[First] [Previous] [Next]
WaveOfWire Edits :D
- - - - -
Harrison’s vision was still foggy from waking up, several blinks failing to clear the tears from his drawn-out yawn. He just escaped the encompassing embrace of his four-armed guardian, leaving their shared bed for the bathroom, where he would have to say goodbye to his beard. If he was going to travel out of the settlement, a proper seal on his gas mask was a must.
It was a shame. The slow buildup of the hair over the last month or so was a representation of his growth in a way, building up alongside his experiences in this hellhole, be they life-threatening or informative. It was almost like wiping the slate clean, even if cutting some chin scruff didn’t really change anything at all—he’d never be able to forget anything he had seen here for as long as he lived.
And there was no telling how long that’d be.
The engineer sighed, splashing the lukewarm barracks water into his face from one of the many wall-attached sinks, allowing him to fully open his eyes and size up the damage done to his favorite black blood-and-sweat-stained t-shirt. It always stayed in good condition with washing and fabricator repairs, but somehow Shar’s talons always found a way to make small holes in it. She wasn’t trying to, but with the way she fully wrapped her arms around him, the tips of her sharp fingers sometimes ended up poking into the fabric and causing some cuts.
It was such a small issue that he never considered bringing it up to her. Plus, she’d probably do her whole guilty talon-tapping thing with puppy eyes and all… He shook his head, letting the stray beads of water on his face drip into the sink.
His palm ran across his beard while his other hand reached for the razor. There wasn’t any shaving cream or the like, but he’d make do. At least he had one of the proper tools for the job. He went into the task, the blade driving through his scruff, slopping off wide areas of his hair from jaw to chin for a few seconds before it was interrupted.
A short ‘woosh’ of the entrance caught his attention.
“Aww, you’re shavin’ it off?” Tracy commented dejectedly through a yawn, the lazy drawl reinforcing the fact that she just woke up. “Th’ beard was sorta growin’ on me.”
He eyed her through the mirror, his voice coming out in a dull tone. “Yeah. I feel the same.”
She squinted under the bright bathroom lights, rubbing an eye with her wrist as she walked up to the sink beside him and started her own morning routine. “Mmm… Womp womp. Why though?”
“Need it to get a gas mask seal,” he stated flatly, focusing on the task at hand.
The technician stopped momentarily, the gears turning in her head before she gave him a downcast frown. “You’re still set on going for the vehicle bay? You know we can just send some long-range drones out there, right?”
His short exhale echoed throughout the tiled room. The engineer closed his eyes, already mentally withdrawn from the conversation. They've had this discussion twice now. “It’s to be better prepared for any chemical, biological, or radiological surprises that might come up—not just for the excursion. Even more importantly, there’s no guarantee the module is in perfect shape. If I’m there in person, I’ll have the means to get through anything for those blueprints. Plus, it should only be four days, so the only issues we have are my beard and finding a way to protect the Malkrin from the radiation while we’re out.”
Tracy looked like she wanted to say something back, but bit her lip and cast her eyes down at the sink in front of her, twisting the knob before mumbling a quiet response. “I don’t think you need to protect them from radiation at all…”
“Hmm?”
She stared at him meekly, his dismissal of her worries having clearly dampened her mood. Guilt tugged at the back of his mind before her words further caught his interest. “I think they’re immune… or resistant or something. Radiation immunity is the whole reason they were sent here. You’ve added up the pieces together too, right?”
He stared down at her, running a hand through his hair with tired exasperation depressing his voice. “Tracy, I’ve been trying my hardest to just make it another day on this God-forsaken planet, not dig into their religion. So, no. I have not spent the time to add up the pieces. Enlighten me, please.”
“…S-Sorry. I just, you know, get a lot of time to think when working on drones, and Cera has been drawing all kinds of representations of these things.” Tracy paused, gesturing toward the engineer. “Okay, so you remember the whole backstory for why the Malkrin are on the mainland in the first place?”
“Pseudo-eugenics?” he commented dryly.
“Yeah.” She nodded, a sense of excitement leaking into her voice. “And what were the parameters of banishing someone?”
“Not getting sick from a rock.”
She eyed him feverishly, brows raised with a sudden zeal. “Aaaaand that rock represented the Sky Goddess’ wrath, which did what?”
“Uhhh…” He looked upward in thought, recalling his conversation with the paladin. “I think Shar mentioned nausea, vomiting, blisters, skin melting… off…” He froze, the pieces forming. “Wait, you don’t think…”
“I do. Those symptoms could mean a lot of things, but the anomaly field was the real kicker. You know that Shar just straight up didn’t have any lingering radiation effects or anything while you were nearly put… six feet under…” Her voice quieted momentarily, the speed of her speech outpacing her train of thought. “Sorry. Um… so, I was gonna say that she, uh, I mean the scanner mentioned she had damage from ‘alpha particles’ on her skin, but nothing else happened to her organs or anything.”
Harrison squinted at her for a moment, mouth slightly opened and prepared to give some alternative reasoning besides ‘immunity.’ Maybe her armor protected her from it? No… she didn’t even have full protection, radiation would have certainly gotten around her eyes or snout. What about her height? What if… No.
He didn’t just want to believe that somehow the Malkrin could just evade a force of nature, but he didn’t have any way of proving or disproving it on hand… Well, no humane way of testing it.
“I… guess?” the engineer grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Even then, they still need armor and gas masks. The worst part of the radiation isn’t even the ionizing part. It’s the trace elements that get into your lungs and decay there. So it doesn’t hurt to use some CBRN filters.”
“Fair… but it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Tracy beamed. “Like, what kind of evolutionary factors lead to radiation immunity? Why do only some of the Malkrin have it and others don’t?”
The only real cause of radiation he could think of would be a massive nuclear proliferation of some sort. Maybe the anomalies? He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the lingering thoughts away. “I wouldn’t know. You could always ask Sebas to bring up some papers about it or generate some theories when you get the chance.”
“I probably will at some point… Maybe while I’m working.” She poked him in the bicep. “You’re still helping me with the mule, right?”
He bobbed his head, loose beard hairs itching up his chin. “Sure am. Gimme a bit to shave and test the fifty-cal ammo, then I’ll be free to assist.”
