#we need carabiner code to come back in a big way

[the-nightmare-of-fabrication]

closeted trans folk will do fucking anything to get the attention of other trans folk. like idgaf if they're the most closeted stealth-moder on the planet hanging out with their group of cishet guy friends who thinks ordering just soup is a bit fruity.

the second they see another queer person they are whistling "starburned and unkissed" and not at all subtly leaving their phone with a kuromi sticker on the back in plain view and making their "here's the life i've always wanted" tattoo as visible as possible, its like a platonic bird mating ritual.

if you see this behavior, it IS a cry for help and you SHOULD slip them your contact details on a napkin when their friends aren't looking

[arplis]

Arplis - News: I’m going to be honest—I am “that camper” at the campground

As soon as I’ve found my camping spot for the night, whether car camping or backpacking, I undergo a gear explosion. Clothes, food, and shelter are strewn about in a chaotic mess. Sometimes, it feels like I spend a quarter of my time in the outdoors rummaging through my gear to find what I need, and then going through yet another reorganization process. This is why I finally started asking my friends (and the internet!) for better camping storage ideas. 20 Super Helpful Camping Storage Ideas Staying organized at your campsite is important for a variety of reasons. Knowing where to find your gear can help keep you safe in case of an emergency. Proper storage helps you avoid attracting wildlife to your site and habituating them to humans. Good camping storage ideas can also save you time, ensuring that you don’t spend the bulk of your trip unpacking and repacking, unpacking and repacking. Since accepting my condition as “that camper,” I’ve started using these camping storage ideas to improve my organization and experience while exploring the great outdoors. 1. Be Organized, But Keep it Lightweight I’m a backpacker at heart, so my first thought when trying to get better organized on the trail was how much weight a bunch of organizational doodads would add to my pack. However, good utilization of your backpack’s existing pockets can keep you organized without adding any additional weight. Simply designate which pocket will have toiletries, which will have snacks, which will have extra layers, etc.—and then keep it that way, every single time you camp. However, not all backpacks or other outdoor storage items have sufficient built-in pockets. When I was biking the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail, my panniers were one big pocket. In these cases, I like to use lightweight ditty bags, such as Gossamer Gear’s Cuben Q-Storage Sacks, which zip closed, resist water, and only weigh between 0.1 and 0.3 ounces depending on size. 2. Color Code Your Dry Bags I do a lot of kayak and canoe camping, and when I started, I only considered the size of my dry bags when packing up my gear. However, many dry bags aren’t see-through, so I’d get to camp and find myself, once again, searching ravenously through my many dry bags for dinner supplies. When I’d finally find my dinner bag, I’d open it up and have to search through a bunch of breakfast stuff before I eventually found dinner. This is all to say that color coding my dry bags is now one of my favorite camping storage ideas. I like to use 10- to 20-liter dry bags in many different colors to organize my gear. I put breakfast in the orange dry bag, lunch and snacks in the red dry bag, and dinner in the blue dry bag. Sleeping gear goes in green, and extra clothes go in yellow. I always know which one to grab when I need it most. 3. Use See-Through Storage Bins Using see-through storage bins is a perfect camping storage idea for car camping trips. This keeps all of your gear secure in your trunk, so it’s not rolling about with every twist and turn of the road. When you get to your campsite, you don’t even need to take the lid off of the bin to see what’s inside; rather, you can quickly peek around the sides of your different bins to make sure you’ve got the right one before you dig in. 4. Keep Smelly/Scented Stuff in One Space On a camping trip with my partner in Wyoming’s bear country, I went to grab