#the vaguely liquid substances section

[pinkpirellis]

motogp bikes as (mostly) hard candies

w/ bonus drink i associate w/ each bike livery segment for some reason...

post inspiration: saw the pramac livery. thought I need to lick that bike so bad. the rest is history.

aprilia - cinnamon heart candy

starting off with a potentially controversial choice, sure the aprilia livery isn't particularly red but the parts that are red pop! also the livery just gives very broody and misunderstood, urban fantasy, tragic heartbreak, vampire romance pulp fiction novel protagonist vibes, a black streak speeding by like a shadow in the night... also x2, i tried not to take into account the riders for each team when making these assignments, but heart shaped candy for team loverboy? how could i pass?

drink: chocolate-strawberry milkshake w/ 2 straws

ducati - cherry halls

there's just something very fake medicinal about this livery like it's trying to say i'm good for you, but it's probably just giving you red food dye poisoning or something.

drink: coca-cola pre 1900s edition

gresini - non-descript tin mint

I took one look at these bikes and knew there was no way I wld be able to find any candy that colour. I was semi-right because the only thing I could find that was remotely similar were this one picture of a tin of mints on google images. the colour (which I have no word to describe and neither did the colour dropper I tried using) somehow manages to feel both sterile and unsanitary, like sun faded, mildew infested patient divider curtains in an underfunded hospital which is also how I would imagine those mints taste so I guess everything worked out in the end.

drink: those butterfly pea lattes I’ve never had before, but have heard taste like dirt

honda - candy canes

this is a bike livery that screams christmas, the festive red framework, the wintery blue accents and of course the cute green castrol sponsor logo perfectly tying off the christmas colour thematic trio like a bow on a present and what candy is more christmas-y than candy canes?

drink(s): aftermath of that elephant toothpaste experiment thingie, tide pods

ktm + tech3 - candy corn (i know this isn’t actually hard candy but just let me have this one ok)

if the honda bike livery embodies christmas then ktm bike livery is halloween all the way, specifically the kitschy, marketing ploy of companies changing all their regular products to black and orange versions of the same thing so they can still sell the same products but hey its limited edition™ now 😱😱😱 and what candy could better embodies the corniness of commercial halloween than candy corn? (ahaha get it.. cuz candy corn yk..)

drink: reese's pieces cookie dough blizzard® treat

pramac - grape lollipop

bright and shiny, you’ll probably cut your tongue on it if you lick it's irresistible gleaming surface (talking abt the lollipop, but I've heard carbon fibre is quite sharp as well so mayhaps be cautious w/ that too) but damn it’s worth it. does it taste good in the complete objective sense? debatable... but it’s just soooo glossy and smooth and you need to lick it so fucking bad (I'm not projecting, you're projecting)

drink: grape cough syrup

trackhouse - blue skittle

the matte finish immediately made me think of hard outer shell, hard chocolate coated outer shell, m&ms! unfortunately this is meant to be the which hard candy does each bike livery remind me not which chocolate do they remind me of so i had to go w/ the sugary candy alter ego of m&ms, skittles instead.

drink: blue milk

vr46 - warheads

yellow... lemons.... sour... obviously the candy associated w/ this livery had to be something so sour it makes u make a 😖 face when u eat it <— also the reaction of most ppl when they saw the livery (not me tho as someone who obtains joy from eating lemons and looking at absurdly neon bikes, im just built different). admittedly there are a lot of sour candies out there, however warheads candies are not only sour, they also feature obnoxiously highlighter yellow packaging to match the obnoxiously highlighter yellow bike livery and most importantly they perfectly capture the whimsy of the person the bike livery directly draws inspiration from (who has also lovingly slapped his branding right onto the front of each bike for further emphasize) with a cute and thematically befitting cartoon caricature.

drink(s): panera charged lemonade (mango yuzu citrus flavour to be specific), mountain dew

yamaha - blue rock candy

the interplay b/w black and blue adds nice depth to the livery, creates a jagged feel feeling as perfectly embodied by the crystalline structure of rock candies. very much a cut your tongue if you dare try licking it livery, in a similar vein to pramac (apparently that's the yamaha brand) but in a much less alluring and more i've warned you and i dare you to try way almost akin to the tail rattle of a rattlesnake.

drink: methylene blue

lcr - candy canes 2.0

this bish came out right when i was finishing up this draft, it's another christmas honda bike! this one features a bit less of the icy, winter blue aspects the christmas aesthetic and a bit more of the elf-y santa's helper vibes (also off topic i can't be the only one who thinks this japanese bike looks weirdly italian...). consequently for all the reasons the factor honda livery must be a candy cane associated livery, lcr honda must be one too! let's just say factory is mint candy canes and lcr honda is peppermint candy canes for slight differentiation.

drink: canada dry ginger ale christmas sweater edition

bonus: girl wdym lcr not only decided to take 50 yrs to do their bike launch but also have 2 diff liveries...

luckily candy canes are versatile and thus this too shall be a peppermint candy cane..

[ookamihanta]

Did fan-made main Jojos, now it’s time for their Jobros <3

First jobro is Clara Smith. Clara lived in the U.S and went to the same elementary school as Josephine, as they were next door neighbors growing up. Clara was always a more outspoken and energetic while Josephine was rather reserved and a bit standoffish. However, it could be because of their opposite personalities that have kept them together all this time. When Josephine had to move to france because of her family situation, the two didn’t see each other for several years, but the two always wanted to find and reconnect with each other regardless. When Clara turned 18, she was able to travel to France alone and attempted to find Josephine, but she chose to do so late at night, where prowlers and less than friendly people roam Paris’ streets. While looking for Josephine, she came across a small bar and asked the bartender inside if he knew anyone fitting the description and name of Josephine or her family that lived in France, but while doing so, she coincidentally bumps into none other than Josuke, Josephine’s grandfather. They two reconnect, but right as Josuke offers to take Clara to meet Josephine, they’re attacked by enemy stand users who want something from Josuke. Long story short, Josuke has one of the stand arrows on him and uses it on Clara so she could defend herself if Josuke could not. From then on, Clara has been warped into the shenanigans the joestar family always manages to get themselves into. Oh, and she also became a waitress at the same bar she met Josuke in--and mayhaps influenced Josephine to work their as well, as Clara thinks Josephine has the prettiest singing voice she’s ever heard.

Clara’s stand is named Hungry Heart. Her stand is only able to appear as a liquid form from other near by liquids and can pass through multiple substances to get from place to place. Similar to other liquid based stands like Geb and Aqua Necklace, it can enter other bodies to inhabit the contents. Its primary ability is actually drowning a target from the inside, filling the body with whatever liquid contents it took form of. It can also transform a certain liquid to any other type of liquid, ex: spit to gasoline, piss to water, etc. 

Dallas Cruz went to the same high school as Jordan and was in the year above him. They were both in the school band and became friends since they were in the same brass section. During their time together, they became close friends and they even got jobs at the same place so they could hang out more. One day, Dallas revealed to Jordan that his true passion actually lied in acting and the stage for theatre, but did music to please his parents, who were both music professionals. At their job, they both started as just costume characters handing out balloons or other toys, but Jordan soon encouraged Dallas to try and audition to be an actual cast member. Of course, it worked out and Dallas feels forever indebt to Jordan for his unending support. Even now though, Dallas is only on stage at work, at home, he’s still being forced to pursue a career in music. The only source of happiness for Dallas comes from acting, so at work, he is able to vent his frustrations. One day, while in costume and on stage, an angry on looker suddenly attacked the members performing, injuring many with his stand. Of course, no one knew how he was doing it, but Jordan suddenly jumped in to save them all. It was during this event that Dallas’ stand developed, as he saved Jordan last minute when he was about to be hurt by the enemy. Ever since then, they’ve been ever the closer. 

Dallas’ stand, Let the Good Times Roll, has no physical form on its own. It takes the shape of a vague shadowy creature and travels only through darkness, not shadows themselves. It hates light and is distinguished if exposed to it (burning Dallas’ skin), but in the dark, it’s at its strongest. Using the darkness of peoples’ shadows, it controls one’s movements and cloud the enemy’s mind with unsettling thoughts. In a way, it invokes the worst in someone. It’s a stand that is similar to Jordan’s in a sense, and it makes the two really compatible in a battle.

Griselda Nelson, due to very specific and odd circumstances, is Josie’s secretary for the mafia. Before meeting Josie, Griselda was just a normal office worker in Texas, but the company she was working for was soon taken over by Josie, who bought it because the owner was known for their corrupt policies and worker exploitation. Of course, there was a second motive for this buy, as Josie was also on the look out for new recruits for her mafia, and she thought looking into normal, everyday workers who wanted more from society, *or* wanted to get back at it, would be a good fit for the job. Josie ran multiple interviews and tests for all the workers under the guise of who she would be letting keep their normal job and who would get released with promised relief instead. However, Griselda actually failed the test and Josie let her go. Griselda though, refused to leave without a fight, as she was already in a bad situation at home and needed this job. During this confrontation, Josie gets news that enemy gang stand users were attacking a different branch of the mafia and needed to leave immediately. Griselda, still refusing to simply let Josie go, manages to force herself to go with Josie, wherever she was going. During this entire fiasco, Josie became enamored with how hard headed and determined Griselda could be, and even though the office worker was useless during battle, something about her seemed to charm the mafia boss. So much so, that Josie decided to let her stay and became her own personal secretary. There was just something about Griselda that made Josie think it would be okay to keep her around.

Pink Cashmere is Griselda’s stand and is actually something that manifested on it’s own without the use of a stand arrow. Unknown to Griselda who in her family was also a stand user, as she was adopted, she simply is grateful for when it appeared. It happened when it was only her and Josie alone, without any other stand members. Enemies had surrounded them and since she couldn’t see what exactly was happening, she was being protected solely by Josie. Her desire to help and protect her boss brought out Pink Cashmere. PC, as she calls it, is a stand made entirely of light, but can still land physical contact hits and can be hit. Its main ability is its manipulation of light, creating shields and weapons out of it. It can also be used to create objects or animals of light as well, something Griselda still has trouble controlling %100.

-

screenshots based off these jos and their bros

[ashdumpsterpile]

ao3

It’s a sexy, sexy day when Beckett gets her promotion to the Cerritos.

She’s been a lower decks officer on the USS Vulker for six slutty years and it’s been the closest thing to paradise that she’s experienced since that time Marvin tried to snort Dorito dust and ended up summoning an ancient wish giving god when he sneezed it out on an alien substance Dr. L’Vertiss was analyzing as a possible cure for the parasites that were infecting the Academy.

Being a lower decks officer meant three things: contraband, causal hookups and constant disrespect of Starfleet Protocol. Everything Beckett wanted in a career. Fortunately, the Vulker was the bottom of the barrel when it came to starships, so they weren’t exactly looking too close to her record. Which was fine by Beckett, who was trying to fly under the radar ever since her mother had demoted her so hard, she’d ended up on a whole other ship, quadrants away from the Cerritos.

Thanks Mom.

So anyway, it’s a sexy, sexy day when her mother calls her, mainly because she’d just gotten out of alien jail and gotten a cool tat out of the deal, but also because she hasn’t heard for her mother in a while and, okay, maybe she misses her just a little bit. Even if she’s probably calling for Not Good Reasons.

Beckett flips her comm open and steels herself to get yelled at for whatever.

“I’m retiring,” are not the words Beckett is expecting. She squints suspiciously at her comm, vaguely concerned that a shapeshifter has replaced her mom.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not.”

“Beckett—”

“You love being Captain and sitting in the chair and telling Ransom to stop giving himself sexy eyes in every reflective surface! Why would you retire?”

Her mom pinches the bridge of her nose, looking tired. “This is why I wanted to tell you in person—”

“Tell me what in person—”

“—Shaxs is dead.”

Beckett stops walking. Blinks down at her comm. Once. Twice. “What.”

“So is half the crew. This is less of me retiring and more of me…cutting my losses before Starfleet officially demotes my ass.”

Beckett’s day is slowly turning into an unsexy day. “And you’re just letting them!? You’ve been a Captain for what—”

“Beck—”

“Fifteen years and a Starfleet Officer for even longer! They can’t demote you—”

“They can and they will. Look,” Mom sighs. “They’re putting together a new crew as soon as the Cerritos is given the clear. There’s barely anyone left from the main crew who even wants to stay after this mess.”

“What happened?”

“That’s classified,” Mom says, which Beckett takes to mean hack my official report if you want to know. “And don’t go digging for it,” she adds.

Beckett resists pouting, only because the situation is so. Weirdly serious.

“I’m not calling you because of that, however. Ransom is being transferred to the Titan. It’s only thanks to his initiative and Officer Boimler’s quick thinking that we’re even alive right now.”

The sound of the warp core, buzzing in the background, seems too loud, all of the sudden. Beckett swallows, feeling sick.

“Officer Boimler is being promoted to Captain. I’ve recommended you as his First Officer.”

Beckett doesn’t realize she’s laughing until she starts choking from it. A group of ensigns, clustered at the end of the hallway she’s standing in, give her weird looks before quickly vacating the area.

“That,” she says, once she’s caught her breath, “is the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

Mom gives Beckett her Captain™ face.

“I’m an ensign. Lower decks. Bottom of the barrel.” Beckett continues, grinning. “Not officer material.”

“Top of your class. Present in the Dominion War. Only gets demoted because she cares more about people than rules.” Mom gives a smug smile. “Perfect match for the Cerritos.”

There’s a weird, hot pressure in the corner of Beckett’s eyes. “Mom.”

“Boimler has a stick up his ass, he could use someone who loosens him up a little. Pays less attention to protocol,” Mom adds.

Beckett shakes her head, smiling. “I’d give him a heart attack a week in.”

“I’m counting on it. At least think about it, will you? And for god’s sake, go shower. I can see the filth on you, light years away.”

Beckett laughs, but this time it’s real. “Yeah Mom, I will.” Then, “I’m glad you like. Didn’t die or whatever.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “Thank you, problem child. So am I. I’ll take to you later.”

The connection blacks out, leaving Beckett staring at her own dim reflection in the screen.

She does look like shit. Maybe a shower isn’t a bad idea after all.

_____

The letter stays in her inbox for six unslutty days before she finally clicks on it. Turns out, even though Mom is no longer a Captain, her recommendation must’ve meant something because there it is, a nice, shiny, transfer request.

It’s signed Captain Brad Boimler and that is where Beckett draws the line because she is not working for someone named Brad.

Maybe if you had been on the Cerritos, Shaxs wouldn’t have died, a snide voice sounds in her brain. Beckett immediately shuts that voice down because that’s fucked up and she didn’t go through four years of Starfleet mandated therapy to still be fucked up.

(She’s still kinda fucked up, but that’s okay.)

Dad finally starts spamming her inbox—and she really wants to know how Mom got him on her side, they’ve barely spoken since the divorce—so Beckett, with great reluctance, reviews the transfer request again.

It’s bullshit.

“This is bullshit,” she tells Dad.

“I know, but if I have to get one more message from your mother, demanding why you haven’t taken the position—”

“Okay, fine I’ll do it, but only because I want to see why Mom promoted Brad to Captain.”

_____

Mom either promoted Brad to Captain because he was that good of a suck up or because his hair is super distracting. Either way, Beckett is two seconds away from saying fuck this shit and demoting her own ass back to the Vulker.

He walked through the door like a minute ago and she’s already had him pegged. His clothes are neatly pressed, hair perfectly coiffed, and his hands nervously flutter around, as if he’s unsure what he should be doing with them. He can’t have been an officer longer than a few months before he was promoted Captain, that’s for sure. Beckett literally has no idea what Mom was thinking when she gave him the chair.

She waves him down toward her table.

Brad takes one look at her unbuttoned collar, nonregulation boots, and unkempt hair and sighs. “Captain Freeman recommended you?” his voice is disbelieving.

“That’s the word, my dude.” Beckett leans back, eyeing him over the half empty glass of whiskey she’s been nursing. “Captain Brad, take a seat,” she says, in her Serious voice.

Captain Brad sits across from her. “It’s Captain Boimler, actually.”

“Brad’s fine.”

His eye twitches. “Officer Mariner—”

“Ensign,” she interrupts, cheerfully.

Brad pauses. Blinks. She gestures to the single pin in her collar.

“Oh. Wait. What?”

“Yeah, I was lower decks on the Vulker before Captain Freeman emotionally blackmailed me into meeting with you.”

She snaps her fingers at the bartender and gestures toward Brad while she waits for the man in question to process the fact that a lower decks ensign was being offered a First Officer promotion.

It, surprisingly, takes only a few seconds before he bounces back. “I didn’t have time to look at your file,” he admits, sounding a bit frustrated. “I’m usually more on top of my work but—”

“Don’t sweat it, Bradthaniel. If you’d read my file, I seriously doubt you’d have agreed to meet with me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You kill an Admiral or something?”

“Or something,” she agrees, mind flashing back to all of the redacted and classified sections of her file. The bartender places a glass of purple liquid in front of Brad and refills Beckett’s drink. Beckett salutes him lazily with her glass. “I’m more interested in you. How’d you land a captaincy at, what, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-nine,” he grits out, as if that still isn’t weirdly young to be that high in the chain of command. “How’d you get Freeman to recommend you?”

“Oh, I didn’t,” she flips her ponytail obnoxiously. “She called me.”

“Sure.”

“What, am I not ‘First Officer Material?’” she mocks, wrapping finger-quotes around her words.

He rolls his eyes. “No offense—”

“Complete offense already taken—”

“But you are the least promotable person I’ve ever met.”

Beckett grins. “Now you’re getting it. We got a Bridge Crew yet?”

“I—” he blinks at her for a moment. “I’m still trying to put the rest of the Bridge Crew together, but it’s been insane lining up schedules and—”

“Leave it to me.”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s my job. You manage me, I manage the crew. I’m basically a glorified secretary now.”

Brad looks like he’s seeing an error screen in front of his eyes. “So, you’re taking the job,” he concludes, voice hilariously defeated.

“Someone needs to make sure my M—uh, Captain Freeman’s ship doesn’t blow up.”

“I handled it fine the first time.” He rolls his eyes carelessly, which kind of pisses her off.

She gives him a smile. Knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Tell that to the 567 casualties.”

His face goes very pale. An incredible feat considering his already milky complexion. She can’t tell if he’s angry or about to cry. “Shut up. You weren’t even there, how would you know—"

“Yeah, you were there, so why the fuck didn’t you do something?” she hisses. All she can see is Shaxs’ scarred face in the back her head. She’d been a pain in the Bridge Crew’s asses, but most of them had been genuinely upset when she’d been transferred.

“You’re a pain in my ass, but you’ve got guts,” Shaxs had admitted once, looking impressed, which was his way of saying you’re fucking adopted go do 200 pushups.

Beckett has seen a lot of death in her 26 years, but this one hurts because this is her Mom’s family. Half of them are dead and she wasn’t there and fucking Brad was.

