I recently stumbled on some of the old collab contest posts on here and thought I’d entered an alternate dimension or something.
It was great to see such an awesome level of cooperation and community spirit. I can’t be the only one that wishes these were back.
I think the key to any revival of a contest event is simplicity. It looked like a lot of work went in to run those, as well as the Anthology. Much respect!
I’m proposing one or two yearly minimalist contests. And entries are voted on by reddit users via third party poll system. Contests will be as lean as possible in terms of operating and requirements.
So here we are:

1. Summer Collab Fest Contest- Any genre comic shorts 2 page* entries for a mid-summer contest and voted on by community.
2. Halloween Page Fright Contest- Horror themed comic shorts 2 page* entries voted on by community. (I love the idea of a “Covers Only” category here for Cover Artists…?)

One category for entry:

1. 2 Page Comic (Solo or Team)

Public community vote for the winner and runner-up. Four awards available.

1. Best Comic Winner
2. Best Comic Runner-Up

A second public vote/poll for
“The Spirit Award” (BeginneNewcomer Comic)

1. Winner
2. Runner-Up

I like to include beginners despite the steep learning curve required, so would like to see an award vote/poll for Best Newcomer Comic aka The Spirit Award. This is based on effort, style and spirit not on the polished or professional composition of the work.
No financial prize — Just a badge of honour and credential in the comics community — for years to come!
All entries will be user posted to a private subreddit for later viewing. Advanced notice on the polls opening will be given. So everyone has a chance to vote. Ceremonial post for winners and runners up to give them the floor for a speech… and so we can upvote them to boost their karma scores as legends.
(No paid/hired/commissioned/commercial work, no fan/AI art or explicit / NSFW content allowed for entry)
Future options:

1. A Guest Judge each year to hand-pick winners and runners-up for the “Prestige” Awards for Best Comic and Spirit. They will have comic experience producing/publishing whether traditional or self publishing. (Esteemed members of this community perhaps?)
   
2. Alternatively, if we could secure a Guest Judge Panel of 3 (at least) then we could remove the need for public voting and create a lean admin role for the contest.
   
3. There could be the option of collecting entries into a PDF and releasing it for free as a yearly Anthology, with creator consent. Also listing winners and runner-ups in an introduction page. Perhaps an intro by the Guest Judge? This would become a published credit for all those involved and well deserved. (Dependent on volunteer expertise and time commitment.)
   

What does everyone think?
Would you take part?
Any other ideas, possibilities, issues or limitations?
EDIT1: *Past contests have been 2 pages. At 2 pages everyone has the same challenge and page space to operate. It also keeps things on the lower end in terms of production, time investment and everyone reading submissions in good time before voting.
EDIT2: This is a Collab sub in name and at times in practice and spirit; however, I feel the goal of the contest is to create first and join in the contest, whether solo or team. But collabs are encouraged where possible.
EDIT3: A simple entry submission system. A private subreddit where the entry is entered as a post by user and comic added as image. Synopsis in body of post. Credits added later. Then submissions will be checked and verified.
This private subreddit of entries will then be open, for viewing, upvotes will be symbolic, as voting will take place elsewhere… for a limited time only…
EDIT4: Public voting can be manipulated so there needs to be a fair process. Therefore votes will take place via link to an external vote/poll website StrawPoll. VPNs will be blocked. Your IP address is your unique ID for one vote. Reddit username is required for voting. This will be checked, and needs to be valid, and with acceptable reddit age or vote may be void.
Having an instantly viewable subreddit archive of each contest submissions for future viewing is a nice thought. 👍