“Kay Kay.” The tradeswoman smiled and returned to the sink, washing her face.
- - - - -
“What the hell did you do to your shield?” a stunned Harrison asked the paladin, his face scrunching up in concern… and confusion.
Sharky proudly held up her once grungy orange shield with a smile, looking at its new… paint job? “Artificer Tracy has s—n to imbue my bulwark with the crest of the Sky Goddess herself! Observe the b—utiful wings that cover it!”
The engineer had just got back from setting up and overseeing the automated mule’s first excursion to the mine and back. It was a grueling task, requiring him to reset its pathing several times before it was able to make a round trip without input. Now, the maroon-skinned Malkrin in front of him had apparently gotten her massive aegis laser imprinted with crossing wings in the two hours or so he’d been gone. The areas between the black feather decals were colored with white and blue paints, contrasting with the new dark gray background.
A small weight was placed on his shoulder, Tracy’s forearm suddenly appearing atop it despite her being nearly a foot shorter than him. She beamed, staring up at him with all-too-proud eyes. “The scout regiment symbol looks good on it, right? Cera helped me with the laser engraving.”
“I…” His brows raised in perplexity. “The scout regiment?”
She shrugged, watching the paladin observe her shield from all sorts of different angles underneath the workshop’s light fixtures. “From an anime I used to watch. Men and women who were sent out to battle against massive titans for the greater good of the last settlement of humanity. Somewhat fitting, and fuckin’ awesome on her big-ass shield! Matches the bird’s wings on her armor too.”
He loudly sighed. “You wasted materials on imprinting wings on Shar’s shield? Really?”
“Hey!” Her brows furrowed into faux-annoyance, a smug grin betraying it. “It’s not a waste if you were never gonna use the paint we had on hand. Plus, we’ve got energy to spare with all the wind turbines and power cells you’ve been printing out.”
“Those paints probably could have been used for important designations… or something…” he grumbled.
“Doesn’t matter.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, want me to put some scary teeth or something on that big ‘ol fist-sized muzzle break on your shotgun?”
“No?” he took an incredulous step away from her, letting her arm fall off his shoulder and to her side.
“It’s okay to admit you’re jealous of Shar’s awesome decals, bro,” Tracy teased, her smugness growing tenfold. “No need to get defensive.”
He groaned, figuring there wasn’t a point in staying to bicker with the tradeswoman, leaving the two vanity-focused females to their devices. He still had to figure out how to fabricate armor and gas masks for the Malkrin and himself.
“Hey! Where ya goin?” the technician called out, clearly disappointed that he hadn’t indulged in her taunts.
“Work.”
Short taps against the hard floor sounded out as she caught up to him. She leaned forward and curiously looked up at him as she walked, holding her hands behind the small of her back. “What kind? Can I help?”
“Just need to take some measurements and compare options. Right… Speaking of which.” He turned around and cupped his palms around his mouth. “Hey Shar! Get over here, I need your help!”
The addressed Malkrin perked up, snapping out of the small haze of admiring her new shield and happily making her way toward him. She stood at attention, her tail oscillating side to side. “What n—d do you have of me?”
“Just a quick task,” he briefed her, grabbing some measuring tape from his desk… that Tracy had decided was her new chair. He sighed and turned his attention back to the paladin. “Can I bother you to lean down for a few seconds while I take some measurements?”
“Of course. Pl—se, take your time.” She stepped forward and kneeled, her head brought down to his height. Her face wore that simple content look he was growing all too accustomed to by now—slightly vibrating frills, a little curl upward of her lips, and warmly glowing eyes.
He wasted no time getting to work, noting down the various distances around her jaws, snout, eyes, and ears, already piecing together how he could cobble together some gas mask designs to fit the dimensions. She sat there quietly, sometimes leaning into the accidental head scratches adorably. It contrasted heavily with the cold-sweat-inducing layers of razor-sharp teeth within her muzzle as he measured the angle her maw opened at, bringing an idle curiosity prodded his mind.
“Say, Shar, do your teeth grow back if they fall out?” he poked, absently observing the dozens of triangular bone protrusions in her mouth as he held the underside of her jaw.
“They do,” she confirmed, the way she was able to speak despite not moving her mouth still messing with his head. “Do y—rs not?”
“Nope. Only once.”
She attempted to tilt her head, but quickly returned it when it left the embrace of his palm. “Only once?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sometime a few years after birth. They’re replaced with the teeth I have now. Don’t get any new ones, so we gotta take care of ‘em.”
“Birth?” The Malkrin’s eyes widened. “You were not cr—ted as you are now?”
A shock of stress poured down his spine like a bucket of ice water, raising the hairs on his back. Fuck. How did he let that slip? He was supposed to have just appeared from the sky to her, right…? He was doing so well for so long in keeping that in. God, had he really gotten so comfortable with the paladin that he simply forgot what he was to her? His teeth clenched, a huff of air escaping his nostrils as he lightly shook his head. It was a bit too late to backtrack. It could be explained vaguely and brushed off, right?
“Yeah. I was born,” he affirmed flatly. His hand dropped away from Shar’s muzzle, her head falling an inch or two before she registered that she couldn’t keep leaning into his touch. “That’s it for measurements, so you’re free to leave.”
A frown carved through her small smile. “I… See… F—give me if I have brought up someth—g improper.”
His exhalation burned through his frustration at himself, his hand running through his hair to wash away the spike of anxiety. “You’re fine. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Th-Then I shall take my leave,” the massive alien stated softly.
He nodded, feeling a little regretful for pushing the kindhearted Malkrin away as he shuffled back to his desk. Tracy was still sitting atop it, giving him a disappointed reaction with low brows, forcing a pointed reaction from him. “What?”
The technician took a long inhale before shrugging. “Nothin’.”
“…Alright.”
The rolling chair squeaked lightly as he rested himself, his hands already going through the motions of opening the computer and the blueprint folders. There were plenty of tabs open of sensors and motor assemblies he hadn’t closed from the previous night. That wasn’t even mentioning the pile of notes he had on proper radio-protective methods, their corners bent from his frequent flipping through them.
