and Astro knows he probably shouldn't have read it, but morbid curiosity can be very persuasive when it wants to be, so he knows exactly what they said about him, and he knows it went like this: A year has gone by since the combat robot known as Astro Boy caused all manner of property damage, supposedly in the name of "helping" the city, and still, the wider community continues to passively accept its presence in our skies and streets, even allowing it to attend public junior high school with our children. When will the proud people of this great nation come to their senses, and realize how deceiving appearances can truly be? This "Astro Boy" is no more a child than your local bank-teller, and it experiences no more emotion than the average vacuum cleaner.

(Astro turned off his phone for the next forty-eight hours after that, and tried not to think about this time last year, when the HRA was publishing articles about him in the immediate aftermath of the Peacekeeper fiasco, saying perhaps the former President Stone was correct in his opinions, if not his execution, of what to do about this blatant misuse of Ministry technology and we must hope that Dr. Tenma intends to eliminate this danger to the public before it can do any further damage to our city.)

Astro knows it's been a year since his fight with the Peacekeeper.

That doesn't mean he wants to think about it.

But the reminders are everywhere he goes, and everyone is talking about it, and everyone wants to hear him talk about it, too, and President Logan wants him to stand up in front of the city and make a whole speech about it, talk about the week when the whole world wanted him dead, and he was all alone and nobody wanted him and he didn't know who he was, and he barely even knew what he was, really, except that he wasn't human and he wasn't Tobi so he wasn't good enough and nobody wanted him and he was all alone and Dr. Elefun had lied when he said there's a place for you, you just have to find it, and he can't stop waking up in the middle of the night with panicked apologies spilling from his lips, saying I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Dad I'm so sorry I'm so sorry Dad please I'm sorry I'm sorry I swear I swear I'll do better I swear I'll do everything right I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry please Dad please don't kill me—

Yeah, Astro knows it's been a year since the Peacekeeper.

How could he forget?

But he's so busy thinking about it, and trying not to, that he actually does forget something else that also happened in the same week — something that isn't the Peacekeeper, something that isn't the ice-cold grief and crushing loneliness of waking up on his own in the junkyard, in a pile of robots that were just as unwanted as him, or the burning fury of the Robot Games, the bone-deep humiliation as Hamegg treated him like a monkey in a circus, the iron-heavy guilt of murdering all those other robots, the choking sorrow of knowing he'd just lost the best and only friends he'd ever had, and the devastation and despair of realizing he was going to die when he'd barely begun to live, the devastation and despair of realizing he had nothing left to live for.

Something else also happened in the same week.

But he's so busy trying not to think about anything from that week he completely forgets all about it.

Everyone else remembers, though.

He's been so wrapped up in everything, trying to come up with a polite way to decline President Logan's request without accidentally alienating another elected official so soon after the last one, and trying to avoid the overzealous journalists around every corner, and trying not to think about this time last year, trying not to get lost in the memories, crystal-clear like it all happened just yesterday, that he didn't remember or even really know it was his birthday today, but it is, isn't it?

On this day last year, he wasn't waking up on his own in the junkyard — he was waking up in his father's lab at the Ministry of Science in the dead of night, his systems coming online and the cameras behind his eyes pulling the world into sharper and sharper and sharper focus until all the pixels suddenly coalesced together, and he saw his dad and Dr. Elefun for the first time. On this day last year, his artificial lungs were expanding with his first breath, and the synthetic vocal cords in his throat were vibrating with his first words, and the joints in his knees were whirring with his first steps.

On this day last year, he wasn't dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — he was coming alive.

He can't believe he forgot.

But everyone else remembered, and they're throwing him a whole party for it, even though it's technically an activation day, and not a birthday, and robots don't actually celebrate their activation days, anyway.

He wants to thank them. He wants to tell them they didn't have to do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them he can't believe they did do all this just for him, and he wants to tell them it's totally amazing, and he loves it, and he's sorry he's being so weird about it but as soon as he can wrap his mind around it, he's going to be really, really happy.

But his brain is frozen, and he's not sure he could push everything he wants to say past the lump in his throat, anyway.

"You really don't have to pretend you didn't see this coming, Astro," Cora shakes her head, but she's laughing as she does. "Widget and Sludge gave it away, like, a thousand times all week. It's okay. We know you already knew."

"Everyone expects a surprise party on their birthday, Cora!" Widget counters immediately, with the air of somebody who's already had this argument on several previous occasions. "And if they expect it, then it's not really a surprise! So you've got to make it super-duper clear to them that you are throwing them a party, because then they think it's going to be something totally different, and then it's not! Which means it really is a surprise! And! Look at him! He is very obviously surprised! Check and mate!"

Sludge nods proudly, standing up as tall as he can and puffing out his chest. "It was a double submersion!"

Dr. Elefun chuckles. "That's called a double subversion, Sludge."

"Same difference," Sludge rolls his eyes.

"It's really not," Orrin says.

"I-I didn't even know you guys knew my birthday," Astro stammers, awkward and uncertain, because it's honestly the only thing he can think to say. "Did I tell you, and then just… forget?" Come to think of it, he's not actually sure if that's even possible — with such an advanced artificial intelligence installed in his system, he can easily remember everything that's ever happened to him in precise, pin-sharp detail — but it also sounds exactly like the kind of thing he'd do.

"Oh, no, your dad gave us a heads-up, actually," Widget tells him. "He… what did you call it, Zane? 'Came through in the clutch'?"

Zane gives her a thumbs-up. "You got it."

I didn't know my dad knew my birthday, either, Astro thinks, but he catches himself a second before he actually says it out loud, biting his tongue against the instinctive response. "Oh."

"Yeah, four days ago," Cora huffs, rolling her eyes and folding her arms over her chest. "We had four days to get everything together for this. And your dad totally sucks at parties, by the way, so he was zero help. He was just like—" she pushes her voice down to a much deeper octave, in an obvious imitation of his dad's low, gruff tone, "—oh, yeah, it's Astro's birthday on Sunday, haha, isn't it crazy how time flies! And then he was gone!"

"Guilty as charged," Dad says mildly, without so much as a trace of said guilt in his voice, and a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he's trying his best not to laugh. "I've been persona non grata with everyone since then."

"Anyway," Cora jumps in again, pulling the conversation back on-track, "that's why this isn't as awesome as the birthday party you guys put together for me in February. We just didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted — we'll do something way cooler next year, though, trust me. It'll blow this one right out of the water, you'll see."

Astro can't believe she honestly thinks there could ever be anything better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, safe and smiling and happy, and here just for him. He can't believe they did all of this just for him. He can't even begin to imagine what Cora thinks could top this.

"No, no, this is—this is perfect," he chokes out, his vision getting suspiciously blurry all of a sudden, but he's also smiling so wide it's hurting his face. "Seriously, guys, I love this. It's perfect. Thank you so much for doing this for me."

"Of course!" Orrin chirps cheerfully, like it's totally unthinkable that they wouldn't do all this just for him, and he rolls forward a little to wrap Astro in a hug. "We love you! You're such a wonderful person, and a great friend, and we're so excited to celebrate your birthday with oh my god the cake is on fire!"

"What?!"

Everybody immediately abandons their positions to scramble over to the table and stare down at the confection — which is, in fact, very much on fire, a bright orange-gold flame about the size of a grown man's hand dancing wildly atop the buttercream frosting.

"Holy crap!" Zane screeches. "What the heck kinda birthday candles do that?! Birthday candles should not do that!"

"You lit them too early!" Dad turns on him a little too quickly for this to be a brand-new argument. "I told you that we should have waited for him to get here before we lit the candles! Why didn't you just listen to me?!"

"Who cares why it happened?! The cake is on fire!" Cora yells at the pair of them as she dashes over to the sink, fills a glass with water straight from the faucet, and races back to the table with the cup clutched in her hand, clear fluid spilling out the sides and splashing over her fingers. Of course she's already three steps ahead of the rest of them — she always is, even in situations as unexpected as this.

But before she can douse the flame, Orrin throws himself in front of the cake with his arms spread wide in the universal pose of Fearless Action Hero Taking A Bullet For Another Character. "No, no, wait! Don't do that! The cake will get soggy! And then it'll be ruined!"

Cora grinds to a dead halt, the water still swirling violently around inside the glass, and gapes at Orrin like she's never properly seen him before. "Are you being for real?! Are you actually being for real right now?! The cake is on fire!"

"I know, but I worked so hard on it!" Orrin wails miserably. "And it's perfect! Astro is going to love it!"

"I-It's fine, Orrin," Astro rushes to reassure him, but he's way more focused on the miniature bonfire in the center of the table than the cake beneath it. "Seriously, it's totally okay. Let's just—"

"Salt!" Sludge hollers, waving his arms around in the air like a traffic controller. "Salt won't make the cake soggy, and it'll put out the fire, too, right? We can use some salt!"

Poor Orrin looks like he's about to cry. "But that'll ruin it, too!"

"We don't have a whole lot of other options here, Orrin!" Dad barks at him. "We have to take care of that fire now! It's going to get out of control!"