She was used to disturbing dreams. For a while after the… incident, they’d been full of clowns. Clowns with sickly green eyes, in bad boaters and garish Hawaiian shirts. This one was different, disturbing in a less placeable way.
The room is pristine white and clean. It should be full of light, but something about it is dim and dingy. Large windows line the walls, but outside there is thick smog or mist; only a few slender fingers of light can make it through. There is a seat at one of the windows. A boy sits on the seat, dressed all in white. Somehow she knows to call this boy ‘brother.’
The brother stares out at nothing in particular, unless it is merely the world beyond the walls. She decides to take a few steps closer to him, then stops dead, blood running cold. The brother turns in his seat to look dead at her. He seems almost entirely like an ordinary boy until you see his eyes. They were full of something like hate. Actually hate seems too mild a word for what is in those eyes. Hate is human. These eyes are full of a murderous intent, guided almost it seems by a higher-lower power. It transcends anything human.
In her mind’s eye she sees fat specks of blood spatter on a pitch black surface like drops of rain.
Barbara Gordon jerked half-awake in her hospital bed. Whoa. Damn sedative. She was embarrassingly aware of a puddle of drool next to her mouth and was grateful to see Dick was not around. So where was everyone? Pitch black out. What time was it? Eight? Nine?
Easy, Barb. You nodded off. Dick decided to go do something besides watch you sleep. Nothing to panic about. She was aware of her legs again. Or still, rather. Before the ‘incident’ she would have guessed that paraplegics lost all feeling in their legs. Even after making a hundred new adjustments, relearning how to pull on her pants, coming to terms with how screwed she’d be as a wheelchair-user with a second-floor apartment, even after all that, she still felt phantom pains going up and down her legs some nights.
Well. If everything went alright tonight, that might change. A doctor flown in from South Africa, a quick surgical technique that was younger than she was, and Barbara Gordon could walk again.
Damn, she was tired. Her eyes were stinging from the effort of keeping the lids open. She let them close. Not to sleep. Just a little rest… what was she dreaming about before she woke, anyway? Something about a brother wanting to kill his sister. The details were already slipping out of her mind.
She sighed comfortably. Not sleeping. Just a little rest.
***
Dick Grayson sipped from a cup of truly awful coffee (he had been warned) and grinned. Inconvenient delays aside, he’d managed to kill an enjoyable couple hours in the commissary with a pair of nurses named Pieter and Asa while Kadaver’s Mystery Theater played Thing From Another World. Dick was fairly certain, despite his best efforts, he was hitting it off with at least one of them.
“So you really grew up in a circus?”
“Yep.”
“Sorry, you just don’t seem the type.”
“To bite heads off chickens or balance a ball on my nose?”
“I mean. For example.”
“I was an acrobat. In an act with my parents and my Aunt Harry. We were the Flying Graysons.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. It was pretty normal, really. I had a teacher who traveled with us, I had chores, friends. And when we were on the road we had coffee even worse than this. Tastes like nostalgia.”
Easygoing chatter was interrupted by a noise from a nearby table, the only other one occupied. An orderly was seated there, one whose demeanor rather aptly conveyed ‘sleazeball’ without requiring too much consultation with his appearance. He was, to put it mildly, engaging a coworker standing slightly behind him, with a good deal more physicality than was strictly indicated professional ethics. The object of his affections, evidently accustomed to it, stalked off acidly while the seated orderly smirked.
Turning to his two new acquaintances, Dick raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“That’s Morty Drake,” Pieter murmured, distaste evident. “Not really the most popular guy.”
“Wouldn’t be here if we’d had even one more person apply for the job,” Asa added.
Morty Drake, still unabashed, was now singing softly to himself. “Ohhh, my love, my darling, I hunger for your pie. Oh, IIII’ll be theeere-” Abruptly, Dick made up his mind.
“Hey,” he called across the room. He was aware of Pieter and Asa looking alarmed but pressed on. “That was a bit much, don’t you think? Might want to think about apologizing.”
Drake shot him a murderous glance. “Might wanna mind your own business, dicklick.” To punctuate the suggestion, he pulled a switchblade that certainly wasn’t part of the standard uniform.
Wonder if he came up with that before or after hearing my name. Dick idly noticed a rather skillfully-done tattoo of a skeletal Musketeer on the man’s neck. He found it somehow uplifting to look for redeeming features in unpleasant people. He realized with a start that he still had ‘Maid of Honor’ tucked away in a pocket.
Dick heaved a deep, theatrical sigh. “Oh, I’d really rather not do this. But since you’re testing me. You want to take this outside?”
Drake sneered. “You’re on.”
As Pieter and Asa watched in horror, both men stood, and both sauntered languidly and insolently towards the exit door to the back alley. Dick popped the door open, then was shoved aside haughtily by Drake, who walked out first.
Dick gently shut the door behind him, let the lock click, and walked back to the table, where Pieter and Asa were staring, stupefied. He tossed Drake’s artfully-swiped security pass onto the table.
“Told him I didn’t want to do it.”
***
It took Mortimer Drake a few seconds to realize he’d been locked out, after which he immediately began seething with rage. His keycard wasn’t in its usual pocket, either, leaving him stuck with a few king-size dumpsters. A few moments’ pounding on the door met with no response, though it made him feel marginally better. That goddam skinny pretty boy fruit. Gonna kick his ass.
Mortimer Drake gritted his teeth and stomped in a random direction, trying to orient himself. Nothing looked familiar in the dark. And damn, it was cold. He fantasized about pounding the fruit’s face inside-out in the vain hope that sufficient anger could make him feel warm.
He had walked along perhaps thirty minutes when he suddenly felt a strange feeling that he was being watched. Instinctively his hand went for the switchblade in his pocket, and he stopped to look behind him. Nothing there. But the hairs on the back of his neck were still pricking. He shrugged and moved on, muttering.
It occurred to Mortimer that he wouldn’t be able to get in through the usual entrance without getting a chewing-out for losing his ID. They’d blame him for something like that, never mind the punk in the cafeteria stole it from him. But… there was a window in the hydrotherapy room that was sometimes left unlocked. He might make a discreet entrance through there.
He picked up his pace a bit, cramming down the sensation that the thing watching him was now following him.
***
Harvey Bullock drove rather faster than was advisable through the Old Gotham. Even flooded with light, the city seemed dark tonight, and the darkness seemed to be staring at him, dark like a pair of empty eyeholes. Out in the darkness was the Shape.
Gordon had been right. Bullock had been something very close to a good cop, once. Maybe he’d taken money, when it was offered. In this town, who hadn’t? But he’d known where to draw the line. He’d never roughed up anyone who didn’t have it coming and he’d never turned a blind eye to anything that would keep him up at night.
The first night Michael Myers had run amok in Gotham City, Bullock had been on duty. In point of fact, he had run the bastard over in a car. And then Myers’ insane psychiatrist had given him an unneeded tracheotomy via pen-knife. Hits had kept coming through weeks of recovery. All of a sudden he didn’t have a job anymore, and neither did Montoya. Took a shot, turned out to be the wrong target, and out on her ass. Accusations like that stuck with a cop all their lives, even ones who kept their jobs. Shoot the wrong person, and ‘extenuating circumstances’ were just two words in a dictionary.
Bullock had been lucky enough to land on his feet. But somehow he’d never left that night behind. The nightmares had started not long after he left the hospital. Even though it hadn’t been Myers that slashed his throat, in the dreams it was always that pale mask-face. Some kind of darkness had gotten into him that night, through the wound in his neck, and it had spent the last few years festering.
“I got you now, you bastard,” Bullock muttered to himself. “Evil dies tonight.”
Tonight. By his hand. No need for Gordon, no need for the Bat. This was between him and Myers. Harvey Bullock drove faster than was strictly necessary, into the darkness.
***
The hospital really was quiet for a Halloween night. Even in small towns, you could normally expect a few minor disasters on a Halloween. Evidently the lengthening string of local disasters was persuading Gothamites in the East End to stay indoors after dark. That should have been a relief to Dr. Kinsolving; with staff begging off early to go to parties, they were short-staffed by now. Instead the emptiness felt oddly disquieting. Her footsteps seemed to fill entire hallways.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she rounded a hallway and came face to face with Dick Grayson.
“Sorry!” the young man said, almost a whisper.
Kinsolving realized with a little embarrassment that she’d yelped, and grasped for her composure. “No. I- it’s Grayson, isn’t it? You were with Barbara Gordon. Are you still here?”
Grayson looked apologetic. “Sorry,” he said, voice still low. Kinsolving guessed that the Gordon girl must have been asleep. “We were waiting on some test results and never got them. I kind of lost track of time, I was-” and there he abruptly cut himself off, blushing slightly. “Actually I’ve been trying to get ahold of someone.”
He said it perfectly patiently, but to the doctor it sounded like the kind of patience that was just impatience trying to be polite. With another touch of embarrassment she realized how long they’d been kept waiting. On a slow night, too. Old Thompkins would have been furious.
“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t know what could be taking so long. Normally I would get some kind of notice from a technician-”
“Would his name be Morty Drake, by any chance?”
“Well… yes. How did you-”
“Never mind.”
“In any case, I’ll go along to the lab and see if the results are ready.”
“I’ll come with you,” Grayson said, innocently enough but clearly brooking no argument. Something about him seemed slightly on edge.
Kinsolving didn’t feel much like arguing, in any case. She was on edge herself. A little company would not be amiss. She walked briskly and Grayson kept pace with almost insolent ease. He had an undeniable charisma about him; Kinsolving was fairly certain he’d spent the last hour or so flirting with nursing staff.
Come to think of it. Where could Drake have gotten to? The doctor pursed her lips. Some day she was going to have to file a report on that one.
“Here we are,” she said at last. “If you could just hold on out here for a moment.” Grayson nodded obligingly.
Kinsolving poked her head into the lab, entering quietly, not quite tiptoeing. It was surprisingly dark. Too dark for anyone to be working. But she could make out someone sitting in the shadows. Judging from the hairstyle:
“Drake,” she said, relieved but annoyed. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
It did not occur to her, in that moment, that Drake was unusually quiet for almost anyone and especially for Drake. It was only as she got closer to him that she began to realize something was wrong. Shondra Kinsolving had been a doctor in Gotham City a long time. She, it must be said, had seen some terrible things- things done by patients, to patients, to doctors, on occasion even by doctors (she still had nightmares about what had happened with Giggling Rendell in Surgery). Nothing had quite prepared her for what had happened to Drake.
It was the smell that reached her first, but she didn’t fully process it until she felt Drake’s shoulder. It squelched. He was soaking wet. And his skin, she could see by the little remaining light, was angry, blistering red, outermost layers peeled and torn away from musculature. Drake had been boiled alive, or drowned; either way his head had been held under scalding hot water- the hydrotherapy tanks, she realized- until he died.
Kinsolving’s hand started to go over her mouth, either to stifle a scream or hold back vomit. She wasn’t sure which. But before her hand could reach her mouth, another one was there. A wet, warm hand with strength like an iron bar. She tried to scream, couldn’t. Thrashed desperately, to no avail. Out of the corner of her eye, through panic, she saw the face of the man behind her, covered in a leathery clown mask of human skin. And she saw, clamped in the other hand, a syringe inching towards her eye, thumb slowly depressing the plunger. It was close now. Closer.
And suddenly the iron grip relaxed, and she could kick free. As she did, she could hear a grunt of surprise and the flapping of pages as a book hit the Shape in the side of its head. Less than a second later the Shape’s legs came out from beneath it, and it plummeted to the floor. She felt something grip her hand, and heard Dick Grayson’s voice. “Come on. Hurry.”
By some miracle her legs began working.
They were nearly out of the room, away from Drake’s mangled body and the nightmare in the clown-skin mask. A short distance that felt like an infinity. She heard a gasp of pain from Grayson, turned around- the Shape, lunging across the floor like an animal, had pulled a scalpel from somewhere, gashed the young man’s leg. A balletic kick to the masked face sent it sprawling once more.
They made it. Out of the room. Safe. No. Not safe.
Sheer survivor instinct was numbing her senses. She could barely comprehend what Grayson was doing as he pulled something- a short metal rod?- from a pocket, and jammed it through the door’s handles.
“What was that thing?” Kinsolving said. Shrieked, really. Her voice was not under her own control.
“Mask’s different. But I’m pretty sure we just met Michael Myers. Serial killer with very messed-up ideas about Halloween pranks.” Grayson said, grimly. He was leaning slightly, sparing a leg; the scalpel must have caught him. Kinsolving half-noticed a second layer of clothing under his jeans as he groped in his pocket.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I… When he stabbed me, I think he somehow got my knife.”
She barely paid attention to that. “Is that going to hold him?!”
Suddenly the door dented outwards. Once. Twice. Again and again. The brace in the handles bent from the strain.
“Smart money says no. Run.Not ideal conditions to be facing an unstoppable serial killer, he reflected, drawing the other one. Not that facing unstoppable serial killers is ideal itself.
Nothing for it. His thumb squeezed a button on a hidden button in the stick’s base, feeling it extend and hum. Not just a stick anymore. Now it was a stun baton. That ought to at least give Myers a headache. There wasn’t much use in getting into costume now. The opportune moment for a dramatic Nightwing entrance was officially past. So, time for another tried-and-true tactic. As the Master said, ‘if your opponent is of bad temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, so that he may grow arrogant.’
“Heeeeey, Mikey Mikey Mikey,” Dick called out, as he moved through the halls. “Didn’t hurt your face too bad, did I? The clown look suits you, by the way.”
He rounded another corner, carefully. Focus. Like Bruce taught you. What can you sense? At the moment, it was the lingering smell of Drake’s boiled flesh. Smelled like guilt. Sorry, Drake. All things considered, you didn’t deserve that. Along with the smell, there was sound-
Dick Grayson whirled out of the way just as a knife, pink-handled and engraved with MAID OF HONOR, stabbed through the air. A nanosecond from piercing his neck, the wicked curved blade gouged straight through the wall next to him. Dick felt his neck muscles tense as he imagined what that blade would have done to him.
He got his first good look at Michael Myers.
The Boogeyman did not look like a knife-wielding lunatic in a pair of coveralls. He looked like a shadow that had come to life, undying hatred in its black, black eyes. The preserved clown-skin mask, wrapped around his head on leather straps, gave his face a nightmare grin, and those black eyes peeked out now through the holes, alive with naked hate. Looking at him.
“Hi, Mike,” Dick breathed.
The Shape, of course, said nothing. But suddenly the knife was moving again, whistling through the air. Dick leapt. As the knife swung wildly he vaulted the monster’s shoulder, running across the wall and landing behind. Pain! lancing through his wounded leg as he hit ground. Ignore.
The stun baton struck Myers once, twice, before Dick flipped backwards out of reach. Just in time; another wild swipe came less than inches from slicing open his belly.
The Shape staggered slightly, only slightly. A hit from the baton should have left even a strong man curled up on the ground in agony. The Shape seemed barely annoyed. Oh, that’s a bad sign. Dick saw the muscles tense. The Shape did his trick well, but it was his only trick- lunge and slash. The day a Flying Grayson couldn’t dodge a knife was the day to hang up the tights.
Again. Alley-oop. Toro! Ole!
This time, ducking down and around, under the knife blow. Another few strong blows with the baton, and something like a grunt of pain this time. Oh, dear. Am I wearing you down?
Again. Again. Avoid the knife, hit him where he was weak. Zap. AGAIN!
The baton had struck Myers no fewer than a dozen times when he/it finally collapsed to one knee, heavy breathing agonized behind the clownface mask. The head dipped, and finally the Shape collapsed to the ground hard enough to shake the hallway. He was beaten.
Dick Grayson sighed. Huh. Okay. Not so tough after all, then. Though for a moment there…
The clown-mask still looked disturbing plastered across Myers’ expressionless face. Dick realized with a start that his hand was reaching out to remove it, almost entirely unbidden by his conscious mind. Time for that later. Get his knife and get some cuffs on him. He undid a spare pair from his belt and reached out, slowly.
Slowly…
He wasn’t sure what alerted him first. Something must have. When Myers stopped playing possum, when he sat upright with mechanical stiffness, he did so fast enough to finally get a good slash in. If Dick hadn’t suddenly sensed it coming it could have been his throat instead of his hand.
He heard himself swear. Felt himself stumble on his wounded leg.
And suddenly the Shape was on its feet and was grabbing him by his jacket, charging forward to pound him into a wall. Dick kept one hand on each of the Shape’s, the one near his throat and the one bringing the knife down at him. The strength was amazing, muscles like steel. Myers slammed him again, twice, vengefully.
Gotta flip him around. Or trip him. Get a foot around his leg-
Somehow Myers sensed his intention. They wriggled, struggled. And before Dick knew what was happening he heard broken glass and felt something sharp brushing his face. He plummeted backwards out the window into the cold night. Falling. Like Mom. Like Dad. Need my grapple.
Only a floor or two up. A short fall. Thought never got the chance to become action. The sickening smack into the ground. The thud against the back of his head, and his vision giving way to blackness.
From the broken window, Myers looked at the ground below, and at Dick Grayson’s quiet, still body sprawled out upon it. He tilted his face, either quizzically or admiringly. This one had surprised him. Come close to defeating him. No worries now. On to the main course. He turned on his heel and stalked for Barbara Gordon’s room.
***
The room was as quiet as a grave. There was not even the sound of footsteps on tile hallway outside, nor was there any creaking as the door opened. It still breezed open, silently, and a horribly patient shadow filled the doorframe. It moved across the floor, still silent, savoring. The low light of the room was simply swallowed up by the shadow, but a small gleam of it glinted off the knife’s blade.
The shadow reached the bedside. The blade rose over the shadow’s head with a terrible slowness, and it struck, plunging deep into the bedclothes. The shadow kept stabbing, almost frantically. And suddenly it stopped. The shadow ripped the bedclothes free and found, not Barbara Gordon’s mutilated body, but a neat line of pillows tucked into the bed. If the Shape felt anything like human emotions, it was probably feeling rage, now...
And down the dark hallway, struggling to crank the handrims both quickly and quietly and keep her breathing steady at the same time, Barbara Gordon was making for the elevator.
Come on come on come on come on.
Maybe the bad dreams had awakened her to the sounds of fighting. Or maybe the fighting itself had awakened her. Either way, the second she was awake, Barbara had been aware that something was wrong. Every instinct in her being screamed at her to run. After a quick push of the nurse call button had failed to raise anyone, she felt inclined to listen to instinct.
Come on come on come on come on. Why the FUCK didn’t I grab my phone? It was still in the pocket of her jeans, back in the room. It had seemed like too much wasted time to retrieve it as she fled. Now she was cursing herself. Phones on the wall. Stop to make a quick call?
Barbara turned her head over her shoulder. Someone was behind her. Something. Some Shape. Different from what she remembered, but horrifyingly unmistakeable.
Nope. No stopping. Barbara’s arms, raked with muscle, began working the handrims even faster. And Michael Myers, with his terrible patient determination, followed.
The elevator was at the end of the hall. Myers was moving slowly, toying with her like a cat with a mouse. Somehow the space of that single hallway seemed to stretch on for an eternity. She dared another glance over her shoulder.
In the half-light she saw Myers was no longer wearing the mask she remembered from those years ago. The pale emotionless face with the ratty hair and black hole eyes was now a tattered, lined clown face, ugly red lips drawn taut in a hideous grin. She had seen a face like that before, leering at her before a hammer pulled back and a trigger was pulled-
Her breath was in her throat again. Just go. Fast as you can. Just go. Just go. Come on come on come ON.
It seemed miraculous that she reached the elevator, almost unreal. Primed for flight, Barbara’s mind barely processed the corpse of the nurse stuffed in, limbs twisted and back bent backwards. The name tag read “Asa.” Don’t think about it. For now, survive.
She leaned overthe arm of the chair, hand slamming against a button almost at random. Ground floor. Most space to run. She hit it again. Again. Again again again. The clown-faced Shape was still striding towards her. The empty eyes, the malicious grin. Close close close come on come on COME ON. He was nearly on her.
The doors slid shut with barely a second to spare, and Barbara heard a hand slam against it furiously. About an eternity later, Barbara felt the elevator descend, and her heart begin to beat normally. The immediate fight-or-flight fear ebbed away, replaced with a sick, horrified feeling for the dead nurse she was sharing an elevator with. Dick, she thought, suddenly. Have to find him. He could be- no. He’s still alive. Find him. No. Prioritize. First get help. This fight isn’t on your terms. So first get help. Easy-peasy. Nearly there, in fact. You’re on the home stretch.
***
Michael Myers, normally silent, grunted with effort behind his new mask. His fingers jammed between the sliding doors of the elevator like crowbars. His muscles strained. The interlock groaned from the effort, then deformed, and, finally, with strength that was beyond freakish, Michael Myers pulled the doors apart. There was a heavy, sick breathing as the black eyes watched the cables of the elevator. Then, with swift and terrible movement, Michael Myers raised his knife and sliced through the cables.