“Soooo…” The short black-haired woman leaned forward from her perch atop the only clear part of his desk. “Can I help you with your ‘comparing options’ work, mister busyman?”
“Sure…” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, raising a brow. “How much do you know about armor?”
- - - - -
“No way. The back support is a must, so you can have extra plating over your shoulders and chest.” Tracy pointed out from her seat beside Harrison’s, all but forcing him to pause his Malkrin gas mask designing to give her argument his full attention.
He calmly took his hands off the mouse and keyboard. “A back support needs leg assistants, which means I’ll need to have at least a fifteen pound battery pack somewhere. Those kinds of exosuits are either all in or not at all. You can go full armor and engine, or lightweight protection and simple limb support.”
“So you’re just gonna go out there with normal armor? Just run-of-the-mill plates and gear? Those fucking things would go through that shit like butter! I know we can’t make synthetic muscle yet, but at least consider wearing something a bit more. Please. Even Sharky has heavy armor!”
Harrison pinched the bridge of his nose, his brows furrowed. “Do I look like a several-hundred kilogram monster of pure muscle to you? I’m more than willing to put on a few extra kilos for protection, but I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of putting on more armor rather than more equipment. I’d rather fifty pounds of magazines and ammo than fifty pounds of armor. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah yeah… You and your storage space…” she mumbled, swiping through a few more images on her data pad when a familiar Mars-pattern suit showed up, catching his eye.
“Hey, wait, pull that one up…”
She rotated the tablet for him to see a little better—despite already being shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “This one? What’s so special about it?”
He analyzed the few pieces of equipment on screen, noting the rusty-orange and tan color scheme, the old Martian-American flag attached to its breastplate, and the iconic quad-nod integrated helmet. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s… We have that in our blueprints?”
She raised a brow, clearly confused. “Whaddya mean?”
“That’s an Orbital Drop Ranger’s standard kit,” he stated slowly, a simmering sense of awe bubbling up—why the hell was it in their blueprints folder? “It was used during the Sino-Venusian incursion of southern Mars. It still has the Old Earth American flag embedded into it, so you know it’s pre twenty-two-hundred C.E.”
“Oh shit… Pre-St.Loual’s construction? This is ancient, then, huh? Would it be any good?” She leaned in closer to him, eying the tablet further.
“Does it have the assembly view of the armored pieces?”
“Mmhmm.” She tapped a few icons, showing an isometric, exploded view of all the parts and their individual components.
It was a piece of history alright. The armor was produced just about the time when Mars was connecting their orbital stations and ground colonies to work in tandem, allowing for specialized forces to be trained in space and launched anywhere across the planet from drop pods in mere minutes, leading to common nickname of ‘Minutemen’ given to the troopers. The suits were expertly designed to withstand the harsh environments of Mars and give the soldiers the ability to engage with enemy combatants for several days before extraction, though the adept units usually completed their objectives within twenty-four hours of their landing.
The helmet was very angular and blended in with the expected rocky terrain of Mars, each component taking on a sloped frontal design with rectangular prisms flowing behind—radio, breathing apparatus, and vision modules all sharing a sleek, yet bulky look in their own right. It reminded him of some in-atmosphere ships, with the overhanging visor above the quad-nod viewport being the only non-aerodynamic pieces.
The chest and legs were a bit different, following the design of late twenty-second-century operators with tan lightweight rigs, and ammunition pouches alongside armored plates that ran from the shoulders to wrists in segments. There was a rusty-orange undersuit beneath it all for the purpose of keeping air in, which required some sturdy polymer structures to ensure it didn’t rip. Then, of course, there were the classic shock-absorbing leg supports. They weren’t too far off what Tracy was asking about earlier, but these ones didn’t provide any assistance in moving with any motors—just straight-up structural reinforcements.
Hell, the blueprints on screen even had the mag-grip gloves used to scale domes, buildings, and satellites alike. There was no doubt that the Orbital Drop Rangers had some of the coolest equipment on Mars, especially considering that it was the last to keep the ‘operator’ look… It was such a shame the government decided the orb-like helmets and rounded bubble armors were more effective.
“Hey, you know what?” he asked the technician, a shot of excitement in his voice. “This might actually work out as a suitable armor replacement.”
She perked up, her brows raised. “Oh? Actually?”
He shrugged, trying to play off the smirk plastered on his face. “Wouldn’t need a horrible amount of changes to work for our purposes. Just need to remove the oxygen converter on the back and put a gas mask replacement in the front portion of the helmet. Plus, we could probably get rid of the airtight aspect and just keep the undersuit for scratch protection. And, most importantly, it’s radio-protective.”
“Meets all your criteria, then?” She tapped through some UI interfaces, sending the armor assembly to Harrison’s monitor, which he accepted quickly.
“Sure does.” He readily clicked through the different parts and systems to differentiate what needed to be kept. “We have the resources for it, and all it needs is a layer of cadmium plus a few replacements. Definitely doesn’t need the heads-up display since there’s nothing for it to interact with either, so that’ll save on print time and materials too. Shame I cut up the beard… the Orbital Drop Rangers were allowed to have some cool ones.”
The tradeswoman scooted in even closer, practically resting her chin on his shoulder and watching him sift through the working parts. “Yeah, rest in peace, beard. Still, your armor situation is solved. What about the Malkrin?”
“I’ll be working on their gas masks, then I was thinking I’d use another one of your modeled armors for their protection since they’ve helped Shar a hell of a lot. Do you have any recommendations?”
“Mmmmm…” She looked up in thought, a smile forming along her cheeks. “You know, until we can make them any real power armor, I was thinking just some regular phobos-pattern armor. Could color ‘em based on their skin too.”
“Phobos-pattern armor?” he hummed to himself, clicking through the folder to find it. It was just as bulky as Shar’s armor, except it appeared a good bit smoother, with more rounded edges compared to her horns-and-spike-lined gauntlets and pauldrons. The blue suit Tracy was proposing didn’t have the four-armed protection compared to the chaos version, but it certainly had the same thickness of its metal plates. “Looks like it’d work pretty well. Does it have any electric components or anything?”