"This is not my fault!" Zane declares, despite the fact that no one is directly accusing him anymore. "You know what? It's your fault!" He jabs an accusatory finger at Tenma. "Yeah! It's your fault for having such crappy birthday candles that they can't even burn for—!"

"The birthday candles were perfectly fine!"

"Then why the heck are they burning so quickly?! Answer me that, Science Man!"

"Because they're birthday candles! They're not supposed to burn for long periods of time! That's why I told you not to light them until Astro actually got here, but—"

"Orrin," Cora seethes, in that dangerous voice she always uses when she's about to explode with sheer rage. "If you don't get out of my way in the next ten seconds, I swear I'm going to—"

"Oh, for the love of God!" Apparently, even Dr. Elefun has lost all patience. "Somebody just blow it out!"

Everyone goes dead silent and statue-still for a long, loaded second, gawking at Dr. Elefun like they've never even considered the concept of blowing out birthday candles before. Honestly, Astro is kind of embarrassed no one else came up with it first.

"…Huh," Zane says finally. "Probably should have thought of that one sooner, yeah."

"No, no, wait! Astro has to do it!" Widget pipes up, as Cora skirts around Orrin and bends down over the cake to follow Dr. Elefun's orders. "It's his birthday! He has to blow out the candles, doesn't he?"

"Guys, I think the fire might be kind of a bigger problem than who blows out the—okay, okay," Astro gives up the fight barely a second later, because Cora has backed off again to clear a path for him, and Sludge is trying to physically haul him over to the table with a hand on his leg, tugging on the excess denim at the knee of his jeans. He quickly steps around Cora and Orrin, leaning in close (somewhere in the background, he hears his dad mutter a quick be careful, son, like he doesn't face off against mad scientists and evil robots and convicted murderers and god only knows what else on a daily basis) to extinguish the fire in a single breath.

The whole group instantly clusters around him to inspect the huge black scorch mark on top of the cake. Poor Orrin looks absolutely devastated.

"I'm sure it still tastes okay," Astro pats him on the shoulder. "We can just cut that piece off, or something. It's really no big deal." He reaches to pull out a couple of the burnt candles — the lingering heat will sting, of course, but not as badly as it would if he had human skin — but he freezes halfway there, because the burnt candles… are not candles, actually. "Uh… Zane… w-why did you use… matchsticks?"

"You did what?" Dad wheels around to fix Zane with the Minister of Science Death Glare that has left lesser men (including Astro) fleeing the room in terror.

"Oh, man, that's what those things were?" Zane pushes past Cora and the twins to get a closer look. "I thought they were just really crappy candles! Sorry, Science Man, that's my bad." He even has the guts to reach up and pat Dad on the back, despite the fact that Tenma looks two seconds away from picking him up and bodily throwing him out of the penthouse.

"How did you even light these?" Astro asks, to defuse the impending argument (and also because, now that he's thinking about it, he actually really wants to know) as he hastily plucks the smoldering sticks out of the cake. "I mean, since you thought the matches were birthday candles…"

Zane puts a hand in the pocket of his shabby brown jacket and pulls it back out again a minute later to show off a silver cigarette lighter. "Duh. How do you think?"

"Oh, my god!" Tenma snatches it straight out of Zane's open palm before anyone else can react. "Why on earth do you have a lighter?! Who gave you a lighter?!"

"Hey!" Zane makes a wild grab for it, but Dad has at least six inches on him, and easily holds it out of his reach. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you guys don't carry them around, too! I mean, you never know when you need to set something on fire, am I right?"

"Um," Dr. Elefun says. "How many times have you needed to set something on fire, exactly?"

There's a suspiciously long second of silence after that, wherein Dad looks like he's having a few dozen heart attacks right there in the middle of the kitchen, and Zane wrinkles his brow in an expression of deep concentration. Astro has a terrible feeling that he's counting the various occasions in his head.

"You know what!" Orrin says, all of a sudden, and very loudly, in an excruciatingly obvious effort to break the tension, and redirect the conversation. "Why don't we have some cake! Who wants cake? Everyone wants cake, right? Everyone loves cake! Can't go wrong with cake!"

"Uh, yeah, let me help you with that," Astro gratefully latches onto the excuse to escape whatever kind of chaos is inevitably going to happen next, hurrying after Orrin into the kitchen proper. He grabs a handful of forks from the cutlery drawer, and pulls down a stack of plates from the cupboard, piling it all together to make it easier to carry before he heads back over to the dining table.

Orrin is already there, patiently removing a few of the matchsticks he missed in his shock over Zane's cigarette lighter, and carefully cutting the blackened section away from the rest with a large knife, while Cora and Zane are arguing vehemently over whether arson can really be considered a hobby or not. Widget and Sludge are arguing even more vehemently about which one of them did a better job of keeping the surprise party under wraps all week, while Tenma and Elefun are talking with their heads together, probably trying to decide how to tell Zane's foster parents that their twelve-year-old charge has a lighter.

(Astro really can't believe Cora thinks there's anything that could be better than this — the people he loves more than anything in the world all gathered together in the same room, even if they're all a little frazzled from the fire, and the cuff of Widget's sleeve looks a bit singed.)

Right at that moment, Dad glances up and locks eyes with Astro, still lingering on the edge of the group with the plates in his hands, and waves him over. Astro quickly deposits the dishes on the table and makes his way over to his dad — who, to his intense surprise, puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close in a kind of side-hug.

Astro thinks about this time last year — waking up on his own in the junkyard, standing in the arena under the blinding sun as the Robot Games raged on and on, realizing he had nothing left to live for, realizing the whole world would be better and happier if he wasn't in it anymore, dying on a cold metal table with his father's grief-stricken apologies still ringing in his ears — and he realizes, with a funny kind of jolt in the pit of his stomach, that his life really could not be any more different now: he's alive, making a tangible positive difference in the city, surrounded by people who love him just as much as he loves them, and he's so happy he feels like he must be overflowing with it.

(He's not alone anymore.)

"I'm sorry about all this," his dad murmurs, pulling him suddenly out of his thoughts. "I know this has gotten off to a… rough start."

Astro thinks about this time last year, and shrugs it off, his mind finally calm for the first time in a week. "That's okay. The best things usually do."

#astro boy #astro boy 2009 #tetsuwan atom #mighty atom #astroboyfanweek2024 #astro boy fanfiction #astro boy fanfic #astro boy fic #astro boy 2009 fanfiction #astro boy 2009 fanfic #astro boy 2009 fic

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youmightfindyourself · 2 years ago

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About five years ago, for seven dollars, I bought an old citrus juicer at a thrift shop. It was one of those vintage small appliances which seem built to survive gas explosions and hammer attacks. When I turned on the motor with a metal toggle switch, a drive shaft spun a heavy ceramic knob that gouged out the hearts of lemon and orange halves, leaving not a scrap of pulp uncrushed. The thing worked beautifully, almost like new, so I looked up its serial number on the internet to see when the unit was manufactured, guessing it might be almost 40 years old.

Wrong. It dated to the 1940s. It was 70, the stubborn monster, still giving satisfaction with every use.

I can’t say the same about my coffee grinders. I use the plural because I’ve owned a lot of them, all bought in their original packaging and dead within a year. They’re good ones, supposedly, with burrs not blades, but they stop performing before long, ending their long journeys from overseas factories in unmarked graves in my local Montana landfill.

I have a whole ghost kitchen in this landfill, and soon I will need to reserve a bigger plot. For the nifty under-the-counter fridge that has stopped getting cold after three years and no one in the area can fix. For the cool, bagless vacuum cleaner that clogs and chokes when I run it over a rug. For the set of glass measuring cups whose numbers and hash marks are swiftly fading and becoming illegible, much like those on the dials of the washer my wife bought just three years ago. For the remains of the Pyrex casserole that shattered when I removed it from the oven, strewing the floor with blade-like shards, some so tiny I probably won’t find them for another couple of months, and only when they lodge in my bare feet.

Should I go on? I think I will. It’s important to get to the essayistic part, where I ask what it means when the objects in our lives demoralize us in a blizzard of malfunctions that seem to be hastening by the month. But it’s also important—to me, emotionally—to bury the reader in details of the unceasing material disappointments I’ve faced. Disappointments of the sort we will all be facing en masse in a few days. Merry Christmas!

Like the cute yellow mittens my wife picked up at Target which unraveled the second time she wore them. Or the new suitcase which won’t stand upright when it’s full. The laptop computers that have turned to bricks within months of their warranties expiring. And the hybrid sedan with 50,000 miles on it that also turned into a brick while going eighty down the freeway, losing its power steering, its power brakes, its power everything. I survived, by some miracle, issued legal threats, and the car’s manufacturer repaired it, free. Then it bricked again a few weeks later.

It’s the little things too, of course, because they’re constant. The staples that won’t pierce five stacked sheets of paper. The matches that sizzle and smoke but won’t catch fire. The grocery bags split by the corners of the milk cartons whose inadequate seals leak drops. The strangely short power cords on electronics. The two or three new pens I use each week that, because no ink comes out of them (at least not continuously, in lines) aren’t really pens at all, in fact, but tributes to pens. Potemkin pens, mere props.