Loving my R1S Dual Motor so far! It's an amazing machine, but I'm curious if anyone has successfully unlocked the Performance upgrade via an OTA update. The extra power and Sport mode are tempting, but I'm also interested in the additional drive modes, especially the ability to have Always-On AWD. In the standard Dual Motor, Snow mode seems to smooth out the torque curve a bit much for my taste. Ideally, I'd like to enable Always-On AWD without that trade-off. Anyone have experience with the Performance upgrade or the extra drive modes?

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Sixteen92 Save Ferris 6ml oil, approx 2/3 full. Funnel cakes & lemonade from Wrigley field, salted pretzels, bright blue skies, cool Lake Michigan breeze, Bueller… RIS, $13
Solstice Scents - Blackburn Farmstead 5ml oil roller Blackberry Jam, Boysenberry Preserves, Vanilla Bean, Creamy Vanilla and a touch of Vanilla Musk. Tried twice, $16
Smelly Yeti - Orange You Glad it's Christmas 7.4 ml oil, direct Orange and mint - the best flavors of Christmas combined! Candy cane peppermint meets sweet tangerine with soft and creamy white chocolate. A light and fresh fragrance which is sure to make spirits bright. Tried once, $14
Whisper Sisters - Brittania 1/3 oz (roughly equaling to 9.8ml) oil roller, direct Cocoa absolute, black coconut, marshmallow. Tried once, $15
Samples - will be tried once, unless otherwise noted
Astrid - Whinnies: Forty slonk jar oil sample, Ajevie Marshmallow, raspberry, and vanilla custard. Tried once, $5
Astrid - Whinnies: Fifty-one slonk jar oil sample, Ajevie. Marshmallow and crème caramel. Tried once, $5
Cocoa Pink - Beach Bum 2.5ml edp sprayer Relax on the beach while sipping smooth waves of blood orange juice, golden pineapple, pomegranate essence, sunburst tangerines and raspberries with refreshing splashes of pink grapefruit nectar. RIS, tried once, $3.50
Fable and Canon - Primavera 2ml edp spray sample, direct Inspired by Botticelli's incredible painting of the same name, this new scent transports you to a light and breezy springtime revel in a grove of orange trees. Delicate white tea, flowering orange blossoms, and a soft carpet of moss, soil, and morning dew, with a hint of sacred myrtle and aromatic laurel leaves on the breeze. Never tried, $5
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Marshmallow Snow 2ml oil sample, direct Strawberries and snowflakes made of marshmallow fluff, treading softly through the woods, this is a sweet treat for the senses that, like Goldilocks' favorite, is juuuuust right. It's deep, velvety and lush, and perfect for any weather. Fir Balsam Absolute, Marshmallow, Amyris Wood, and Ylang Ylang. Tried once, $5.
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Sea Salt Ice Cream 2ml oil sample, direct There's nothing like sitting on a rooftop eating popsicles with your besties, right? Here's to the innocence of friendship, the family you choose, and some darn good ice cream. Sea salt ice cream, plain and simple. Tried once, $5.
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Union Fruit 2ml oil sample, direct A tropical fruit with hints of pineapple, passion fruit, and a whole lot of glitter. Tried once, $5
Laurel and June - Winter Woods 2ml edp spray sample, direct Soft spruce, myrrh, frankincense, winter berries. Never tried, $3
Pineward - Hayride 1.8ml sample spray Hay, hot cocoa, vanilla, sweet vernalgrass, bison grass, acorn nut bread, nutmeg, cardamom, spikenard, raisin, tonka, oakmoss. RIS, tried once, a little over half full. $3
Solstice Scents - Sea of Gray 2.5ml edp spray sample, direct. Vanilla rain, saltwater, seaweed, ambergris (vegan), white amber, roasted seashells, white sandalwood, frangipani. Tried once, $6
Whisper Sisters - Patchouli Myrrh 1ml jar sample, direct Never used, $3