“No…” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not so good with designing that stuff in the modeling program I did the WarHarberd stuff in. Could add in more sophisticated leg support or whatever if you gave me time, but for now it’s just maneuverable slabs of alloy.”
“I think that’s all we need for the time being.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want the others to be vulnerable to getting cut up by the little spider-crab grunts.”
“As long as it works for what we need, then.” Her elbow poked into his arm. “Here, how about I take care of that armor stuff while you finish up the gas masks? They need the extra arm slots too, yeah?”
“I’d actually appreciate that a lot.” He offered her a back-palm fist bump, to which she eagerly took, taking on a grin that he mirrored. “Thanks, Trace.”
“Don’t mention it. I wish work was always just doing my hobbies like this.”
\= = = = =
A grand pylon of metal construction taller than the mightiest female’s frills stood atop the beach. Blue-scaled surfaces extended near the foot of the tower, gathering the power of the sun itself. The lattice layering upon their sides hid the weaving wires and Goddess-blessed machinery. A staff the same as Shar’khee’s peeked from its top, the glass eye on its side given a wide view of the sandy environment it resided on, the defense it now provided becoming absolute. The aura it exuded as a creature of pure metal was awe-inspiring, its mere presence a showing of Harrison’s might and domain.
No abhorrent would dare step foot upon the meadow’s rolling hills, for such a mistake would ensure their immediate execution for encroaching upon his settlement—the ‘fifty-cal-e-bur’ bullet is not one to rend any beast with only simple injuries, especially with three hundred of them available at once.
The maroon-skinned paladin treaded up the hill, having completed her task of setting up the last turret. The craftsman, the juvenile, and the lumberjack had also assisted with its setup, pulling their weight in both mind and muscles to piece the components together. They completed a few others around the modules already, but this one was done without the star-sents’ oversight. The four Malkrin had practiced and learned enough to be entrusted with such.
The idea of Harrison having enough confidence in them sparked much conviction in the group, each of them more than eager to prove him right—none more so than Shar’khee herself, of course.
She finally returned to the workshop, the sun’s last rays pressing into the back of her head and frills as she crouched beneath the doorway, a small gnawing hunger for dinner digging within her stomach. The cacophony of machines soon reached her ears, the sounds of their efforts almost working in tandem with the strange melodic music playing from an unseen source above her.
Tracy was in her corner, working on new beings of metal as always. The bright lights above were turned off in favor of smaller, warmer emplacements atop her surrounding circle of desks. A hard worker, that star-sent was, though both of them were like that, the paladin supposed. Their kind was certainly intent on keeping their hands busy.
Shar’khee passed through the snakes of machines, finding her way to Harrison’s desk with an increasingly strong sway in her tail. He was working with a black object with light gray accents. It appeared to be partially flexible, yet firm in other places—notably, a large glass fixture on one side of it. There was very little she could make out about its purpose, but with the delicate touches he applied, it appeared to be quite important.
Her tongue clicked twice, garnering the attention of the Creator. He paused his work, swiveling his chair to face her and revealing a long blue-leaf jutting from his mouth. Her male appeared quite tired, but his voice did not show it.
“Oh, Shar, what’s up? Did y’all need any help with the last turret?”
She shook her head. “We do not n—d such, for it is completed. Would you care to join me for din—r? The rest of the settlem—t is enjoying their meals as of now. ”
He raised his brows before looking back at the myriad of notes, tools, and materials atop his cluttered desk. “Well, I’m kinda busy, but…” His jaw rolled around in contemplation. “Here. Let’s just test this thing real quick.”
Her head tilted. “What sh—l we be testing?”
“Your gas mask… er, well, a Malkrin gas mask. Kneel down real quick, I’ll run ya through putting it on.” He stepped off his chair and grabbed the equipment, uncomfortably rotating his shoulders. How long was he sitting on that chair? The male approached her and she did as requested. “I had the sewist help me with some of the design. Never considered you guys would ever wear hats.”
She nodded. “It is unh—lthy for one to have their frills touched by the sun for so long. Adequate shade is a must, and trees are not so p—valent along farm land.”
“Mmhmm. Shame this is just a mask… Alright, this might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’ll do the job.”
He stepped forward and slipped the black apparel onto her snout, pushing it over her face until it pressed against the sides of her head. A cool material rubbed against her skin, locking her into its embrace. It was encapsulating, surrounding her wholly.
Her breaths strengthened as she allowed the mask to cover her, a short shock of nervousness riding down her spine. She was only now registering how vulnerable she was, allowing him to possibly suffocate her… but she stayed put, keeping her four palms rested within her lap as he continued to apply the straps around her ears. She would allow it. She trusted him with her life. She would not falter.
The cords around the back of her head were tight, a few of which went along both sides of her frills, pushing up against their sides. He kept going, ensuring a ‘seal,’ but it was getting much too—
Pop.
A lightning bolt of pain rolled throughout the top of her head, sending her reeling. It stung for the briefest of moments, but its effects rebounded through her entire body, short sparks pulsing from its origin. She felt nothing but its agonizing hold for several more moments as the rest of her body caught up.
When her eyes opened once more, she found herself on the floor and staring at the ceiling. The star-sent rushed to her side, appearing to ask many questions while looking over her head, but all she heard was a piercing ring and the gruff vocalization he made whenever he shared his intent. No words reached her mind, only the now faint phantom pains from where her frills met her skull. It put everything in a haze, her eyes barely settling on her dearest’s, despite how nauseous she had become.
His deft hands quickly worked to loosen the straps, practically ripping them off until his voice suddenly reached her, like breaching the surface of the water. His voice was deep, attempting to be calculating, yet despite his calmly created stoic demeanor… she could feel his panic, his sheer worry almost flooding her senses through practiced medical queries. She slowly sat up on the floor, holding herself with two arms while the other pair quelled the kneeling male, assuring him that she was alright with their weight resting atop his shoulders.
“I am well, dearest Harrison. Do not fret for me. The straps were simply too tight.”
His anxious breaths barely slowed, narrowly allowing for his exclamation. “Too tight? Shar, you practically blacked out!”