Fucking Brad is still staring at her, eyes unreadable, mouth set in a hard line. He snatches up the file and flips it open, fingers deftly shuffling through the printed-out paper documents she’d complied last night. “I’m overseeing ship repairs tomorrow. 0500 hours. Be there.”

“Wait what?” Beckett hears herself say, aware that she’s gaping at him.

“I’ll have to run these through background checks before I can approve them for transfer, and I’d like to meet with them in person before I make any decisions.”

“Dude.”

“What,” he snaps, eyes meeting hers defiantly.

“You’re seriously approving my transfer?”

“Do you not want me to?” his brow furrows in confusion.

“You called me the ‘least promotable person’ like ever! I just like insulted the fuck out of you!” she whisper-shrieks. “You’re supposed to get mad and tell me to fuck off back to whatever corner of the galaxy Freeman dragged my ass out of, not make me your First Fucking Officer.”

“Well I’m not. Congratulations First Officer Mariner, you’re expected to report for duty—”

“Oh fuck you—”

“On the Cerritos three weeks from now during her relaunch.”

Beckett is on the verge of stabbing this bastard in the eye with his own stylus. “But why?”

Brad pauses, halfway out of his seat, hands still clenched tightly around the file. “Why what?”

“Don’t be fucking coy, why are you approving my transfer, you absolute nugget,” she hisses.

“Captain Freeman recommended you.”

“Are you seriously that much of a suck up—”

“The Cerritos isn’t that great of a starship, but Captain Freeman is a good captain,” Brad interrupts. “We went through some real shit together. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. The least I can do is honor her last request.”

And with that, Brad stands up and sweeps out of the bar.

“Dramatic exits are my thing!” she shouts after him.

_____

She’s pissed, mostly because Brad had the actual audacity to approve her transfer, but also because how fucking dare he be an actual nice person?

Okay, maybe not a nice person, she decides, as she crawls out of bed at 4 fucking thirty am. Morning people are hell spawn, but he’s a decent person.

Whatever, it’s not as if she’s going to start liking him or trying to be his friend or whatever.

“If it doesn’t work out, I can get myself demoted in like two days,” she decides, out loud, tying her hair out of her eyes. Her reflection stares back at her, tired.

So of course, Brad is annoyingly awake.

“Of course you’re a fucking morning person,” she mutters, falling into step behind him.

“Haven’t had your coffee yet?” he snips back, eyes glued to his data padd.

She glares at his back, but makes no comment.

By the time Beckett is fully awake and functioning, she’s already dissociated three separate times and had a mini panic attack twice.

The ship is FUCKED.

The primary hull has been completely ripped apart, like something took a large bite out of the side, and both propulsion units are missing. Beckett peaks over Brad’s shoulder and gets a good look at the interior damage.

“You guys ejected the warp core?” she shrieks in his ear. “Dude that is so badass.”

Brad jumps and pushes her off him. “Wha—get off me, what are you doing—”

Beckett snatches the padd away from him and begins to rapidly scan through the damage reports. “Shit, it’s going to take weeks before we’re back in space. What’s the ETA on getting a new core in? Oooh, we should also add reflective panels, I hear the Enterprise is so bright, nothing ever gets done on there.”

Brad snatches his padd back. “Yeah, I think we can pass on that one.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Being a Starfleet Officer isn’t supposed to be fun—although I do find enjoyment in managing and organizing information—”

“Oh yawn, you’re a pencil pusher.”

“Did you just say ‘yawn’ out loud?”

“Do you need your hearing checked, Captain Brad?”

“It’s Boimler,” he hisses.

“Captain Boimler Brad,” she corrects, easily.

He stomps off, all huffy, but whatever. It’s not her fault Captain Brad doesn’t have a sense of humor.

_____

It takes about a month for the Cerritos to get back into working condition. Beckett would be impressed with how quickly Starfleet is able to get her back in commission, except for the fact that, well. It’s Starfleet. They’re great at what they do, even if what they do isn’t so great.

By then she’s already sent her Dad over seventeen furious voicemails and threatened her mother with six different kinds of legal action if she doesn’t “pick up her goddamn fucking comm.”

Mom does pick up her call and she does agree to meet with her.

“This is bullshit,” she says, after hugging the ever-living shit out of her favorite parent. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

Mom rolls her eyes. It’s like looking in a mirror. “Kiddo, I’ve never been able to make you do anything.”

This was probably true, but Beckett needs someone to blame. “He’s worse than you. Or Dad. Mom he likes paperwork. He’s a morning person. Yesterday he asked me my opinion on the Oxford comma.”

Mom makes a complicated face. Beckett suspects she’s trying not to laugh. “That does sound like Boimler,” she admits, sighing. “Please tell me you’re playing nice.”

Beckett decides not to tell her about the whole “I was a bitch to him because I have no idea how to grieve” deal. “Hey, I can be nice.”

“Hmm.”

“Okay, maybe I’m giving him a hard time, but come on! You could have chosen anyone to promote. Hell, you should have picked Ransom, not transferred him!”

“Ransom doesn’t have the head to make tough calls.”

“And Brad does?”

Mom gives her a look that says she knows something Beckett doesn’t. Beckett hates that look. “I think he knows what he’s doing when he forgets he’s in charge.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means give him a chance before you decided to drop him in a wormhole,” is the dry response she’s given.

Beckett makes no promises.

_____

The Cerritos leaves Starbase 375 on an uneventful day. About eighty percent of the original crew has been completely replaced, most notably, the Bridge Crew. Senior staff is now complied of Officer’s Captain Freeman had promoted before her resignation, but there’s are a few that Beckett herself has recommended. Seems like Brad had actually taken a look at the file.

Beckett takes her seat next to Captain Brad and prepares herself for the madness that’s going to commence from being First Officer on the lamest ship in Starfleet.

The Cerritos has been in deep space for three boring, uneventful weeks.

The only fun Beckett has found in any of it is by torturing Brad. And she’s not even trying! Beckett just has one of those personalities that rubs well-organized people the wrong way. Yes, sometimes she thrives off chaos, and yeah she does things in her own time, but it’s just who she is.

Brad doesn’t seem to appreciate any of her suggestions, calling most of them illegal and dangerous and being all shouty about it.

He’s also a huge stickler for regulations and shit. It’s way, way worse than working with Mom. Beckett’s about to start climbing walls from the sheer boredom of being a First Officer. The only thing she does anymore is sleep, paperwork and fight with Brad, rinse, repeat.

And then she meets Lieutenant D’Vana Tendi.

The first thing Beckett thinks when she runs into the hyperactive Orion is that if Dr. T’Ana had retired along with the rest of the senior crew, Tendi could have easily picked up the mantle. The girl’s a fucking prodigy, mad scientist level of genius.

The second thing Beckett thinks when she meets Tendi is I am way gayer than I thought I was.

“Hey, you’re Mariner!” Tendi chirps, excitedly bouncing up to her. Dr. T’Ana, who had been discussing something medical and boring with the Orion, groans and stomps off the minute she lays eyes on Beckett. Which, rude. Beckett didn’t want to talk to her anyway.

“Oh nice, my reputation proceeds me,” Beckett grins, brushing off her hurt. “As does yours, Lieutenant Tendi.”

Tendi’s cheeks turn a little blue.

There’s an amused snort behind her. “Already flirting with the locals, Mariner?” a familiar voice dryly asks.

Beckett’s mouth drops open. “Rutherford?”

Rutherford, who was messing anxiously with a cyber implant over his eye that he definitely did not have three years ago, grins at her. “Long time, no see!”  

Tendi whirls around. “You know Mariner?”

“She used to be lower decks with me,” he explains.

“Yeah, back in the day,” Beckett agrees, examining her nails. “It was pretty badass.”

Rutherford snorts and gives her a look which clearly conveys I know why you were transferred dumbass. Beckett gives him a look back and hopes it communicates to shut the fuck up.

“You driving Boimler crazy yet?” Rutherford asks, instead of spilling her dirty secrets.

Tendi does this cute snort/giggle thing behind her Padd. “Like you haven’t been present for his ‘daily complain about Marin—‘”

Rutherford lightly kicks Tendi who quite promptly shuts up.

Beckett frowns suspiciously at them.

“Anyway, it’s great to see you Mariner!” Rutherford continues. “Congrats on making First Officer by the way,” he adds in a tone of voice that implies that she will be telling him exactly how she had landed the position later.

“I guess my record speaks for itself.” Beckett smirks.

“Uh hu,” he eyes her disbelievingly. “See you at the bar after our shifts?”

Beckett sighs. “I’ll have to pass. Brad gave me so much fucking paperwork to do that I’ll never get a day off again.”

“Look at you following the rules!” Rutherford punches the air. “I knew you had it in you. I guess I’ll see you around!” He hops off the bio-bed and heads off toward Engineering.

Tendi frowns after him. “At least he still sounds like himself, right?”

That’s a weird thing to say. “Huh?”

The Orion blinks up at her, startled. “Oh, you don’t know? He was in an accident. Full year of his memory completely wiped. He remembers Brad, and you, I guess, but.” She looks down, defeated.

“Oh.” Beckett feels squeamish at the sudden emotion present in the conversation. “That, uh, that really sucks.”

“Yeah.” Tendi shakes herself. “Well, enough buffer time, I’d better get back to work. It was great meeting you, Mariner!”

“Likewise, Lieutenant Tendi,” Beckett flashes her most charming grin. “See you on the Bridge?”

Tendi glances back at Dr. T’Ana, who’s impatiently glaring at them. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

_____

The next few weeks go by in rapid succession. It’s either very very boring and leaves Mariner missing her life as a lower decks officer or it’s incredibly fast pace with weird shit that leaves her chasing the next adrenaline rush.

But of course most days it’s just Brad yelling at her.

“If you could have your report for Second Contact with the Diququeue’s by tomorrow morning, that would be great.”

“Uh huh.”

“Also, I need you to stop trying to pet J’viv, his culture finds it offensive.”

“Sure thing.”

 “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?!

_____

“Officer Mariner could you—what the fuck are you wearing.”

“Oh yeah, the Padroiques gave me this cool jacket.”

“I don’t even—what—Mariner, go take it off!”

“But it’s pink!”

“It’s putting hair all over my Bridge!”

“That’s not hair it’s—”

 “Oh my god just get rid of it.”

_____

“What the fuck was that!”

“That was me. Doing my job. First Officer stuff.”

“That was you practically starting a war with the Gorgonvians. Again.”

“Dude, their government is super corrupt!”

“That’s their problem! Stop antagonizing alien Ambassadors!”

_____

“Why would you tell them to go fuck themselves?!”

“They pissed me off!”

“I actually can’t handle you right now. Get off my Bridge and go irritate someone else.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

_____

“This isn’t working,” she tells Rutherford, snatching at his drink. He gives it up with a sigh and wearily watches her down the purple liquid.

“Maybe start listening to him for once? He is the captain.”

“And that isn’t weird to you? Dude, didn’t he start out lower decks?”

This gets an eye roll out of her usually positive friend. “We all started lower decks. That’s how Starfleet works.”

Beckett decides not to mention that it was definitely not how it worked for her, as that explanation would include revealing that she’s. Well. A Starfleet brat.

“Besides, he’s been a Lieutenant for about a year now and he really handled the Parkled crisis really well. Not that I remember,” he adds, looking a little downcast.

Beckett wrinkles her nose. “Wait, the Cerritos was taken down by Parkleds? No fucking way.” She pulls her data padd out and began tapping away.

“Please don’t hack any mission re—”

“Too late.”

“—ports. Oh shit.” Rutherford rubs at his human eye with one hand. “See this? This is why you’re driving Boimler up a wall.”

Beckett glares at him. “Brad needs to chill out.”

“You need to chill out,” he corrects and then winces. “Sorry, that came out mean. I mean, maybe just try being nice to him? Like what’s the worst that could happen?”

Beckett’s eyes narrow.

_____

“Here, Jen made coffee.”

“If you’re trying to poison me—”

“Why would I poison you?!”

Brad gives her a deadpan stare.

“With coffee!” she adds, for good measure. “I would never defile the gods’ nectar!”

“Ugh, fine,” he snatches at the mug. “Just please stop shouting.”

_____

“I don’t get it!” Beckett rants to Tendi, who’s frowning down at her data padd like it holds the secrets of the universe. “I’m being like super chill for once and he’s still mad!”

Rutherford, who’s doing something cool and science-y to the transporter pad, glances up. “Your version of chill involves way more stabbing than most peoples.”

Tendi nods, eyes still glued to her padd. “Maybe try not challenging Klingons to duels and Boimler will calm down.”

“Uh, he challenged me and then was a sore loser. Not my fault. And I bought Brad a milkshake afterwards to make up for it!”

“Boimler did say that it was unfairly delicious,” Tendi says, pensively.

“I don’t think that was a milkshake,” Rutherford mumbles.

“Point is, why doesn’t he like me yet! Everyone likes me except lame people!”

“So, you don’t think Boimler is lame anymore,” Tendi inquires, grinning at her.

“Shut up, he’s the lamest.”

Rutherford and Tendi share a conspiring look. “Sure.”

_____

So, Brad almost dies. And so do Tendi and Rutherford, because it seems that even though Brad is captain now, apparently the three of them are a tight little trio who’ve been getting up to no good the whole time Beckett was on the Vulker.

That explains a lot actually.

Anyway, there’s some Away Mission nonsense and Beckett just happens to be on the Cerritos because Brad claims that she’s too high strung and that he hasn’t had enough coffee to handle her.

Whatever.

Some shit goes down—again, Beckett isn’t there and doesn’t bother to find out the exact details until much much later—that involves Rutherford and Brad getting infected by some alien disease and suddenly Tendi is dealing with an outright war between the local Camisitites and the Federation and by the time Beckett gets their asses beamed back onto the Cerritos, it’s almost too late.

Rutherford is going to be fine, thanks to his cyborg implants but Brad isn’t looking too hot which means Beckett is Acting Captain.

Fucking great.

It takes her maybe two, three days tops to settle everything out with the irate Camisitite nation and find a cure, but it all works out in the end.

“If you want a Missions Report you can have it after I’ve taken a shower,” she informs a groggy Brad. He blinks up at her from his bio-bed, taking in her disheveled hair, bloodstained shirt, and exhausted expression.

“…cool,” he mutters. “Go away.”

She scoffs at him, dragging a seat up. “I’m good here, actually.”

Brad wakes himself up enough to give her a half-hearted scowl. “Do you ever do as you’re told?”

“Not really, no.” She examines her nails. “Your fault for signing my transfer.”

“So this has all been punishment? Because a good person talked you into a nice, well paying job that I signed off on. I don’t get you.”

“I don’t get you,” she retorts. “Command fucking sucks. It was way cooler when I was an ensign.”

“But you’re really good at it,” he says, surprised. “You’re smart and badass and like way better at everything than everyone else.”

“Wait what?”

“You could have everything! And you’re just wasting it? Do you want me to kick you off ship?”

“Maybe!”

“Well I’m not going to!”

“Why not?!”

He glares at her sullenly. “Figure it out yourself, if you’re so smart.”

_____

“I can’t figure it out!” she snaps, resuming her wild pacing.

Rutherford, who looks like his unending patience is finally, for once, running out, sighs.

(People seem to be doing that a lot around her recently.)

“Figure what out, Mariner?”

“Why did the bastard make me his First Officer?”

“Maybe he’s hot for you,” Tendi suggests, eyebrows wiggling up and down. Beckett shoves her face away.

“Shut up, no way.”

“Just ask him?” Rutherford suggests.

“I did! Like twice! First time he gave me stupid answer and second time he deflected.”

“He gave it to you because he likes you, dummy,” Rutherford says, giving her a friendly shove. “Not like that,” he adds, as Tendi began make kissy faces. “But like. He thinks you’re cool.”

“He thinks I’m cool,” Beckett parrots, unimpressed.

“You are pretty cool,” Tendi agrees. “You like kick everyone’s ass and are super smart and you have street cred.”

“Street cred,” Beckett repeats, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, we’ll go with that.”

“Point is,” Rutherford went on. “He thinks you’re cool. And you know what? I think you think he’s pretty cool.”

Beckett makes a face. “I do not, take that back.”

“You think it’s impressive that Freeman promoted him and it has you all pissy because she threw you off the ship, but you secretly think he’s smart and you think it’s funny that he gets all tied up in knots over protocol,” Rutherford summarizes.

“What are you, my therapist?” Beckett snaps.

“I’m you’re friend. And I think you could be his too if you tried?”

Beckett groans, dropping her face into Tendi’s shoulder. “Fine maybe you’re a little bit right. He hates me though.”

“Trust me, he doesn’t hate you,” Rutherford says, grin in her voice. “You annoy the fuck out of him, sure. But he likes you plenty or he’d have gotten rid of you already.”

“So what do I do?” she mumbles into Tendi’s uniform.

“Go apologize, dumbass,” Tendi advises, shrugging her off her shoulder.

“Ugh.”

_____

She finds him laying on one of the Observation Deck floors, a half-drained bottle of blue substance beside him. Before she can change her mind, she flops down into a seated position next to him. They’re drifting through hyperspace, creating that weird blue effect as their ship speeds past distant stars.

Beckett takes a swig of his contraband, grimacing at the bitter taste.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he says, staring blankly out into space.

Beckett feels surprise at his admission—yeah, this man is a bit of a wreck, but he seemed to the type of guy whose contingency plans had contingency plans—but decides not to show it.

“Congrats dumbass, neither to the rest of us.”

Brad frowns. “You always know what you’re doing.”

This actually coaxes a surprised laugh out of her. She collapses backward, laying on the cold deck beside him. “That’s where you’re definitely wrong, dude. I never know what I’m going to do until I do it. Could be committing arson today, could adopt one of those turtle-puppies we saw on Karklon III last week, the list goes on. We’re Starfleet Officers, we have to be flexible about shit,” she adds, turning her head look at him.

He continues to stare straight ahead of him. “I think you make a better Captain.”

Okay, so he’s in a brutally honest mood. She can chill with that.

“I think I’d get us killed in a week,” she counters, truthfully. “I’m way too impulsive to be in charge. For every badass rule breaker, we need pencil pushing stickler, ya know?”

“So what,” Brad turns his head to the side, squints at her skeptically. “Now you want to work together?”

She drops her chin into the palm of her hand, leaning on her elbow. “I’m just saying, maybe I could get myself demoted back to the fucking Vulkner again and maybe you resign your position and become one of those sad sad researchers that get eaten by their own plants and Starfleet discovers your remains six years later when they have to find a cure for a face-eating parasite or whatever. Or,” she continues, before he can interrupt, all pissy, “maybe you need to loosen up, and maybe I need to suck up to command a bit more.”

It’s the closest to an apology as he’s going to get from her.

(He’s been kind of a bitch too, and they both know it.)

Brad turns back to the window—if you can call the entire wall being made of glass a window—and sighs.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot,” he muses—his version of an apology as well, she notes—and then adds, “I can always demote you.”