a book out of one of our bags to bring into the tent with me. As soon as I pulled it out, I realized it smelled like perfumes. It had been packed closely to our toiletries, and had absorbed the smells. Having this in the tent wasn’t going to work, so I ended up storing it in the bear box for the night. When packing for camping trips in places where bears are active, make sure you isolate any of your smelly stuff to specific bags or boxes so they don’t contaminate your other gear. You can also organize your smelly gear using LOKSAK OPSAK Odor-Proof Barrier Bags, which offer some protection, as well as the ease of see-through material. 5. Embrace Multi-Use Items A great way to stay organized while camping is to be mindful in the first place about how much gear you’re bringing. Focusing on gear items that can be used for multiple functions is a great way to do this. Use a carabiner that’s also a knife and a firestarter. Use your cooking pot as your bowl. Find a tent that can be set up using your trekking poles. With a little creativity, you can stay organized by using what you already have more intentionally. 6. Know What You Keep on Your Person-—and Where it Goes at Night When I’m hiking or otherwise exploring the outdoors around my campsite, there are certain safety items I always want to have on hand. These include a compass, whistle, small knife, and headlamp. These are all items I keep on my person. I know my whistle and headlamp are on strings around my neck, and my compass and knife are in the large pocket on my hiking pants. At night, these go in the net at the foot of my tent. When I dress in the morning, they go back on my person. Keep your safety items organized by keeping them close. 7. Two Words: Fanny Pack I was a big fan of fanny packs as a kid and I’m pumped that they’re now back in style. Fanny packs are a great way to organize the gear you need for the day. They’re no-hassle and allow you to keep what you need close and easily accessible. 8. Have Specific Storage Ready for Your Trash A common mistake I used to make when camping was not bringing along something to store my trash. I didn’t think about it at first because I didn’t have any trash to start. However, as I started to work through my granola bars and other trail snacks, I’d soon find myself having to stuff my wrappers into various pockets or bags that were available at the time. If you don’t plan in advance for where you’re going to put your trash, your other camping storage ideas may be compromised. I like to reuse gallon Ziplocs for trash storage on backpacking trips. I keep some old grocery store bags in my trunk for trash storage during car camping trips. 9. Compression Sacks are Your Friend for Cramped Quarters The first time I went winter camping, I realized that my cold-weather gear took up a lot more space than what I bring for summer months. I needed a camping storage idea that would help me cope with limited space. Compression sacks are perfect for this. I use Seal Line Blocker Compression Dry Sacks to store my gear when space is cramped. They’re lightweight and have a PurgeAir valve to help compress clothes, sleeping bags, and other gear even further. 10. Make a Poop Bag When my partner took his 8-year-old nephew on his first canoe camping trip, he wanted to make pooping in the woods a fool-proof process for him. Thus, the “poop bag” was born, and it has since become a staple for our camping trips to keep our “when nature calls” items well-organized and ready to grab as soon as the call comes. The poop bag is pretty simple. It’s a 10-liter dry bag containing everything you need for a poop break. My partner then used a Sharpie to write a “How to Poop in the Woods” numbered list on it, including such wise tidbits as, “don’t get poop on yourself or the trowel.” Inside the dry bag are all the necessary items—a hand trowel, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and opaque Ziplocs for used toilet paper. It’s nice to have everything in an easy-to-grab bag, especially for campers who are new to the Leave No Trace procedures of pooping outside. 