“Too tight upon my frills, I mean. There was a pain there for a few moments, but it has passed,” she returned calmly, softly kneading his stiff shoulders with the joints of her digits.
He exhaled sharply, matching her gaze with regret in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Shar. I should’ve known. I was just trying to see how…” He paused, resting his palm atop her forearm. “Nevermind. I just… Are you alright? Should I get you to the med bay for a quick scan?”
“I do not believe that to be necessary, no.”
His guard finally fell. “If… If you say so. Guess I have to redo the straps then. Definitely gotta make sure they’re not pressing on your frills like that.”
She smiled, appreciating his dedication. “Would you like my assistance?”
“As long as you don’t have anything else to do.” He shrugged, his shoulders barely moving upward against her massaging hands.
“There is no greater wish of mine than to be by your side,” she stated warmly.
He was frozen, the soft ministrations of his digits along her arm slowly stopping in contrast to the red flush growing from his cheeks to his ears. The crack of a smirk on his face finally with a short, heart-warming chuckle brought the statue back to life after a few moments. “You know… that’s probably the sweetest thing I’ve heard for years.”
Her brows raised in subtle surprise at his response. “It… was not intended to be such… However… you are more than welcome. You must understand by now that I am speaking only the truth.”
The two of them sat there in relative silence amongst the desks and machines; her half laying on the ground with her hands on his shoulder, and him on his knees by her side, a singular hand running up and down her comparatively large forearm. She felt… weak, in a way. A vibrating sensation rummaged through her stomach, attempting to pull her muscles and nerves astray.
It was warm, just like his palm, each motion of his hand sending lightning through her skin. The upward curl of her lips into her cheeks was suddenly an insurmountable force, incapable of being put down by a thousand females. There was a tear within her to either look away or… close the distance, and she suddenly found looking anywhere but his curious green eyes to be a waste of her time.
Her talons wrapped further around his shoulders and his back, ever so slightly bringing him into her embrace—
“A-HEM.” A voice cut the moment down to its knees. “The fuck happened here?” Tracy’s swift interjection caused the paladin to flinch backwards, allowing her to see that Harrison’s other hand had been hovering right beneath her snout. The female star-sent wore a furrowed brow and crossed arms, looking down at them. “I heard a crash and came over. Are you two alright?”
Harrison cleared his throat, ever-so-subtly scooting away from the paladin. “Uh, yeah. Shar fell because, um, I tied the gas mask a lil’ too tight.”
The artificer wore an expression that told of her disbelief. “She fell because of the gas mask?”
“It was something with her frills.” The male returned with a shrug, picking himself off the floor before offering the paladin a hand up.
She took it, despite not requiring it, and wiped off some loose dust from her pants. The three of them quickly returned to work soon after, with both her and the black-haired star-sent joining Harrison in his quest to produce the gas mask. She was much less… What did the Creator call it? Bubbly? Yes, that was it. She was much less bubbly than usual, sometimes sending a cold yet emotionless glare toward Shar’khee… Nevertheless, the two females offered input on the design and applied help where they could, eventually creating the final piece of equipment.
Tracy commented on its looks, apparently drawing inspiration from the Leviathan itself, as she believed it to be like that of a ‘Sea Dragon’s.’ The maw-covering portion held two cylindrical canisters on the adjacent sides, the bottom portion being capable of distention, so that the user’s mouth may open somewhat. Its motion created what the female star-sent believed to be ‘the coolest teeth design on a mask’ she’d ever seen with how the separation formed alternating triangles.
The monster-like appearance was furthered by her own frills and horns that peeked out from behind the mask. That was not even mentioning the see-through visor that formed a malicious glare of sharp brows. The paladin looked through a hand-held mirror, finding it difficult to disagree with the look. She could imagine the horror on a fisherwoman’s face as such a terrifying creature approached from the depths.
And yet, despite its nightmarish visage, it was apparel designed to save lives, not take them—much unlike the unassuming metal rods that spewed fire with a mere flick of a lever. Curious indeed. The star-sents were seemingly never out of surprises. They even spoke of grand robots and firearms larger than Shar’khee herself as possible future projects.
Only time could tell what machinations of alloy would be birthed from their hands.
- - - - -
[First] [Previous] [Next]
Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Under The Milky Way

I’m not officially out as gender-fluid, but people who I’m close to already know. I’ve never been one to actually say anything about sexuality, gender, etc. unless asked. I live in a small redneck town where people are judged about everything and I’m a very sensitive person. I like having my long hair but I want to cut it short like a men’s haircut so bad. I dislike wigs a lot and refuse to wear them, i’ve been thinking about dying my hair light blue and cutting it short but I think I would regret it afterwards. I’ve gotten a short bob like haircut before and I don’t think I like it on me. Any recommendations?

A simple pendulum is made of a string of length 𝒍 and a bob of mass 𝒎, is released from a small angle 𝜽𝟎. It strikes a block of mass 𝑴, kept on a horizontal surface at its lowest point of oscillations, elastically. It bounces back and goes up to an angle 𝜽𝟏. Then, 𝑴 is given by
(2019 Main)
IIT JEE Mains and Advanced PYQ: Conservation Energy-Momentum#neet #jeemain #jeeadvance #physics#pyqs

Tony Altimore vs. Mike Paidousis: Bad opener. Tony is around 45 and looks older, and Mike is 50 and looks even more old. Mike looks like a tough dad who could still beat you up at least. He made his debut in 1950, Tony in 1960. Tony is best known for being Lou Albano's tag partner eons ago. This match should have been filmed in black and white. I felt bad for Mike because he really moved so slow and seemed like a fish out of water to the point where he barely looked trained. Turns out he was a grizzled vet. Tony tried to be entertaining like Albano, but he didn't have much to work with. Fans not really into this one but were at least polite enough. None of the offense looked legit although Mike hit Tony with a couple of loud strikes. Finish came at 13 minutes after Tony missed a dropkick and Mike awkwardly pinned him with a slow ref count. Yikes.