Baffled by how to measure this decline in the quality of common wares—a decline whose significance I promise to cover once I’ve further gratified my rage—I opened the matter to my Twitter audience and quickly garnered more than 2,000 replies, by far the longest thread I’ve ever triggered. The complaints were specific and formed patterns. One was a loathing for newer washers and dryers because they don’t wash or dry well, and then they break. The clothes that go inside them were disliked, too. (A former top executive of Levi’s chimed in to confirm that jeans aren’t what they used to be.)

My favorite replies were the picky ones. One person noted that the “juice content” of juice is going down. Another observed that the “foaming liquid hand soap” which suddenly is dominating store shelves is really just normal liquid soap, diluted.

Many blamed these problems on the government. They believed it had crippled certain products (major home appliances, especially) with environmental regulations, causing them to function poorly and turn rapidly to landfill fodder—an ecological net loss, perhaps. Some folks blamed our trade agreements with China and the evils of capitalism itself. Weak-link computer chips in items that don’t require them also came in for abuse. One highly philosophical reply spoke of a sinister general trend toward the degradation of everything human. “There’s a war on value that’s going that’s comprised of three parts: war on quality, war on money, war on life.” Lofty rhetoric, but I understood. When my suddenly de-electrified hybrid car became a hurtling giant stone inside which my wife and I were helplessly strapped—all for the crime of trying to save fuel and, ultimately, earth—it was hard not to feel tricked.

Only a couple of my correspondents challenged my premise—and the flood of testimony—that stuff is getting crappier, and acutely so. They made an economic argument. They claimed things are worse because we want them cheaper, but if price is adjusted for inflation, they’re of the same quality as always. These rant-killing sophisticates annoyed me. Our new washing machine with the faded dials and the vanishing enamel on its corners (I forgot to mention that defect) is the costliest model we’ve ever purchased. As for the much of the cheap stuff—those Target mittens, say—they aren’t merely inexpensive, they’re valueless. In fact, they’re of negative value when one considers the waste of materials involved, and the wasted energy of driving to buy them, then driving to return them later—a second trip that, in this case and many others, wasn’t worth making. Instead, we took the loss. And the world took the loss. A small one, but they add up.

In England in the 19th century there arose certain thinkers—John Ruskin, William Morris—who believed that the quality of material objects reflects and affects the quality of society, even of the spirit. “Have nothing in your home,” wrote Morris, the father of the Arts and Crafts movement, which aimed to elevate the lives of the working and middle classes, “that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” This would be a tall order nowadays.

Recently, my wife needed a carrot peeler. She needed one rather quickly. Off to Target. The one she bought (the only one on sale) looked handsome enough, and the brand was one she recognized, but it failed in the useful department, miserably. It wasn’t sharp enough to peel a carrot. Like my pens which aren’t pens because pens put ink on paper, her peeler which didn’t peel was a nullity, a simulacrum, a representation of something, not the thing.

The world is going digital, we’re told, and someday there will even be digital real estate inhabited by people in digital clothes drinking digital orange juice extracted with digital juicers. People will play at the lives they once took seriously, lives that had once had heft and weight, and the juice content of juice will fall to zero. I suspect my old physical squeezer will still be working then, but the rest of my kitchen gear won’t. Not much of it. I might not last, either. I fear I won’t. The psychic toll of goods that don’t endure is that one loses faith the future will even come, and then one loses interest in it coming, for little that we own or use or cherish seems likely to be there with us to meet it.

One wonders whose obsolescence is being planned—our products’, our belongings’, or our own?

#wall of text #jawnz #human condition

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silyabeeodess · 2 years ago

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FusionFall Headcanons: Scrap Scrappers

While some fusion monsters stationed at the junkyard are there to keep anyone among Earth’s forces from saving Megas, others are there to try to take Megas out of commission for good. The Scrap Scrappers are among these monsters, observing a certain level of intelligence as they set of Gooby Traps around the robot as seen in the mission “Xtra Large Fusion (Part 1 of 2).” Anyone stationed at Goat’s Junkyard will find a good chunk of their time spent mowing down these behemoths.

As seen in concept art, some of the various items incorporated into the Scrap Scrappers bodies include vacuum cleaners, small excavators, and motorcycle and other vehicle parts. However, as their description mentions that they’re made of “a little bit of everything,” it’s possible for them to be made up from a variety of junk rather than any specific set of materials, allowing them to greatly vary in body shape and size. There are really only two commonalities between them: A large, humanoid form--typically armored in metal--and a screen for a head.

Some of their behaviors can match that of another humanoid fusion monster, the Gravel Golem, in that both of them use camouflage in order to sneak attack their enemies. Lying still among the scrapheaps of the junkyard, it’s unlikely that you’d notice them without keeping a constant eye out for them. Before you know it, they can rise up from the rubble and strike from behind. Be vigilant or you can easily get ambushed.

The easiest way to spot them is by looking out for their screen faces, since the mass of fusion matter glowing behind the glass is the hardest for them to hide. Their faces are also the weakest place on their bodies, so by locating them first, you might be able to take out a Scrap Scrapper before it can do the same to you.

Beyond that, gauging other potential strengths and weaknesses can be difficult. Since they are made up of so many different objects of varying condition, what may work against one of these particular monsters may not for another of the same species. Fusion fighters must pay special attention to them as a result, quickly and carefully observing a Scrap Scrapper before engaging. If one has already spotted you and is on the attack, keep some distance in order to buy time as you look for chinks in their armor--things like torn plating, exposed cords, or loose parts. The good news is that, since they are scrap monsters, a lot of them won’t have the most stable bodies. Once you do find their weak points, tearing them apart can be much easier.

The Junkyard’s state as an infection zone makes it almost impossible to prevent the creation of the Scrap Scrappers and other similar fusion monsters, since cleaning and removing all of the infected material would be a monumental challenge to say the least. There, the fusion monsters can recreate themselves within a short time since so much material is readily available to them. At most, trying to spread out the junk across the area and damage it as much as possible, such as through explosives, is the most anyone can do just to slow them down.

#fusionfall #fusion monsters #headcanons #video games #scrap scrappers

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insurgoservices · 21 days ago

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Builders Cleaning Services

Builders cleaning is a specialised service that cleans new and renovated properties after construction or renovation work. It is an intensive clean that ensures the property is ready for occupancy or use.

The first stage of a builders clean involves cleaning up general site debris, packaging materials and building rubbish. This is disposed of properly by fully trained and certified cleaners.

Preparing the Space for Occupancy or Handover

Builders cleaning services are specialised end-of-construction cleans that provide comprehensive cleaning to prepare the property for occupancy or handover. They include the removal of construction waste like scraps of wood, nails, packaging materials and discarded equipment. They also remove dirt, dust and debris from surfaces including walls, floors and ceilings.

Performing this extensive Builders cleaning services is important as it ensures that the space is ready for occupation by new homeowners or tenants. Construction and renovation work often results in a lot of mess that is difficult to eliminate using regular cleaning methods. This messy build-up can cause health risks for future occupants.

The best builders cleaners service providers utilise a meticulous process to clean the entire site, restoring it to an immaculate finished state. This includes removing all construction residues and disposing of them in accordance with environmental regulations. They also perform a thorough vacuuming and sweeping of the exterior to remove all dirt, leaves and debris.

Preventing Deterioration

When dust and other debris is allowed to remain on surfaces, it can interfere with the appearance and quality of those surfaces over time. By removing it promptly, Builders cleaning services help prevent this deterioration and protect the longevity of building materials and surfaces.

Cleaners typically use a phased cleaning approach that begins with a rough clean to remove large debris. This is followed by a detailed clean that addresses fine dust and other residues. Finally, a final polish can leave surfaces looking immaculate.

Builders cleaning is a challenging task that requires specialised tools, knowledge and experience to achieve impeccable results. It’s important to have effective communication and collaboration among the cleaning team, construction management, and other stakeholders. This helps reduce delays and avoid miscommunications that can lead to costly mistakes. It’s also critical to choose cleaning agents that are safe for the specific materials and surfaces being cleaned. This ensures the safety of all workers and provides the best possible results.

Creating a Safer Environment

Construction sites are messy places and if not dealt with promptly, can become health hazards for both workers and those in the vicinity. Builders cleaning services help to ensure that the space is free of any lingering debris, dust, or potential risks and hazards, making it safe for all those who enter it.

Professional cleaners who specialize in builders clean will make sure that all surfaces are cleaned thoroughly to remove any leftover drywall, scrap metal, nails, packaging materials and other debris from the site. This process is vital to the success of any project as it helps to ensure that all areas are ready for a quality finish and the safety of those who will be using the building once it is completed.

A thorough builders clean will also include the cleaning of all windows, both inside and out. These can get covered in splattered paint, plaster dust and other debris during the build, so it is important that they are cleaned before the final defects period so that the client can move into a clean environment.

Creating a Better Reputation

Providing quality Window cleaning services that leave your clients with a spotless space to move into is an excellent way to build your reputation. This is especially true if you have a dedicated email system that allows you to send out emails with premade templates and targeted audiences.