11. Set Up a Hand and Dish Washing Station Having a designated space for hand and dishwashing is a great way to maintain order at your campsite. If car camping, you can get a 5-gallon water jug with a spigot to put on a picnic table. Keep your soap next to it and use bungee cords to strap a paper towel rack or hand towel holder above it. On the ground beneath the water jug, place a plastic bin to catch your gray water. 12. String a Clothesline at Camp One camping storage idea that’s especially useful for multi-day camping trips is a clothesline. You can use this to hang and air out your smelly hiking clothes or wet bathing suits and life jackets. You can also use it to keep gear away from curious critters. 13. Keep Gear Secure in Hard-sided Containers In addition to hanging things, using hard-sided containers is an excellent way to store your gear while keeping it secure from common campground critters like raccoons. We repurposed some old 5-gallon primer buckets with screw top lids for gear storage on our canoe camping trips. We keep our entire camp kitchen, including fuel, in one of these buckets, which helps with organization. As a bonus, they’re also water-resistant. 14. Repurpose a Hanging Shoe Rack Hanging shoe racks are a wonderful camping storage idea because of how versatile they are. They can be hung up inside an RV, or even on a clothesline at your car camping site. With several different pockets, they’re great for organizing kitchen supplies, food, and toiletries. 15. Use Mini Containers to Bring Along Spices Just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you should eat boring food. Add some pizzazz to your camp meals by bringing along your favorite spices. Store them in repurposed mini containers, such as old lip balm jars with screw tops or Tic Tac containers. You can also find some pretty snazzy traveling spice cases for sale if you don’t mind spending the money. 16. Make Portable Drawer Sets Your Best Friend An easily overlooked camping storage idea is one you might see more often in an office. Portable, plastic drawer sets are a great way to stay organized at camp. In RVs, you can use them to save space and tuck away items while they’re not in use. If you’re car camping, they’re useful for organizing the gear in your trunk rather than having it roll around in the car. 17. Take Advantage of Old Metal Coffee Cans Old coffee cans are one of my favorite reusable camping storage containers. They’re sturdy, stack easy, and don’t take up much space. And they’re perfect for repackaging various snack foods, like trail mix or chips, if you don’t want to bring a bunch of plastic bags along. Some people also store their toilet paper rolls in these; they’re the right size and water-resistant with a secure lid. 18. Install a Wall-Mounted Magnetic Strip If you’re lacking drawer space in your RV or camper van, one of the more helpful camping storage ideas is a wall-mounted magnetic strip. These are helpful for storing your knives, tools and other metal utensils. You can also add some magnetic hooks to hang other gear or clothing. 19. Have a Camping Grab Bag Ready Getting myself out the door is often the most frustrating part of camping; the prep can be overwhelming is everything I need to go camping is stored in different places. This is why I’ve taken some time to prepare a camping grab bag. This backpack has everything I would need for a quick, last-minute night out. For items I don’t want to store in the grab bag long-term (such as my sleeping bag, which needs to have space to expand in its fluff bag), I write those down on an index card that I keep in the front pocket of the bag. This way, I have a quick checklist of what to add to the bag before I head out. 20. Label Large Plastic Totes by Gear Type for Post-Trip Storage Keeping gear stored and organized properly even once you’re home will lead to easier organization and storage when you’re ready to venture out again. Invest in some large plastic totes and use duct tape to label them by gear type. This will make it easy to identify where the gear you need is when you need it. We have one tote labeled winter camping, another labeled camp kitchen/water storage, one labeled shelter, and a couple others. They stack easily on top of each other and fit well in the closet until we need them. The post 20 Nifty Storage Ideas to Help Campers Stay Organized appeared first on The Dyrt Magazine. #Gear