Greg Valentine vs. El Olympico: Making his MSG debut, a young Greg Valentine- billed from California- truly impressed me. Ironically, the fans were making catcalls to Valentine on the way to the ring. Even today some fans joke that Greg looks like a grandma. It's baffling to me how such a masculine no-nonsense dude is the blunt of gender jokes. Valentine bullied Olympico and laid in STIFF shots that had appeared to really hurt him. Olympico actually fired back with STIFF strikes of his own in a fiery comeback. I know the sadist Valentine loved the pain he inflicted and received. Greg mostly dominated but allowed Olympico to get his dropkicks in. Fans were into the match. The finish came at 8 minutes with Greg laying in the hammer elbow drop. Ancient ref was slow again, and the ring announcer pronounced Greg's last name as "Valenteen". That said, excellent debut! Valentine was a natural and a great technical heel. Way better than the standard WWWF heels at the time.
Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Waldo von Erich: Waldo basically caused a near-riot by sneak attacking Strongbow and throwing him over the post (HUGE bump by Jay!) in 39 seconds to win by CO. Waldo already had heat based on his Nazi gear. Bruno Sammartino came out and carried Strongbow away with officials. Fans wanted justice but will have to wait. Excellent booking for a future match between Waldo and Bruno.
Little Tokyo & Lord Littlebrook vs. Little Louie & Sonny Boy Hayes: 2/3 falls 20 minute time filler. I am now burnt out from listing match times and unfortunately finishes. Will just do stream of consciousness. The workrate was good. These little people worked harder than the larger people. Three major comedy spots with the referee, all demeaning. Little Tokyo impressed me but wasn't in it as long as Littlebrook, who was also a true pro. Fans were into it. Just wish WWWF would have good technical wrestlers who could do a 15-20 minute match in the middle of these cards because the little people (and "girls") never had any angles or promos on TV, so these matches were cold going in. That said, 1975 fans treated them much better than when they were still doing this in the 1980s.
Bruno Sammartino (c) vs. Spiros Arion: Wow, this was the match I was expecting. Makes perfect sense why they didn't go all out last time. This Death Match was basically an early "I Quit" or Submission Match as opposed to the pin one from last time. Excellent brawl. Bruno showed so much emotion to get a final revenge on Arion. Fans went through the roof. Loved the finish where it seemed for a split second that Arion would pull off the upset after his atomic drop finisher and he started to climb to the top rope. He missed his knee drop to an unearthly pop and Bruno destroyed his knee for the submission. The intensity brought tears to my eyes. Bruno is just so over beyond anyone. He is the pride of Italians and New Yorkers.
Edouard Carpentier vs. Joe Nova: 48-year old Edouard Carpentier was still more agile than everyone else on the card! Not an exaggeration. This Hall of Famer must have been the most athletic wrestler in the Golden Age. He finished the match with multiple cannonballs (sentons). He was very flashy in this match and his spinning kicks fit in well with the Kung Fu trend of the time. He did miss one, but that was due to Nova. Nova was basically enhancement talent who made the match feel longer than its 9 minutes. His bio says he had a well-traveled career and some feuds in various places, but I'd day current day wrestler J.D. Drake does that style much better. Anyway, back to Edouard Carpentier- his cartwheels and backflips kept reminding of how illogical Jim Cornette's rants about "flippy shit" are. There is a near 100% chance that Edouard Carpentier would be wrestling like Will Ospreay if he existed in 2024. That's how things evolve. No, Carpentier's flashy stuff wasn't realistic for a real fight but what he and Antonino Rocca did is indeed pro rasslin'.
Manuel Soto & Pete Sanchez vs. The Valiant Brothers: Edited off tape.
Bob Duncum vs. Victor Rivera: I always get Bob Duncam and Bob Duncam Jr confused. Anyway, time limit draw due to curfew. Ran pretty long. I like Rivera's varied moves (back suplex, belly to back suplex, and cannonballs- he missed one which was cool). Could have done without the rest holds from both men. Rivera also tends to sell too long and had his comebacks cut off. There was a good sequence where he was thrown out on the floor and tried a sunset flip to win it but Duncam was kicking out of everything. Quite a few near falls. Fans were somewhat engaged as they threw the kitchen sink at each other although I wasn't that impressed with Duncam's offense and generic Cowboy heel gimmick.

I have been with my partner for approximately 7 months. He is affectionate toward me, loves physical contact/cuddling, likes to groom and take care of me, spend quality time together watching films, etc. He has introduced me to his family, I have stayed with them on multiple occasions, and we have a trip planned in a couple weeks. Approximately a month ago, we had a major relationship hurdle in which we basically broke up. He said some extremely cruel things to me (which he claims to have not meant and regret) and furthermore, due to this incident and how abusive he was during it, I contacted his former partner and certain things about him were revealed to me, which I have since confronted him on. I am also aware that I am going to possibly sound like an asshole in this and apologize in advance.
She also randomly outed that he has a gargantuan porn addiction, and is fetishistically interested in trans women as well as having a trichophilia (hair) fetish (he shaved her head). He is sexually interested in haircutting, headshaves, short bobs, etc. The hair fetish he has pertains to hair types and women that are the exact opposite of me, and frankly look exactly like his ex partner, who he was with for 3 years beforehand, and only started dating me about a month after going no contact with her. He claims he is no longer addicted to porn and now only watches it once every couple of weeks, of which I have no reason to believe is a lie, however its hard to confirm for sure as we only see each other once a week since he lives in another city. This will become relevant later.
Anyways, since he claimed to be repentant and apologetic for his behavior toward me (of which I will not get into because that's for another reddit post...) we started talking again, and eventually I agreed to try again. I would do my best to forgive him, in exchange for him taking better care of his mental health and never again treating me as he did the day we split up. However, we were apart for a month after this incident and our subsequent re-kindling of our relationship, and during this time, after he admitted to everything his ex said in relation to both his past behaviors and also the fetishes I was never told about--- I felt insecure in how the people he's sexually aroused by look nothing like me, I tried to indulge his fetishes to the best of my ability. Particularly for the hair thing, since there's not much I can do about the fact that I am not a trans woman. We were gonna meet again after the month was up, and talked extensively about the erotic fun things we would try together, which we would have a week together to get up to since he would have a free house for a week, and I'd come down to visit him. During the time before my visit, he seemed very sexually interested in me and we'd exchange pictures and text and call extensively about how we missed each other physically, emotionally, and sexually. There was mutual excitement about all of the things we'd try, since instead of judging his fetishes I wanted to do my best to satiate sides of his sexuality I didn't even know existed.