It’s also a good idea to create service pages on your website that talk about the types of cleaning you offer, your experience in the industry, and what sets you apart from the competition. You can also build trust by featuring client reviews and testimonials on your site. Doing all of these things will help you to establish a strong reputation in your local area and beyond. This will make it easier to grow your business and attract new clients. In the end, it’s all about creating a better reputation so that you can continue to provide exceptional cleaning services.

#Builders cleaning services

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jsbminc01 · 1 month ago

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Transforming Your Space: The Essential Guide to Post Construction Cleaning Services

In the realm of construction, the chaos that ensues from a newly built or renovated space is often as grand as the structure itself. From dust particles floating aimlessly in the air to debris littering every corner, the aftermath of construction can be overwhelming. Yet, the final touch to any construction project lies not in the architectural design but in the cleanliness of the space. This is where post construction cleaning services come into play, transforming the once chaotic environment into a pristine and welcoming area. In this article, we will delve into the essential aspects of post construction cleaning, illustrating why it is a crucial step in the construction process.

The Importance of Post Construction Cleaning Services

The significance of post construction cleaning services cannot be overstated. After the completion of a construction project, it is common to find various remnants of work scattered throughout the premises. These remnants may include dust, nails, paint splatters, and other construction debris that can pose safety hazards. Moreover, a dirty space can deter potential clients, customers, or residents from appreciating the beauty and functionality of the newly built structure.

Effective post construction cleaning services ensure that every inch of the space is meticulously cleaned, eliminating all traces of construction. This not only enhances the aesthetic appeal of the property but also protects the health and well-being of its occupants. For instance, inhaling dust particles can lead to respiratory issues, while sharp debris can cause injuries. By hiring professional cleaning services, property owners can rest assured that their new space will be safe and ready for use.

The Process of Post Construction Cleaning

Understanding the process involved in post construction cleaning services can help property owners appreciate the depth of work required to achieve a spotless environment. The cleaning process can be divided into several stages, each aimed at addressing specific areas of concern.

Initial Assessment

Before the actual cleaning begins, a thorough assessment of the site is conducted. This initial evaluation is crucial as it allows cleaning professionals to identify the extent of the mess and determine the appropriate cleaning methods and materials required. This personalized approach ensures that every unique element of the construction debris is accounted for, leading to a more effective cleaning strategy.

Debris Removal

The first tangible step in the cleaning process typically involves the removal of large debris. This includes picking up construction materials such as wood scraps, metal shavings, and any other residual items left behind by the construction crew. This stage is essential not only for safety but also for preparing the area for more detailed cleaning tasks. Once the large debris is cleared, the space begins to look more organized and ready for the subsequent cleaning phases.

Dust and Surface Cleaning

After the initial debris removal, the focus shifts to dusting and cleaning surfaces. Construction dust can settle on every imaginable surface, from floors to ceilings, and even into crevices that are often overlooked. Professional cleaners use specialized tools and equipment to thoroughly dust and wipe down all surfaces, ensuring that no corner is left untouched. This step is vital in eliminating allergens and ensuring a healthy breathing environment for future occupants.

Floor Care

Post construction cleaning services pay special attention to the floors, which often bear the brunt of construction activities. Depending on the type of flooring—be it hardwood, tile, or carpet—different cleaning methods are employed. For hardwood floors, gentle cleaning solutions are used to avoid damage, while tiles may require scrubbing to remove grout and adhesive residues. In the case of carpets, thorough vacuuming and steam cleaning may be necessary to lift any dirt and stains left behind.

Final Touches

The final phases of post construction cleaning services involve detailing and polishing the space. This includes cleaning windows, light fixtures, and other finishing touches that enhance the overall appearance of the property. Attention to detail is what sets professional cleaning services apart, ensuring that every aspect of the environment is immaculate. The outcome is a beautifully transformed space that reflects the hard work and dedication of the construction team while providing a safe and inviting atmosphere for its future users.

Benefits of Hiring Professional Post Construction Cleaning Services

While it may be tempting for property owners to undertake post construction cleaning themselves, hiring professional services offers numerous advantages.

Expertise and Efficiency

Professional cleaning teams possess the expertise and experience necessary to handle the complexities of post construction cleaning. They are equipped with the right tools, techniques, and knowledge to execute the cleaning process efficiently. This not only saves time but also ensures that the job is done right the first time. The efficiency of professionals allows property owners to focus on other essential aspects of their project, such as interior design or moving in.

Safety Considerations

Cleaning a post construction site can be hazardous. Sharp objects, hazardous materials, and heavy debris can pose significant risks to untrained individuals. Professional cleaners are trained to navigate these hazards safely, utilizing personal protective equipment (PPE) and following safety protocols to minimize risks. This commitment to safety means that property owners can rest easy knowing that their space is being cleaned by experts who prioritize well-being.

Comprehensive Cleaning Solutions

Post construction cleaning services offer comprehensive solutions that encompass every aspect of the cleaning process. From initial debris removal to final touches, no stone is left unturned. This holistic approach ensures that the space not only looks good but is also free from harmful contaminants. Additionally, many cleaning companies offer customizable services, allowing property owners to select specific cleaning tasks based on their unique needs.

Time and Cost Efficiency

While there may be an upfront cost associated with hiring professional cleaning services, the time and energy saved often outweigh these costs. Property owners can avoid the labor-intensive process of cleaning themselves and instead channel their efforts into other important tasks. Furthermore, professional cleaning can prevent potential damages that may arise from improper cleaning techniques, ultimately saving money in the long run.

Choosing the Right Post Construction Cleaning Service

When selecting a post construction cleaning service, property owners should consider several factors to ensure they are making the right choice.

Reputation and Reviews

Researching the reputation of cleaning services is crucial. Online reviews and testimonials can provide insights into the experiences of previous clients. A company with a strong track record of satisfied customers is likely to provide quality service.

Experience and Expertise

Inquire about the experience of the cleaning team. Companies that specialize in post construction cleaning will have the necessary skills and knowledge to handle the unique challenges associated with such projects.

Insurance and Certifications

Ensure that the cleaning service is insured and certified. This not only protects the property owner from potential liabilities but also indicates that the company adheres to industry standards and regulations.

Customizable Services

Look for a cleaning service that offers customizable packages. Every construction project is different, and having the flexibility to choose specific cleaning tasks ensures that the service meets the unique needs of the property.

Conclusion

In the journey of transforming a space, post construction cleaning services stand as a pivotal element that should not be overlooked. The labor and effort invested in construction deserve to be showcased in a clean and inviting environment. By understanding the importance of these services and the processes involved, property owners can make informed decisions that lead to a successful transition from construction chaos to a beautifully finished space. The benefits of hiring professional cleaners extend beyond mere aesthetics, encompassing safety, efficiency, and peace of mind. Ultimately, investing in post construction cleaning is an investment in the future enjoyment and functionality of the property, ensuring that it reflects the quality and craftsmanship that went into its creation.

#post construction cleaning services

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betwwencleaning · 2 months ago

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The Comprehensive Guide to Post Construction Cleaning: Essential Steps and Best Practices

Post construction cleaning is a crucial phase in the building process that ensures a newly constructed or renovated space is ready for occupancy. This specialized cleaning service addresses the unique challenges presented by construction debris, dust, and residue. This guide covers the key aspects of post construction cleaning, including its importance, detailed steps, and best practices to ensure a thorough and effective clean.

Why Post Construction Cleaning is Essential

1. Removes Construction Debris

Post construction cleaning is essential for removing debris left behind after the construction or renovation process. This debris can include scraps of materials, dust, and other waste that can be hazardous or unsightly. Removing this debris is necessary to prepare the space for use and ensure a safe environment.

2. Improves Air Quality

Construction activities generate significant dust and airborne particles that can affect indoor air quality. Post construction cleaning helps to eliminate these dust particles and other contaminants, improving the air quality in the newly completed space. This is crucial for the health and comfort of occupants.

3. Enhances Aesthetic Appeal

A thorough post construction cleaning enhances the aesthetic appeal of the space. Dust, smudges, and fingerprints on surfaces can detract from the overall look of the construction or renovation. Cleaning these areas ensures that the space looks polished and ready for its intended use.

4. Ensures Compliance with Health and Safety Standards

Compliance with health and safety standards is a key reason for post construction cleaning. Construction sites can leave behind hazardous materials and substances that must be cleaned up to ensure the space is safe for occupancy. This includes removing any leftover chemicals, paint splatters, and other potentially harmful substances.

5. Prepares the Space for Occupancy

Post construction cleaning is the final step before a space is occupied or used. It prepares the area for its intended purpose, whether it’s a residential home, commercial building, or office space. A thorough clean ensures that the space is welcoming and functional for its new occupants.

Steps for Effective Post Construction Cleaning

1. Conduct a Preliminary Inspection

Before starting the post construction cleaning process, conduct a preliminary inspection of the space. Identify areas that require special attention, such as heavily soiled surfaces or hazardous debris. This inspection helps in planning the cleaning process and prioritizing tasks.

2. Remove Large Debris and Trash

Begin by removing large debris and trash from the construction site. This includes pieces of wood, metal, drywall, and other materials left over from construction. Properly dispose of these items to clear the area and make way for more detailed cleaning tasks.