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/i-m-going-to-be-honest-i-am-that-camper-at-the-campground

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 21: The Fenhallow Underground

Lana Lupova carried a ring of keys on the right arm of her motorized chair. Emery had only seen her remove it when she didn’t want to make noise, or for special occasions, like school fundraising events and important meetings.

There would be no special occasion today.

“It’s a fat ring of keys and Lana’s going to notice me taking it off her chair,” Emery said to Wes as they pushed their way through the doors of the Asha Gilani Sleep Research Center. They skirted the edge of the lobby, avoiding the gazes of the researchers coming in to start work for the day. “You’ll need to make a distraction. Lana’s office is in the north wing; her lab is in the south wing. She’ll have been in the lab all night, so she’s probably in her office now. The lab doors have tamper alerts—if someone tries to break into them, an alarm goes off.”

“So I need to tamper with the locks.”

“Exactly. I’ll go to her office and start talking to her.” Emery held up her phone. “When I message you, run down to her lab—it’s number three—and set off the alarm. When she hears it, I’ll take the key.”

“Don’t they have cameras? They’ll come after us when I do it.”

“Hide yourself.” She flicked the hood of his sweatshirt.

He pulled it up and glanced behind him, down the south hallway, turning his phone over in his pocket. “Make it quick,” he said.

They split up. Emery strode down the north hallway with quick but controlled steps, smiling at anyone she passed. She knew Dr. Lupova’s office by the cute little flower pinned to the nameplate outside the door. She knocked.

“Come in.”

Lana sat in front of a bank of monitors displaying high-resolution images of the human brain. The stark light washed her face and hair in a ghostly blue. Her keys, the group of them as thick as Emery’s fist, hung motionless from the chair arm. Attached to them was her school ID card.

Emery sidled up close to her. “What’s up, Lupova?”

“It’s impolite to read over someone’s shoulder, Emery.” Lana’s tone was pleasant, and she continued her work. The screen to her right flipped between images of a brain with different sections lit up in bright orange. At the corner of each image was a label, a date and time and the name Warwick. “What variety of trouble are you getting into today?”

Emery kept her phone in her hand turned toward her leg, her finger hovering over Send. “I really resent the assumption here, I want you to know.” Emery paused, looking down, and scuffed her foot on the floor. She made her voice small. “Actually…I was wondering, um…”

Lana looked around.

“So, Wes and I were in the Dream for a while. I know it’s not good for dreamhunters to spend a lot of time there. I was just wondering if, like…” Emery let her fingers play along the arm of the chair. The keys hung from a carabiner; she’d have to be quick. “Things have been weird since we got back. Time moves too slow, and I feel this weird weight on my chest. Does being in the Dream for that long really hurt you? Like, put you closer to your Insanity Prime?”

“Oh, Em.” Lana took her hands off the keyboard. “It’s certainly not good for you. I’ve known hunters who have spent longer in the Dream, but they were older than you, and much more experienced in how to handle themselves inside, not to mention more prepared. If you’re worried, we can run some tests—”

Emery hit Send. A heartbeat later, an alert siren blared from Lana’s computer, and a bright red indicator lit up on the top left of all her screens. She whipped around, eyes darting from one screen to the next, and snapped, “Oh, not again! But we caught him!”

As Lana turned to the door, Emery stepped out of her way, sliding behind her. She squeezed and unhooked the carabiner in the same smooth motion. The alert was too loud to hear the jangling of the keys. Lana disappeared into the hall.

Emery ran for it.

~

Wes met her in front of the administration building. They hustled up the long flight of steps, the quotes beneath their feet flashing in the morning sunlight.

“Someone definitely saw me” Wes said. His hood was still up. “We won’t have that long.”

“Lupova sounded like it had happened before. They might not know it was you if they didn’t see your face. And you didn’t actually go in, right? Maybe they thought you were just a student playing a prank.”

“You don’t think Dr. Lupova realized her keys are gone by now?”

“We’ll be downstairs by the time anyone gets to us.” Emery had already singled out several keys that looked like they would fit the size and age of the elevator lock. She held her fingers around the key ring to hold them separate.

Instead of going through the front doors and facing the threat of running into Grandpa Al, Emery pulled Wes around to the east side of the building, where an access door led to the maintenance room. The maintenance staff often left it propped open with a bucket when they were going in and out a lot for work on the buliding, and today they were bringing in new cleaning supplies in preparation for the winter.

Emery and Wes slipped into the maintenance room and immediately ducked behind a tall metal shelf of cleaning supplies. The room was long and rectangular, the door into the admin building set in the wall on the far end of the shelf, and a second after they hid, a set of maintenance workers tromped through carrying another roll of carpet. Emery and Wes crept parallel to them in the opposite direction, and when the workers went through the outside door, darted out of the maintenance room and into the back hallways of the administration building.

The hallway circled the perimeter of the first floor. Most of the rooms here were offices for other Hypnos State employees; Grandpa Al’s aides, the department heads, and the marketing department that made promotional material for the Hypnos Centers across the city.