“Ha! You couldn’t last a day in the chair without me and you know it,” she replies, smugly. “You pretend like you want constant order and everything to be perfectly organized and on schedule, but I know the truth.”

“Really now?” he dryly says. “And what’s that.”

She grins, leaning in. “You’re secretly a rebel.”

“Fuck off.”

“Pffft, I saw your eye twitching during our report to Admiral Travional. You were practically begging me to spill my coffee on him.”

“Okay, I did not tell you to do that—”

“Oh, and that sexy, sexy moment when Tendi punched Captain Lohnersen out? You never once wrote her up for—”

“He was harassing her, I wasn’t going to write her up when he clearly was disrespecting—”

Beckett dangles the bottle of ale in front of him. “Why Captain Brad. Is this. Gasp! Contraband?!”

Brad laughs, snatching the bottle away from her. “I found it in your quarters.”

“And just what were you doing in my quarters, my good sir?”

“I’ll have you know I was dropping off paperwork. That you still haven’t done. From three weeks ago.”

“And you just swiped it off my desk. Tsk, tsk.”

“Confiscated it,” he corrects, still grinning up at her. “For research purposes, of course.”

“Of course.” Beckett grabs the bottle again. Takes another swig. “Surprised you’re still conscious. This shit can blind you, ya know.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grabs the bottle back. “So maybe slow down.”

She rolls her eyes because she has clearly proven numerous times that she can hold her liquor but decides not the start anything. It’s weird, getting along with Brad, but not…unpleasant.

“Hey,” she says, poking his shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

His face looks pinched. “Thanks for not letting me die,” he replies, suddenly wary.

She scoffs. “Like I’d let anyone die under my watch.”

Brad sits up. “You mean like I did.”

“Oh.” Beckett blinks at him. “Oh shit. Dude, I was just being an asshole then, I didn’t mean it.”

“But you weren’t wrong. If I had been smarter or—”

“Dude, you cannot think like that,” Beckett grabs his shoulders and makes uncomfortably steady eye-contact. “Even if I had been on the Cerritos when shit went down, I don’t think I could have saved him. You guys were on a time crunch with no backup and I’m surprised Rutherford survived the explosion.”

Brad’s eyebrows furrow. “Wha—did you read Freeman’s Mission Report? I told you to stop—”

She waves him off.  “Doesn’t matter. Point is, stop beating yourself up over it. And stop letting assholes like me make you feel bad,” she adds, as an afterthought.

“Only if you stop challenging people to duels in the Jefferies Tubes,” he counters.

“Deal,” she lies. “You should get in on some of those duels, though. You seem like a sword guy.”

“I can’t even tell if that’s a euphemism or not,” he mumbles. “Are we cool?”

“The coolest,” she confirms. “At least until you see my Missions Report.”

Brad sighs deeply and flops back down. “I’m not even worrying about that right now.”

“Good, because I definitely broke like every protocol ever.”

“Of course you did.”

“And I told the Camisitite’s to call me Captain Mariner, First of her Name.”

“Oh my god—”

“And I challenged their leader to a duel.”

“Mariner what the fuck.”  

[leemotionalwreck]

Of Black Chats and Fallen Angels (chapter 2)

Read it here on AO3!

Chapter 1 | You are here | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

*********************************************

Tikki rolled her eyes for what had to be the millionth time that afternoon as Marinette flopped back on her bed. She had spent every moment-- from the moment Adrien drove away to the second she shut her trap door-- ranting about ‘how could he possibly think offering me an umbrella could win me over’ and ‘why was he looking at me with that stupid smile on his face’ and on and on and on. As much as Tikki adored her holder, she could be exhausting with her overthinking and lack of, for lack of a better term, ‘chill’.

“Marinette,” Tikki chided.

Marinette hadn’t heard a thing as she walked over to a project she had started earlier that week. It was white nylon off-the-shoulder number with numerous belts and buttons that shouldn’t have worked as well as they did together, with a hem that stopped mid-thigh. She fussed over the neckline and Tikki worried that she would pick up a needle. Or worse-- decide to change something. 

“Marinette… ” Tikki warned.

Nothing good ever came from a ranting, angry, Marinette; especially when said Marinette decided to start sewing. Tikki had witnessed far too many meltdowns just hours after an angry sewing session and decided it was best (and safest for the sanity of all involved) if working on any project, school, or otherwise was best reserved for a time when her holder was more stable. 

Much to Tikki’s relief, Marinette walked away from the dress, fiddling with the ends of her hair instead. 

“-And don’t even get me started on the way he showed off his stupid limo.” The girl huffed as she ran her fingers through her hair. “I mean who even does that!? Ugh, and the way he-”

“MARINETTE!” Tikki interjected. 

“Huh?” She said as if Tikki calling her name had brought her out of some sort of trance.

“You’ve gotta stop overthinking this,” Tikki sighed. “I know you don’t like him, but isn’t there a possibility that he was just trying to be helpful? People do that type of stuff, you know.”

She shot Tikki an exasperated look. “Then explain the whole gum incident.”

How? Tikki thought as she brought her tiny hands up to her face. How can she possibly be the most intelligent while also being the densest holder I’ve had in a millennium? 

Tikki took a deep breath as she prepared to explain the situation for the millionth time. Marinette was going owe her so many cookies later

*********

Marinette was confused as hell, but that was nothing new. What was new was the source of her confusion. Oftentimes, when Marinette had a hunch or a gut feeling, she listened and that was it-- but this was different.

There was something unusual about Adrien Agreste. That was what Marinette knew. She also knew that she should not, and didn’t, trust Adrien Agreste. She knew that she had no real reason not to trust Adrien Agreste, as he had done nothing to her. 

Marinette knew that she was, at the very least, physically attracted to Adrien Agreste. 

Well, she didn’t know it-- not yet at least. And maybe that was why she had been ranting to Tikki for the past three hours-- getting an extensive lecture/explanation in return. Being a teenage superhero who fought evil purple butterflies with a punning leather catboy for a partner, there had to be some shred of normalcy in her life. If obsessing over the minute details of a five-minute interaction with a guy she didn’t like was her normal, then so be it. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. 

“Marinette” Tikki sounded like she wanted to drown herself in cookie batter. “I’m going to find something to eat. I’ll get back to you when you’ve calmed down a little”

Or that’s what she thought until something outside her window caught her eye--

An akuma. 

Damnit. Marinette knew she wasn’t exactly in the best headspace for fighting, but it wasn’t like she could coordinate certain dates with Hawkmoth. She chuckled aloud as a mental image of her, Chat, and Hawkmoth meeting at a round table popped into her head. 

“Ahem” came a noise from across the room. 

Marinette looked over at Tikki and nodded, transforming. She couldn’t help but wish for the absurd scenario as she soared above the buildings of Paris.

*********

“What’s the damage so far?” Ladybug asked as she landed right in sync on top of a building next to a running Chat Noir.

The past few months Chat Noir had been around, everything felt lighter. While Hawkmoth had most definitely been getting more intense, it seemed as if it didn’t matter as long as her partner was around. He was able to sense what needed to be done without asking or meticulously planning ahead, along with the fact that he was good with the press. While not as important, Ladybug treasured the fact that she didn’t have to worry about answering questions that required vague answers. 

They had become best friends as well. Despite not knowing the other’s identity, they knew each other inside and out. Ladybug couldn’t help but smile as she thought about the countless nights they had spent perched atop the Eiffel Tower, discussing everything from school to Hawkmoths identity to how different their lives would have been having never met. Or if one of them had been someone else. 

But there was something strange about him that she couldn’t figure out. Sure, there was the standard strangeness you would expect from a punning leather catboy, but there was something else as well. She saw it in the way he seemed to float a second longer than he should have whenever he was using his staff, or in the way his gaze lingered on shimmering patches of stars in the sky. How she had sometimes seen him whispering to the sun or moon… almost like a prayer. 

Ladybug eventually noticed that she and Chat had stopped running; he was calling her name, concerned. 

“You there M’lady?” 

She shook her head and smiled. “Yeah, sorry. So what are we looking at today?”

“Chemist from PSL Research University,” Chat began. “A coworker refused to take proper precautions before testing, which ended up hurting a couple of other chemists and about 4 interns.”

Ladybug sighed. “These are the worst kind.”

Chat nodded. “Right reason, wrong reaction.”

“Let’s get this over with?”

“Ready when you are bugaboo.”

*********

“Goddamnit,” Chat seethed as he and Ladybug ran into the sewers for a third transformation. 

Ladybug grumbled from around the corner. “I’m starting to lose sympathy for this guy.” She fed Tikki, and a pink light flashed just a second after Chat’s. “Ready to go?” 

“Just a minute.” He said before she got the chance to come around.

She fiddled with her yo-yo while she tried her best to think of a plan. So far, they had tried the lab coat, safety goggles, and ID. What more was there? 

The akuma’s design was simple enough. A pitch-black lab coat and neon yellow safety goggles-- really, Hawkmoth?-- along with their ID and a belt that held several different colored vials. Their hair stood up in an Einstein-like fashion, wild locks jutting out from all sections of their head, along with some sort of chemical that fizzed everywhere they stepped. How was that even possible?

Ladybug grimaced as she heard The Alchemist shouting from outside. “Grow a pair and show your damn faces! Why can’t Paris’ so-called heroes protect their city?” They were silent for a moment and Ladybug knew Hawkmoth must have been speaking to the victim. “Forget you both. I’ll get your miraculous and take care of this place myself. They don’t need you.”

The akuma-- or The Alchemist, as they named themselves-- had spent the better part of two hours spraying people with a liquid that kept them safe… while also making them invincible. Why the hell anyone, even an akuma, thought that would be a good idea was beyond her. 

With their newfound invincibility, people lost all inhibitions. 

In her three years of being Ladybug, the heroine had never seen havoc wreaked upon Paris like this. The streets were pure chaos as it seemed that the city’s lowest and most evil had come out of hiding. Looting, rioting, and arson could be seen anywhere you looked. She knew the screams from that night would haunt her forever, and she was sure she had seen a dead body or two somewhere. There had to be some other factor here. How could the city she had worked so hard to protect possibly be this self-destructive?

Marinette was afraid and stressed beyond belief. They had never faced anything as intense as this, what if they couldn’t fix it, what if Hawkmoth finally--

Wait… 

Momentarily pulling herself out of her thoughts, Ladybug heard a murmuring from around the corner. It was Chat Noir, but what was he doing?

“All I’m asking is that you help us out,” Chat muttered. “Just this once, then I’ll leave you alone, I swear.”

Was he-- 

Was he praying?

“Thank’s in advance I guess. If not, screw you.”

Before Ladybug got the chance to say anything, Chat came around the corner with a grim look on his face. 

“Let’s get this over with,” He said. 

And they did. 

After three transformations, plans A through S, and several words Master Fu definitely wouldn’t have approved of, The Alchemist had finally been de-evilized. Once they left the sewers, Ladybug called upon her lucky charm once again and received a canister of liquid nitrogen and a test tube. Scooping a small amount of the fizzing chemical and freezing it, the substance froze in the form of a butterfly, then smashing it and fixing the damaged caused. Ladybug took a shaky breath before making her way towards Chat and the victim.

Horrified at the destruction his abilities had caused, the victim, Dr. Marcel Roux, apologized-- close to tears. Calming him down took a while, but after reassurance, they managed to find him a safe ride home. 

Despite the ladybugs fixing everything, Ladybug and Chat Noir both had a sinking feeling that some people weren’t returning home that night.

*********

Wishing both him and the driver a good night, she and Chat sat atop the Eifel Tower, exhausted. Being home was most likely the smartest and safest option, but after what they had seen that night neither of them wanted to be alone with their thoughts that night. 

“Chat,” she began. 

“Hmm,” came a noise. Ladybug turned to him to see that he was against one of the support beams. The moonlight hit his face, and Ladybug wondered how someone could look that angelic any time of day.

“You never told me you were religious.”

His eyes snapped open and his gaze was locked with hers. “What do you mean?” 

“Earlier,” she began. “While we were in the sewers, I heard you praying. Kind of a rude one but a prayer still.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself religious. I don’t go to church or practice any religion, and I definitely don’t have any sort of relationship with the man upstairs,” Ladybug noticed that he seemed to give the sky some sort of look. Almost imperceptible, but he looked as if he was angry. “But I figure when you’re that low, a little wish can’t hurt.”

She hummed in response, then yawned as she looked over the city.

“I had no idea they were capable of something like that,” she said.

Her partner gave a grim chuckle in response. “Give someone enough power, they’ll do plenty of shit you weren’t expecting.”

Marinette knew he had a point, but there was a nagging feeling in her gut that something really wasn’t right. Of course she didn’t know the people of Paris that well. She had only been a hero for a short time, but to go from hopeful and faithful to complete anarchists was drastic and unlikely. 

Chat glanced over at her, seeing the gears in her mind turning and the worry on her face. He reached over and placed a hand on her knee.

“Tonight was weird, yeah. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified too. It's horrifying seeing the city we fight so hard to protect turn on itself like that--"

"You're really not helping, you know."

"That's ‘cause you didn't let me finish," She snorted and gestured for him to continue. "Sure, all that's true, but we have each other, and that's honestly all that matters."

She rolled her eyes at him as she stood, leaning on his staff for support. "You suck at pep talks."

He grinned and squatted back down to her level. "My point is, bugaboo, that no matter what happens, I’ll be here to get through it with you. The world could be ending, and it would be ok as long as you're next to me."

She knew she was blushing and turned away as he chuckled. 

"I should get home, Chat." She smiled at his wounded dog expression. "Some of us have curfews you know."

Chat Noir grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to it. "Until we meet again My Lady." He turned away from her and vaulted off the Eifel. She watched him freefall and he spun in mid-air to face her, winking and giving her a two-finger salute.

He eventually disappeared behind buildings in the distance. Ladybug swung away, grinning stupidly at her partners' antics. While Chat had done his best to reassure her, doubt seeped into her mind. It didn't seem normal for the people of Paris to have that sort of reaction. 

What also wasn’t normal was the pair of glowing red eyes watching her from down below as she made her way home. 

[otterknowbynow]

Altean Home Economics (20/?)

Goo is great, but Hunk sure would feel better if they had kitchen access, even if that does mean figuring out some extraterrestrial foreign substances and ending up with a lot more than he bargained for. Set between 2x07 "Space Mall" and 2x08 "The Blade of Marmora," stretching time a little bit.

all chapters in this tag | full work on ao3

“Right, so we’re good here, yeah?” Hunk says as lightly as he can, looking from Coran to Keith and back again. “We’ve got the coordinates, green and blue are heading that way with paladins at the ready, nothing major to worry about while they get over there, right? Nothing to do until we know what happened and why someone sent a distress beacon?” 

“I suppose technically yes we have a bit of a reprieve,” Coran says slowly, brows furrowing. “Do you have some sort of pressing engagement?” 

“Uh, kind of.” He grasps the back of his neck -- it’s an anxious move, and he knows he probably shouldn’t, but he can’t stop himself. “You see, in the kitchens --” 

“Ah, in the midst of developing a fine new recipe, are you?” Coran says warmly, his face relaxing. “Reminds me of my younger days baking with the King and Queen -- Melenor had us make the perfect juniberry tarts -- why, people were clamoring for the recipe, and of course she gave it to them, because it was better than dealing with the clamoring and producing them ourselves --” 

“Right, right,” Hunk interrupts, relieved that he doesn’t have to go further into the current disaster that is the pantry. “Just trying to figure some things out, you know how it goes.” He laughs, hoping it sounds more natural to Coran and Keith than it does to himself. Deceiving his friends -- even if he’s just lying by omission -- isn’t exactly his strong suit. 

“By all means, don’t let a bit of an unknown emergency situation stand in the way of your culinary creativity!” Coran says, clapping his hands enthusiastically. “Keith and I will hold down the fort here -- right, Keith?” He flashes a smile in Keith’s direction, though the kid looks pretty sullen. 

“Uh, I guess,” he says, blinking. 

“Excellent! Stay on your station, then, right-o. Good luck, Hunk!” Coran turns back to his console, and Hunk lets his breath out slowly as he moves to leave the bridge, the doors sliding smoothly open to let him through. Luck is something he could definitely use if he has any chance of figuring out how to address the pile of weirdness in the pantry. He’d like to ask Coran about it -- if Allura knew a bit, Coran would probably know more -- but he’s pretty sure a kitchen emergency doesn’t trump one on a mysterious planet, presumably involving mysterious aliens. Besides, if he can’t handle anything that comes out of a kitchen, who even is he anymore? A bunch of alien muck with a weird name -- lung rot, he thinks, cringing a bit internally -- isn’t going to stop him figuring things out. 

Hunk looks up to see he’s made it to the door to the pantry kitchen already, which isn’t that surprising considering he’d been booking it through the castle halls, half-wondering if Coran was going to page him to the bridge in a panic. What’s more surprising is he’s not the only one there. He realizes it suddenly, and does a bizarre kind of pirouette that he doesn’t think he could repeat if he tried, registering his heart hammering before he can find his breath. 

“Shit, Keith, were you not gonna say anything?” He manages to get the words out, putting a hand to his chest to try to calm himself. Keith hasn’t moved from his position next to Hunk, arms crossed over his chest. He shrugs. 

“I was thinking. So were you, it looked like,” he says. 

“Well, yeah,” says Hunk. “I thought you were staying with Coran, though.” 

“He was thinking, too,” Keith says. “But out loud. I couldn’t…” he trails off, loosening one arm so he can wave a hand vaguely. Hunk nods sympathetically, feeling a bit more charitable now that the shot of adrenaline he felt when he first noticed Keith’s silhouette has faded. 

“Yeah, Coran’s got a lot of cool trains of thought, you know? But I know not everyone’s comfortable with someone spilling their brain out through their mouth for, like, extended periods of time.” He grins, but Keith’s expression is still neutral. 

“You are, though,” he says. There’s no judgment in the phrase, but Hunk considers it for a moment anyway. 

“I mean, yeah, I’ve had a lot of practice,” he says. “Like, years of it.” He’s lived with Lance for how long now? Long enough, he thinks, to be immune to any negative effects of someone else’s stream-of-consciousness. 

“Guess so,” says Keith. He jerks his head toward the door to the pantry kitchen. “We doing something in here or what?” 

-- 

Hunk is intensely relieved to find that the strange alien putty-like stuff he left in the pantry is the same strange alien putty-like stuff that’s there now. It doesn’t even seem to have spread much further, which strikes him as a good sign as well. Keith takes the sight of the lung rot in a stride; his eyebrows raise a fraction of an inch when they walk through the pantry doors, but if Hunk hadn’t been scanning his face deliberately, he wouldn’t have noticed. 

Considering how preoccupied Keith has seemed all morning, Hunk expects he may need to explain the situation a few times over, but as soon as he’s gone through the narrative of the conversation he had with Allura this morning, Keith just nods. 