3. Dust All Surfaces

Dust accumulation is a common issue after construction. Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter or a microfiber cloth to dust all surfaces, including walls, ceilings, and baseboards. Pay special attention to corners, light fixtures, and vents where dust often accumulates.

4. Clean Windows and Glass

Construction can leave windows and glass surfaces covered in smudges, stickers, and dust. Use a glass cleaner and a squeegee to thoroughly clean all windows and glass surfaces. Ensure that both the interior and exterior of windows are cleaned for a streak-free finish.

5. Wipe Down Surfaces

Wipe down all surfaces, including countertops, cabinets, and appliances. Use appropriate cleaning solutions for different materials, such as a mild cleaner for wood and a degreaser for kitchen surfaces. Remove any construction residue or marks left on these surfaces.

6. Clean Floors

Post construction cleaning of floors involves removing dust, dirt, and stains. For hard floors, sweep or vacuum the area before mopping with a suitable floor cleaner. For carpets, use a vacuum cleaner to remove dust and debris. Depending on the level of soiling, a professional carpet cleaner may be necessary.

7. Sanitize Restrooms

Restrooms require special attention during post construction cleaning. Clean and sanitize all surfaces, including sinks, toilets, and showers. Use disinfectants to ensure that these areas are hygienic and ready for use.

8. Remove Paint and Adhesive Residue

If paint or adhesive residue is present, use appropriate solvents or scrapers to remove it. Be cautious to avoid damaging surfaces while removing these substances. Ensure that all residues are thoroughly cleaned to leave the space looking pristine.

9. Final Touches

Perform a final inspection and touch up any areas that need additional cleaning. This may include re-cleaning spots, adjusting any misaligned fixtures, or addressing any remaining dust. Ensure that the space is fully cleaned and ready for its intended use.

Best Practices for Post Construction Cleaning

1. Use the Right Equipment and Cleaning Products

Using the right equipment and cleaning products is essential for effective post construction cleaning. Invest in high-quality vacuums, mops, and cleaning solutions that are suitable for the types of surfaces and materials in the space. This ensures a more thorough and efficient clean.

2. Follow Safety Protocols

Adhere to safety protocols when performing post construction cleaning. Wear protective gear, such as gloves, masks, and safety goggles, to safeguard yourself from dust and hazardous materials. Ensure proper ventilation in the space to reduce exposure to cleaning chemicals and dust.

3. Consider Professional Services

For large or complex construction projects, consider hiring professional cleaning services. Professionals have the expertise, equipment, and cleaning solutions to handle the demands of post construction cleaning effectively. They can ensure a thorough clean and address any specific issues that may arise.

4. Schedule Cleaning After Construction is Complete

Timing is important for post construction cleaning. Schedule the cleaning after construction work is complete and all materials and equipment have been removed. This ensures that the space is fully ready for a thorough clean without the risk of additional debris or disturbances.

5. Communicate with the Construction Team

Maintain communication with the construction team to understand any specific cleaning needs or concerns. They can provide insights into areas that may require special attention or materials that need to be handled with care.

6. Document the Cleaning Process

Document the post construction cleaning process by taking before and after photos. This helps to track the progress of the cleaning and provides evidence of the thoroughness of the work. Documentation can be useful for verifying the quality of the cleaning and for any future reference.

Conclusion

Post construction cleaning is a vital step in preparing a newly constructed or renovated space for use. By understanding its importance and following the detailed steps and best practices outlined in this guide, you can ensure a thorough and effective clean. Whether you choose to handle the cleaning yourself or hire professionals, proper post construction cleaning will help to remove debris, improve air quality, enhance aesthetic appeal, and ensure compliance with health and safety standards. A well-cleaned space not only looks better but also provides a safer and more comfortable environment for its occupants.

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safewash-tech · 11 months ago

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Benefits of Power Washers in Brooklyn, NYC, Stamford, Danbury, Suffolk, and Medford

Deep cleaning becomes essential for homeowners and residents when too much dirt, dust, and debris accumulate on the premises. The area along the side of the driveway may be overgrown with weeds and littered with scraps of paper and other debris. Turning the vacuum cleaner on will not be sufficient. The garage may sport stubborn grease marks and deep stains that cannot be scrubbed out. It may be a good idea to invest in one of the quality power washers in Brooklyn, NYC, Stamford, Danbury, Suffolk, and Medford that comes with an excellent reputation and a proven track record of efficacy.

Sure, the price may be slightly higher than other conventional washing equipment. The expense does not seem to factor in when the purpose is served perfectly. Knowing that a power washer directs jets of scalding hot water to address the dirt on surfaces, equipment, vehicles, and other items is important. A heating element is included within the device so that the user does not have to heat water separately.

It is fantastic to learn that power washers are available from multiple companies, with the Karcher brand being one of the most popular ones. It is also helpful to inquire about the associated pluses before spending money on a power washer. Some of the benefits that the user is sure to obtain include the following:-

· No Damage- turning the hose of the washer on the wildly growing moss, weeds, and accumulated dirt can enable the homeowner to save damage to the structure underneath. The inner structure is exposed to the elements, leading to corrosion of the metal below. The concrete may crumble eventually while the vermin and pests are free to enter. Simply washing away the moss, fungi, algae, and other tiny contaminants can keep the structure intact and fit for living for many more decades.

· Less Time Consuming- Scrubbing the stains from the garage, driveway, and external walls is a painstaking task that requires man-hours and tons of energy. Using hot water for the jet stream can help remove even the grease marks and deeply entrenched debris from the surface as well as the nook & crannies. The time required will depend on several factors, including the number of individuals engaged in the task and the area to be cleaned. Thankfully, no power washing task takes more than a couple of hours when the area is huge.

· Safety- A clean surrounding with the home's exterior being meticulously clean will not only gladden the eye but also keep the health-affecting factors away. The pollutants and airborne pathogens are eliminated for good, and the residents are no longer prone to allergies and respiratory diseases.

Using a commercial power washer in Brookfield, Brooklyn, Nassau, Westchester, and Stamford is advisable to clean large, commercial areas and industrial spaces. Using a residential washer would not be enough to tackle the dirt and debris. The heavy-duty power washer with the right cleaning products can keep such areas clean and gleaming.

#power washers in Brookyln #NYC #Stamford #Danbury #Suffolk #and Medford #commercial power washer in Brookfield #Brooklyn #Nassau #Westchester #and Stamford

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greenterracleaning · 1 year ago

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Cleaning Process of New Constructions Cleaning

BOOK US HERE

Debris Removal: This is the initial stage where large and visible pieces of debris from construction are removed. The clutter usually includes pieces of lumber, drywall, metal scraps, and packaging materials. The goal here is to clear the house of any significant obstructions for intensive cleaning.

High Dusting: Dust settles everywhere during construction so dusting is important to clean all the out-of-reach areas like light fixtures, vents, and high shelves. Dust and clean all walls and ceilings with a damp mop or cloth. Specialized cleaners will clean tiles in wet areas such as the kitchen or bathroom. Clean out the dust and debris trapped in the vent of the HVAC system.

Surface Cleaning: Clean all surfaces from countertops, cabinets, windows, appliances, walls, and floors. Wipe down and eliminate dust particles from all surfaces like countertops, cabinets, fixtures, windows, and doors. This cleaning will often include the use of appropriate cleaning agents.

Deep cleaning: This step includes scrubbing bathrooms, kitchen, floors, etc., to ensure the home is clean. Depending on the type of flooring installed, methods can vary. Carpeted areas need thorough vacuuming and steam cleaning, and hard surface floors (like wood or tiles) may need mopping, sweeping, and special cleaning depending on the material.

Final Touches: Polish mirrors, clean glasses, and ensure that every detail of the house is squeaky clean. The house should smell fresh, and be ready for living where all final touch-ups and polishing are done. This could be things like wiping down mirrors and glass for smudges, polishing fixtures, double-checking hard-to-reach spots, etc.

While some home owners may choose to tackle this task themselves, it can be rather hard, because of the level of detail and effort required. Professional cleaning companies for in post-construction cleanup often have the necessary tools, experienced staff, and an understanding of local rules regarding construction waste disposal, making them an excellent choice for the job.

Move into a new and recently built home. New construction house cleaning ensures your clean new house is sparkling and completely free of construction debris and dust. Whether you decide to roll up your sleeves and handle it personally or hire the professionals is up to you, however, one thing remains a fact — it is very important to hire a full new construction house cleaning.

If you need professional assistance with eco-friendly house cleaning in San Francisco, book our services in Sparkling Clean Pro.

#cleaning #cleaning tips #eco-friendly #eco-friendly cleaning #green cleaning #cleaning services #house cleaning #house cleaning services #san francisco #housekeeper

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the-firebird69 · 1 year ago

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Gold dust woman and Tommy F was blaming us and he's going up there with Black ships collecting scrap and dust and lots of it Gold dust for instance and probably building those balls to scan and computers and blaming everybody else and putting them in Saturn to scan it. From the inside out and to run armies of course his plan and people might not like it when they figure out what it really is or his clones...