Thanks to spacepaladin15 for letting us play in his sandbox.
Extra Special Thanks to uktabi for his patience and support, and basically co-writing this. Also thanks to julianskies. I sent him a sneak peak and he went ahead and proofread the whole thing!
Also, u/abrachoo Finally got to Hazardous Recovery with his memery! It's great, and I love it! The notion that I've inspired fan art warms my heart.
Sorry about the delay, folks. I feel kinda bad coming off the new year with a promise of lots of chapters a month and then going quiet after two, but I had a bunch of awful shit happen at once. My mum got diagnosed with cancer the day before easter and it threw all our lives into chaos, and prompted a relative I have... issues with to move in and help. On top of that my medication was out of production, so I was also in withdrawl during the worst of it. But, things have calmed back down now. Mum's at home, that bitch is situated, and my nuerochemistry's back as it should be.
So production resumes. Writing this makes me happy, seeing you guys enjoying it does too, so I'm not going to stop.
FIRST / PREVIOUS / NEXT
Memory transcription subject: Andre Mackenzie, Owner of Coldwater Robotics, Acquisitions and logistics specialist for Hazardous Recovery 7
Date [standardized human time]: October 26 2136
Istomeini, Earth Orbit
Ship galleys are always a mixed bag when it comes to ingredients. The orbital community is just as much of a batch of misfits and weirdoes as seafarers are, and their tastes were just as eclectic. Ancient, half filled jars of exotic ingredients, marmite, Czech sprats in sunflower oil, Tunisian hot pepper preserves, all kinds of cool crap.
Thankfully they pretty much always had the ingredients for a basic pie crust. Flour, butter, sugar, and some cold water. I had all three in plenty, and was working a wad of cold dough flat against the round table.
The Isto's lounge was nice. Naturalistic recessed lights filled the space, illuminating the soft rounded interior lined with soft foam furniture the used-to-be-white yellow of things well loved. It opened up on the other side, the far wall dominated by a curved panoramic window. It was a strong contrast against the hard lines and simple geometry I designed everything in my house with.
Across the galley table from me was my impromptu manufacturing line. An assemblage of the Isto's crew who were curious or daring enough to hang around while I smashed together a dozen or so pie crusts. The kitchen utensils on board were basic, so I'd lured them into helping in exchange for answers to questions.
First from left to right was Army Man Aldo. As the only other person with any knife training I'd trusted him to peel the skin off the chunky sugar pumpkins Vemnka and I had brought up. The first question was his.
“So do you get a hud in your eyes? Like a readout, like when you look at me and it'll say “Aldo Ramirez 28 year old male, net worth 30 dollars” or whatever?” He barely broke focus on the pumpkin as he talked.
“I can, yeah, the cameras tell me stuff, and my AI secretary can trawl social media accounts for basic details and forward it to my eyes through my phone. I keep most of it off though. Clutters my field of view.”
I gave the current pie crust l one last pass with the improvised rolling pin and handed it over to Emli. The smoke coloured little minx had glued herself to my hip the second she had the chance and had been an eager assistant. She took the crust reverently from my hands and did her best to fit it into the square baking tray. The Isto only had one proper pie plate, and the ship’s fabricators were busy, so we were making due.
Aldo was in the zone, and didn't have a follow up question, so it was Halsobar, the ship's new Yotul crewman's turn. The small ginger fox-kandaroo was cutting the tops off the pumpkins. The big human-sized chopping knife looked comically large in his relatively small hands, and to generate the force he needed to guillotine them he did a little spring-pounce that was as vaguely vulpine as the rest of him.
He lit up when he realized it was his turn and blurted out “Oh! Where do you get the power from? No, wait, where does waste heat go? No, what are the lines in your face for?” mid-pounce. I guess Vemnka wasn’t the only one to discover coffee.
The last of the crusts to be rolled found itself beneath my improvised roller and I turned to the rest of the crew. “I got answers for all three, if no one minds Halsobar's overenthusiasm.” No one did, so I finished flattening the ball of dough, washed my hands, and returned to the table..
I stood in profile, my left side to the crowd. “I’ve got a metabolic current something or other in here that turns food into power via electrochemistry I don’t understand.” I poked vaguely at my side. That got a couple weird looks. “I specialized in limbs and sensory, not organware.” I shot back “Anyway.” I held my arm up to the homey yellow lights, really making the jade and gold pop. “There are batteries in my biceps and thighs. New ones I imported from Venlil Prime, they last a couple days instead of about 10 hours. Depends on how hard I tax them, though. As for heat, they're liquid cooled, and the solid plates are all radiators.”
Emli took that as a signal. “Ooh, let me feel!” She trilled and coiled herself around my hanging right arm like it was the only source of warmth in the universe. “Mmm. Yup! Nice and warm.” She added, nuzzling the filigree on my upper arm.
An old, well used smirk settled into the lines of my face as Emli soaked up second hand warmth.
I am so in there….
I refocused on the crowd, a few of whom were sharing significant looks now that Emli was latched to me, and continued. “The fluid system doubles as a touch sensor by measuring pressure changes, here.” I extended the arm Emli wasn't electromagnetically locked to out to Halsobar and closed my eyes. “Draw some shapes, don't worry about scratching.”
I heard the ginger alien standing on his seat and felt him take my hand in his paw. He pulled my arm closer and leaned in, probably giving it a good look over. A moment later I felt him start drawing.
“That's a square with a cross in it, circle with two wavy lines.” I paused to let him finish the final drawing. “Uhh a small oval in a big oval with two V's above it.”
I opened my eyes, Halsobar looked amazed. “It's a happy face.” He provided.
“Oh yeah, I can see that. Head in profile, one eye, both ears pointed up.” I replied, seeing the shape clearly in my mind and on his face.
“And the seams?” Emli asked, still hanging cutely from my other arm, unbothered by her own weight in the low gravity.
“They're exactly that. I don't cover them up because I tend to swap out the face sections pretty often.”
“So you can just pull sections of your face off?” asked Lemm, the older grey Venlil to Halsobar's left. Him and the long haired, grease covered Ed were the next steps in the production line. The clean and scrape stage, so naturally both were covered in pumpkin guts up to the elbow.
“Hell yeah he can!” Answered Ed eagerly. “I gotta show you the ”Subject to forced disassembly” music video.”
I grinned at the two of them, the showman within me beelining for the surface. “Why wait?”
I brought my venlil free arm up to my face and dug my metallic nails into the seam around my eye socket. I sent the implant a detach signal, and my vision flickered as it switched to lower fidelity wireless signals.
A horrible wet click followed. Loud enough to make everyone else wince, which tickled the little troll deep in my soul. From there the socket implant slid out slowly and easily. With the muted rasp of warm, metal-backed meat sliding against itself, my orbital replacement slipped free. I closed my other eye and turned my wrist to look over the crew.
I panned my hand from one side to the other, taking in the… mixed reactions from the crew as my detached eye got close to them. Most ducked away, Aldo jerked back, Halsobar froze as I snaked my arm in close to his face. I wiggled the single eyebrow and darted to Lemm, who looked equally enthralled. “See? Pops right out!”
Ed stood from his stool and clapped. “Awesome! I'd never thought I'd see that in person! Show us the socket!”
“You sure? It's pretty rough…”
“C'mon! Show us!”
“Alright…”
I looked down from the ceiling and turned my half empty face to the crowd. A chorus of appalled groans followed as my half hollow face provoked the usual reaction.
“What? No one objected!”
“You didn't give us a chance!” Replied Steven, a ripped young salvage tech who'd been on blending duty with Rulsom, the dozing venlil from the second shift.
“I know. More fun for me that way.” I tossed the socket to the hand Emli was hanging from. Bringing her up to face level as I slid the orbital replacement back into place with a flourish and a click. I blinked the focus back into my vision, and winked playfully at her. The tips of her ears and her cheeks took on a slight orange tint.
“Freaky…” she whispered.
“Doesit hurt?” Slurred the sleepy Rulsom, catching my attention before I had an opportunity to flirt more.
I looked back over at him. “Which part?”
“I mean… all of it?” He gestured broadly at me with his tail.
“Not at this point, no. A couple of the early years were… rough. But once I started designing the limbs myself, comfort and ergonomics were a priority.”
Ed cut in with a gravelly impression of me. “If you're scared to touch your dick with a bionic hand, it's fucken useless.”
My eyes lit up. “Hey, you read my book!”
Captain Chan chose that moment to amble in with Vemnka. She did a quick survey of the organized chaos I was conducting and Emli hanging from my arm. “What are you doing?”
“Pumpkin Pie!” Answered Halsobar as he beheaded the last pumpkin with a pounce.
“Pumpkin pie.” She echoed.
“Yep!” I set Emli back down, much to her disapproval. “I'm out of engineering I can help with, and no one needs medical attention, so pie. Didn’t get any because thanksgiving was cancelled by the bombing.”
“Thanksgiving is weeks away.”
“I mean proper thanksgiving, not your weird too-close-to-Christmas Yanksgiving.”
“Right…”
Vemnka bunny hopped in alongside Chan, her staticky afro boinging along with each step.
“Time to suit up and get paws on, Mack!” She eagerly beeped.
“‘Bout time! Sorry folks, we’ll do more Q and A later.”
I made sure the rest of the team had the pie situation handled and followed the pair of them to the airlocks.
Climbing into a Mark 7 High Orbit Hazardous Work Environment Protective system is a process designed to be so easy you could do it drunk. Which is something I’ve personally tested multiple times.
Unfortunately the Mark 1.5 Venlil version I’d made for Vemnka hadn’t quite managed to solve the ‘floof’ problem.
I contemplated workarounds for her massive curly do as I watched her pin, scrunchie, and tie back sections of it until it was slimmed down enough to fit in her suit.
“Might be time for a trim?” I weakly suggested.
“Emli told me she shears hers short to make using human showers and dryers easier.” Chimed in Vilsa, our 'woman in the chair’ for this particular adventure. And to make leeching warmth from striking cyborgs easier too…
Vemnka scoffed. “Brahk no! I end up looking like my dad when I cut it short.”
I tilted my head and gave her another look. “Yeah, I can see that. I could braid it into cornrows? That would be easier to get in and out of the suit and look nothing like your dad.”
“Is now the time?” Asked an impatient Captain Chan.
I shrugged my suited shoulders. “It’s as good a time as any.”
The captain's shoulders relaxed, and the tension in some of the lines of her face eased.“...if you work out the length’s, it’ll be easier to bundle up the braids and tie them back…”
My eyebrows went up. Aha, so there is a human being under all those brass tacks!
“Hmm. That does sound easier, and I like easy.” Beeped Vemnka as she got the last of her floof flattened. She stepped up to her suit and slipped into it with an easy confidence. After an annoyingly thorough safety check, we cycled the airlock and stepped out into empty space.
The view from the hull of the Isto was amazing. To my left the star speckled velvet of the sacred black stretched out, brimming with infinite potential. To my right, the battered blue visage of mother earth, dignified and resolute, despite the damage she had taken in the past month. Directly ahead of me was the dead hull of the Lyrebird, washed out and even lit in the uniform glare of sol’s uncaring light.
I held my palm out and caught the light with the sensorskin on my suited hand. Hot. No warmth.
Vemnka proceeded ahead of me, casually bantering with Vilsa over the radio. I pitched in occasionally, punctuating a joke or adding a silly observation as we traversed the hull. Eventually we found our way inside the ass-end of the wreck. The inside was like any other shipwreck. Spooky, empty, vaguely haunted. Though I knew for sure people had died in this place, and recently.
I tried to keep that out of my thoughts as I followed Vemnka’s lead. It was a bit of a refreshing experience, just turning my brain off and being 'the muscle’ for the two specialists.
Head mounted lights swept the darkened interior of the wreck. Two forward focused beams, and two broad lit the space, caught and refracted a million times by the thin layer of ice crystals that coated everything. The flash frozen atmosphere of the Lyrebird.
“Lead the way, lead engineer.” I gestured with over dramatic politeness. Vemnka giggled and disengaged her mag-paws and kicked off the floor, soaring down the middle of the empty hall. Once she got to the door the giggling was replaced by swearing and straining.
The circular hatch at the end of the hallway had been warped by an explosion on the other side, and the now dome-shaped door was wedged firmly in its frame.
“Maaaaack! Door's stuck!” She whined gently pounding her fists “I beg you! Please!” she sagged overdramatically to the floor, still wearing a powersuit I knew could pry the door open.
“Oh no, it seems our path into the interior is blocked!” I smarmed, already diverting power to the metre long hydraulic ramspike mounted to my left arm. “I think this will require… drastic measures. Do you agree Vemnka?”
The fizzy muscle-ven popped right back up and zipped to my side. “Yehyehyeh punch the crap outta it!”
I cued my radio. “Vilsa, I technically need you to authorize demoli-”
“Yeahyeah punch it good.” The lady in the chair cut me off. “Everyone's watching my monitor…”
Well, can’t let a crowd down, now can I?
I set my leg back and drew myself up into a proper punching stance.
Vemnka hopped back, both to give me space and get a better view as I wound my punch up. With a twist of my hips and a jolt of my arm I drove the pilebunker's spike right into the centre of the door. A few miliseconds later the piston fired, driving the spike forward into the warped bulkhead so hard that it caved in the opposite way and flew clear of the doorframe. The half tonne steel door flew across the hallway behind it and embedded in the opposite wall.
I laughed and shook my arm out. The flesh liquifying recoil of firing the ram was compensated for by my hardier frame, changing what could have been a devastating injury into a sore shoulder and some severely clacked teeth.
I could hear whooping cheers through Vilsa's comline as I retracted the titanium alloy spike back into its housing. I turned to smile at a very impressed Vemnka.
“That was awesome!” She squeed.
“Right?” I pointed to her equally capable suit. “But the next door is yours. You can pull apart plate steel like it's orange peel in that thing, and I want to see you discover that.”
Someone on the other side of the line started to congratulate Vemnka for her reference when the captain cut in with a sharp rebuke about safety procedures that I 100% agreed with. Her words hung heavily on the comm for a moment.
“Soooo, what reference?” Asked Vemnka a moment later, which revived the mood.
We started with an evaluation of the power system, but once we got beyond the basics the two of them kinda lost me. It was charming though, listening to them bond over their mutual fascination with the dead ship we crawled through.
It was fun to watch Vemnka move about the reactor room in zero-g. She had similar Spring and Tumble training as her dad, and was in her element. Making her way around the open room with flippy-spinny ease as she planned the extraction cuts with Vilsa.
I ended up schlepping our equipment back and forth from the airlock to the reactor room. First was the constructoid. A long-tailed birdosaur-looking construction drone my company made and Vemnka adored. She'd painted some of the torso plates the same mocha pattern as her suit, and would probably have a name for it before long.
After that, it was tools and radioactive containment containers. I was technically in constant contact with everyone else the whole, but in those short treks across the naked exterior of the Lyrebird it was hard not to feel alone. By trip three I'd slowed down to watch Earth pass by underneath me. North America was in full day, and I couldn't help but stare at one particular spot.
Montreal. The place I got my doctorate, the place I got put back together. The place my brother died.
I zoomed in with my fancy eyes, far enough to see the marks of deep craters, grey and black like cigarette burns on Earth skin. Each one directly above a bunker that held thousands. I tried to summon anger, to balm my loss with blind rage like I had before, but I couldn't. All I felt while staring at the grey ashmark that used to be my brother was bone deep fatigue. Weariness of… everything.
“Mack, you okay?” Vilsa's voice filled my helmet, delicate with concern. “You've been standing out there staring for a while…”
“Yeah just… Vilsa, do you have any family?” I asked.
The line was quiet. I'd barely met this girl, and had no idea how she'd take a personal question from someone like me.
“Yes…” She broached after a moment. “Mom and a dad, a little brother, Takat, and an older brother I don't see anymore. Why?”
My heart sunk a little. Seems happy families are rare no matter what rock you evolved on.
I pointed at the black glass floor Montreal had been reduced too. “That was my older brother, there. Camera 5.” I gave her a second to pull up my eye's feed of the spot. I heard her draw in a sharp breath.
“I don't know what's keeping you and your brother apart, but life's too short and too delicate to let something stupid keep you away from what you love.”
“I… Yeah, you're right.” She replied.
I took a deep breath, drew myself back up, and resumed hauling containment cylinders to Vemnka. “Back at it, then!”
The next couple hours went by quickly. The girls would do some complex math and plan things, while I moved heavy shit and held things still while Vemnka cut them. She'd brought some of her venlil tools with her, and her sweet plasma field cutter thing was awesome, and gave me several wacky ideas.
I hope Kimmich doesn't find my chainsaw limbs before I have the chance to explain what Halloween is…
My attention shifted back to Vemnka. She was 'above’ me, on the opposite side of the reactor room with the constructoid. She'd been using the raptor-like drone as a tool caddy and doting on it, which was cute. She'd already called it ‘Beeb’ after the the B's and 3s in its serial number. I was a little envious that it got to play with her cool toys, but I'd need 'training’ and 'safety instructions’ before I got to.
And maybe a little of the affection…
We were almost done with the bulk of the work. Ships of the Lyrebird's class had been designed with this procedure in mind, and aside from the extra cuts we'd needed to make around destroyed stuff, things had come along nicely.
“Hey, Mocha dots, think we'll only need one day for this?”
Vemnka's ears perked up and she peered up at me with one side of her head. “Hmmm… Think so, so long as…”
The captain cut her off “Recovery team, we have high velocity debris inbound.” I froze and shared a worried look with Vemnka. “... How high?” “Umm… total penetration threshold is almost at 40 percent.” Relayed Vilsa.
Ohshitohshitohshit
Micrometeor impacts were on the short list of things I was sure could fuck one of these suits up. “Okay, so we need to get the fuck outta here.” I jumped over to the containment crates the fuel rods were stowed in and hoisted one under each arm. “Let’s get these inside.”
“No time!” Shouted Vilsa. “We can’t get you out. We’re stacking shields, but both of you need to do what you can to button up.”
“Well where the fuck do we go then?” I counter shouted, panic leaking into my tone.
Vemnka was stone calm. Her head swept around their room in a very un-venlil like manner. “There!” She pointed to a nook between the thick armour belt that formed the spine of the ship and the bulk of the reactor's body.
I got what she meant and leapt for the spot. I clattered into the gap and hunkered down as low as I could. Vemnka joined me a moment later with Beeb in tow. I grabbed her out of the air and crammed her into it, placing her in the safest depth.
“We're disconnecting from the Lyrebird to arrange the debris shields, we're not leaving you out here alone.” Vilsa relayed to us. I could hear the captain shouting in the background.
The ship shuddered as the Isto disconnected from the Lyrebird, then there was nothing but the sound of my own rapid breaths matched against Vemnka's deep even ones.
She put her paws on my arms. “Mack, relax.” The touch was already helping calm my nerves.
I took a few steadying breaths and tried to centre myself. “Right, worse things have happened to me in reactor rooms.”
With my breathing steady, Vemnka gave her tail a happy little flick and hunkered down.
I opened my mouth to thank her, but got cut off by the first micrometeor piercing through the reactor room wall. It zipped through the fatigued metal with a clunk that I felt more than heard. It tore through the fatigued metal and sent fragments flying in all directions.
We both hollered in surprise and hunkered down as far as we could. I felt naked and exposed with my back to the open air and quietly prayed to every god I could think of that I wouldn't get insta-killed by the fastest bolt in the universe.
Minutes ticked by as we sheltered between the thick plates. The Isto was shielding us from the worst of it, but they had the reassuring bulk of an entire spaceship around them. Eventually we passed through the worst of the debris cloud and the deadly pinging petered out.
Vemnka peeked her head up over the lip. “I think we're clear!”
I tentatively peered up over the edge alongside her. “Maaaaybeee…” I hedged. “We should wait for the all clear from Vilsa before-”
“Nah, we're good!” She flung herself out of the hiding space and into the open, aiming for the spot she was last working at with her paws stretched out ahead of her. “We can get this done before last-mea-”
She didn’t get to finish the sentence before another projectile tore through the side of the reactor room and slammed directly into her midsection. Whatever it was disintegrated on impact with the reinforced abdominal plate of Vemnka’s suit and sent her spinning. I heard all the air leave her chest with a lung flattening wheeze, and her breath hitched.
My own fear vanished, and I leapt out of the cover to intercept her. I grabbed her spinning form by the shoulder and we clattered together in the middle of the room. “Vemnka, relax. Breathe, follow the suit’s instructions.” She waggled her tail in affirmative, and tried her best to match the suit voice’s steady ‘Breathe in, breathe out’ instructions.
By the time we stopped spinning she had her breath under control, and I let go of her. She pulled away from me, and looked down at her torso. The plate the meteor hit had cracked and partially disintegrated. It would need to be replaced.
The squishy and infinitely more valuable tech it had died to protect looked up at me, a hint of admiration on her ears. “Wow, some suit…” She muttered.
“Like I said, I don’t cut corners.” I replied, grinning ear to ear.
She poked at the spot and winced a little. “Still hurts pretty ba- ooh!” She perked up as the suits on-board medical system applied a little soothing lidocaine compound to the injury. “Gonna be a real impressive bruise when I get this thing off.”
I laughed. “Not a bad price to pay, considering the hit you took.” I pointed at the entry wound the object created in the reactor room wall.”
“I think you’re the one who’s going to pay though. Dad’s gonna kick your ass when he finds out.”
I laughed harder and looked down on earth, a dreamy smile on my face. “Yeah he is…” I said with a provocative little growl.
It was her turn to start laughing now.
Vilsa’s voice broke into our moment, crackling to life over the radio in a bit of a panic. “Can you guys hear me? Are you alright? Please be alright!”
“We’re all good here.” I announced to her. “Little rattled, but I think we can finish things up no problem...” I looked over at Vemnka for confirmation.
She was already gone from where she had been standing. She was back across the room, coaxing Beeb out of the hiding spot and back to the cut they’d been working on.
“Maybe two, three more hours?” I confirmed, and then got back to work.
Hope that was worth the wait, as Ol' Gaben likes to say. I got most of it done in the past few days, and I'm hoping to keep up that momentum.
Tune in for the next chapter, which will feature: Kimmich confronting his nightmares, doing Resident Evil LARP, and meeting a dog! Gonna be a long one for him.
FIRST / PREVIOUS / NEXT