“All right, so first things first we need to figure out how to get this off the counter and get it in manageable pieces. That part I should be able to do pretty easily.” He pauses, reaching down to his left boot and pulling out an ordinary utility knife. Hunk blinks. 

“Is that just, like, always in there?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Keith says, shrugging. He prods the lung rot with the blade of the knife, gouging out a small chunk about the size of his fingertip. “It’s pretty soft, really, all things considered -- doesn’t seem like we should have much trouble.” Keith moves to the end of the island, still holding the knife. Some of the lung rot here has spread out to form a kind of peninsula, and he carefully slides the blade between the growth and the counter, leveraging up a section to peer at the steel underneath. He looks down at it for several seconds, frowning -- long enough that Hunk moves to stand by him and see. The steel under the section Keith is still holding up with the blade is a bright copper color in a perfect outline of the lung rot. It looks like it’s coated in some kind of liquid -- a liquid that’s thick as molasses, but doesn’t seem to flow anywhere. When Keith lowers the growth back onto the counter, it fits perfectly over the copper section, hiding it entirely. 

“This might be a bit tougher,” Keith says finally. That’s an understatement, Hunk thinks. What could that even be? “But I should be able to handle it.”

“You some kind of expert in mysterious goopy alien substances?” Hunk asks, half-joking. Keith’s face doesn’t change. 

“I had to clean up a lot of weird shit as a kid,” he says flatly. Hunk decides not to follow up. 

A few minutes later -- it must be only a few minutes, since they still haven’t heard anything from Coran -- they’ve each gathered a sizable amount of supplies. Hunk has pulled out sheets of the same flexible covering they used on the bowls, two giant steel tubs from deep in the pantry storage, and two pairs of oven mitts -- the ones that looked the most normal when he found them in stacks in the cupboards. He glances over to see Keith in front of a small pile of tools on a clear part of the side counter, examining a dough scraper, that same frown on his face that’s been there since they came into the pantry. It’s a different one from the one he was wearing earlier -- maybe Allura’s not the only one who started the day in need of a distraction. 

“Hey, Keith?” 

“Hm?” He doesn’t look up from the dough scraper, testing the edge with a finger now. 

“Would you rather I stick around here or head back to the bridge?” It’s an honest question, but Keith seems surprised by it, putting the dough scraper down and turning to look at Hunk for real. 

“I…” He pauses, blinks. Hunk tries to keep his expression as neutrally inviting as possible. “I’d rather you go back to the bridge,” Keith says finally. “If that’s okay, that is. I don’t really feel like being around...people.” 

“I can respect that,”  Hunk says, nodding. “I’ll just, uh -- let me know if you need anything?” 

“Sure,” says Keith, but his attention is back on the tools in front of him, this time focusing on a wheel a bit like a pizza cutter, but serrated with half-inch long spikes all the way around. As Hunk steps back out of the pantry to make his way to the bridge, he thinks he hears Keith mutter something about vinegar.

[primehorded]

Biomechanical Horde

I came into watching She-Ra as someone pure and untainted by the old series. Everything I learned about the characters and the universe, I learned from this show, and I wanted to write a breakdown of all the is-he-a-robot-is-he-an-alien evidence we see from Hordak, his brothers, and Big Brother himself, Horde Prime. (IDK if it was in the original but - Big Brother is watching, big brother sees all...inch resting and not at all political. Insert eye emoji)

FIRST we meet Hordak. Hordak appears to be a humanoid of no specified race, sharing some attributes with other races depicted in the show, but having some characteristics reminiscent of a robot. He has hair, he has ears that move and reflect his moods, similar to Double Trouble and Catra in that regard.

He also seems to have some proponents that are distinctly unnatural-looking. There isn’t enough detailing to be quite sure - no metallic glint on his skull-shaped face, for instance. Yet his eyes very distinctly to glow with light, even in darkness, and he has markings on his face and neck that could be where plates of metal/whatever unnatural material might meet, seams between the different parts and pieces he is made up of. However, these neater lines that look like plate seams also flow neatly into curved lines indicative of more natural-looking facial features. 

He has very sharply defined cheek-hollows the same darker grey as his neck - but also going into his ears, which  do not seem mechanical. 

Then we later start to get a better idea of what Hordak is, when Entrapta walks in on him changing (tee-hee). Here his unnaturally white skin seems to be changing color, affected by his declining health, the dark blue spreading like tissue damage. He also is physically frail and dependent on clothing engineered to hold him together and allow him to function. Also, he’s in a halter top here. You’re welcome.

After Entrapta nurses him back to consciousness, he admits to her that he is a clone, and reveals a series of pods where more clones seem to be growing. He says he was created with a defect, and cast out because of it. It is unclear if the clones are still growing or if they were failed experiments, but I’m leaning towards failed experiments. It is also not specified if Hordak was intending to clone himself in order to add to his army, or if he was trying to create a new body to somehow transfer his own consciousness into later. Horde Prime is shown to have gone through many vessels himself, and also states his brothers “lend their life force to him” so that he can live indefinitely. Considering how expendable Horde Prime’s “little brothers” are to him, it seems doubtful that he would even bother allowing them their own indefinite lives through some sort of life-force taking or vessel changing. There is a possibility that Hordak might know a little bit about how Horde Prime’s process of doing so works, seeing as he seemed to be a clone closer to Horde-Prime before his defect was discovered. We are not given any clear answers on this. (I tried to find a cap of Hordak’s attempted clones but typing in anything like “Hordak’s Clones” into the search engine didn’t work cuz, ya know)

The only creation he seems to have successfully cultivated is the imp, pictured above in the lower right-hand corner. The imp also seems to have some biological properties - ears, hair, even eyebrows, as well as a distinct nose shape and seemingly natural wings. Flesh wings. Not metal wings or whatever. I don’t like referring to stuff as “flesh” though, my overlord says it really blows my cover. The imp definitely has mechanical properties as well though - glowing eyes similar to Hordak’s and, most notably, the ability to kind of tape-record things he can hear. When he catches Catra sharing some secrets and brings them back to Hordak, he doesn’t repeat them as if remembered or even imitate them, but just opens his mouth for the duration, like to allow access to a speaker in the back of his throat, and a tinny voice-recording of Catra’s voice can be heard. He also uses this ability to mock Hordak, because he’s a little asshole. Otherwise, the Imp doesn’t speak, other than a few vague noises like hissing. Do we ever find out what happens to the imp? I feel like we don’t. Rip

Entrapta creates a new kind of suit for Hordak, this time built like an exoskeleton to allow him to move and function beyond the ability and energy his original body can give anymore. It functions like part of his body, but isn’t surgically connected to him or anything. At least, that we see. Entrapta do be a freak like that tho. 

When we finally meet Horde Prime, he too seems to share a mix of biological and mechanical aspects. He has the same snow-white skin, with markings that could resemble creases between plates/materials. He also has glowing eyes, as do his other clones, but he has white pupils that show in any body he inhabits when he moves his control/consciousness, as he seems to be able to fluidly among his clones and anyone chipped.

He has a few attributes that his clones do NOT share. He has extra eyes on his right side, with pupils of their own that are often looking other directions. This is the only part of him that is not symmetrical, and all of his clones are created and dressed in symmetrical clothing and features. He also has metal finger attachments on his index-fingers, which is very sexy but seems to cover a finger rather than replace them. 

The other attribute he has that none of his other clones bear is them GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS LOCS. I mean I’ve heard of cyber locks, but this is ridiculous. Bad joke. At the crown of his head, his hair appears white, the same as his skin and the hair on the heads of all of his clones. There appears to be two beads or sections, one on each side at the parts of his hair that frame his perfect evil face. Further down though, the pseudo-dreads turn a medium grey, and then are capped off with sharp tips that DO reflect light the same way metal drawn in the show does. So do the metal creases under the tops of his shoulders - cheeky off-the shoulder armor, or metal joint? 

He also has the ability to travel in the hive-mind network of every chipped being (including his clones), and access information like a file. Entrapta later “hacks” it like a software. Can you uninstall Horde Prime? Does he have ad-blocker?

We also see him utilize an unspecified green liquid, a pool of which he uses to make Hordak “pure”. Hordak alights in sparks when he enters it, like a toaster in a bathtub. This obviously effects him though in a very natural physical way, crying out in pain, and Horde Prime remarks that his suffering is necessary for his purity. If he was just throwing some water on him to short out his mechanical processors for a HARD hard reboot, he wouldn’t have any reason to have this lime green pool of...whatever. And whatever this substance is, it’s important enough to be the only color in or on Prime Horde or any of his clones. I’m gunna call it Horde Juice. It’s not the quenchiest.

Back to the hair. His “hair” is kept back and tied out of the way for most of the time, except for in the finale, when we see it being used to kind of funnel the Horde Juice straight into his brainicals. Horde Prime’s hair tubes connect into his back, with a few pieces left down cuz he’s a stylish ho. Now you can see very clearly some of the locs are actually CLEAR TUBES that only appeared light grey against his dark grey (skin?) and now they are pulsing with Horde Juice. However, we can ALSO very clearly see that not every tendril of his hair is alight with The Juices, indicating that some part of his hair are just that - hair, like his clones. It also has lit up a technical looking pattern along some creases in his body. His arms, his neck. His boobs.

There isn’t really a good point I can end this on, other than to say I thought it was a really creative and interesting design that was incredibly effective. It’s not easy to make a universe make sense with advanced futuristic weaponry and also medieval fantasy magic. The amazing design of the characters, weapons, architecture, and fighting styles made it look seamless, and Hordak’s design in particular really lead well up to introducing an insanely high-tech spaceship full of mind-controlled clones, dropped into a world filled with and dependent on magic. This was a spotlight specifically on Hordak/Horde Prime’s...race? Race.

I’m really curious for more information about the universe, even though from what I’ve heard the new She-Ra has changed a lot and the old She-Ra didn’t much prioritize world-building specifics. If I learn some more looking some stuff up on this series as well as the old one, and anyone is interested, I’ll add a part two and link it below!

[fantazeerps]

Mox Meni’s Many Amenities

“You want it? I got it. Step right up, tell Mox whacha need.”

Mox spends a lot of her time cranking out various items depending on her whims, and what she believes people may want. Below is a list of things she sells, typically having at least one of each knocking around in her cart. She can make most of these items the same day they’re requested (some in the same hour), except for special cases near the bottom of the page.

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Survival Tools

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Oils: “Yeah. Just oils. You need oil? Tell me what you need it for, and I got it for that.” Lamp oil, machine oil, weapon oil, armor oil, shield oil, wheel oil, wand oil, pond oil, slick oil, thick oil, dick oil, Mox has oils for every conceivable purpose. Price: Varies, but no more than 5gp/dose.

Mox’s On-The-March Meals: “For the adventurers with no time to camp.” Small pills of compacted sour-smelling powder kept in a small leather pouch. Reconstitutes itself into a nutritious but bland mush in vaguely recognizable shapes (such as cabbage heads, bread loaves, steak cuts, etc) when exposed to moisture. Pills can be swallowed directly to have them reconstitute in the stomach and avoid the taste altogether. Each package contains 10 meals-worth of pills. Price: 4gp/package.

Water Salt: “A pinch a this’ll keep your horrible thirsts at bay.” A super salty salt that, when swallowed, partially mummifies its imbiber. The process is uncomfortable and annoying, but not debilitatingly so, and the imbiber does not require any water for the next 3 days. It also staves off the effects of dehydration past those 3 days, forcing a Constitution check every 6 hours instead of every hour. The salt’s effect lasts for 7 days; three days without water, four days with slowed dehydration. Price: 5gp/dose.

Candlerod: “All the usefulness of a candle, none of downsides.” Finger-length stick that glows with soft heatless candlelight for 12 hours when activated. Price: 1gp/4 sticks. Only sold in bundles of 4.

Sunrod: “All the usefulness of the sun, none of the downsides.” Foot-long stick that can be activated as move action. Generates bright light out to 30ft, dim light for 30 more ft, for 6 hours. Price: 2gp/stick.

Water Purification Sponge: “One of the few things I sell that does what its name advertises.” Sponge that can absorb up to 1 pint of water. When wrung out, the water is cleansed of mundane nastiness and diseases. CANNOT cleanse poison, magical parasites, or magical diseases. Can cleanse up to 25 pints of water before breaking down. Price: 25gp/sponge.

Heavy Duty Water Purification Sponge: “Second verse, same as the first. Except stronger.” As above, but it can cleanse 2 pints of water at a time, and cleanses everything short of magical parasites. Can cleanse up to 30 pints of water before breaking down. Price: 40gp/sponge.

Air Gum: “Made with air freshly picked from your local wind farm.” Crunchy gum that provides 10 rounds of breathable air so long as it’s chewed. The chewer cannot speak or open their mouth during this time, though, or the air escapes and reduces the remaining duration by 2 rounds. A package of air gum has 4 pieces. Price: 50gp/package.

Fireless Fire: “This is how you cook and stay sneaky about it.” A thick brick broken into sections like a Hershey bar and wrapped in leather. Always warm to the touch, even through the package. Breaking off a section and working it with your hands makes it grow even warmer, providing a +4 alchemical bonus to resist the negative effects of cold weather. Five blocks can be molded together and worked to form a single mass that produces as much heat as a campfire without the light, smoke, or noise of one. Worked clay remains warm for 1 hour before losing all its properties. A brick of Fireless Fire has 10 sections. Price: 20gp/brick.

Alchemical Grease: “Makes any surface a skating rink if you’re not a coward.” A pot of slick black goo that can be used to coat one Medium creature or two Small creatures. Anything coated with Alchemical Grease has a +5 alchemical bonus to Escape Artist checks, checks to escape a grapple, and CMD to avoid being grappled. Also can be used for stuff mundane grease could be used for, but Better. It lasts for 4 hours or until washed off. Price: 5gp/pot.

Alkali Salt: “Not to be confused with table salt. I’m serious. Don’t.” Toxically salty salt that dissolves in water to form a thick paste. Weapons dunked in this paste gain a coating that protects it from the next 20 points of acid damage it would take (so if it takes 5 acid damage, it would have a 15-health ‘shield’ still left over). One dose creates enough paste to coat four shortswords, or two longswords, or eight daggers, or any combination thereof. Price: 30gp/dose.

Bladeguard: “It also works on clubs.” One pot of this substance protects the coated weapon from all forms of acid damage, as well as all magical or mundane effects which would corrode, rust, or melt it, for 24 full hours. Each pot only contains enough resin to coat one longsword, or two shortswords, etc. Price: 50gp/pot.

Impact Gel: “I wish I could figure out how to stuff a pillow with this stuff...” A flask of milky white liquid that works itself into a froth within seconds of being exposed to air, forming a 1ft-thick mass of impact-resistant foam. Can be carefully spread across a 10ft square or hastily thrown at the ground, which coats a single 5ft square plus one random 5ft square connected to the first. Anything landing on the gel reduces the damage they take from the fall by 2d6; the first 1d6 is ignored entirely, the second 1d6 is converted into nonlethal damage. Multiple uses of Impact Gel stack if thrown on top of one another. Price: 25gp/flask.

Fire Juice: “Don’t actually drink it without filling out this form.” One vial of this liquid can coat 6 inches of a surface. It glows like a candle for 1 hour, and then combusts in an instantaneous, white-hot flash, dealing 3d6 fire damage to anything it’s in contact with and igniting flammable material it’s touching. Price: 25gp/vial.

Explosion Juice: “Don’t actually drink it at all.” One vial of this liquid can coat 6 inches of a surface. It glows like a torch for 10 minutes before exploding, dealing 4d6 fire and bludgeoning damage to anything it’s in contact with, and 1d6 fire and bludgeoning damage to everything within 5ft of it and igniting any flammable material it damages. Price: 60gp/vial.

Rat-B-Gone: “I’m working on a version that’ll work on Turi, don’t worry.” Anyone smeared with this vile-smelling paste is supernaturally repellent to all forms of vermin, not just rats. Vermin of any type without an Intelligence score will never willingly approach or attack any creature covered in this paste unless the wearer attacks them. Vermin swarms must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to willingly enter the wearer’s space. Intelligent vermin are unaffected, though you smell atrocious to them. The paste remains potent for 4 hours. A container of paste will cover 1 Medium-sized creature. Price: 5gp/container.

Tindertwig: “Faster than flint, less cool than a magnifying glass.” They’re literally easy-strike matches. A box of tindertwigs contains 10. Price: 1gp/box.

Everburning Torch: “As useful and valuable as you’d expect!” A handy torch with a heatless fire that never, ever goes out, working while underwater and reigniting after 1 round if smothered. Mox has rigged her own to sputter and die 1d8+1 weeks after purchase. Gotta keep the money coming, y’know! Price: 50gp/torch.

Blasting Soda: “The exact opposite of baking soda.” A grainy, white powder that reacts explosively with water. A handful of blasting soda exposed to water congeals into a semi-solid lump that can be worked like clay into any shape needed and sticks to any surface. Over the course of the next minute, the soda becomes increasingly fizzy before detonating, dealing 2d8 bludgeoning damage to anything it’s in direct contact with. A box of blasting soda has about 6 handfuls inside it. Multiple handfuls do stack their damage. Price: 45gp/box.

Chameleon Pill: “Take off all your clothes for maximum effect.” A pill that causes the user to shift colors and even texture to mimic the closest surface to it. The pill lasts for 4 hours and grants a +4 circumstance bonus to Stealth checks if the user remains pressed up against the nearest surface. Price: 100gp per pill.

Hyperconcentrated Garlic Pill: “Useful for keeping vampires at bay. Also for keeping everyone else at bay.” An aggressively garlic-tasting-and-smelling tablet that makes the eater absolutely reek of garlic, repelling vampires (as well as anything else that can’t stand that level of garlic smell) but likely attracting something else for 4 hours. Vampires must make a DC 25 Will save to approach anyone infused with this much garlic, and are repelled as though presented with a holy symbol if they fail. A vampire that succeeds the throw is immune to the stink for 24 hours. Price: 20gp/pill.

Hyperconcentrated Pickle Pill: “Never understood why people hate the smell, but hey, maybe it’ll do you some good.” An aggressively pickle-tasting-and-smelling tablet that makes the eater absolutely reek of of pickles and brine, granting them the Stench universal monster ability for 4 hours and likely repelling anything with a sense of smell. The save DC vs the Stench is 13. Price: 10gp/pill.

Rope Gum: “Funny as it’d be, I can’t recommend chewing it for fear of lost business.” This teeny tiny pellet is easily concealed and appears to just be a wad of gum. When thrown at a hard surface, it suddenly explodes into a 30ft length of soft, spongy rope, which functions as mundane hemp rope. There’s no way to make it tangle around anything if thrown it at someone, so it’s useless as an actual weapon. It dissolves after 8 hours. Price: 25gp/pellet.