Zues Hera

It's a huge reason why it's a problem and he's a moron and there are other computers up there already

Hera

And it says his forces are up there doing things so we're going to check into this it's the Black ships collecting the dust which is all this titanium and metal and iron and gold and they have a technique and it's like a big huge vacuum cleaner and we saw them doing it a little but they're the ones building all these balls that went to Saturn that's proof we needed and a connection

Mac

It's good work and it's good work peace and together

Olympus

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kc-readme · 1 year ago

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Touch Wood

When I was 10, Brother and I broke the large, round mirror hanging in our living room. For years, it had been held up by the same tiny nails and hooks we used for our family picture frames, which were far smaller and lighter compared to that hefty slab of glass. I had grown up trying not to make eye contact with my reflection, afraid that one wrong look could knock the huge thing down, but the Feng Shui master had insisted on its lofty placement when we moved in. He might have changed his mind, had he known that someday, Brother would be annoying me with some stupid joke; that I’d shove him just hard enough to regret it; that when his back hit the wall, it would send the mirror crashing down on our heads.

Mother heard it shatter over the sizzle of dinner in her frying pan, abandoning the kitchen and running to investigate. Once she realised it hadn’t been our blue and white porcelain wealth vase, or our lucky bamboo in its ceramic pot, she froze in the doorway with such abject terror in her eyes, you’d think she had been looking right at a ghost. A dozen pie-slice shards and hundreds of odd fragments, like an assortment of tiny mirrors, were spread out on the ground, reflecting Brother’s bloody left eye a thousand times over. Mother vanished back into the kitchen and returned quickly, dropping to her knees amidst the web of glass. She was armed with both of our salt shakers, and, grabbing my wrists, emptied one in my grasp. Our trembling fingers sent stray grains flying, and though some found their way into my wounds, I could not manage to cry. I could only stare in horrified fascination as Brother’s eye continued its steady crimson drip on his hands, where Mother was exhausting the other salt shaker as if she could not see the granules dissolving in his blood.

“Throw over your shoulder,” she instructed.

We thought she was joking, even as the red seeped into the parquet and she shoved the mass of glittering scrap aside with her bare hands to knock, frantically, on the stained wooden slats.

Tok tok tok, tok tok tok.

We dutifully tossed our handfuls of salt, adding to what would undoubtedly be hours of cleanup. I tried to stand, knees wobbly from witnessing Brother’s blood loss and still oozing some of my own, and my teetering frame distracted Mother from rapping her knuckles raw against the floor. She scooped me into her arms, laying me down on the sofa before tending to Brother. The last thing I remember before passing out was trying to keep my gashed legs from staining the beige cushions, and though I woke up bandaged in bed with a growling stomach, whispers of Mother scrubbing her burnt pan in the kitchen lulled me back to sleep.

The next morning, Mother gathered all the mirrors in our house, even the ones that were adhered to our bathroom tiles with industrial-strength glue, loaded them into her car along with the broom she’d used to clean the mess, and drove to The Salvation Army. While she was gone, Brother and I delicately examined the one ornate hand mirror she had left behind, facedown on her rosewood dressing table. It was a gift from Father before he had passed on, and we ran our bandaged fingertips reverently over the elaborate, metal-cast phoenix design. Making sure to hold it safely above the lacquered surface, we turned it over for Brother to look at the gauze secured across his eye.

“You look cool, like a pirate,” I tried to assure him.

“Yarr,” he joked, nudging my shoulder delicately.

Every day for the next 7 years was a ritual. Our knuckles turned calloused from knocking so frequently on every piece of wooden furniture we owned, and we were no longer allowed to sweep the floor. Thankfully, superstition hadn’t said anything about vacuum cleaners, because at the rate Mother was throwing salt over her shoulder, we would be buried and preserved in our own home before the broken mirror could curse us in any way. The number of lucky bamboos in the house doubled, then tripled, and items from every religious denomination began to accumulate in our rooms. Crucifixes, horseshoes and dreamcatchers hung above us as we slept, though Brother and I still had nightmares that we kept secret from Mother, lest she made us sprinkle holy water over our sheets for the third time in a single day. We would sneak into her bedroom sometimes, stepping cautiously over the lines of salt across the doorway and around her bed to her dresser, where the hand mirror still sat. Our tiny reflections watched us preen as we grew older; we both began to style our hair, and I started to wear makeup.

Last week was the final week of our mirror curse, and we had hoped, though never truly believed, that Mother would ever let go of her evil-thwarting habits, even if nothing else unfortunate had occurred all these years by correlation. We knew she would owe it to the lucky pennies, or the rabbits’ feet, or Brother’s goldfish.

A strong industrial fan oscillated towards me and whipped my long hair into my face, jolting me back to where I stood before Mother’s open casket. She looked so different in death, despite the usual amulets and trinkets still wound tight in her braided hair, which the embalmer found impossible to remove without shaving it all off. They had called to ask about giving her a wig, but we’d be damned if Mother wasn’t cremated with her lucky charms. Brother put his arm around my shoulders as we stared at her pretty face, all 7 years worth of wrinkles gone from her forehead and making her look like she did the morning of the incident. We laid her hand mirror beside her head, its empty frame missing the piece of glass that once sat in its round indent. It had fallen out last friday, when she’d used it to powder her face, and she had a stroke when it hit the ground and split into three separate pieces. Brother and I dashed in to see her struggling for the bowl of salt on her shelf. We quickly heaped some into her hands, as well as our own, and tossing it over our shoulders together was second nature. I ran to phone the ambulance while Brother prayed by her side.

“Which heaven do you think she’ll go to; the Christian or Buddhist one? Maybe Islamic,” I mused lightly as I laid her diverse collection of prayer beads in the casket.

“I don’t know,” Brother turned to look at me, and a spot of light streaked across his glass eye when he smiled, “But there had better not be mirrors in any of them.”

#short story #prose #singapore

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standardtitaniumu · 2 years ago

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Titanium's Superhero Qualities of Toughness, Resistance, and Sturdiness

Titanium is most definitely a superhero of a metal. It is highly resistant to deterioration. It is lighter than steel, much heavier than aluminum, and stronger than both of those steels. While it is more costly to purchase at first, titanium is cheaper over the long run. This is since there is no solution, maintenance, or repair services needed. What causes titanium to be so ... heroic?

Discovered in 1793 by German chemist M.H. Klaproth, titanium was named after the Titans in Greek mythology given that they are the manifestation of all-natural strength. The aspect was not isolated until 1910. Titanium is the nine most bountiful aspect on earth as it makes up 25% of the planet's crust. It takes place in nature just in chemical mixes of oxygen and also iron.

Titanium is has high laziness. This permits it to have corrosion resistance to many minerals as well as chlorides. Titanium is really valuable in the medical area due to its non-toxicity. It is likewise biologically suitable human bone as well as tissue. Titanium is commonly found in clinical implantation products as well as prosthetics.

Titanium Tube

Titanium is created first with Australian coastline sand. The sand is formed into titanium-containing rutile-ore and also chlorinated into a sponge. Chlorine and coke are incorporated with rutile to produce titanium tetrachloride.

Tetrachloride is reacted to magnesium in a shut system, making the results sponge as well as magnesium chloride. The magnesium and mag chloride can be eliminated utilizing the Vacuum cleaner Distillation Refine to be recycled once more.

The sponge is melted with scrap and alloying aspects. This can include vanadium, zirconium, tin, light weight aluminum, as well as molybdenum. This is carried out in a Vacuum cleaner Arc Reduction heating system to create VAR ingots. It can likewise be performed in an Electron Beam Cold Fireplace heater to produce remote electrodes. They can be VAR melted to fulfill aerospace needs, or to direct pieces.

VAR ingots are cylindrical forms considering as much as 17,500 pounds. The ingots are built right into pieces, or rectangle-shaped forms. They can also be built right into billets, or bar forms. Ingots can be used for investment casting supply too.

More processing or rolling of created or cast slab or billet lead to mill items. These consist of titanium plates, bars, rods, and also titanium cord forms. Manufacturing can additionally develop sheets of titanium that can be cut into strips. These strips are after that created right into tubes or pipelines.

There are many different grades of titanium to be made use of for various objectives. Grade 1 is among the four readily pure titanium grades, in addition to qualities 3 with 4. Quality 1 is soft and also the most pliable. It has excellent formability, toughness, and high corrosion resistance. Grade 1 is readily available in titanium plate and also tubes.

Grade 2 is the workhorse as a result of its different usability and also availability. It is similar to quality 1 but stronger. Quality 2 has excellent weldability, toughness, ductility, and also formability. Quality 2 is readily available in bar as well as sheet kind.

Titanium Sheet

Grade 3 is the least used, yet is stronger than qualities 1 and also 2. It is much less flexible yet has higher mechanicals. Application of quality 3 is made use of when strength and also major deterioration resistance is needed. Quality 4 is the toughest and also has all the attributes of previous grades. When high toughness is required, quality 4 is used.

One of the most fantastic things regarding titanium is its use in the clinical world. Titanium is used for joint repair. The all-natural residential or commercial properties in titanium, such as being safe and naturally suitable, make it best for body component restoration.

Titanium is genuinely a superhero amongst the different type of metals. Its stamina, resilience, reduced upkeep demands, as well as corrosion resistance make it a preferred and beneficial metal. The development and also qualities of titanium show how numerous applications and also makes use of the steel holds.