PayPal goods/services. I may be out but I'll respond as soon as I'm able. $5.00 shipping. Scents are kept in a dark closet. I reuse packaging and I ship on the weekends. I normally enclose extras as well. RIS = received in swap. Direct = obtained directly from brand. Minimum $8
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Laurel and June - Christmas Cheer 5ml edp spray, direct Honey almond, vanilla, pine needles, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, cranberries. Tried once, $8.50
Nui Cobalt - The Bees' Carnival 5ml oil roller Like Ferris wheel lights against a twilight sky, it’s a playful arrangement of vivid notes to tickle your fancy. Cotton candy spun from crystallized honey, fresh leaves of lemon verbena, blue raspberry drizzle, and a grounding smolder of sweet myrrh. Wear to encourage frivolity, relieve tension, and restore your sense of humor. Fill slightly below top of label, has Nui Cobalt rollerball top, $15
Pierrot Perfumery - Coney Island Baby 5ml oil dropper bottle, direct A blend of vanilla soft serve, cotton candy, hot buttered popcorn, and sea salt. Tried once, $16
Pulp Fragrance - Bedsheet Ghost 4.5ml oil roller, direct via Ajevie Crisp freshly-ironed white sheets & a pumpkin pail full of Halloween candy, over a haunted honey musk base. Tried twice, $18
Sixteen92 Save Ferris 6ml oil, approx 2/3 full. Funnel cakes & lemonade from Wrigley field, salted pretzels, bright blue skies, cool Lake Michigan breeze, Bueller… RIS, $13
Solstice Scents - Blackburn Farmstead 5ml oil roller Blackberry Jam, Boysenberry Preserves, Vanilla Bean, Creamy Vanilla and a touch of Vanilla Musk. Tried twice, $16
Smelly Yeti - Orange You Glad it's Christmas 7.4 ml oil, direct Orange and mint - the best flavors of Christmas combined! Candy cane peppermint meets sweet tangerine with soft and creamy white chocolate. A light and fresh fragrance which is sure to make spirits bright. Tried once, $14
Whisper Sisters - Brittania 1/3 oz (roughly equaling to 9.8ml) oil roller, direct Cocoa absolute, black coconut, marshmallow. Tried once, $15
Samples - will be tried once, unless otherwise noted
Astrid - Whinnies: Forty slonk jar oil sample, Ajevie Marshmallow, raspberry, and vanilla custard. Tried once, $5
**Astrid - Whinnies: Fifty-one slonk jar oil sample, Ajevie. Marshmallow and crème caramel. Tried once, $5
Cocoa Pink - Beach Bum 2.5ml edp sprayer Relax on the beach while sipping smooth waves of blood orange juice, golden pineapple, pomegranate essence, sunburst tangerines and raspberries with refreshing splashes of pink grapefruit nectar. RIS, tried once, $3.50
Fable and Canon - Primavera 2ml edp spray sample, direct Inspired by Botticelli's incredible painting of the same name, this new scent transports you to a light and breezy springtime revel in a grove of orange trees. Delicate white tea, flowering orange blossoms, and a soft carpet of moss, soil, and morning dew, with a hint of sacred myrtle and aromatic laurel leaves on the breeze. Never tried, $5
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Marshmallow Snow 2ml oil sample, direct Strawberries and snowflakes made of marshmallow fluff, treading softly through the woods, this is a sweet treat for the senses that, like Goldilocks' favorite, is juuuuust right. It's deep, velvety and lush, and perfect for any weather. Fir Balsam Absolute, Marshmallow, Amyris Wood, and Ylang Ylang. Tried once, $5.
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Sea Salt Ice Cream 2ml oil sample, direct There's nothing like sitting on a rooftop eating popsicles with your besties, right? Here's to the innocence of friendship, the family you choose, and some darn good ice cream. Sea salt ice cream, plain and simple. Tried once, $5.
Fae-Tal Attraction Perfumery - Union Fruit 2ml oil sample, direct A tropical fruit with hints of pineapple, passion fruit, and a whole lot of glitter. Tried once, $5
Laurel and June - Winter Woods 2ml edp spray sample, direct Soft spruce, myrrh, frankincense, winter berries. Never tried, $3
Pineward - Hayride 1.8ml sample spray Hay, hot cocoa, vanilla, sweet vernalgrass, bison grass, acorn nut bread, nutmeg, cardamom, spikenard, raisin, tonka, oakmoss. RIS, tried once, a little over half full. $3
Solstice Scents - Sea of Gray 2.5ml edp spray sample, direct. Vanilla rain, saltwater, seaweed, ambergris (vegan), white amber, roasted seashells, white sandalwood, frangipani. Tried once, $6
Whisper Sisters - Patchouli Myrrh 1ml jar sample, direct Never used, $3