The elevator was in the front of the building, near the receptionist’s desk. Emery kept the keys hidden behind her back as they walked, still smiling at everyone they came across. They stopped at the corner and peered into the lobby; empty except for David the receptionist and Sarah Stainer, who was standing in front of his desk in foul-smelling, wet clothing, arguing with him.

“Just set up the meeting, David, it’s not a hard thing to do!” She waved a sopping shoe at him. She was only wearing one now, and her dark sock was oozing onto the hardwood. “Someone around here needs to talk about preventative measures for childhood nightmares—this is the second time I’ve been to the Millers’ this month, and that girl is notorious for doubling up on nightmares when the first one has been taken care of. This is ridiculous—”

Moving slowly, Emery crept around the corner and hit the elevator button.

“I’ll see what I can do,” David stuttered, “but the dean is pretty busy right now. Have you tried one of the Center directors? Maybe they could help—”

“Oh yes, because the Center directors have as much pull as Aldrich Ashworth.” Stainer threw her hands up. “I just got covered in sewer water, put me on his schedule!”

The elevator dinged and slid open. Emery yanked Wes inside, hit the door close button, and began frantically trying keys in the lock beside the door for the basement level.

“She’ll definitely know they’re gone by now,” Wes said.

“Shut up,” Emery hissed.

One small and silver key slid into the lock. Emery cranked it sideways and slammed her fist on the basement button. The button remained lit, and the elevator shuddered and began to move down.

“Yes!”

The bright red 1 on the elevator display changed to XX. Wes crossed his arms over his chest, frowning.

“What’s the plan after we get out of the elevator?”

“No idea,” Emery said. “I know the place down here is big, like another building underground, but I’ve never been down here. Kind of winging it.”

Wes closed his eyes slowly, went very still, then opened them again. “I don’t know why that surprises me.”

“Look, I’m pretty sure no matter what happens, my Grandpa is going to find out I went down here. Even if we don’t run into anyone, they probably have security cameras. When I said I didn’t want to get you in trouble, I meant it—we are definitely getting reamed out after this.”

“As long as we get to talk to him,” Wes said.

“I agree.”

The elevator stopped. Opened. They looked down a long stone hallway lined with harsh overhead lights. At the far end was another door.

There was no point in playing it cool anymore, so they jogged to the far end. As they approached the door, it slid open,  revealing a dark, square stairwell and a metal staircase that wrapped deep down inside it. The only sign of the bottom was a small red light casting a glow across the floor.

Wes made an unhappy noise. Emery started down the stairs.

Their footsteps clanged and echoed down the shaft. At the bottom as another thick door, but this one didn’t automatically slide open. To the left of the door was a scanner, the glowing red light. Emery fumbled for Lana’s ID card on the key ring and shoved its bar code under the scanner. The scanner beeped. The door opened.

The hallway beyond that door was bigger than the first, brighter, still paneled in stark grays. It opened up at the end into a circular hub where several other tunnel hallways met, some leading to more doors, others to stairwells that went up or down. Above each tunnel was a label etched into the stone.

Laboratories

Communication

Bunker

Containment

Control

“Containment.” Wes pointed

Emery looked around the room. “But…what are these others? Bunker? Communications? A bunker for what, is the world going to end? And communications with who? Who do they need to talk to that they can’t do it above ground?”

“I don’t know,” Wes said, “but I don’t want to stand here longer than we have to, because who knows how many people are down here and might come walking through.”

Emery let him pull her down the containment tunnel. At the end was another one of the stairwells. This one went down, like the first, but not as far; there were landings after every flight of stairs, a door or two at each one.

“How are we supposed to know where he is from here?” Wes asked. “It could be any one of these doors, they’re not labeled.”

“Always do the one that’s hardest to get through,” Emery said. At the bottom was another door with another scanner, and Emery went all the way down to it. Past it was a bright hallway, perfectly straight, longer than the hallway after the elevator and lined on one side with doors. The other wall was flat and blank. Emery had to put a hand up to shield her eyes until they adjusted. Each door was heavy and metal and windowless; each one had a small plaque to its right. Twenty or thirty doors, all identical.