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sepublic · 4 years ago

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Disparity between the Knights of Ren and Kylo

But something about the Knights of Ren, in contrast to their leader, is that they seem so much more… scrappy? Dirty, unorganized, but also used and worn-out, and thus genuine? Like they’ve really put themselves out there into the harsh work with rolled-up, tattered sleeves, and you get this sense of them actually being in the fray and on the frontlines.

You’ve of course got their dirt-covered boots and whatnot, but also you have people like Vicrul or Cardo, who use the hides of animals as part of their attire… Ap’lek’s cloak is oiled to shed aside water, he’s clearly someone who works within the elements to take advantage of them as part of his stealth, they’re his dirty unglamorous home. Clearly the Knights of Ren do a lot of work putting together scrap metal, like you see with Ap’lek’s mask, Kuruk having those pieces bent around his helmet to help focus his vision, Cardo’s mask is just a repurposed furnace plate! Ushar’s mask has a straight-up dent in it that he’s never bothered to fix, even when he has access to Albrekh; Likely as a twisted memento of honor and tribute to the victim who inflicted the damage. Trudgen straight-up has part of a Death Trooper’s helmet incorporated into his own mask as well!

Then you’ve got the Night Buzzard, which is dirty and grimy, and has received constant modifications, likely by Kuruk, that cause it to spew noxious gas. Vicrul’s pistol has also been pushed to its limits with alterations, and Cardo is obsessed with modifying and enhancing weapons, keeping them up to date and ready for the next battle; The Knights of Ren have weapons that are a more cold, dull steel and gray, not polished and refined. Their armor and outfits feel much more scratched-out and faded, used and worn in. You get the sense almost that they’re kind of like scavengers themselves, similar to Rey; Making do with what they find, not too focused on aesthetical neatness nor tidy appearance, just getting the point across, salvaging trophies from victories.

And, it fits with their philosophy, the Ren- Which revolves around basically just living in the moment, unapologetically taking and consuming and resorting to nature and instinct… Letting the ‘Shadow’ guide and feed them, like they’re always on the fringe of society, gathering and appreciating what they can and making use of it, having to make the most of their tools, constantly altering and patching themselves up. They don’t have the access to the best resources, not fancy luxuries or anything like that; It’s almost rather working-class, I’d say! It of course matches with their origins as essentially criminals and a cult-ish biker gang, a ragtag group of mercenaries.

Even their original, nameless leader kind of fits this more down-to-earth, cobbled-together aesthetic, with a gray mask that he’s customized with a red symbol, amidst the scratches; Not wearing much save for a tattered cloak and glove, and his pants and boots, and that’s about it! Nothing particularly polished nor clean. He’s dirty, roughed-up, and covered in scars, he has not gone unscathed and he doesn’t need to protect himself from the elements, he wears his damage and past on his (metaphorical) sleeve and possibly even has a cybernetic hand, to go with the Vader parallel that Charles Soule intended!

All of this of course contrasts with Kylo Ren, who… His mask is clearly hi-tech, up-to-date, with a full-on vocoder and mechanical function that causes it to open up and close, possibly somewhat vacuum-sealed as well. The metal is polished and shiny, the mask a smooth, likely painted, matte black. His clothes are tidy and almost prince-like, made of what seems to be more comfortable and fancier cloth and fabrics, a nice deep black that’s clearly taken care of, shiny boots, the works. While the Knights of Ren make do with just their Night Buzzard and weapons they scrounge for, constantly patching up and honing them between battles to keep them almost good-as-new, Kylo Ren has his clean and sleek, modern ships supplied directly from the First Order; He’s got his command shuttle, the TIE Silencer, and at least two TIE Whisper’s.

His vehicles have red, vibrant and glowing lights and paintjobs, and are likely the sleek pinnacle of First Order engineering, with Kuat and rich backers from Canto Bight to contribute to development. Kyle Ron probably has his entire team of engineers to prepare and take care of his ship before him, even before becoming Supreme Leader- Especially when he tells a pair of officers to prepare his TIE Silencer for him, even before he usurps Snoke. He was clearly the golden child throughout his life in a sense, born into a privileged, luxurious family with a lot of power and fame; And then serving Snoke, who himself had all of the inexplicably vast resources of the First Order behind him, invested everything into Kylo Ren’s training and upkeep… Kept him well-fed and taken care of (at least physically).

Yeah, Kylo has trained vigorously, and his own lightsaber is a patchwork job, but that was built back when he was ‘just’ leader of the Knights of Ren, newly anointed, and before he’d started serving in the First Order; And as a major political influence, with a LOT of authority and power behind him, serving as a triumvirate alongside Hux and Phasma, right beneath Snoke himself! You get the sense that he always had something to fall back to, a comfortable safety net- That when all was said and done, he had a retinue of medical droids to patch him up, a team to keep his laundry nice and clean and ‘presentable’. That he always had his parents who were welcoming of him, trying to be patient, always offering him the opportunity to go back home; He had SO much, and yet he really threw it all away for some fantasy, didn’t he?

Kylo Ren really comes across as like… A privileged rich kid, a pampered brat who doesn’t really know what it’s like to work out in the fringes, to have to constantly fight and kill just to survive, to be fed the next day. To not have the luxury of mindlessly destroying the hard work and machinery, the craft of others he’s taken for granted, every time he has a temper tantrum- Leaving people to clean up the mess and replace it good as new. The Knights of Ren couldn’t be so frivolous with THEIR resources, they had to make everything count, reuse and recycle, scavenge from scrap metal, tidy things up at least a little; But they didn’t have the luxury to make themselves sleek and polished, nor access to the most up-to-date technology of an entire military junta.

They had to get their hands dirty and personal, all of the time, they didn’t have the pride and privilege to turn down jobs; They took whatever mercenary work was offered to stay fed and clothed. And yet they remained just as vigilant and dedicated to the Ren as ever, never wavering as far as we can tell; Even when their original leader was slain, they didn’t throw a fit, but just made do with the situation, accepted that this was all they had left, and had Kylo as their new master.

While Kylo was no doubt living the high-life at the very top of the First Order pyramid, we rarely see the Knights of Ren, who don’t have Snoke’s personal precious attention and protection. They’re likely out there doing the dark, unknown and unglamorous dirty work, quietly coming back to restock and refuel, no ceremonies nor worship from Stormtroopers, most of whom seem to regard them in disgust as ‘Ghouls’. Unlike Kylo, they fully chose and accepted and embraced their roles, they provided their ‘good’ deaths and earned their spots within the group, not fighting it, not constantly lamenting and whining about how they deserved better, because anything is good.

Even when Kylo Ren became Supreme Leader, it seems that for whatever reason, the Knights of Ren didn’t embrace the new resources at their disposal- Did Kylo not bother to take care of them, or were they just so used to working as scrappy little mercenaries, that the high-end luxuries of the First Order somewhat bothered them? That they preferred to keep doing things as they did, that this organized, political and polished structure wasn’t for them. Hux regards them as distasteful for it, but while he and Kylo have entire armies and servants at their beck and call and disposal, the Knights of Ren have only themselves and each other to carry out the missions assigned to them, and they do their tasks silently, dutifully, and without complaint.

To contrast, Kylo Ren has a much cleaner, brighter aesthetic, flashy and red like his lightsaber, and later the Sarrassian iron that puts together the fragments of his helmet. He’s a leader, a political figure, who intentionally draws attention to himself as the heir to Vader, he thinks he’s entitled to Anakin’s lightsaber, and can afford to draw attention to himself, he wants it. But the Knights of Ren, they have to be practical and dark, hiding to survive, Ap’lek especially, although of course some manner of exception is made with Ushar and Cardo. It’s not like they’re just hunters, but also prey as well, like the Mandalorian coverts… Their dirtied, roughened-up appearance, more battered and humble like what you would see with the Millenium Falcon, paints the Knights of Ren as more underdogs than their leader.

In essence, you get this sense of privileged disconnect between the Knights of Ren and Kylo; That he’s this bourgeoisie rich kid, whose parents bought him everything, that he never REALLY had to work for things, there was no genuine struggle nor danger for him. Work and training may as well have been a hobby for him, he can afford to throw things away, while for the Knights of Ren it very much is a matter of survival, life or death. And with how Kylo wants to join them for some reason after leaving the Jedi Order, even though he only had ONE encounter where they tried to kill him, Luke, and Lor San Tekka; And all their previous leader did was just leave an open invitation…

And again, you get the idea that Kylo Ren has this idealized, glamorous, almost fetishizing and romanticized view of what it’s like to be a Knight of Ren, that it’s some cool club to join- And not a genuine, forged-in-fire, rigorous existence. That it’s tough and painful and very much a deliberate choice, not something done lightly and for fun, which he finds out when he tries to join them for ‘comradery’ I suppose, only to be oh-so shocked at seeing them kill people, as if he hadn’t always known this. Kylo Ren didn’t really want to be a Knight of Ren, just his cool idea and fun of what it’d be like, how he doesn’t REALLY want the Empire back, just the idealized version of the past. He’s a pampered brat playing pretend, so psyched up for the dream of the job, but when he actually has to do the hard work and unglamorous parts, he caves and hesitates, while the actual Knights of Ren roll their eyes, because of course this little kid does. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into, he’s so dumb and naïve and reckless.