Payment via PayPal G&S
All items have been tested once or twice cleanly unless otherwise noted
Shipping is $5.00 to the US
Spreadsheet with details/notes HERE!
Alkemia
SOLD Blackberry Noir 1 ml sample, $2.50
Crimson Light 1 ml sample, $2.50
Deadly Nightshade 1 ml sample, $2.50
Falling Stars on Winter Solstice 5 ml, $15
The First Dandelion 1 ml sample, $2.50
The Honored Ghosts 1 ml sample, $2.50
La Flamme 1 ml sample, $2.50
O Tea! 5 ml, $15
The Prophet and the Wanderer 1 ml sample, $2.50
Quintessence of Debauchery 1 ml sample, $2.50
Shinrin-Yoku 1 ml sample, $2.50
Taproots 1 ml sample, $2.50
Tulips and Chimneys 1 ml sample, $2.50
Viridis Arcanum 1 ml sample, $2.50
Andromeda’s Curse
Apple of Discord 1 ml sample, $2
Cyberpunk 1 ml sample, $2
Death 1 ml sample, $2
Earth 1 ml sample, $2
Lichen 1 ml sample, $2
Orrery 1 ml sample, $2
The Tower 1 ml sample, $2
Lorelei
SOLD Belle Fleur, 1 ml sample $3.50
SOLD Cerise Sensuel, 1 ml sample $3.50
PENDING Dusk Until Dawn, 1 ml sample $3.50
PENDING Garden of Eden, 1 ml sample $3.50
SOLD Musc Sensuel, 1 ml sample $3.50
PENDING A Twilight Reverie, 1 ml sample $3.50
PENDING Vanille Blanche, 1 ml sample $3.50
Woman at the Piano, 1 ml sample $3.50
Lotus Noir
Les Cuisses, rollerball sample, $3
NAVA
Dead Can Sleep, Ajevie slink, $3
Paintbox Soapworks
Digging in the Dirt wax, $3
Poesie
Balmoral Fireplace 1 ml decant, $2
Better Merry Than Wise 2 ml sample, $7
Chill Ghost 1.15 ml sample, $3
Dank Ghost 1.15 ml sample, $3
Dessert First 5 ml, $18
Firelight Study 1.15 ml sample, $3
Ida B. Wells 1.15 ml sample, $3
Invent the Universe 1.15 ml sample, $3
Meg 5 ml, $18
Mysterious Fossil 1.15 ml sample, $3
SOLD Paris Royale 1.15 ml sample, $3
Pemberley 1.15 ml sample, $3
Persephone 1.15 ml sample, $3
Queen of Hearts Ajevie sample, $2
Ritual 1.15 ml sample, $3
Scholomance Ajevie sample, $2
Tiny Phantom 5 ml, $18
Possets
Arabian Dance from the Nutcracker (Orphans) .5 ml Ajevie sample, $2
Chocolate Incense 1ml direct sample, $3
Gibbous (Halloween) .5 ml Ajevie sample, $2
Leda and the Swan (Summer) .5 ml Ajevie sample, $2
Samar
Speakeasy 2.25 ml rollerball, $5
The Star and the Butterfly
Fortress of Strength 1 ml Ajevie sample, $3
Pyramid of Giza 1 ml Ajevie sample, $3
Misc niche/designer
Lili Bermuda Oleander 1.75 EdT vial, $7
Robert Piguet Fracas 1 ml decant, $3