And planted on a folding chair in front of the door at the very far end, flipping through an issue of Sports Illustrated, was Marcia.

As soon as the door opened, she looked up, saw them there, and nearly ripped her magazine in half.

“Wait!” Wes held his hands up. “Wait, Marcia. We came down here for answers because no one’s telling us anything.”

Marcia stood and threw the magazine onto the chair so hard the chair folded in on itself. She was still wearing her hunting armor, though she had no weapon out. About a hundred clips held back her riot of orange hair. “Why are you the one talking, Wes?” she snapped. “This was clearly Ashworth’s idea. How’d you get down here?” She glanced down. “Are those Lana’s keys?”

Emery shoved the keys behind her back and jabbed a finger toward the far door. “That guy had a drawing of my doppelgänger in his dream. That has to mean something. He was following me. He was coming after me. I need to know why. You must have spoken to him—hasn’t he said anything?”

Something in Emery’s voice seemed to knock the steam out of Marcia. She huffed, planting her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes. “Hypnos’s balls, Ashworth, he’s not coming after you. If he’d said anything to me about your doppelgänger, I would have told you—I’m not a complete monster. He’s not talking to any of us. Even me.”

“Then let me try,” Emery said. “He might talk to me.”

“He’ll talk circles around you is what he’ll do,” Marcia grumbled.

“Who is he?” Wes asked. “He used to go here, right? You knew him. Other people here must have, too, and the dean made it sound like he was really dangerous.”

“He was stealing sleeping sand from the research labs. That’s why they wanted him brought in. But he’s not—” Marcia’s cuff screen lit up. She glanced at it, eyebrow raised, then tapped it once. “Hey, Lupova.”

“Are they down there?” Lana’s voice echoed in the narrow hallway.

“Yeah, they’re here.”

“Those weaselly, snot-nosed, sticky-fingered little fu—”

Marcia tapped another button. The speaker cut off, and Marcia held the cuff to her ear with a cool look and another raised eyebrow. Lana’s staticky voice, now unintelligible, carried on for almost an entire minute before she petered out enough to let Marcia speak again.

“I’ll get you your keys,” Marcia said. “In the meantime, I’ve got control of them. I’ll report it to the dean, don’t worry. Yes. Yes. I don’t think it has anything to do with the cult. No, he still hasn’t. I don’t know, but I’ve thought about it.” She paused again. “Well, if you say it, L, it must work.”

Marcia hung up. “I have never heard her say that many curse words at one time. What did you do, hit her over the head and run off with the keys?”

“Played to her sympathy, actually,” Emery said.

Marcia nodded appreciatively. “Lupova agrees with you. You might be able to get him to talk. The dean had a few important conference calls this morning, so at most it’s going to be about fifteen minutes before he hears about an attempted break-in at the research center. Maybe less if someone’s watching the security footage down here and sees you.”

She motioned up, where a small security camera sat nestled in the corner of the wall and ceiling above the door.

“But—” Wes looked back around. “They’re going to know you helped us.”

Marcia shrugged. “If you can get him to talk, it’ll be worth it. Fifteen minutes.”

“That’s plenty,” Emery said.

“And you fork over those keys.”

Emery did, happily.

Marcia led them back down the hallway, kicked the collapsed chair out of the way, and started tapping in a code on a panel beside the door.

“Should we be wearing armor?” Wes asked.

“No.” Marcia waved an airy hand, scoffing. “He’s harmless.”

Harmless was not the word Emery would have given to either the Sandman or his dreams. Her knuckle throbbed in response.

“You still haven’t told us who he is,” Wes said.

“His name is Klaus Warwick. He was called the Sandman around campus when we were still in classes. He’s got a lot of dangerous skills, but he’d never hurt anyone.” Marcia leaned in close to a port above the keypad. It scanned her eye. Several locks inside the door clicked open, and she straightened up and sighed.

“He was my partner.”

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos —> Revealing Secrets)