Hush Dust: “You say somethin’?” A sack of gray powder that dramatically bursts on impact with a surface. The dust clouds a 15ft square around the impact site, muffling all sound in the area; it applies a -10 penalty to any Perception check made to try and hear anything in the area. It can also be applied to the soles of the feet to grant a +5 circumstance bonus to Stealth checks to avoid being heard while walking. The dust’s effects linger for only 1 minute in the open air, 10 minutes on the feet. Price: 50gp/bag.

----------------

Weapons

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Sack of Smooth Powder: “What kind of powder? Don’t worry about it.” A handful of this extremely fine, smooth-as-silk powder hurled into a square briefly reveals any invisible objects inside it. It’s also useful for testing for illusions. It’s also useful for hurling into the eyes of your enemies, but because it’s so fine the Fortitude DC to resist being blinded is only 8. It’s also useful for just about anything you can imagine a handful of fine powder to be useful for, including lying about it being lethally toxic. It’s not actually toxic, but it still shouldn’t be eaten. A sack has about 10 handfuls of powder in it. Price: 1gp/sack.

Alchemist’s Acid: “Basic bread and butter of any good kit, really.” Thrown splash weapon; 1d6 acid on direct hit. Can be used as an additional component in a few acid-based spells to make them beefier. Price: 10gp/flask.

Alchemist’s Fire:  “Fancier bread and butter. Never leave home without it.” Thrown splash weapon; 1d6 fire on direct hit, +1d6 next round from being on fire. Can be used as additional component in a few fire-based spells to make them beefier. Price: 20gp/flask.

Alchemist’s Ice: “It’s an acquired taste of bread and butter.” Thrown splash weapon; 1d6 cold damage on direct hit. Can be dumped into a liquid to freeze it solid immediately. It freezes up to 5 cubic feet of liquid. Can be poured over an item to coat it in a 1/2 inch-thick layer of ice. Can coat up to 5ft of a surface with ice. Can be used as an additional component in a few cold-based spells to make them beefier. Price: 40gp/flask.  

Mox’s Malice Flask: “It’ll eat through just about anything and anyone.” A much, much beefier acid flask. Thrown splash weapon. 3d6 acid damage on direct hit, then deals 1/2 the initial damage again next round. Price: 40gp/flask.

Bottled Lightning: “People talk about bottling lightning like it’s hard. Never understood that.” A glass jar containing lightning. Behaves like one of those cool plasma balls that arc to your fingers and stuff. Can be opened to make a ranged touch attack vs an enemy within 20ft, dealing 1d8 electricity damage on a hit. Anything in the 20ft line between you and the target must make a DC 15 Reflex save or take 1 sonic damage from the thunderous boom. Price: 40gp/jar.

Electroshock Therapy: “More therapy for you than it is for them.” A much, much beefier bottled lightning. It deals 3d6 electricity damage to the target and 5 sonic damage to everything in a line between you and the target (including the target themselves). Price: 60gp/jar.

Boom Jar: “All the noise of dynamite, none of the fire.” A clay jar filled with unusual fluids kept in separate chambers. Thrown splash weapon. Anything impacted becomes covered by the two fluids, which mix together one round later and explode with concussive force. Anyone covered in the fluid takes 1 sonic damage and is automatically deafened for 1d4 rounds, and must make a DC 13 Fortitude save or be stunned for 1 round. Anything within 5ft of the explosion takes 1 sonic damage and is deafened for 1 round. Anyone covered by the fluid can spend their full round scraping it off and onto the ground, assuring they won’t get stunned. Price: 35gp/jar.

Flask-a-Sharp: “A hurt that keeps on hurtin’.” A can or jar of green gel that rapidly crystallizes and breaks into razor-sharp fragments upon exposure to air. Thrown splash weapon; anyone impacted takes 1d4 slashing damage as the ball of gel explodes outwards. The square it lands in plus all squares adjacent to it become coated in these razor-sharp fragments, which act as vicious caltrops for 5 rounds before dissolving into useless goo. Price: 25gp/jar.

Tanglefoot Bag: “Good for stopping enemies from getting closer or further away.” You throw it at something you don’t want moving around, and it stops it from moving around for a while. I’d go into specifics, but the Tanglefoot Bag’s item description is like three paragraphs long. Price: 50gp/bag.

Pox Burster: “It’s like a water balloon, yeah.” Thrown splash weapon. Anyone struck by the item or its splash must make a Fortitude save (DC 13) or contract Filth Fever. For the next minute, anyone moving through the spaces sprayed by the Nasty must make a DC 9 Fort save or be infected, as well. Price: 5gp/bomb.

Wound Weal: “Easy to make. Makes my job a hell of a lot harder.” Injury poison that inhibits the victim’s ability to heal one round after exposure. All Heal checks are made at a -10 penalty, and any magical healing must pass by a DC 25 caster level check or fail completely. Fortitude 18 negates, but failing means the poison’s effect lasts for a full 24 hours. Poison pings once per day; 2 successful saves cures. Price: 110gp/dose.

Fester Muck: “I scrape this off the bottom of every vial I make Wound Weal in.” Injury poison that does not allow a saving throw, afflicting the victim automatically unless they’re immune to poison. All attempts to magically heal anyone poisoned by it must pass a DC 10 caster level check or the spell fails. It remains in the victim’s body for only 1 hour. Price: 30gp/dose.

Bone-Hurting Juice: “Now in six flavors!” This delicious-tasting, clear fluid is sold in sealed clay cups. Anyone drinking this poison must make a DC 20 Fortitude save or be immediately wracked with pain that radiates from their core outwards. This pain causes nausea for 1 round, and then sickness for 1d8 rounds after that. Succeeding in the saving throw reduces this to 1d4 rounds of sickened. Because of its flavor, it’s easy to hide in drinks or disguise via food coloring. Price: 80gp/cup.

Marker Dye: “Scientifically formulated to stain every conceivable surface and most inconceivable ones.” A flask of inky dye that’s impossible to remove without the Erase spell and comes in a whole rainbow selection of colors. Loses potency 72 hours application, allowing it to be washed off. Can be carefully applied to a surface, or the whole flask can be thrown as a splash weapon. One use of Marker Dye can cover 1 square foot of space, and each flask has 5 doses. Price: 15gp/flask.

Concentrated Stank Juice: “The guild’s been a big help with making this stuff by the barrel. ‘Specially you, Tail.” Thrown splash weapon. Anyone directly struck must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be sickened for 2d6 rounds. If it fails the first save, it must make a second one or be nauseated for 1 round before the sickness kicks in. Anyone in the blast radius must make the Fortitude save or be sickened for 1 round. Anyone splashed by this reeks of stank for 2 hours after. Price: 40gp/flask.

Defoliant: “One jar of this stuff will piss off ANY druid.” A milky fluid that, when mixed with water, creates a toxin that can kill a 5ft square of mundane vegetation. Light vegetation dies in an hour, medium vegetation in 2, and heavy vegetation in 3. Massive trees take 1 dose of defoliant per 5ft square their base occupies to kill. Can be thrown at a plant monster as a splash weapon; a direct hit deals 1d6 HP damage, 1 Str and 1 Con damage. A jar of defoliant can clear up to 10 5ft squares. Price: 30gp/jar.

Flash Pellet: “Good for party tricks you don’t want anyone to look at.” A compacted ball of gray powder wrapped in dried grass or cloth. Creates a blinding burst of light if exposed to any amount of fire damage or a generous amount of friction, such as slamming it into a wall or the floor. Anyone in a 10ft burst must make a Fortitude save (DC 13) or be blinded for 1 round. Price: 5gp/pellet.

Hyperconcentrated Coffee Powder: “For those nights where you can’t afford to sleep, and for those enemies you can’t afford to let sleep.” Thrown splash weapon. Anyone directly struck must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or be poisoned by the powder; anyone in the splash radius must make a DC 10 Fortitude save instead. Anyone who fails is prevented from sleeping for 24 hours. Being put to sleep with magic is still possible. Mixing it with water and drinking it has the same effect. Price: 60gp/dose.

Itching Powder: “Half the scars on my body are from me getting exposed to this while making it.” Thrown splash weapon. Anyone struck directly must make a DC 12 Fortitude save to resist the powder; anyone in the splash radius must make a DC 8 Fortitude save instead. Anyone who fails is plagued with a relentless itching that imposes a -2 penalty to all rolls until they spend 1 full round washing it off with any liquid on hand. Price: 60gp/dose.

Sneezing Powder: “This would be the cause of the other half of the scars.” Thrown splash weapon. Anyone struck directly must make a DC 12 Fortitude save to resist the powder; anyone in the splash radius must make a DC 8 Fortitude save instead. Anyone who fails begins sneezing uncontrollably for 1d4+1 rounds, and is staggered. They can make a DC 10 Fortitude save at the start of their turn to resist the condition for 1 round. Price: 60gp/dose.

Rust Monster In-A-Tube: “I’m not responsible for any losses that result from the use of this product.” A paper tube sealed with wax and filled with rust-red flakes. The wax can be removed and the flakes poured onto an unattended item made of iron or steel; the item takes 10 damage as it rapidly begins to corrode, ignoring its hardness. Alternately, both ends of the tube can be removed and the dust blown into a 5-foot square; in this case, all iron and steel items in that square take 3 damage, ignoring hardness. Price: 70gp/tube.

Smokestick: “Less interesting but more practical than a Cloud In A Bottle.” A wooden stick that creates a thick cloud of smoke when burned. The stick burns away in a single round, creating a 10ft cloud of thick, obscuring smoke for 10 minutes. Price: 20gp/stick.

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Medicines

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Antiplague: “Ipecac’s bigger, stronger, probably-been-in-jail-before brother.” EXTREMELY nasty-tasting fluid that gives a +5 bonus to Fortitude saves vs disease for 1 hour. If drank when already sick, can immediately roll a Fortitude save (without the +5) twice and take the higher result to end the disease’s effects. Price: 50gp/dose. 70gp/dose to make it taste better.

Antitoxin: “Ipecac’s smaller, scrappier, definitely-been-in-jail-before cousin.” Foul-tasting liquid that gives a +5 bonus to Fortitude saves vs poison for 1 hour. Price: 50gp/dose. 70gp/dose to make it taste better.

Extra-Strength Painkiller: “Wasn’t sure which medicines to use for this recipe, so I used all of them.” An extremely bitter fluid that gives a +5 alchemical bonus to save versus pain effects and reduces all nonlethal damage by 1, for 1 hour. Price: 50gp/dose. 70gp/dose to make it taste better.

Bloodblock: “Stops hemorrhaging. Real useful in my line of work.” Using it while making a Heal check grants a +5 bonus to that check. Can be used to end bleed effects immediately. When used as part of a Heal check to treat deadly wounds, counts as a charge of a healer’s kit. Price: 25gp/dose.

Clear Ear: “Good news and bad news, and they’re both the same thing: You’ll hear everything.” Dripped into the ear. For 8 hours after it kicks in, +2 to all Perception and Knowledge checks, but -2 to all Charisma-based checks. Price: 15gp/dose.

Mellowroot: “Good news and bad news, and they’re both the same thing: You’ll feel invincible.” Sweet-tasting paste that grants a +5 alchemical bonus versus Fear effects for 1 hour. You must make a DC 15 Will save to willingly leave an enemy’s threatened squares. If you fail, you do not move but do not lose the action. Price: 25gp/dose.

Smelling Salts: “Guaranteed to be the smelliest salts in all of Dravaenn.” Grants an unconscious or staggered victim a new saving throw versus the effect keeping them impaired. Can be used on someone below 0 HP to wake them up immediately, but if they perform a standard action they take 1 damage and pass back out unless above 0. Container of smelling salts has 30 uses and 1 use is expended each round it remains open (it requires a full round to try and wake someone up). Price: 25gp/container.

Sooth Syrup: “Fun fact: I’ve replaced my stomach lining with this stuff.” Sweet and delicious. Coats the stomach when consumed, granting a +5 alchemical bonus to saving throws to resist being sickened or nauseated for 1 hour. Price: 25gp/dose.

Stillgut: “Fun fact: I’ve replaced other people’s stomach linings with this stuff.” Tasteless but uncomfortably thick liquid that coats the stomach when consumed, granting a +5 alchemical bonus to saving throws to resist being sickened or nauseated for 1 hour. Can be drank as a move action when already nauseous (even though nausea usually prevents actions) to immediately make a saving throw to end the condition (but without the +5), rolling twice and taking the higher result. Price: 50gp/dose.

Troll Oil: “Humanely produced with synthetic troll!” Thick, red syrup. For 1 hour after drinking, drinker automatically stabilizes if brought to 0 hp or lower. Bleed effects have a 50% chance each round of automatically being cured. Price: 50gp/dose.

Chilly Cream: “Not chili cream. That’s different, and also the opposite.” Sticky paste that’s applied to exposed skin like sunscreen. Provides a +2 alchemical bonus to resist the negative effects of hot weather, which becomes +4 in areas of bright light. Lasts for 1 hour per dose. A tin of chilly cream has 5 doses. Price: 15gp/tin.

Cayden’s Morning Kiss: “My best seller, hands down.” A salty powder that mixes with water to form a bitter, fizzling cocktail that cures hangovers of any intensity over the course of 10 minutes. Price: 2gp/dose.

Mox’s Patented Sweet Dreams Tonic: “It’ll knock you straight into dreamland and make sure your stay there is pleasant.” A fine, sweet, bubbly drink that causes drowsiness when drunk. Not enough to inhibit someone who wants to stay awake, but allows them to fall asleep with greater ease. If the drinker is affected by any mind-affecting effect within the next 24 hours, the tonic ‘activates’ and grants a +1 alchemical bonus to the save against it. This bonus lingers for 1d4 rounds after. The tonic also prevents mundane nightmares from occurring for 24 hours. Price: 5gp/dose. 6gp/dose if you’re Koko.

Mediteation: “One sip’ll clear your thoughts out enough that nasties’ll have a hard time holding onto them.” A cloudy, but soothing tea. For 10 minutes after drinking the tea, it grants a +2 bonus to saves versus mind-affecting effects. If the tea is drank while the drinker is suffering from a mind-affecting effect, it allows the drinker to immediately make a new save against the effect, rolling twice and taking the higher result. Price: 30gp/dose.

Concentrated Coffee: “Black as night, hot as Hell, bitter as half the guild.” Thick, syrupy, hot, extremely bitter fluid sold in small sealed cups that remains curiously warm no matter what. The drinker gains a +2 alchemical bonus on saving throws versus sleep, paralysis, and stagger effects for the next hour. If drank when already suffering from one of those effects, the drinker may make a new save against the effect, rolling twice and taking the higher result. Price: 40gp/cup.

Magnificent Mane Mixture: “Never understood why people like hair, but this’ll give you a whole lot of it.” A thick, sticky gel with a single unknown hair suspended in it. Smearing a dose on your skin and letting it sink in for 1 round causes rapid hair growth on that part of your body, with the hair growth not stopping until it reaches 1d6 feet long over the course of 1 minute per foot of hair. The grown hair is mundane and will last until it’s removed or altered by an outside force. If the gel is applied but scraped off within 1 round, it has no effect. It’s completely neutralized by alcohol; make sure to swab any surface you don’t want hair on (like your hands) with alcohol. Do not drink it. One bottle has 2 doses, and one dose is usually enough to cover the top of a Medum-sized creature’s head. Price: 10gp.

Creams: “What? Not everyone’s got gold to spend.” Skin cream, hair cream, tooth cream, eye cream, nail cream, cream that hides your age, cream that hides your blemishes, cream that amplifies your age or blemishes, and cream that undoes the side effects of the others. Usually mundane, but some of it is runoff from Mox’s other experiments that she’s deemed safe enough to sell. May come with side effects, both intentional and not. Price: Varies, but never more than 1gp.

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Misc

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Black Powder: “A thousand and one uses, all of them hysterical.” No one’s entirely sure how she manages to make this without access to a mine. A mystery, but it’s useful. One dose is typically enough to fire one round of ammunition, but plenty of more creative uses exist. Price: 3gp/dose.  

Quick-Freeze Oil: “Useful for crossing ponds, or trapping someone in one.” When poured over water, spreads to cover a 20ft circle in 1 round, and next round flash-freezes into a thick sheet of ice that can support 200lbs per 5ft square. The ice sheet lasts for 1 hour. Price: 50gp/flask.

Buoyant Balloon: “Won’t let you fly, but it’ll let your cat fly.” Move action to activate this alchemically-treated animal organ, which inflates to a 3ft-diameter sphere that rapidly rises into the air by 60ft/round unless tied down. Can carry up to 20lbs with it, but multiple balloons can be attached to the same object to achieve lift. Explodes once it reaches 600ft into the air, or after 10 minutes pass. Can also be used as an emergency flotation device in case you’re underwater. Price: 10g/balloon.

Alchemical Cement: “Lets you turn sand back into the rocks it descended from.” Gray powder that activates with water and is mixed with sand or gravel to make thick cement, which cures over the course of 1d10+10 minutes into stable stone. After 1d6 hours, it becomes true, solid stone. 1 dose can create 5 cubic feet of cement. Price: 5gp/dose.

Alchemical Glue: “It’ll stick anything to anything else.” Anything slathered in this glue will stick to anything else. The glue becomes tacky after 1 minute, and fully cured after 1 hour. Separating anything glued together with this glue takes a DC 20 Strength check for tacky glue, DC 25 for cured glue. The glue can suspend loads of up to 50 pounds from a wall or ceiling, but the item must be held in place until it becomes tacky. A flask of glue has 20 uses, and each use can cover 2 square inches of space when applied carefully. The 50-pound weight limit stacks with each use of glue. Price: 20gp/flask.

Lightning Glue: “BOOM! Your hand’s now stuck to your face.” As Alchemical Glue, except it becomes tacky in 1 round, and cures fully after 1 minute. Price: 50gp/flask.

Super Unsticker: “Luckily for you, I also sell the cure for glue.” Dissolves mundane adhesives such as glue, sap, spider webbing, and tar in 1 round. Dissolves more advanced adhesives such as alchemical glue, webbing from a Magical Beast, or tanglefoot bags in 1d4+1 rounds. Has no effect on magical adhesives like Sovereign Glue. Price: 15gp/dose.

Deodorizer: “You wouldn’t be standing here if I wasn’t wearing this stuff.” Anything coated in a dose of this powder has their scent completely masked for 4 hours. One jar contains 2 doses, and one dose can cover a Medium creature. Price: 30gp/jar. 

Reodorizer: “A dab of this behind your ear and you’ll be irresistible!” This aggressively flowery scented cream makes whatever it’s slathered on supernaturally attractive. Any creature with the Scent special ability can detect anything with reodorizer on it from ten times the normal distance, and has a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls against the target. A creature wearing the reodorizer has a +2 alchemical bonus to all Charisma-based skill checks. A dose of reodorizer retains its potency for 2 hours. A jar of reodorizer has 4 doses. Price: 60gp/jar.