The post is locked because I know exactly what sort of response this will get from the deniers. I had to ban several people this week because I mentioned Covid in passing in a post and the deniers came charging out. How they find this sub I don’t know, but please note it’s an instant ban to post disinfo here, and nothing Annoys The Mod faster than vaccine disinfo. The lock here is just to save me from having to do a lot more bans. (If you find a problem in this post and can cite the issue, message me and I’ll fix it.)
Intro
Let’s do the history of Covid, in order to talk about the problems the US in particular has had managing it. Note I’m not going to cover origin – I have my suspicions but I don’t know, I think a few of the people who do are dead, and the US government itself never came to a conclusion.
So. Sometime early Dec 2019, it was becoming obvious that something bad was happening in China. Odd pneumonia deaths were spiking. The Chinese weren’t sharing a lot of information, but by the end of the month, flags were being raised everywhere. In January 2020, a mad scramble confirmed the worst: it was a novel coronavirus, and it was a killer.
Much of what follows is from https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html
A novel virus means, among other things, that people don’t have inherent immunity to it; the body has to start from scratch to generate a defense. This creates more problems than a simple variant of an existing disease and it put the WHO and all associated nations on high alert. What mattered now was two numbers: CFR (case fatality rate) and R0 (roughly, how easily it spreads). Both take large sample sizes to determine, so they were initially unknowns, but they are the most important things to determine for any disease. By 19 January it was obvious that R0 was going to be high: the disease was spreading rapidly and easily and had already reached 4 countries. The US started screening for it for flights from selected areas. Epidemiologists shifted from interest to concern to worry. It was too late… by 18 January it had reached the US (identified on the 20th). A few days later, a case popped up elsewhere in the US.
By 31 January, person to person spread had been confirmed in the US and quarantine measures began to be implemented.
Early testing for the virus was unreliable, but actual Covid-19 deaths were easy to count. By 10 February, Covid-19 had killed over 1,000 people worldwide, with some likely undercounting in China. People in epidemiological circles were openly predicting a pandemic. These were people who has studied the 1918 influenza pandemic and they knew how this could go. Governments started warning their population that lockdowns were coming. On 25 Feb, the CDC publicly announced the associated “disruptions may become severe.”
Yeah, no kidding.
By 11 March, there were over 4,200 Covid deaths worldwide. It was turning up everywhere, and the WHO formally declared a pandemic. By 13 March, it was declared a national emergency in the US.
The war against Covid was on.
---
Covid’s ascent
Ventilators were the primary defense against death in hospitals - there were no treatments - but they were in critically short supply from the start. Different US states established different criteria for who got ventilators. (Alabama, curiously enough, opted not to use them on mentally retarded people or folk with dementia, about as dark a decision as can be imagined. Other states chose criteria that tracked roughly with the odds of success.)
Work on a vaccine was in progress. The mRNA platform, originally intended for cancer research, had been shown in 2017 to be an effective antiviral platform, and work was begun to plan a phase 1 test on an mRNA nipah virus vaccine in 2019. The mRNA platform had ten years of development going for it and could be easily adapted to other viruses, but it was difficult to make it stable, and production and distribution would be a problem, even if it could be shown to be effective.
But Covid-19 was already taking off. A criteria was set: if the new vaccine could be shown to cut the hospitalization and death rate by 50%, it would be mass produced at government expense. 50% would have been considered good for a coronavirus vaccine. Influenza vaccines don’t always do that well.
In March, hydroxychlorquine was proposed as a possible mitigation. It would take a few months to determine if it helped, but standard antivirals were not working and a preliminary study with a small sample size indicated some effectiveness. (This turned out to be a mistake.) By 28 March, the FDA authorized an EUA stating that hydroxychlorquine could be attempted, but the CDC was demanding that it only be taken under a doctor’s supervision – unsupervised use of a form intended for fish had already killed someone. But the word has gotten out and people were trying it anyway.
In March, the CFR was estimated at around 3% - frighteningly high, but early estimates of CFR are notoriously unreliable and everyone in the field expected this to decline. It’s what got reported, though, without any caveats, a claim that came back to haunt epidemiologists, who were subsequently accused of fear mongering. R0 estimates were around 4 – also scary high, but also inaccurate.
Masks were in short supply everywhere and US agencies were trying to decide which doctors should get them (and got it wrong), while relegating the public to cloth masks. No one thought this was a great strategy but masks had to be reserved for doctors, because if we lost large numbers of doctors, the hospital system would crash and then the death toll would be enormous (and not just from Covid). No better solution was available, so the CDC suggested cloth masks be made at home. By April, cloth masks were a common sight. Hospitals were using freezer trucks as portable morgues in several cities.
By early April, the US opened a mass grave site for Covid deaths. As a chilling reminder of the 1918 pandemic, images of this were nightmare fuel for epidemiologists. Pressure increased to do something.
And the pandemic turned political. Then-president Trump declared he was cutting funding for the WHO because they hadn’t been clear about the threat (they had been); he did it mostly to deflect criticism away from himself - he’d been comparing Covid to the flu, even when he knew the situation was far worse. ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybee2020/09/10/all-the-times-/trump-compared-covid-19-to-the-flu-even-after-he-knew-covid-19-was-far-more-deadly )
Meanwhile, stories that Covid wasn’t real started to flood the social media, almost exclusively on right wing sites. Masks were touted as ineffective, mostly by people with a business interest in tourism and entertainment. The war on Covid was barely a month old, but politics were starting to drown out the messaging. Right wing pundits started insisting it was just the flu.
Pressure to reopen businesses became extreme. There is unproven speculation that this may have been a cynical attempt to increase infection rates in cities and among Democratic voters, who are often more heavily represented in customer-facing roles. (Better off folk were already telecommuting, after all.) But the desire to keep the markets going - stocks were already plunging - was the public reason to push businesses to reopen. Unemployment was rising.
By early May, the US unemployment rate was over 14%. A lot of the losses were in entertainment and tourism, but people were also fleeing heathcare, due to burnout and a high death rate among workers. Trump was pushing harder for businesses to reopen, even as the NIH was warning the Covid death counts were probably conservative and it was too early to reopen everything. This went down poorly with business owners, who expected the lockdowns to be short and painless. For the US right wing, lead by business interests, Fauchi became public enemy number 1.
The CDC already knew that much worse was to come; early estimates of 240,000 dead even if everything went perfectly were already looking like a pipe dream. Some models were estimating a million dead in the US, some were estimating far lower. There wasn’t good data available. But it was obvious that it wasn’t going to go well.
And where were the vaccines?
Not available yet. In testing. The FDA was running through all three phases of testing in parallel, but even running tests in parallel, it takes time.
In the short term, antivirals and antibody treatments were tried. But Remdesivir, an anti-viral that showed promise, was available in late June. Unfortunately, Gilead Science, the developer, decided that despite being given quite a lot of public funding to develop it, that it needed to be sold for over $3000 per course. Backlash against pharma began.
By July, the CDC was screaming that people needed to wear cloth face masks when leaving the home, and the WHO was actively warning people that airborne transmission is the confirmed primary spread mechanism. But anti-mask sentiment in the US had been whipped into high gear and entire regions of the US viewed it as a mark of pride not to wear them. Active cases in the US hit 1% of the population – over 3 million people. Attempts to flatten the curve, initially successful, had collapsed. Too many people were ignoring mitigation advice, and too many people misunderstood the point – flattening the curve doesn’t prevent cases, it just pushes them to the right on the timeline, so there’s more time to ramp up hospital support. As deaths mounted, pundits claimed that flattening the curve “hadn’t worked.” It had – it pushed off the tsunami of cases a few months - but the tsunami eventually arrived.
In July, Herman Cain died of Covid. He'd been an active right wing denier of the disease's severity and had spread misinformation and mocked mitigations, including publicly attending a Trump rally in June without a mask. For reasons best described as unclear, his staff continued to post on his Twitter account after his death, and within a month "It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be" appeared there. This made his name synonymous with the blind, rabid attempts of the MAGA crowd to dismiss Covid as a risk, and as of April 02024, HermanCainAward remains an active subreddit with 493,000 members. The number of right wing pundits who mocked Covid and then subsequently died of it became noteworthy; I kept a rough count early on and came up with 14 before I gave up. It was no real surprise - a lot of them were desk jockeys with health issues to begin with and they were avoiding masks and doing public gatherings.
By July 02020, hospitals were overloaded and people weren’t always able to get treatment; people were dying at home, sometimes uncounted, and spread was accelerating. But trolls were still claiming Covid victims were crisis actors and masks didn’t work. Stupidity, in short, became the second pandemic. https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2020/08/30
Vaccine testing was going well, but no one was going to suggest cutting any steps out of the testing process, so even as people were dying, it was not released. A little known fact: nowhere in the FDA phase test protocols is there any mention of how long the tests should take. It’s not based on time at all, it’s based on sample size and other factors. Finishing the phases can be slow because funding has to be raised for testing (testing is not cheap) and there’s often little incentive to do vaccines quickly – people get sick, so what – if it’s not going to make a lot of money. So verification often drags out pointlessly for months or years, waiting for the dollars to show up.
This time, though, governments were footing the bill for the testing, and they requested that all three phases of testing be run in parallel – a little riskier for the test volunteers, but there was no time to waste. With that, there were no delays left – just frantic attempts to get volunteers, monitoring for the few weeks needed to get results, rinse and repeat. Because in the end you need a big sample size to complete the protocol, and you only have so many people to collect and process results, it still takes time. But it never had to take years, and this time it wasn’t going to.
But it still takes months. And if the result wasn’t a 50%+ reduction in deaths, was all going to be for naught. That was the requirement for distribution.
By August, there were 5.4 million active cases and people were dying at a rate of 1,000 per day.
On 24 August , hopes that Covid was a one-and-done disease were shattered – a patient got his second case of Covid. There had never been much hope for Covid being a one shot disease, but this corrected it to no hope. Covid, epidemiologists wrote, was going to be with us forever.
By the end of September, the worldwide death count from Covid was over 1 million. It had happened in just ten months.
In October, New Zealand declared Covid beaten – they were Covid free, due to some truly impressive and draconian policies on quarantine and limiting travel into the country. They proved that if a nation was willing to do what it takes and come together, the disease could be controlled. (The downside was that locals who were outside of the country when the quarantine was enacted were often effectively exiles, as getting back in was difficult.) The US, meanwhile, was still seeing social media posts about how masks makes Covid worse, or how Covid doesn’t exist at all, how testing is a sham… I got asked by an overseas friend why the US was acting like the village idiot. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.
Also in October, the Delta variant of Covid was discovered in India. It got off to a slow start, but spelled trouble ahead.
On 4 November, the US recorded 100,000 new cases in 24 hours. Two weeks after Halloween, US cases spiked higher – evidence that indoor gatherings without masks are the primary vector of spread. And long Covid was finally being discussed.
Things could not have looked grimmer.
---
Counterstrike
16 November, 2020: Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is determined to be 95.4% effective in its clinical trial at preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death.
People had hopes, but no one expected this. The goal had been 50%. In the next week, Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine came in at 95% effective.
That week, the US caseload went past 11 million, but all eyes were on the vaccines. Manufacture and distribution were the next hurdles – the vaccines have to be kept cold or they degrade rapidly – but with the current rate of death, money was no object.
On 23 November, the FDA issued an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) for a new antibody treatment. This helped, but antibody treatments tended to be specific to variants and much less effective when new variants appeared.
On 3 December, the recommendation came out that healthcare workers should be prioritized for vaccine distribution, the strongest signal yet that the vaccine was considered safe and release was imminent.
On 11 December, nearly a year after the disease had been identified, an EUA was given for the first Covid-19 vaccine, for people aged 16 and older. The first person in the US to receive vaccination (outside of the thousands who participated in clinical trials) was on 14 December. The EUA for Moderna’s version is on 18 December.
Then Tiffany Dover happened. She was a nurse who volunteered to get the vaccine during a livestream, to boost confidence in the vaccine. She was not a good choice. She was prone to fainting spells, and shortly after the vaccine was administered, she fainted on camera. It had nothing to do with the vaccine, but immediately it blew up social media. Trolls swarmed the story, demanding that she wasn’t prone to fainting spells because nurses weren’t… if you want to see the shitshow that followed, look at the comments on this video about the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9agUz5cQCk. It’s a troll zoo. What followed was worse – demands that she’d died immediately after. She was (and is) of course alive and well, but this became the basis of a fearmongering campaign driven by multiple sources trying to discredit American vaccines, the media, the government… for months. (She’s been interviewed since, and some trolls are still demanding she’s dead or even if she isn’t, it’s all lies anyway.)