I noticed a little bit of a sexual disparity between us in the past and felt he'd often rather get pizza or watch a movie than have sex, whereas I'm the sort of person who would rather have sex, then order a pizza in once an appetite is worked up... or I'm happy to watch a film at home, pause it if things get frisky, and continue it later... However, he's also very compartmentalized with the things he's doing when he's doing it, and possibly autistic, so that could be part of it as well. Anyways, to sum it up, I always had a higher drive and as a result he would frequently reject my sexual advances, and we essentially only had sex when he initiated or on the rare occasions when I'd try and get him in the mood and he'd actually respond. But It exhausts me, constantly feeling like I have to seduce my partner, I hate feeling predatory for wanting to have sex, I honestly resent it and it makes me feel like shit about myself and feel unattractive. I'm not upset about him for it, it just always feels shit for me about myself, that perhaps if I looked different or suited one of his stupid fetishes he'd pay attention to me. I want to be with someone who deeply sexually desires me along with all the other stuff, who pursues me equally if not more than how I pursue them. Learning about the fetishes and how extensive they are really recontexualized a lot in our sex life to me, and I'm constantly going back and re-analyzing things with this new information to the point where it makes me feel like shit about myself. I know it sounds ridiculous, but earlier this month, I used to cry whenever I saw someone with a bob haircut. But he SWEARS up and down he doesn't just have one type like a robot, that he loves me, that he finds me beautiful and wants to be with me romantically, emotionally, sexually, etc...
Then I arrive at his house for a short visit on his birthday... he shaves the back of my neck in an undercut... he enjoys himself, I'm out some hair, sure maybe I feel a little bit weird about it, but whatever, I was just happy he was happy, and had a bit of fun with it in my own way. He told me once, when he was apologizing for his behavior, that due to past events in his life he had stopped watching porn alltogether and touch himself and participate in his fetish only in regards to my hair. it worked at first, he'd touch himself with my shaved off pony tail on his face... lol. A week later, I return to stay for the week and enjoy the empty house with him---for our 'week of wonders'... And he just doesn't seem that interested. He wants to record joke songs with me, and watch films, and go out to dinner, and cuddle, but he doesn't want to have sex, doesn't want to do all of the erotic things he said he would when I was on the phone. It made me feel like he just isn't physically interested in me in person. After all the big talk he did about wanting this emotionally and sexually, and after our extensive period of separation, in which we had no sex for a month, and he couldn't care less about touching me. I suspect that he would, at the end of the day, prefer jerking himself to videos of petite, bobbed, straight haired women, and transgender women, shaving their heads or giving themselves haircuts, then do anything with me, a real-live woman he loves but may not be his 'type'. I confronted him on it multiple times, and he said his sex drive just isn't as high as mine, and stress from our arguing over me still being hurt by the things he said last month might be killing the mood for him, but its really making me feel pathetic and undesired.. I mean, I shaved the back of my long, thick curly hair to make him happy, I try and do anything to meet his every need to the best of my ability to prove to him that I'm enough, and frankly to prove to myself that I'm enough for him, and then... barely anything. I was there for a week, we had sex maybe twice, and then went four days without any sexual contact whatsoever in an empty house. I would wonder every day, where is the passion? Why isn't he so excited to see me, both sexually and otherwise, after such a long and traumatic separation we had? It really made me feel like a freak, like there was something wrong with me for so desperately wanting to fulfill his fetishes even more than he does (or so it seemed) and like a nymphomaniac for counting days between sexual contact, but now I'm wondering if since staying with him for a week, he was just missing his porn and that was why he didn't want to do anything. Or that he simply was only attracted to me and liked the thought of experimenting with me until I am actually, physically there. Regardless, I feel so disappointed, so rejected. I'm good enough to cuddle with and parade around his parents and book vacations with, but not good enough to fuck. I'd wait at night until he went to sleep to get myself off despite being right next to the person that was supposed to wait my lover during this week, and go to sleep feeling like depressed afterwards that I have to touch myself because the person I'm with doesn't want to.
I suggested we open the relationship because frankly, I miss being desired. He was furious, even called me a whore, and this interaction also could've added to the low sex drive but I digress... I did so much to be desired by him, I shaved the back of my fucking head, I let him shave my vulva/pubic area with hair clippers, I was going to let him shave or bleach my eyebrows, and it feels like it still wasn't exciting enough for him. During the times we have sex he'd say things like he wanted to shave my head while I slept or whatever but I feel even if I was stupid enough to allow him to do that, he'd only find it erotic in that instance before going back to being uninterested in me again. The last time we had sex, he asked if we should invite a transgender girl into the bedroom, and that it would turn him on if I desired that... But I feel that is only a pretense for his own desire to sleep with a transwoman.
I am not a supermodel, but I am not an unatttractive, I can get a date with relative ease. There are people to whom I am their 'type'. I may not be as conventionally attractive as his ex girlfriend, who also fits his bob hair fetishes and whatever, and I may not be transgender, but I feel that the sexual paraphilia/me not being HIS type, along with him currently having a somewhat lower sex drive than me is also impacting his desire despite his protestations otherwise. He says I've too much time on my hands (clearly, this is quite a long reddit post...), and that I'm reading too deeply into things, and I'm just insecure, that he loves me and wants to be with me. I believe he does want to be with me, but I believe he is lying about his sexual desire. And if he is lying about his attraction for me, I feel it is unfair to keep me in a monogamous relationship where he won't satiate any of my sexual needs because deep down, I don't satiate his... Am I being a crazy, sex crazed maniac? Do you think my insecurities about his sexual fetishes is correct and that is the basis of our sexual incompatibility, and will be the case no matter what I do to participate with/indulge them? Why is he doing this? I told him if he's not sexually interested in me deep down, he doesn't need to pretend on the pretext of keeping me in his life because he's attached, that we can still be friends, but this makes him even angrier. We're only in our early 20s and with our entire life ahead of us. If sex is already like this now, what about after we've been together for a long time, or after we've had a child? I know it sounds ridiculous and if the gender roles were reversed people would find this deeply offensive, but I don't know if I can cope with this sexless thing, or this fetish shit, especially if it is the underlying issue of his lack of interest in me.