Glowing Ink: “For anyone that wants to read in the dark.” Anything written in this ink glows enough to allow it to be read in anything but the radius of a Deeper Darkness spell and grants anyone within 30ft a +2 on Perception checks to see the item. The glow does not weaken over time. One vial of ink can be used to pen up to 10 pages of writing. Price: 5gp/vial.

Invisible Ink: “For anyone that doesn’t want to read.” Invisible ink fades away 1 round after being put to paper. Invisible ink comes in four strengths: Simple, Average, Good, and Superior, which determines what conditions are required to get the ink to reappear. For example: Simple ink can be revealed with a simple trigger, such as heat. Average ink can be revealed with more uncommon triggers, such as certain chemicals, or blood. Good ink can be revealed with rare triggers, such a specific brand of wine or a certain species’ blood. Superior ink can only be revealed with a unique trigger, such as the blood of one specific person. Mox can customize ink triggers on request. One vial of ink can be used to pen up to 10 pages of writing. Price: 2gp, 10gp, 25gp, and 75gp per vial, for Simple, Average, Good, and Superior, respective.

Blackfinger Paste: “Good for getting caught black-handed.” When smeared across the fingers, the user does not risk accidentally poisoning themselves when handling poisons and it protects them from contact poisons they touch with their hands. The paste lasts for 6 hours but stains the user’s fingers for 6 full days afterwords. Price: 50gp/dose.

Fun Foam: “Fun for the whole family! Except for whoever’s on cleaning duty.” This 1lb sack of green powder works itself into a violent froth when exposed to water. The froth spreads outwards by 5ft a round in random directions until it has covered 50ft of space. Any square filled with the foam is treated as difficult terrain. After 1 hour, the foam settles down and turns into a thick, lime-green substance with the consistency of candle wax that smells like seawater. It breaks down into harmless powder over the course of 5 days. Price: 10gp/sack.

Smoke Pellets: “Available in six different colors and four different scents.” A packet pellet of powder that can be thrown at the ground as a splash weapon. On impact, it creates a thick plume of smoke that fills a 5ft space, obscuring everything inside. The smoke vanishes in 1 round. A package contains 4 pellets. Price: 25gp/package.

Instant Fertilizer: “Don’t ask how it’s made. Not because there’s a sinister ingredient, just because it’s a pain in the ass to explain.” A handful of this worryingly red gravel can be spread over 5ft of soil to provoke alarmingly fast plant growth. The ground becomes overwhelmed by weedy, rampant growth in just 1 round and becomes difficult terrain. Not super useful for true gardening since it’s indiscriminate in what plants it promotes the growth of. Plant creatures exposed to the fertilizer heal 2d6 HP and 1 point of ability score damage to each physical ability score. A sack of instant fertilizer has 2 handfuls inside. Price: 25gp/sack.

----------------

On Commission

“These items are a bit... pricier than my normal fare, or take more exotic ingredients I gotta, aaahhh, order. I can’t make ‘em often, and I can’t mass produce ‘em. Yet. But if you’re interested, we’ll see if I can’t make time in my schedule...” 

----------------

Soul Stimulant: “It took me a lot of time and a lot of assistants to perfect this recipe.” A soothing elixir that removes all penalties associated with negative levels for 12 hours. This doesn’t cure them, but it does prevent the user from dying if they rack up too many, so long as they continue to drink doses before the previous dose runs out. Price: 300gp/dose.

Troll Styptic: “Now made with real troll!” An awful, stinging solution that grants the target Fast Healing 2 for 2d4 rounds and removing all bleed effects automatically at the end of each round. The victim must make a DC 15 Fortitude save each round or be sickened from the pain of the wounds closing. 1 case contains 2 doses. Price: 100gp/case.

Ambrosia: “Stuff stings when I handle it, but it’s good for just about everything.” A beautiful golden elixir that grants its drinker a +2 sacred bonus to saving throws to avoid negative energy, energy drain, and death effects for 1 hour. This bonus also applies to saves made to remove negative levels. A flask of Ambrosia burns like holy water against undead and Evil outsiders. Price: 150gp/flask.

Surgical Slime: “People tell me that they can feel it moving inside them. Buncha wimps, that’s part of the appeal!” A generous handful of thick red glop that seeks out and eradicates unwanted guests within the body. One dose immediately rids the body of all invaders, such as infestations, implanted eggs, parasites, and any other non-disease effect which Remove Disease can get rid of over the course of 1 round. Price: 300gp/dose.

Warding Gel: “I got it in sunscreen and moonscreen.” Comes in both Fire Ward and Frost Ward; both are functionally identical, except for the energy type they block. It takes 1 minute to slather a dose onto a creature, and grants Fire or Cold Resistance 5 to its user for 2 hours, or until it successfully blocks 20 points of damage. It provides immunity to the effects of hot or cold weather so long as it lasts. One jar contains 2 doses, and 1 dose can cover 1 Medium creature. Price: 180gp/jar.

Reanimation Fluid: “I always keep at least one on hand. For party tricks, y’know.” Ominously glowing fluid kept in a syringe. When injected into a Medium or smaller corpse that’s been dead for less than 1 day (Gentle Repose helps), the corpse reanimates. This is not a true reanimation; the body is neither an undead nor a construct. Its brain is completely inert. The fluid is merely causing random muscular spasms, which makes the body shamble aimlessly around, looking around at random, making a low groaning noise every few seconds. More of a wind-up toy than anything else. This show lasts for 1 minute or until the body is destroyed. Price: 150gp/dose.

Warding Ash: “Hate touchin’ this stuff, but zombies hate it more.” A jar of ash that undead find repulsive. Unintelligent undead cannot willingly cross a line of warding ash, recoiling upon touching it or attempting to step over it. It has no effect on intelligent undead beyond a momentary revulsion. The ash’s effects remain in place for 1 minute, or until the line is broken by an outside source. One jar of ash has enough to create four 5ft lines (thus the whole jar can be used to draw a protective circle around a space, or two uses can be used to block off a 10ft-wide hallway, etc). Price: 160gp/jar.

Grenades: “Black powder has so many uses, it feels like such a waste to make these...” Thick clay vessels with an ominous black fuse, with Mox’s smiling face painted on the side. If the fuse is lit (a move action), the grenade will explode 1d3 rounds later, dealing 2d6 bludgeoning damage and 1d6 fire damage to everything in a 10ft burst (Reflex DC 15 halves). Can be thrown as if it were a splash weapon, making it explode on impact instead of 1d3 rounds later. Price: 100gp/bomb.

Heavy Grenades: “...But money’s money. Lets see how much powder we can fit inside.” Bloated clay vessels with an ominous skull and crossbones painted on the side. As a normal grenade, except the fuse is much longer (unless cut), burning down 1d8+1 rounds later. The explosion is much more dramatic, dealing 4d6 bludgeoning and 2d6 fire damage to everything in a 20ft burst (Reflex DC 17 halves). Can be thrown as a splash weapon, but has only a 5ft range increment b/c it’s so fucking unwieldy. It still explodes on impact. Price: 250gp/bomb.

A Straight-Up Keg of Black Powder: “It’s gonna take me a week to fill this order, y’know, but I’m eager to see what you’re gonna do with it.” It’s not shipped in, it’s not mined... How’s she making so much of it? In any case, this is a shitload of black powder. About 150 doses, in fact, enough to blow just about anything across all nine circles of Hell one way or another. Comes with a 2-round, 4-round, 10-round, or 1-minute fuse on request. Does 4d10 bludgeoning and 2d8 fire damage to everything within a 50ft radius (Reflex DC 20 halves) after blowing. Price: 1000gp/keg.

Extremely Heavy-Duty Cleaning Solution: “If this can’t get the stain out, it can’t be gotten out.” A milky fluid with fumes so caustic and thick that it threatens to suffocate anyone trapped in a room with it. When poured over a space, it absolutely obliterates all traces of organic matter over the course of a minute before evaporating into a thick, noxious cloud that slowly dissipates over the course of an hour. It deals 1d8 acid damage per round to any organic substance it comes in contact with, which is tripled if the substance in question is inanimate, such as blood, hair, leather, paper, severed limbs, or entire inert corpses (but not including living vegetation or undead beings). It leaves a very obvious stain on any surface it touches but doesn’t dissolve, which lingers for 1d4 days after. A terrible idea to use in a house with wooden floors. One dose of EHDCS can cover a five foot space and/or destroy one Medium-sized corpse, and it’s sold in jugs with 6 doses inside. Price: 340gp/jug.

Hyperconcentrated Stank Pill: “Not every day you see something that makes me crinkle my nose. This stuff? This stuff’s dangerous.” A pitch black pill with an odor so indescribably foul that it has to be sold in an airtight container with an accompanied clothespin to hold the eater’s nose shut until they get the thing down. The stank coming off of the pill is grotesque enough to give the pill itself a 5ft aura of Stench, with the DC to resist becoming sickened being 15. Anything eating the pill gains the Stench ability, with a DC 25 to resist sickness, as well as a +2 deflection bonus to AC because the smell wafting off of the user becomes so intense just an inch from the skin that it forms a physical barrier. Anyone grappled by the user must make a DC 20 Fortitude save each round or become nauseated by the stench, but making their save means they’re unaffected by the foulness for 24 hours. The pill’s effects last for only 2 hours before it’s completely sweated out, but harmless (and terrible) remnants of the stink will cling to their body and clothes for a week afterwords. Price: 400gp/pill.

[livingcorner]

How to Make a Crystal Garden for a Science Project@|how to grow your own crystal garden@|https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTc0Mzk0MDExMTkxMDkyNTg0/how-to-make-a-crystal-garden.jpg@|0

Just a geeky mom who loves to share science with her kids. She teaches how to do simple science experiments that anyone can do from home.

Easy instructions to make a salt crystal garden

You're reading: How to Make a Crystal Garden for a Science Project@|how to grow your own crystal garden@|https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTc0Mzk0MDExMTkxMDkyNTg0/how-to-make-a-crystal-garden.jpg@|0

I was recently introduced to growing a salt crystal garden by a friend of mine. She had beautiful cauliflower-like blooms growing in a dish on her countertop. Once I saw it, I decided that it was a must-do project for the kids and me. I had most of the items I needed to grow the garden lying around the house, and the time spent to make it was minimal. It is so easy, but yet so satisfying to watch the crystals in the garden grow.

This would be great for kids looking for a science fair project, but even without the science fair, it’s fun. My kids were mesmerized by the growing crystals and seeing how they changed each day. So without further ado, here are instructions on how to make your own salt crystal garden.

Supplies

Salt

Ammonia

Mrs. Stewarts Bluing (find this in the laundry section of the store)

Warm Water

Sponges

Container to grow crystals (glass or plastic work well)

Food Coloring (optional)

Instructions

Day One

Wet the sponges and squeeze them out. Next, cut the sponge into small sections that are about an inch or two big. Then place the individual sponge pieces into the container you’ll use to grow your garden. It depends on the size of your container how many pieces you use. Our containers each had one sponge in them. We tried to get creative with the building the base of our garden, but to be honest, the gardens with sponges stacked on each other took longer for the crystals to form. Crystals still grew, but the results were a bit slower.

Sponges arranged in the plastic container.

Next, for each crystal garden take 2 tablespoons of salt, ammonia, liquid bluing, and warm water and combine them in a measuring cup. Stir until you can no longer get the salt to dissolve. All of the salt won’t dissolve, so don’t try. Just mix it until you feel it’s as dissolved as it’s going to get.

After the solution is combined, pour it over the sponges. When you get to the mucky blue salt at the bottom, drop it on top each of the sponges. Make sure to use all of the mixture.

Sponges waiting for crystals to form.

If you’d like to use food coloring, now is the time. A few drops here and there on top of the salt blobs will suffice. We found that blue worked best. Green turned teal blue, and red and yellow really didn’t leave a color at all. If you don’t use food coloring the crystals will be white which is quite stunning.

I’m not exaggerating when I say the crystals will begin blooming within the hour. The overnight results are amazing.

Crystals beginning to bloom after just a couple of hours.

Crystal Garden in the morning. Only 10 hours after starting.

Day Two

Add two more tablespoons of salt to the places on the sponges that crystals didn’t form. The crystals will continue to form throughout the day.

Day Three and Beyond

Prepare a half batch of the original mixture and pour it into the bottom of the container. This is the food that will keep the crystals blooming. You can continue to add the mixture every few days and your crystal garden will grow for in infinite amount of time. Ours grew for over 3 months until we decided we our needed the counter space back.

The crystal garden is growing up the sides of the container.

Crystal Garden Hints and Tips

The crystals are very fragile. They will collapse if you touch them. They may collapse when you move them. No worries though, they will grow back when you “feed” your garden.

You can add food coloring at any time, but it will dissolve your crystals. The good news is they will grow again each time you add more of the ammonia, salt, bluing mixture.

Ammonia is not needed to get the crystals to grow. It actually just aids in the evaporation process. Leave ammonia out if you wish, but realize it will take longer for the crystals to form.

After days of feeding your garden it may begin to try to escape your original container by growing up the sides. That’s ok, just put the container inside a larger container like a cake pan.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with the crystals. After months of feeding the crystals we tried to kill them off by just adding water, instead of the solution. Guess what, they still grew back for days.

Any porous substance can be used instead of sponges; charcoal or lava rock would make a good substitution.

Air needs to flow freely around the crystal garden for it to grow, so don’t cover it up.

Put food coloring in different places to have both white and blue flowering crystals.

The Science Behind the Crystal Garden

Definitions

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Soluble – easily dissolved, especially in water.

Crystalize – to change from a liquid to a solid form that is made up of crystals.

Evaporation – to change from a liquid state to a gaseous state.

Colloidal Suspension – A substance where the particles of the solution are mixed, but they are not dissolved.

Porous Substance – Any substance having small spaces or holes through which air or liquid may pass.

Capillary action – The ability for liquid to travel through small spaces without the help of forces like gravity.

A month later and this crystal garden is still blooming.

Now that you know the science terms here’s how they apply to the salt crystal garden. First off, salt is a soluble crystal, therefore, it’s a crystal that can be dissolved in water. In any salt and water solution when the liquid evaporates the salt will crystalize. Think of a saltwater fish tank, in all saltwater fish tanks a white powdery crystal substance can be found at the top. This is because water in the tank has dissolved leaving salt crystals at the top of tank. You can test this for yourself by dissolving 1 teaspoon of salt in one cup of hot water. After a few days, some of the water will evaporate and white crystals will form at the point where the water originally started.

Your crystal garden will start to look like cauliflower if you don’t feed it for a several days. It’s still pretty.

In the recipe for the crystal garden large amounts of salt are added in proportion to the amount of liquid. You can see this just from the fact that when mixed it is impossible to get all of the salt to dissolve.

Because there is so little liquid, the crystals will form quickly. The Mrs. Stewarts bluing acts as a colloidal suspension in the mixture. Since the bluing particles are not dissolved, they form the nucleus of the crystals and allow the salt garden to bloom around it rather than form chunky solid salt crystals.

As mentioned earlier, the ammonia aids in rapid evaporation. It not only evaporates quickly, but it also helps the water and liquid bluing to evaporate quickly.

On day three and beyond you should add the mixture to the bottom of the container. This helps keep the crystals from being disturbed. Because the sponges are porous, the mixture will be drawn up through the sponges by capillary action. This feeds the crystals, and keeps them growing for months as long as you remember to feed them. If you don’t feed them, the crystals stay for a while, but their appearance changes dramatically.

So whether you are planning your next science project, or just want to have fun growing a crystal garden this project is a must try.

What are you waiting for? Start your crystal garden today!

Comments

Shellie on July 27, 2020:

Can the crystals be preserved or “sealed” somehow without damage? Example: epoxy, laquer, glue, etc…

Jahra. on March 15, 2020:

Another set of questions:

Can I use some other blueing product other than Mrs Stewart’s ?

Does the blueing affect the coloring of the crystals ?

What’ll happen if I don’t put blueing in the solution ?

Is it possible to keep the crystals as they are without having to feed them over and over again ?

Can transparent liquid resin be poured on the garden to add a protective layer ?

Jahra on March 14, 2020:

Hi ! May I ask what salt have you used ? And which section of the grocery store do you find ammonia ?

grant on March 01, 2018:

so is there a different way to add, do you have to mix the salt together

Kathy Hull (author) from Bloomington, Illinois on May 04, 2016:

I got Mrs. Stewarts Blueing at my local grocery store, but they also sell it on Amazon.

Jeffery on May 03, 2016:

Agreed with Jeff .

jeff on May 03, 2016:

Read more: 6 things to think about before preparing a raised bed garden@|how to prepare a raised garden bed@|https://i0.wp.com/savvygardening.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/raised-bed.jpg?fit=657%2C360&ssl=1@|0

WHERE CAN U GET MRS STEWARTS BLUEING DUDE!! THEY DO NOT SELL IT ANYMORE !!

Glenn Stok from Long Island, NY on August 03, 2015:

This is great. I actually remember doing this when I was a kid. But then again, I always played around with experiments similar to this at that age.

I have a friend who has a nine year old daughter and I’m passing this hub on to her. I think her daughter will love it. And it’s a great learning process too.

Kathy Hull (author) from Bloomington, Illinois on June 27, 2015:

I don’t see why not, I actually think it would turn out pretty cool in an aquarium.

Susan Britton from Ontario, Canada on June 27, 2015:

Would this work in an empty aquarium. I have 2 that I dont want fish in anymore? I love this idea.

Liz Elias from Oakley, CA on June 25, 2015:

I vaguely recall doing something similar when I was a kid. I’m definitely passing this along for the grandkids to try.

But, I’ll have to wait until later; for some reason, all the various share buttons and not visible on this little notebook computer.

Voted up +++ Congrats on the EC

Vic Dillinger on June 25, 2015:

What a fun article!

Karen A Szklany from New England on June 25, 2015:

Thank you for reviving my interest in this project. I’ve known about it and haven’t done it with my daughter yet. Will try it today.

It was very useful to know that I could leave out the ammonia. Not a fan of the stuff, so we can be patient about the evaporation process. Can’t wait to do it….may wait for her friend to come and each of them can make one.

Venkatachari M from Hyderabad, India on June 24, 2015:

Awesome idea of growing artificial gardens in your home. It is very interesting and exciting too even for grown ups, not to mention children.

Thanks for sharing it. Voted up and awesome and sharing G+

Rota on June 24, 2015:

Love this! Something really different to do and watch grow

Factable News from Lagos on June 24, 2015:

Lovely and nice, maybe i should try it out .

FlourishAnyway from USA on June 16, 2015:

This seems like a cool summer science project to do with the kids. Graf hub! Voted up and more!