It didn’t matter that the vaccine has been tested on over 43,000 people during phase 3 testing and the typical adverse effect was a headache. A pretty young girl was murdered by the vaccine is how this got spun.
Healthcare workers knew better. By 24 December, a million people in the US have been vaccinated, almost entirely healthcare workers. Production was still struggling to produce in bulk.
The timing could not have been closer. On 29 December, the first case of the more-contagious Alpha variant is detected in the US. The critical question became how effective the vaccine was in reducing spread – not the original goal, but with cases exploding, an important one.
22 January 2021, the Gamma variant was detected in the US. The R0 is unknown, but the speed at which variants are showing up confirms everyone’s worst fears. New variants might be able to dodge the vaccine, as happens yearly with influenza. On 28 January, Beta shows up in the US as well.
By the end of January, over 23 million vaccinations had been performed in the US. But the worldwide case count was over 100 million. The race was on.
On 27 February, the J&J one-shot vaccine is given an EUA. There was a lot of hope for this vaccine because it did not need to be boosted to be effective. It proves to be an ill-founded hope.
On 8 March, the CDC announces that fully vaccinated people can safely gather with other full vaccinated people without masking. They're accused of flip-flopping, and they’d come to regret that announcement as new variants show up.
Meanwhile, Europe was examining claims that one of the vaccines was causing blood clotting. This becomes a widely spread story, but on 18 March it was determined that they did not find a link between the vaccines and clotting, that any such risks were far outweigh by the benefits of vaccinations, and vaccinations proceeded again in most countries. (Something similar happened in the US in April – 6 reports of severe clotting were reported among users of the J&J vaccine, and distribution was briefly halted. On review, the distribution was continued.)
On 29 March the CDC announced announcement that the mRNA vaccines were highly effective at preventing infection. Unfortunately, on 2 April, the then-head of the CDC got carried away and announced that the vaccine stopped transmission. This was a serious overstatement – the best data at the time was that it was about 90% effective at stopping transmission of the original strain, which was wonderful, but it was not the absolute guarantee her words implied. Epidemiologists were enraged. No vaccine has ever completely prevented infection or transmission and the Covid vaccines were not an exception.
Worse, Delta was just starting to emerge as the dominant variant, and Delta had a higher R0. By 1 June it was well established as the dominant variant in the US, and the vaccine was not as effective at blocking transmission. (It would do even worse against Omicron.) It rapidly became obvious that the CDC had overpromised, and this became a huge talking point in right wing circles. This turns into a PR disaster for the CDC, and trust in the CDC declined as a result.
Delta was not to be trifled with. By April 30, India, which did not have effective vaccine distribution and had loosened restrictions, was seeing 3,500 deaths a day, and this is considered a severe undercount. Funeral pyre smoke was visible from space. (Trolls online claimed the photos of the pyres were faked and the deaths weren’t real.) When wood for the pyres ran out in some regions, bodies were dumped into rivers. The full death toll will never be known.
By 27 July, Delta’s surge causes the CDC to go back to recommending masking for everyone. This becomes another right wing talking point, as they point to the the fact that the CDC keeps “changing its mind”. The fact that different variants had different properties was left out of those talking points.
The head of the CDC received death threats, which continued until she resigned.
Meanwhile, a debate was raging about whether “natural immunity” – the incorrect name given to people who had had Covid-19 and were deemed relatively safe from reinfection – was better than protection offered by the vaccine. On 6 August, the CDC released data showing that vaccinated is more than twice as effective at preventing reinfection than infection itself – but it subsequently turns out that neither offers very long term protection.
Trolls were swarming youtube comments and other social media; the fact they are trolling is obvious, because while the vast majority of Americans are very much in favor of the new vaccines and are very aware of the risks of Covid, comments on youtube (by my own count in August) are disinformation over 96% of the time. The lies are so varied it's hard to keep track of them all. People were posting that Covid testing was unreliable and prone for false positives, masks were ineffective, Covid was a government plot, mitigations were a government plot to take away citizen freedoms (an idea stolen from a WEF paper warning that pandemics might be used an as excuse to limit freedoms, not a suggestion that it happen), that new Covid variants were being manufactured and deliberately released, the Covid vaccines contained demon blood, aborted baby blood, alien DNA, toxic mercury, or nanobots; that the ingredient list is a secret, that vaccinations shed mRNA to nearby people, that vaccines cause Covid, that vaccination records are the Mark of the Beast, that mRNA vaccines modify DNA... absolutely none of it true, but all of it is repeated endlesson on every news story and post about Covid. Some of these troll farms were eventually traced to China, Russia, and the Republican party. https://mediaengagement.org/research/social-media-influencers-and-the-2020-election/ There is no question that the trolls are coordinated - comments on stories followed very discernible waves where a certain disinfo topic would run everywhere for a week, then a another topic would replace it.
One of the most persistent disinfo claims was that the Covid vaccine isn't a vaccine at all because it doesn't "prevent disease." The trolls fail to mention that no vaccine has ever "prevented disease"; the best known vaccine is for measles and it's 96% effective if all three doses are given. Nothing has ever been 100%, but the trolls hammer the point repeatedly, which causes a split with anti-vaxxers who had been demanding that all vaccines are bad. This does make it easier to tell who's politically motivated vs who's just ignorant about science, but in the end it just encouraged vaccine hesitency in general, which subsequently causes a measles bloom.
On 24 September, the CDC announces that schools which required masking throughout the pandemic were a third as likely to have Covid outbreaks. This does nothing to silence the “masks are ineffective” trolls, who are dominating social media with disinformation about vaccine issues and mask ineffectiveness. Some are claiming the masks cause penumonia and that's what's really killing people. This is at variance with the fact that the majority of deaths are occurring in the unmasked population.
Zoonotic spread had been a question since the early days of the pandemic and the debate over how Covid was initially spread. The lab leak theory conpeted with the zoonotic transfer theory and no conclusion was ever reached. But on 3 November, the CDC released data showing that transmission between animals and humans was documented, and hundreds of animals had been infected. Subsequently, mink and deer were found to be disease reservoirs.
Bot generated downvotes on Covid stories and factual comments become so common that Youtube hides public downvote counts, causing howls of protest from trolls groups who were being paid to downvote.
And then came Omicron. On 19 November, the CDC recommended an additional booster shot for everyone, to head off the expected Omicron surge. The J&J vaccine is no longer one-and-done. The definition of “fully vaccinated” becomes blurry. By 1 December, omicron is in the US. By 16 December, omicron is determined to be about 1.6 times as transmissible as Delta. R0 is getting harder to measure because the vaccine knocks down transmission, but even so the R0 is judged to be about 3.4. Claims that it’s over 18, which would have made it more contagious than measles, are debunked, but still add to the confusion. But at 3.4, it’s wildly contagious and caused exponential growth.
By 3 Jan 02022, the US reports over a million new cases in one day. Omicron’s transmission advantage has overwhelmed containment attempts; just entering in a room after someone with Covid has left can be a risk factor.
The vaccine still holds up quite well at preventing death.
Meanwhile, ivermectrin has gained attention as the new quack cure. In early January, it’s determined that prisoners in an Arkansas jail have been fed ivermectrin and hydroxychloroquine without consent. It caused nausea and didn’t cure anyone’s Covid, but the news is a start reminder that some doctors don’t listen to medical guidance and are willing to roll the dice. Ivermectrin misuse caused a threefold increase in calls to poison control centers.
By early February, it’s shown that Omicron has gone from a 1% incidence rate to 99% in just six weeks in the US. It out-competes everything.
Reports surface that ivermectrin overdoses are stripping intestinal linings surface; people claim they are pooping out "rope worms" but it's actually often their own intestinal linings. As a testament to the ability of people to self-diagnose and self-medicate (a popular topic with preppers) this stands alone as a reason not to play doctor.
China has been instituting lockdowns since the beginning, and they add new ones on 14 March as Omicron makes the rounds there. Several manufacturers close up shop, causing worldwide supply chain issues.
On 24 March, the CDC reviews excess death numbers in the US. To no one’s surprise for 2019-2020, excess deaths rose 19% after the onset of the pandemic - the largest increase in over a century. Claims of crisis actors faking Covid deaths are finally gone; it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t know someone dead of Covid in the US as the death toll approaches one million.
Florida – a source of copious amounts of faked Covid statistics and disinfo – strikes down a mask mandate involving public transportation on 18 April. Given Florida’s misreported data, it’s not possible to determine how much difference this made.
North Korea reports 3.27 million so-called “fever patients” in late May. Seeing as by April 2024 they only reported 74 Covid deaths, it’s safe to assume we’ll never see accurate numbers.
In May 02020, the US crossed 1 million dead to Covid.
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Wrap up
We’ll skip ahead here.
In December of 2023, China suddenly opted to end all Covid restrictions. Numbers out of China are not to be believed, but it’s estimated they lost at least 2 million people in a few months as a result. They had their own vaccine which was believed not to be as effective as mRNA vaccines, and vaccine uptake may have been a problem in rural China. They simply decided to let it rip.
In 2023, trolls are trying to demand that long Covid is vaccine damage, not from Covid itself.
In 2024, it’s estimated that unvaccinated people have about 10-14 times the risk of death as vaccinated people, and this includes people who are not current on boosters. And despite claims, evidence of clotting is vanishingly rare (about 1 in 200000) and myocarditis is under 1 in 100000. Both conditions are far, far higher from Covid itself. But they remain right wing talking points.
The talking points kill people. By late 2021, Covid was becoming a red state problem. Vaccine and mask hesitancy in rural red state areas gave them increased hospital and death rates. Typically you’d expect cities to concentrate deaths of a pandemic, so most deaths would be in blue areas; and pre-vaccine, that was true. But by the end of 2021, vaccination and masking were widely adopted by left leaning folk and often avoided by right leaning folk, with hideous results: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10684792/ and specifically a graph here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=10684792_gr3.jpg
Attempts by the Republican party to curb anti-vaccination rhetoric fail; they discovered too late that they were disproportionally losing voters to Covid, but when Trump tries to take credit for the vaccine his audience boos him. The right has lost control of the Frankenstein they helped create, with the result that measles is making a resurgence in the US.
It’s not unreasonable to believe that Tucker Carlson’s “maybe the vaccines don’t work at all” comment killed a few hundred thousand people in the US alone. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/ap15/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-falsely-claims-covid-19-vaccines-mi/
Unfortunately, you can’t be tried in the US for deliberate lies that kill people. Which is a pity; we’d see less bullshit. In court, Carlson literally depended on “no reasonable person would believe what I say” as his defense.
It’s also worth noting that all the claims that were made in social media about the horrors of vaccination: it would modify DNA, you’d grow extra limbs, you’d become a puppet of the deep state/WEF via 5G, you’d end up possessed, you’d turn gay or become infertile, you’d get “turbo-cancer”, you’d drop dead after 1 years/2 years/3 years… none of it happened, and since there’s a 42 day window on vaccination side effects, none of it will. If you believed any of those claims… well, you’re a fool. And you should distrust your sources, because they told you all those things and none of it turned out to be real.
Disinfo is lethal. There’s a reason I ruthlessly ban people in this sub who do not present the reality of vaccine risk and effectiveness here. I don’t much like murderers.
So what is to be done?
On social media, block anti-vaccine people and people who post miniformation. If they are friends, let them know why you're cutting off contact; if they are strangers, just block silently. Many people are paid to do this and as their audience shrinks, they might lose revenue. The goal is to isolate and starve the beast.
If you cannot cut off contact, demand they cite every single claim. The weak point of disinfo is that there's never a creditable cite; it turns into "I heard from my cousin that his girlfriend" stories, or links to places like Newsmax or Telegram and people with no credentials. Ultimately the demand for cites backs them into a corner and they'll resort to "you can't trust scientists/media/government/doctors" at which point they've lost all credibility. It's not easy to defend the position that something their cousin heard from his girlfriend has more weight than an organization like Reuters or AP news, which has a reputation for accuracy to defend.
Keep in mind that, increasingly, online strangers are AI bots. This is a problem because they are cheap to run and well funded by state actors. We're already approaching 50% of all internet traffic being bot-generated. All you can do here is keep your circle of authors to known humans and friends and ignore anyone you don't recognize and can't verify.
Covid has been relegated to epidemic status. But stupidity and disinfo are raging world-wide pandemics. Your block function is your mask, posting actual verifiable data is vaccination, and your demand for cites are alcohol wipes. Do what you can to limit the spread.