It’s telling that the Knights of Ren have no issues working with Albrekh, an alien, especially because they know they can’t afford to be picky with their allies and friends, beggars can’t be choosers; While Kylo “My parents didn’t love me enough” Ron is willing to kill an officer for asking a reasonable question, and throws aside all of the people in his life that he takes for granted. Similarly, the only person resembling an alien that we see Kylo Ren actually work with is Snoke, whom he hated and eventually killed, and even Snoke was at least part-human, so given his worship of the Empire, and Kylo Ren likely looks down on non-humans.

Not to mention, with how Kylo sometimes refers to Rey as ‘the scavenger’, and you get this sense of like… disdain from him towards her more humble, downright impoverished, background and conditions of her home life, and the way she had to keep herself fed. And you can’t help but wonder if the Knights of Ren picked up on this, that part of the reason they never enjoyed the First Order’s resources was because they knew that they didn’t belong in this neat and tidy, posh hierarchy of political society and advanced tech; That they were regarded as savage monsters and ghouls by the First Order, dirty and unkempt. Their own leader didn’t really know or understand them, he only had leadership by virtue of power and affinity to the Dark Side, but not much else; And he was constantly fighting the Dark Side, always in the hand of Snoke, never really leading the Knights of Ren alongside them as equals and comrades like their past leader.

He probably didn’t care for, nor appreciate them- Kylo probably even looked down on them, even! Not fully and openly, but there was likely this implicit disdain and disgust… Or at the very least, he made an ‘exception’ to them, but with how he regarded scavengers and lower-class people like them… The Knights of Ren could only wonder just how conditional his tolerance was. He praised and elevated them, borderline glorified and romanticized; But he could never truly be one of them, he never knew what it was like, he had no idea, he could only guess and play pretend, and never admit that truth. There was a growing disconnect, likely a dissatisfaction between the Knights of Ren towards Kylo, and it just worsened with his agendas with Rey, forcing them to do the work of capturing her by themselves, forgetting the Knights in his own confrontations, etc.

Kylo didn’t really feel like one of them, like a part of them- He saw himself as elevated and separate, more like lapdogs and attacks dogs, tools to point in a direction, not true brothers-in-arms on the same level, regardless of leadership role. And this ignorance, this subtle lack of regard and attention, quickly abandoning the Knights of Ren to focus on his drama with his parents, Luke, Snoke, and Rey… It must’ve been frustrating and alienating for the Knights of Ren.

The closest Kylo ever got was when he repaired his shattered helmet using Albrekh himself, with the dented and scratched-up look more akin to them, uniting the aesthetic more… But again, there was always that fancy, graceful training from Luke and Snoke, and his special little lightsaber. Then the attention from Palpatine… And when he had to go to Exegol, when he confronted Rey, Kylo never did so with the Knights of Ren, because he never truly trusted nor felt like they had his back, he never truly saw himself as one of them, and didn’t think it necessary to bring them alone, to include them all.

They weren’t special, chosen ones with the cool bloodlines and parentage that gave them special innate talent and Force powers, they were more like Voe if anything else. The Knights of Ren had force-sensitivity, but it was stunted and much weaker than Kyle’s natural, unearned talent and gifts; Everything they got, they had to fight and train and work for, self-taught and without the guidance of some wiser leader, because I doubt Kylo trained his own Knights either. Their fighting style is more brutal and utilitarian, with the use of a wide variety of tools and actual blasters- The Knights of Ren had to make a name for themselves, carve out their own reputation, because they started from nothing, and their original leader best exemplifies this with his lack of name, the closest being the title of Ren that he shares with everyone else anyway.

The Knights of Ren didn’t have a special destiny, nor a bond as part of some sacred, prophesized dyad- If anything, they were more like Rey, before THAT reveal… Just lowly nobodies who had to make a name for themselves, stumbled across their own version of found family in a sense- Did what they needed to survive, had to go through the grueling agony of existence on their own. They actively looked for new members to add into their group, other lowly and despised criminals and others of society, as could’ve been the case with Karrst. There was no special place for them within the story, and yet they were still relegated to doing nameless, thankless jobs and tasks, not even acknowledged individually, and forgotten and abandoned by even their own leader, for some stranger he’d just met.

When he turned to the Light Side, did their time together mean nothing for Ben to leave them- Of course it did, because there wasn’t REALLY anything there, and he never tried, or at least never could’ve understood, and never realized this from the position he was in. He tried to force his way in and it just created this uncomfortable, begrudging toleration by the Knights of Ren, until finally their resentment boiled up and bubbled over and burst; And they took their sweet time, vengefully confronting their former leader and beating him up slowly, because they wanted this to hurt. They wanted him to know what it was like to be beaten down with no hope, with no glimpse of light, nobody to pick him up and comfort him, no luxury nor resources or sacred destiny; To have only darkness and shadow to hide and thrive in, to embrace and become grateful towards… As they scrounged up and kept fighting, determined, not entitled by any parentage or destiny, but because they simply chose to keep biting and survive.

Nobody seemed to care nor remember the Knights of Ren, they were just disposable tools for everyone, except their original leader, who really did seem to be on amicable relationship with them; Addressing them by name, in a casual manner that alluded to past comradery and shared knowledge, bonding… Someone they felt safe actually speaking up and talking to, asking questions instead of silently waiting for orders and accepting things as they were. There was no special Force powers, for they did not expect anything from the Shadow, and when they did receive, they made sure to venerate it in return, for of course this was owed back, they had to pay back the force that guided and fed them.

They had a gratitude, and as their Ren codified, the Knights learned to disregard societal norms and obligations, and attitudes, and just live, doing what they needed to survive. No apologies, no glorifications, they just were, that’s all they wanted and needed. Obviously this independent, not-caring-what-anyone-thinks attitude was no doubt ‘cool’ to a young Kylo Ren, which was why he wanted to join them, while misunderstanding so badly how the Knights of Ren even got to that point in the first place, and what came with this. Kylo kept being concerned about how others perceived and looked at him, because he was a sad, pathetic, insecure little child; While for the Knights of Ren, it just didn’t matter.

They could be hated, or beloved- It wasn’t important at all how others regarded them, because they didn’t heed how outsiders felt, they didn’t apologize nor account for their existence, didn’t try to justify anything. It was Us VS Them, they found solace in just each other, and recognized and prepared themselves for an entire world against them, anyone else as fair game and a potential enemy. Their prior leader rightfully regarded Kylo with suspicion, kept a cautious distance- So nothing was lost when they confronted Kylo on Exegol to kill him, no tears shed nor regrets made whatsoever, besides having not done this sooner.

But of course, special Ben Solo gets his redemption or whatever, he gets his spotlight and glory as he saves the day, or at least sort of tries to contribute. He is glorified by the narrative and likely in-universe, venerated for his ‘noble’ turn and sacrifice, especially by the real-life fandom; But the Knights of Ren, nobody cares for them. And it doesn’t matter- They’re used to it, they’ve learned to accept and adapt, this is just the normal status quo for them. They don’t need veneration nor hatred, they’re just here to get through the day and only focus on what matters, themselves and each other.

…In that sense, with all of this meta about the Knights of Ren being more like ‘nobodies’, poor and scavenging, having to work for things; And Rey, the contradictions of her character be damned, feels like she’d be a more welcome fit as a new leader than Kylo. Maybe there could be an AU where she joins them, and the Knights of Ren bond with this new kid, this little sibling, who’s a dirty feral gremlin like them who likes to scavenge and experiment, modify, messily and shoddily cobble stuff together.

I do have to wonder if Rey calling herself a nobody, initially intended at one point to have no special place nor destiny in the narrative, besides the one she made for herself with her found family- If that was meant to be a parallel to the Knights of Ren and their former leader, who also calls himself a nobody, and goes by no distinctive name himself. I can only imagine, but I bet that a Dark Side Rey would be a much more attentive, down-to-earth, and ultimately preferable leader to the Knights of Ren, as someone who actually bonds with and understands them, and learns to value them; To the point where if she DID make a turn to the Light, she’d probably invite them to come with her out of concern, and the Knights of Ren would be touched enough to even consider, or at least spare, Rey…

At the very least, I don’t think Rey would immediately throw them aside like the garbage they always were, because she was good now and too enlightened and heroic to be level with these evil monsters; She knew someone who was a masked ‘monster’ himself, Finn, and she fell in love and found acceptance with him, and vice-versa. Rey, for better or worse, has the patience to reach out and give others the benefit of the doubt, to hope for them, to not hypocritically condemn, for she knows her own mistakes and weaknesses as well… So I think the Knights of Ren in this AU would be much more likely to be touched- And that even if they were to lash against a reformed Rey, it’d come from a genuine sense of hurt and betrayal, grief and loss; And not just a relieved desire to get rid of this pesky brat that’s been bugging them for the past several years.

#star wars #knights of ren #vicrul #trudgen #ushar #star wars kuruk #cardo #ap'lek #albrekh #kylo ren #meta

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