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Blog

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-make-a-crystal-garden-for-a-science-projecthow-to-grow-your-own-crystal-gardenhttps-images-saymedia-content-com-image-t_share-mtc0mzk0mdexmtkxmdkyntg0-how-to-make-a-crystal-garden-j/

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[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Feuilly scrubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to will them to stay open just a little while longer. Compiling an appropriate report on their latest expedition had taken longer than expected – distorting verifiable facts until they were both palatable to the authorities and still technically accurate was a delicate task, and, while Feuilly fancied himself relatively good at it, it still took longer than he expected every single time – and he had promised Enjolras that he would do some proofreading before the end of the week. Next to him a sat a half-empty, entirely forgotten mug of instant coffee, a substance which was not improved by being left out to cool for hours on end. He would finish it, when he noticed it again, but only out of a sense of responsibility to avoid wasting resources. Saint-Antoine was not the poorest of the moon colonies orbiting Lutecia, but neither was it especially wealthy. To live on Saint-Antoine meant taking what you needed and no more, lest everyone go without.

He looked back down at his datapad, the text on its screen already filled with increasingly cryptic proofreading notes. No doubt he would have to go back over the manuscript before sending it back and translate his comments back into something vaguely intelligible to someone other than him, but that could wait. For now he had only to read the end of the section he had assigned himself for the night and then he could retreat to his bed for a few hours. Fixing this reward in his mind, he turned back to his task with slightly renewed vigor.

This vigor lasted until someone passed slightly too close to him on their way somewhere else. Feuilly looked up, annoyed and knowing he shouldn't be. Every resident of the dormitory had access to the common area, after all, and space was necessarily limited. The passer by could not know that they had knocked him out of his hard-won concentration, or that he had only a few more pages to go before he could call it a night. He took a deep breath, remembered the mug before him, and took a large swallow. Only a lifetime of practice kept him from gagging on the bitter liquid, and he grimaced. Maybe a change of scenery would help. He couldn't go to his room – his roommate worked first shift at solar plant and usually got up roughly as Feuilly went to sleep – but he could at least try for a seat by a window. The common area had cleared out save for those who kept irregular hours, third shifters on their nights off or those like Feuilly for whom sleep was a rare luxury. He rose, stretching out stiff limbs and working a crick out of his back, then picked up his datapad and mug and picked his way through the maze of desks and chairs to an armchair near a window. He couldn't see the stars from here – Saint-Antoine's major population center had not been designed with stargazing as a priority – but he knew where they were, could map a star chart onto the light-polluted sky and imagine what it would look like.

He looked back down at the datapad with a sigh. The manuscript before him was a profoundly uninspired piece of political allegory, blatant enough to stand no chance of getting through the censors but too formulaic to say anything particularly interesting. He had, by this point, read a solid dozen of nearly identical manuscripts, and he had a full grasp on why Enjolras outsourced the task of triage and proofreading as often as he could. He also understood why his friend usually asked him when he was looking to delegate – any of their other friends would have been either too artistically offended to avoid savaging the poor writer or too bored to finish the entire thing, if not both at once. Still, knowing why he had been chosen for this task did not make it any more enjoyable, particularly late at night after an already trying day filled with filing reports and having them sent back because font that had satisfied the Scientist Ethics and Oversight Board last month was this month deemed unprofessional, and oh, by the way, regulations now state that each mission report must include a full and exhaustive list of expenses, with justification for each, rather than an overview. Sometimes, Feuilly thought the Board changed their rules on a monthly basis purely to spite him, particularly.

He had nearly reached his stopping point when someone sat down across from him, once more jarring him out of his concentration. It took physical effort on his part to keep from snarling wordlessly at this inconsiderate newcomer, and instead he kept his eyes pointedly on his datapad, hoping without much conviction that whoever it was had just chosen this seat at random rather than because they had business with him.

Sure enough, a few moments later a soft voice said, “Citizen Feuilly?”

Only the chosen honorific stopped Feuilly from snapping that he was busy. Few were those who would be so brazen about their political position, even in a place like this. He looked up, then blinked, resisting the urge to rub his eyes again to make sure he wasn't seeing things. “Enjolras?”

The blond man before him nodded, looking a little rueful. Seeing him for the first time in person, rather than through the grainy screen of his datapad, Feuilly appreciated for the first time what Combeferre meant when he talked about the effects of Enjolras' mixed-species heritage. The sculpture-like quality of his features cane through well enough digitally, but never before had Feuilly realized that, when Combeferre and Courfeyrac talked about Enjolras glowing, they did not mean it metaphorically. His hair in particular seemed to shine with its own radiance, entirely unconnected to the flat fluorescent lighting in the common area, or the dull glow of the datascreens set into the walls.

Feuilly realized he was staring and looked away, feeling his face head up a little. “If you've come for Jean LaPierre's manuscript, I'm afraid I haven't been able to finish it yet.” He did not like admitting this, but he never liked keeping the truth from his friends. He bent and distorted it daily for a living; applying these skills in his personal life seemed dirty.

Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said. “Or, rather, yes, I have, but not in the way you think.”

Feuilly blinked. “I'm sorry?”

“What I mean to say is that, if you have not finished going through it yet, I would be happy to take the task off of your hands. Combeferre said that they updated the standards yet again, and I know that Jean's work can be...”

“Stylistically consistent to the point of rigidity?” Feuilly suggested.

“Yes,” Enjolras said, nodding.

“Thank you, but I told you I would go through it,” Feuilly said. “You needn't take on work that I already committed to. The Board's standards are no more exacting than they ever have been.”

“No, I want to,” Enjolras said. “That is, I do not want to impose on you any more than I have, and as I find myself in the area with no other pressing matters, it seems only reasonable that I reclaim the work which was always mine to do.”

Feuilly blinked, trying to force his weary brain to untangle that sentence into something that resembled standard logic. Enjolras watched him in silence, one hand absently running through his hair. Somehow such a pedestrian gesture coming from someone like him seemed almost absurd, though Feuilly had seen him do it before.

“You don't have to,” Feuilly said at last.

“I want to,” Enjolras repeated. “You have done more than enough, for all of us. Let me do this for you.”

Belatedly, it occurred to Feuilly that he probably looked as tired as he felt. Ordinarily, this would have irritated him further – he never had appreciated being fussed over like someone who could not keep track of his own limitations – but Enjolras' slightly clumsy sincerity made it difficult.

“If you are certain...” he said.

“I am,” Enjolras assured him.

Feuilly saved his latest annotations to the manuscript and transferred it to Enjolras' datapad, which dinged softly in confirmation. “I'm sorry if my edits are a bit cryptic,” he said. “I normally try to clean them up before anyone sees them, but...”

“I'm sure I've seen worse,” Enjolras assured him. “Remember, a large portion of my intimate circle consists of lawyers and medical students, not to mention writers. None of them are known for being particularly straightforward or easy to decode.”

Feuilly laughed. “True enough,” he said, and swallowed a yawn. “How long are you here? I have to go in to the office tomorrow, but if you can stay until the afternoon...”

He trailed off as Enjolras shook his head. “We're only stopping over long enough to refuel,” he said. “I have a meeting on one of the outer planets in 36 hours.”

“I understand,” Feuilly said, hoping his disappointment did not come through in his tone. “I am glad you stopped by.”

It was Enjolras' turn to look away, turning slightly pink. “I, uh, suggested stopping on Saint-Antoine precisely for that reason,” he said. “I hope I did not disturb you too much.”

“Not at all,” Feuilly assured him. “It was good to see you.”

“You as well,” Enjolras said with a slight smile. He held out a hand. “May this be the first of many times.”

Feuilly took his hand, smiling back. “I certainly hope so.”

Enjolras held on for a moment longer, then let go and rose. “I should get back,” he said. “And you should rest. I know they expect you in early.”

“That they do,” Feuilly agreed, also rising. “The delights of bureaucracy.”

“That is not the word I would have chosen,” Enjolras said, and Feuilly laughed. “Sleep well, my friend.”

“You as well,” Feuilly said. “Try not to lose your mind too badly when going through LaPierre's work.”

“I've read worse,” Enjolras assured him. “But I will be careful nonetheless.”

“Good. I would hate to lose you over it.”

They made their way out of the common area and then, with a final farewell, headed in opposite directions, Enjolras back out to where his ship lay at the refueling dock and Feuilly to his bedroom. He undressed in the dark with the ease born of long practice and limited space, and lay down on his bed, eyes falling closed almost immediately. Before he fell asleep completely he found himself thinking that, all things considered, it had not been that trying of a day after all.

[otherss]

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which as evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people’s time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique. The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man’s only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.  While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.   The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts.  However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.   The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshipper.   Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.    In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated “holy-mouth-men.” The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.   The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.    In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man open the clients mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there age no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client’s view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy–mouth-men year after year, despite the fact  that their teeth continue to decay.    It is to be hoped that, when a thorough  study of the Nacirema is made, there will  be careful inquiry into the personality  structure of these people. One has but to  watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-  mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an  exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain  amount of sadism is involved. If this can be  established, a very interesting pattern  emerges, for most of the population shows  definite masochistic tendencies. ...

Body Ritual Among The Nacirema by Horace Miner

[theconservativebrief]

I sit in my living room, contemplating the slim, smooth aquamarine tube. Its color is a few shades removed from Tiffany blue, and it’s an inch or so longer than a cigarette. I do not smoke anything ever, but in order to psyche myself up for the full experience of the thing, I try to channel that famous picture of Audrey Hepburn on the Breakfast at Tiffany’s movie poster, a long, slim cigarette holder hanging out of her mouth.

This isn’t a cigarette, though. It’s a Breathe “citrus flavored vitamin B12 mist” — a.k.a. a vitamin vape. It costs $45 for three pens. And disposable vaporizer pens like this one, containing substances like vitamins and essential oils instead of nicotine “e-juice,” are increasingly being marketed to wellness-minded consumers.

After one drag on the vaguely sweet-tasting vape, I promptly start coughing, spewing out a fruity puff of vapor. It doesn’t really feel like wellness. It feels like a violation of my alveoli.

Vapes, or e-cigarettes, are all over the news right now, especially Juul, the brand that’s trendy among teens because of its sleek profile and fruity flavors. They’re so popular and so controversial that the Food and Drug Administration is now actively targeting manufacturers that push nicotine vapes; it may even move to ban some. There is growing concern in the medical and public health communities about the immediate harmful effects on young people’s developing brains and bodies and the unknown longer-term effects.

But there is another market popping up whose purveyors suggest vaping things that are not nicotine can be healthy. It’s a jarring visual to see what looks like smoke coming out of someone’s mouth in a wellness ad, except brands like Breathe and its sister brands VitaminVape, VitaStik, BioVape, NutroVape, and Monq are doing just that.

And like so many concepts that catch on in wellness circles, companies that sell these products take something with a veneer of scientific backing or credibility, couch it in language that sounds healthy, and then sell it to you via a marketplace with very little regulation or oversight. It’s not surprising that vape technology, which is so trendy right now, is the newest frontier for selling so-called wellness. But this technology is so new that it’s not clear if these vapes are helpful or harmful.

The Breathe vape is a good case study in how the wellness industry uses an inkling of evidence to package a product as healthy. The company’s founder, George Michalopoulos, is not a physician, but during a phone call, he said he worked in social media. He developed a B12 vape in 2013 for his personal use, he says, because he was a vegan at the time. (Many vegans need to take vitamin B12 supplements so they don’t become deficient.)

He says he was interested in it because he “enjoys the process of vaping.” He points to a few studies done in the 1950s and ’60s that showed promise for the use of inhaled vitamin B12 for people with deficiencies, which are linked prominently on Breathe’s site.

Michalopoulos says people have told him anecdotally that their vitamin B12 levels increased after using it and have shared “copies of their blood test results” with him. He also said he is paying an outside lab to perform a clinical study, sometimes done by supplement and skin care companies, mainly for marketing purposes so that they can quote data and make more specific claims. “I’d rather people understand that this is still a young science,” he says.

What he did not say in our phone call, but which I confirmed later, is that he also owns VitaminVape, which charges $39 for three pens. He founded it a few years before Breathe, which he launched at the end of 2017 to appeal to “vegans and B12 enthusiasts.” The website language, design, and testimonials are all the same as what’s on the Breathe website. The difference is that VitaminVape uses a synthetic form of vitamin B12 and Breathe uses a naturally-derived form. A representative said “serious vegans and wellness consumers” prefer the latter.

VitaminVape has been mentioned in several negative stories in the press exploring the legitimacy of these types of vapes, mainly pointing out that they are scientifically unproven and have potentially unknown risks.

Michalopoulos is savvy about the claims that he makes for Breathe. The site states, “Each diffuser contains 100s of breaths of natural energy with no caffeine, no sugar crash, no calories and no nicotine.” It’s considered a supplement, and as such, the company cannot make any specific claims about what it supposedly can do. There is nothing about veganism on the site. The FDA can issue a warning to supplement companies that make claims that seem drug-like. Michalopoulos says he tells people to check with their doctors first, but that recommendation is buried in an FAQ section on the site.

Breathe sells only one type of vape, which it claims delivers vitamin B12. According to the company, five to 10 breaths equals “approximately 333 mcg of B12 (>8,000% Daily Value).” Vitamin B12 is a substance humans do not produce themselves yet need for a variety of important bodily functions like forming red blood cells, promoting neurological functioning, and synthesizing DNA. It’s present in foods like meat, milk, fish, and eggs, which is why vegans are often deficient.

There’s also a rare disease called pernicious anemia whereby people can’t absorb vitamin B12 via their gastrointestinal tracts because they lack an important protein called intrinsic factor. Older adults and people with other gastrointestinal problems can also be susceptible to vitamin B12 deficiencies. They can get it via injections or nasal sprays or gels, according to Dr. Ron Crystal, the chair of the genetic medicine department and a practicing pulmonologist at Weill Cornell/New York Presbyterian. He’s also studied nicotine vapes and their propellants, which can include things like propylene glycol, flavorings of unknown origin, and glycerin.

What’s important to note, though, is that true deficiency is rare and you can’t self-diagnose it. Vitamin B12 deficiency can have vague side effects like fatigue, so doing proper lab testing through a doctor is crucial, according to Crystal. And taking too much vitamin B12 can have side effects such as rashes, acne, increasing blood pressure, facial flushing, and discolored urine. “It is a drug, essentially,” says Crystal.

“If you’re deficient, your doctor should prescribe what you should be doing. If you have normal levels, adding more doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t help,” he says. “The concept of just taking vitamin B12 to increase your energy and so on is a myth.”

But because some of the symptoms of deficiency are so vague, it’s a myth that has helped promote a long history of dubious vitamin B12 usage, popularized by celebrities. Who can forget the now-infamous episode of The Simple Life when Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie got vitamin B12 shots in their butts? (I, for one, cannot.) Madonna also gets them and supposedly once even administered one to Justin Timberlake. They’re commonly offered via injection or IV drip at wellness clinics; some services will even bring them to you.

There’s not a lot of evidence that you can absorb vitamins by inhaling them, though. There have been no studies more recent than the old ones cited by Breathe and others, except for a few on nasal sprays, which exist in prescription form. There certainly haven’t been any studies on B12 delivery via vape.

Normally when you take a vitamin (or eat food, for that matter) enzymes in your stomach and all along your colon break it down until its smaller chemical components can be absorbed into your bloodstream. Nasally, vitamin B12 can be absorbed across epithelial cells, which line the nasal cavities and airways. Epithelial cells act as a gateway for things to be absorbed or blocked. This is how medicines like asthma inhalers are able to penetrate into the lungs.

Crystal says if a person is deficient, “the concept that vitamin B12 can be absorbed through the lung epithelial cells is a rational concept.” But he says this with caveats: For one, the effects of delivering that aerosol via vape are totally unstudied. “You’re putting something inside your body and it’s unknown.”

With vaping, there’s also the matter of the propellant, as well as the other chemicals that help give the formula its flavor and convert it into an aerosol when you puff. Heating up the liquid ingredients could potentially affect how they act in the body and produce new chemicals. They “may cause some damage to the cells,” according to Crystal, though he says we just don’t know for sure yet how that would look long-term.

There haven’t been a ton of conclusive studies about vaping essential oils, flavorings, and propellants that can be in vaping fluids, but a preliminary study on cells suggest that some flavorings might cause cell damage. Breathe uses vegetable glycerin as its propellant, whose long-term effects when inhaled are not known. The bottom line is that no one really knows what kind of damage vapes, especially ones without nicotine, can do in either the short or long term.

The other potential problem is that because these products are considered supplements, they aren’t regulated by the FDA the same way drugs are. There’s not even a guarantee that the ingredients a company says are in a vape actually are there. Customers are expected to just trust that supplement companies are honest and that the ingredients are there in the amount they’re supposed to be. But studies, as in the one that was just released earlier this month that found 800 supplements were contaminated with prescription medications and other substances, prove that this is sometimes not the case.

Besides Breathe and VitaminVape, other brands on the market include VitaStik, which offers multiple combinations of essential oils and different vitamins, and Monq, which is just essential oils. Some brands call themselves a “mist” or “personal diffuser” or an “aromatherapy stick” and seem to want to avoid the word “vape.” Make no mistake, though: They are vapes.

The combination of an unproven mode of delivery plus a lack of regulation and transparency is something you’d be advised to stay away from. Even Dr. Oz, a person known to endorse all sorts of questionable practices, says to skip it. Need vitamin B12? Forget about Breakfast at Tiffany’s comparisons and … just eat breakfast.

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Original Source -> These new vape companies want you to inhale … vitamins

via The Conservative Brief

[streetsbound]

Body Ritual among the Nacirema

“ The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. The point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan organization by Murdock. In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.

Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago, but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east. According to Nacirema mythology, their nation was originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is otherwise known for two great feats of strength—the throwing of a piece of wampum across the river Pa-To-Mac and the chopping down of a cherry tree in which the Spirit of Truth resided.

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.

The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.

While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.

The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.

The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshiper.

Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure.

In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated as "holy-mouth-men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber.

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.

In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these items in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man opens the client's mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there are no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth-men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.

It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy-mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite includes scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special women's rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists.

The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipso, in every community of any size. The more elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the thaumaturge but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costume and headdress.

The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.

The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes. In everyday life the Nacirema avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions. Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the household shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body-rites. Psychological shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso. A man, whose own wife has never seen him in an excretory act, suddenly finds himself naked and assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions into a sacred vessel. This sort of ceremonial treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta are used by a diviner to ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female clients, on the other hand, find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine men.

Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing. From time to time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated needles into their flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men.

There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener." This witchdoctor has the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents bewitch their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while teaching them the secret body rituals. The counter-magic of the witchdoctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties he can remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirema in these exorcism sessions is truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to bemoan the rejection he felt upon being weaned as a babe, and a few individuals even see their troubles going back to the traumatic effects of their own birth.

In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their base in native esthetics but which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mammary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.

Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory functions are ritualized, routinized, and relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is actually very infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so as to hide their condition. Parturition takes place in secret, without friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse their infants.

Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves. But even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski when he wrote: ‘Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.’ “ ~Horace Mitchell Miner, Published in American Anthropologist, vol 58, June 1956.

[brandavenniehe]

Renew Gold Balance (Dry)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Renew Gold Balance Dog Food receives the Advisor’s mid-tier rating of 3.5 stars.

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The Renew Gold Balance product line includes one dry dog food, a recipe claimed to meet AAFCO nutrient guidelines for all life stages.

Important: Because many websites do not reliably specify which Growth or All Life Stages recipes are safe for large breed puppies, we do not include that data in this report. Be sure to check actual packaging for that information.

Renew Gold Balance

Dry Dog Food

Estimated Dry Matter Nutrient Content

Protein = 29% | Fat = 20% | Carbs = 43%

Ingredients: Chicken meal, pork meal, ground brown rice, whole flaked barley, oat meal, coconut oil, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), stabilized rice bran, pea protein, dried plain beet pulp, millet, spray dried egg product, ocean fish, yeast extract, salt, flaxseed meal, potassium chloride, choline chloride, coconut flavor, vitamin E supplement, niacin, pumpkin, cranberries, vitamin A supplement, d-calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, biotin supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, riboflavin supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, zinc amino acid complex, calcium carbonate, iron amino acid complex, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, sodium selenite, copper amino acid complex, copper sulfate, manganese amino acid complex, manganous oxide, calcium iodate

Fiber (estimated dry matter content) = 3.9%

Red items indicate controversial ingredients

Estimated Nutrient ContentMethodProteinFatCarbsGuaranteed Analysis26%18%NADry Matter Basis29%20%43%Calorie Weighted Basis24%40%36%

Protein = 24% | Fat = 40% | Carbs = 36%

The first ingredient in this dog food is chicken meal. Chicken meal is considered a meat concentrate and contains nearly 300% more protein than fresh chicken.

The second ingredient is pork meal, another protein-rich meat concentrate. Yet it can also be high in ash — about 25-30%.

However, the ash content of the final product is typically adjusted in the recipe to allow its mineral profile to meet AAFCO guidelines.

The third ingredient is ground brown rice, another name for rice flour. Ground rice is made from either white or brown rice and is considered a gluten-free substitute for wheat flour.

The fourth ingredient is barley. Barley is a starchy carbohydrate supplying fiber and other healthy nutrients. However, aside from its energy content, this cereal grain is of only modest nutritional value to a dog.

The fifth ingredient is oatmeal, a whole-grain product made from coarsely ground oats. Oatmeal is naturally rich in B-vitamins, dietary fiber and can be (depending upon its level of purity) gluten-free.

The sixth ingredient is coconut oil, a natural oil rich in medium-chain fatty acids.

Medium-chain triglycerides have been shown to improve cognitive function in older dogs.1

Because of its proven safety2 as well as its potential to help in the treatment of canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CDS) and chronic skin disorders, MCT can be considered a positive addition to this recipe.

The seventh ingredient is chicken fat. Chicken fat is obtained from rendering chicken, a process similar to making soup in which the fat itself is skimmed from the surface of the liquid.

Chicken fat is high in linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid essential for life. Although it doesn’t sound very appetizing, chicken fat is actually a quality ingredient.

The eighth ingredient lists rice bran, a healthy by-product of milling whole grain rice. The bran is the fiber-rich outer layer of the grain containing starch, protein, fat as well as vitamins and minerals.

The ninth ingredient is pea protein, what remains of a pea after removing the starchy part of the vegetable.

Even though it contains over 80% protein, this ingredient would be expected to have a lower biological value than meat.

And less costly plant-based products like this can notably boost the total protein reported on the label — a factor that must be considered when judging the meat content of this dog food.

From here, the list goes on to include a number of other items.

But to be realistic, ingredients located this far down the list (other than nutritional supplements) are not likely to affect the overall rating of this product.

With seven notable exceptions…

First, we find beet pulp. Beet pulp is a controversial ingredient, a high fiber by-product of sugar beet processing.

Some denounce beet pulp as an inexpensive filler while others cite its outstanding intestinal health and blood sugar benefits.

We only call your attention here to the controversy and believe the inclusion of beet pulp in reasonable amounts in most dog foods is entirely acceptable.

Next, this food contains ocean fish. This item is typically sourced from clean, undecomposed whole fish and fish cuttings of commercial fish operations.3

Unfortunately, the phrase “ocean fish” is vague and does little to adequately describe this ingredient. Since some fish are higher in omega-3 fats than others, it’s impossible for us to judge the quality of this item.

Although it’s rich in protein, raw fish contains up to 73% water. After cooking, most of that moisture is lost, reducing the meat content to just a fraction of its original weight.

After processing, this item would probably account for a smaller part of the total content of the finished product.

In addition, yeast extract is the common name for a broad group of products made by removing the cell wall from the yeast organism.

A significant number of these ingredients are added as specialized nutritional supplements while others are used as flavor enhancers.

However, the glutamic acid (and its chemical cousin, monosodium glutamate, or MSG) found in a minority of yeast extracts can be controversial.

That’s because even though the Food and Drug Administration designated these food additives to be safe decades ago4, the agency continues to receive reports of adverse effects.

So, detractors still object to the use of yeast extract and other glutamic acid derivatives and blame them for everything from Alzheimer’s (in humans) to obesity.

In any case, since the label reveals little about the the actual type of yeast extract included in any recipe, it’s impossible for us to judge the quality of this ingredient.

Next, we note the use of flaxseed meal, one of the best plant-based sources of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Flax meal is particularly rich in soluble fiber.

However, flaxseed contains about 19% protein, a factor that must be considered when judging the actual meat content of this dog food.

We find no mention of probiotics, friendly bacteria applied to the surface of the kibble after processing to help with digestion.

Additionally, this food contains chelated minerals, minerals that have been chemically attached to protein. This makes them easier to absorb. Chelated minerals are usually found in better dog foods.

And lastly, this product also includes menadione, a controversial form of vitamin K linked to liver toxicity, allergies and the abnormal break-down of red blood cells.

Since vitamin K isn’t required by AAFCO in either of its dog food nutrient profiles, we question the use of this substance in any canine formulation.

Renew Gold Balance Dog Food The Bottom Line

Judging by its ingredients alone, Renew Gold Balance looks like an above-average dry product.

But ingredient quality by itself cannot tell the whole story. We still need to estimate the product’s meat content before determining a final rating.

The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 29%, a fat level of 20% and estimated carbohydrates of about 43%.

And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 69%.

Near-average protein. Above-average fat. And below-average carbs when compared to a typical dry dog food.

When you consider the protein-boosting effect of the pea protein and flaxseed meal, this looks like the profile of a kibble containing a moderate amount of meat.

However, with 40% of the total calories coming from fat versus just 24% from protein, this recipe may not be suitable for every animal.

Bottom line?

Renew Gold Balance is a plant-based dry dog food using a moderate amount of named meat meals as its main sources of animal protein, thus earning the brand 3.5 stars.

Recommended.

Please note certain recipes are sometimes given a higher or lower rating based upon our estimate of their total meat content and (when appropriate) their fat-to-protein ratios.

Renew Gold Dog Food Recall History

The following list (if present) includes all dog food recalls since 2009 directly related to this product line. If there are no recalls listed in this section, we have not yet reported any events.

You can view a complete list of all dog food recalls sorted by date. Or view the same list sorted alphabetically by brand.

To learn why our ratings have nothing to do with a product’s recall history, please visit our Dog Food Recalls FAQ page.

Get free dog food recall alerts sent to you by email. Subscribe to The Advisor’s recall notification list.

Dog Food Coupons and Discounts

Readers are invited to check for coupons and discounts shared by others in our Dog Food Coupons Forum.

Or click the buying tip below. Please be advised we receive a fee for referrals made to the following online store.

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A Final Word

The descriptions and analyses expressed in this and every article on this website represent the views and opinions of the author.

The Dog Food Advisor does not test dog food products.

We rely entirely on the integrity of the information provided by each company. As such, the accuracy of every review is directly dependent upon the specific data a company chooses to share.

Although it's our goal to ensure all the information on this website is correct, we cannot guarantee its completeness or its accuracy; nor can we commit to ensuring all the material is kept up-to-date on a daily basis.

We rely on tips from readers. To report a product change or request an update of any review, please contact us using this form.

Each review is offered in good faith and has been designed to help you make a more informed decision when buying dog food.

However, due to the biological uniqueness of every animal, none of our ratings are intended to suggest feeding a particular product will result in a specific dietary response or health benefit for your pet.

For a better understanding of how we analyze each product, please read our article, "The Problem with Dog Food Reviews".

Remember, no dog food can possibly be appropriate for every life stage, lifestyle or health condition. So, choose wisely. And when in doubt, consult a qualified veterinary professional for help.

In closing, we do not accept money, gifts or samples from pet food companies in exchange for special consideration in the preparation of our reviews or ratings.

However, we do receive a fee from Chewy.com for each purchase made as a direct result of a referral from our website. This fee is a fixed dollar amount and has nothing to do with the size of an order or the brand selected for purchase.

Have an opinion about this dog food? Or maybe the review itself? Please know we welcome your comments.

Notes and Updates

10/01/2017 Last Update

Pan Y et al, Dietary supplementation with medium-chain TAG has long-lasting cognition-enhancing effects in aged dogs, British Journal of Nutrition, Volume 103, Issue 12, June 2010, pp 1746-1754 ↩

Matulka RA et al, Lack of toxicity by medium chain triglycerides (MCT) in canines during a 90-day feeding study,Food Chem Toxicol, Jan 2009, 47(1) 35-9. ↩

Adapted by The Dog Food Advisor from the official definition of other fish ingredients as published by the Association of American Feed Control Officials ↩

L-Glutamic Acid, FDA Select Committee on GRAS Substances ↩

[vernicle]

Goals Of Corporate Financial Management-Some Thoughts

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There is a multiplicity of ambitions of management. Wealth maximization is a wholesome goal. Maximization of income, profitability, liquidity and solvency are other ambitions. But these are sectional and fragmented. Likewise, minimization of price tag of money, hazard and dilution of handle handle particular factors. Properly, all these put together toss a lot light on the entire gamut of management as such. Now, maximization of financial worth is additional to the checklist of ambitions of management.

Additional a lot more, the goal of the management should really be to achieve the objective of the corporate homeowners, who are the suppliers of money, specifically shareholders. The finance manager's operate is not to fulfill his individual aims, which may consist of bigger salaries, earning track record or retaining and advancing his personal electrical power and prestige. It is, rather, to the extent manager is successful in this Endeavour, and he will also achieve his personal aims. It is typically agreed that the money objective of the business should really be the maximization of owner's prosperity.

On the other hand, there is disagreement as to how the financial welfare of homeowners can be maximized. Two nicely recognized and greatly talked over standards which are put forth for this reason are: (a) income maximizations, and (b) prosperity maximization.

Gain MAXIMISATION

Traditionally, the small business has been viewed as as an financial institution and income has arrive to be acknowledged as a rationally legitimate criterion of measuring efficiency. In assistance of this contention, the adhering to arguments are ordinarily put forward:

(i) Gain is a key motive or main incentive which paves the way for much better and a lot more effective functionality. It is a reward for entrepreneurial means. Individuals or groups of individuals contend with a single a different and do the job challenging in purchase to excel other folks in supplying much better and a lot more effective functionality just simply because they are attracted toward earning a lot more and a lot more income. This promotes enterprising spirit and qualified prospects to financial improvement of the modern society.

(ii) Gain is not only an objective, but also a criterion or measuring-rod of effective management. In this way it is both of those a goal as nicely as a evaluate of good functionality. The diploma of results or failure about a time period can be examined on the basis of the diploma of profitability in a corporation.

(iii) All small business choices are taken keeping in check out their possible effects on income. As a result, it has become a section of the decision-producing course of action.

(iv) In a modern society or in a small business enterprise effective allocation of scarce means and their even handed utilization are feasible on the basis of income criterion. Assets stream from lower lucrative ventures to high lucrative ventures.

(v) In a modern society which is devoid of income motive or incentive, there will be no put remaining for mutual   competition   to excel a single a different in efficiency,   skill   and competence. In such a problem the tempo of advancement and progress is certain to slow down.

Restrictions: As a goal, even so, income maximization suffers from particular fundamental weaknesses: (1) It is vague, (two) it is a brief-run point of check out, (three) it ignores hazard, and (4) it ignores the timing of returns. An unambiguous this means of the income maximization objective is neither out there nor feasible. It is rather pretty complicated to know about the adhering to: Does it necessarily mean brief-time period gains or very long-time period gains? Does it refer to income just before or immediately after tax? Does it refer to complete gains or income per share? Besides it is currently being ambiguous, the income maximization objective normally takes a brief-run point of check out. Prof. Ducker and Prof. Galbraith contradict the principle of income maximization and notice that unique focus on income maximization misdirects managers to the point the place they may endanger the survival of the small business. Prof. Galbraith provides the adhering to points to argue his line of reasoning: (1) it undermines the potential for present day income (two) it brief-variations investigate promotion and other investments (three) it may shy away from 'any money expenditure that may maximize the invested money base in opposition to which gains are based, and the consequence is perilous obsolescence of machines. In other text, the managers are directed into the worst procedures of management. Threat and timing things are also ignored by this objective. The streams of added benefits may have distinct levels of certainty and uncertainty. Two corporations may have similar complete predicted earnings, but if the earnings of a single business fluctuate substantially as in comparison to the other, it will be a lot more risky. Also, it does not make a variance among returns gained in distinct time periods, i.e., it provides no thing to consider to the time worth of revenue and worth added benefits gained these days and added benefits immediately after six months or a single 12 months.

For the motives given previously mentioned the income maximization objective can not be taken as the objective of management. It can be said that the suitable operational-decision criterion should really consist of: (i) It should be precise   and   correct,   (ii)   It   should   think about both   quality   and   quantity dimension, (iii) It should really be based on the more substantial and the much better basic principle, and (iv) It should really recognize the time worth of revenue. For these motives, prosperity (worth) maximization has replaced income maximization as an operational criterion for management choices.

Take into account the example of three small business models producing gains about three decades given down below

Calendar year

Unit – 1

Unit - two

Unit - three

Rs.

Rs.

Rs.

1

two,00,000

4,00,000

50,000

two

two,00,000

1,50,000

1,50,000

three

two,00,000

50,000

4,00,000

Total

6,00,000

6,00,000

6,00,000

From the previously mentioned desk, it is apparent that all the small business models producing gains of six lakh rupees.  But evidently device – two is the very best of three, followed by device – 1 and device – three. Consequently income maximization is not acknowledged as a flawless goal, given that it could lead to unfair indicates adopted and time worth of revenue is not viewed as.

Wealth MAXIMISATION

The maximization of prosperity is a a lot more viable objective of management. The similar objective, if expressed in other phrases, would express the thought of net existing value maximization. Any motion which makes prosperity or which has a net existing value is a desirable a single and should really be carried out. Wealth of the business is reflected in the maximization of the existing worth of the business i.e., the existing value of the business. This worth may be commonly calculated if the corporation has shares that are held by the community, simply because the marketplace rate of the share is indicative of the worth of the corporation. And to a shareholder, the time period 'wealth' is reflected in the amount of money of his present dividends   and the marketplace rate of share.

Ezra Solomon has outlined prosperity maximization objective in the adhering to fashion: "The gross existing value of a course of motion is equivalent to the capitalized worth of the stream of potential predicted added benefits, discounted (or capitalized) at a fee which displays the certainty or uncertainty. Wealth or net existing value is the variance among gross existing value and   the amount of money of money investment decision expected to achieve the added benefits."

What about a community sector business the equity inventory of which, currently being fully owned by the govt, is not traded on inventory marketplace? In such a scenario, the goal of management should really be to maximize the existing worth of the stream of equity returns. Of course in determining the existing worth of stream of equity returns, an suitable discounted fee has to be applied. A comparable observation may be designed with respect to other organizations whose equity shares are both not traded or pretty thinly traded.

From the previously mentioned clarification, a single thing is particular that the prosperity maximization is a very long-time period strategy that emphasizes elevating the existing worth of the owner's investment decision in a company   and the   implementation of projects that will maximize the marketplace worth of the firm's securities. This criterion, if applied, satisfies the objections raised in opposition to the previously criterion of income maximization. The manager also specials with the challenge of uncertainty by taking into account the trade-off among the numerous returns and related amounts of pitfalls. It also normally takes into account the payment of dividends to shareholders. All these substances of the prosperity maximization objective are the consequence of the investment decision, financing and dividend choices of the business.

OTHER GOALS  OF Administration

The matter is further difficult by the fact that management may in apply have other aims both alternatively of, or as nicely as, that of income maximization. A few   alternatives are given down below.

(a)Growth: The maximization of income does not always demand a business of significant size. Corporate electrical power, even so, is generally a operate of size and this may become a management objective. Non-income producing organisations, such as mutual assurance organizations and creating societies, the place the income motive can not run, generally adopt pure advancement as an objective.

(b)Threat reduction: Quite a few potentially pretty lucrative enterprises also carry a high hazard of expensive failure. Prospecting for oil, for example, is pretty lucrative if a rich strike is designed but ruinous if the exploration proves abortive. It may, therefore, be a management objective to make certain survival by the avoidance of hazard, income becoming a secondary objective.

(c)Private aspirations: Individuals who acquire senior positions in management are likely to be remarkably enthusiastic toward their individual occupation aims. Important aims for a manager may therefore be the advancement of his individual wage, occupation potential customers or safety. This may necessarily mean a need for rapid success which will stand to the quick credit rating of the manager included as in opposition to a lot more solid but lengthier time period income producing aims.

(d)Social objective: Some organisations adopt an altruistic social reason as a management, objective. As a result they may be involved to boost operating conditions for their employees, to give a wholesome item for their customers or to avoid anti-social steps such as environmental air pollution or undesirable marketing procedures.

(e)Effectiveness: Some enterprises, such as charities or community expert services, have as a basic objective the provisions of a expected support which is not supplied in the marketplace. A appropriate management objective for them is the provision of the support at minimal price tag.

(f) Orderly liquidation: A business will at times reach a point the place it is suitable for it to go into liquidation. This may be compelled on it by a disaster or a failure of its industrial viability or it may be carried out voluntarily simply because the uses of its initial foundation have ceased to exist. In both scenario, as soon as the decision has been taken, the objective of management will be to run the small business until finally its demise so as to balance the conflicts of pursuits of employees, shareholders and customers, to fulfil contractual obligations, e.g. to pay collectors and debenture holders, and to bring a tidy conclusion to all fantastic issues.

In which a particular management motion has implications for a lot more than a single objective, a check out should be taken as to the balance to be struck. For example, the objective of the maximization of income may be in conflict with the objective of minimizing hazard. The judgment to be designed is subjective and, therefore, not inclined to investigation whilst it is ordinarily designed by   reference to some express or implicit in general corporate objective.

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