Surely there's overlap with his lack of sexual desire toward me and the fact that I don't fulfill his fetishes? And if that's the case, then I don't know if this is fair for either of us. We have a lot of other problems, and he said some nasty stuff to me last month that I am still trying to forgive him for, that situation along with this resultant of that is really exacerbating pre-existing insecurities and old wounds in me that he doesn't really know how to deal with. Funnily the lack of sex thing (especially for this week, when we were re-united) is equally as emotionally hurtful to me as cruel words he has spoken to me and things he's done. (of which he is allegedly repentant of, in his defense...)
What should I do? Am I overthinking things? Is he lying when he says I am enough?

Author's note time again :D First off, sorry I'm a little bit late with this one; I crashed our hard last night, early lol
Secondly, in this chapter is the first instance of any mention of Khaotic, the language that Khaosicans, and by extension, Khaotum, uses. To give an idea of how it sounds, imagine somebody talking while trying not to throw up, but while also standing either beside or actually in a pool of water that's got bubbles audibly rising through it and popping.
[First] [Glossary Addendum] [Previous]
[The Cerebis Chamber of the Aurora Caelum Procella, orbiting Haldios IV, 31st of Daeghird, 5016 TE]

[Cewa]

As we reached the entry to the Cerebis chamber, I turned to Lan, and asked him through our connection,
Can you guard the door for us? Nobody enters except by my allowance. He dipped his head, and with a low huff, turned at the door and sat down. Akyra looked at me, and I said simply,
"Best Sentinel in the Cluster." With that, I scratched his favourite spot, between his ears, and chuckled. Then we stepped through, and the chamber's lights came on, illuminating two chairs. One had a simple sensor cap, and the other had a full immersion helmet. I sat down in the Subject chair, and Akyra sat in the Interrogator chair, and pressed the buttons to begin the sequence. As she brought the systems online, I said,
"You'll want to set it to immersion mode." She nodded, and carefully placed the immersion helmet on her head, and I placed the sensor cap on my own. The helmet visor illuminated, and her now green gaze looked at me through the golden screen.
"Are you ready?" I asked, and she nodded. I nodded back, and pressed the holographic "Start" button.

[Akyra]

Lord Aerrus nodded to me as he pressed the button to initiate the connection, and the room faded away as the feed layered itself onto the visor. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the coming disorientation, as my auditory and visual senses were replaced by those of Lord Aerrus.
The darkness flickered, and soon enough, I opened my eyes, blinking a couple of times, before looking around. I was in some kind of... Orbital station? No, there was a waterfall in the distance. A waterfall required gravity, which was impossible to create on this scale with any technology the Cluster Council had at its disposal.
"Cewa, what can I do for you?" A male, Terran sounding voice said behind me, sounding surprised to see... Me? Lord Aerrus? I realised that it would be the latter, given that this was a memory of his. I turned to the voice, and replied,
"I need to see the Archive relating to Khaos-corrupted groups." The owner of the voice was indeed Terran, but also not. His skin was as pale as the moons of Haldios IV, but he was obviously not Terran. He was garbed in robes of a deep blue, and adorned with silver moons of various Cycle stages.
"That's Luunah." Cewa's voice said, cutting into the feed. "And yes, I do mean that Luunah. His actual name however, is Luunrahkis. He resides here in the Cascade of Worlds, alongside his sister Sholhara, who we know as Solahra, and the previous wielder of the Tempest, Aberra. You won't see him in this memory however." As Cewa fell silent, the memory resumed. The man, Luunah, nodded, and turned around, leading us to this 'Archive'.
After a minute or two of walking, we entered a small portal, and found ourselves in a massive library. Luunah walked over to a standing basin, and gestured to it. I nodded, and replied,
"Thank you. The first group has shown itself in my reality; They call themselves the 'Fingers of Khaotum'. It's starting to spread all over the news in the Cluster. I'll be ordering the deployment of the Blade Fleet as soon as I leave here." Luunah nodded, and walked away. I sighed, my vision bouncing slightly as I did so, and laid a hand on either side of the basin.
As the view filled with the basin, which was somehow getting bigger while also not moving, we were plunged into an even deeper vision. In this vision within a vision, a green-skinned Terran-like creature was standing where this memory had begun.
"Khaotum will attempt to corrupt the minds of weak-willed individuals. It will show them visions that entice them to its side, showing a fabricated reality of how the Khaos Raelms actually function. These visions will show the targeted individual a world where yes, everything is always in motion, but it is slow, methodical. Ordered. But the reality is anything but." The being walked over a section of wall, and waved his hand. The wall melted away, revealing a scene that was oddly hypnotic. The ground seemed almost like it was... Flowing, but in such a way that you could tell that it was also stationary. Then the being waved its hand again, and
I jerked in the Cerebis chamber chair, my instincts telling me to back away from the danger. But I couldn't tell what the danger was. It was as though it was... "The Khaos Raelms. Your instincts are probably screaming themselves hoarse at you right now, from there mere sight of them. They are also the endgame of Khaotum." Cewa's voice came through the feed again. Then, the momentarily frozen image in the wall started moving again. "Khaotum wishes to convert all realities to be this." The being said. "I would show what a Khaosian looks like, but I doubt anyone wants to have a headache from this Archive. So I will instead say this: If you cannot comprehend something that you're looking at, unless you focus on either its shape or the colors that make it up, you're probably seeing a Khaosian. If that's the case... You have my sympathy. Especially if it's noticed you."
With that, the being waved its hand again and the wall returned.
"Khaos Corruption is easy to spot; The Corrupted will sing the praises of some variant of a paradise which is never static. They may call it an Evershifting Paradise, or perhaps a Formless Heaven. If the Corruption is strong enough, they may even call it A World of Eternal Change. It goes without saying, but each of these names is an indicator of ever increasing corruption." The world froze, and suddenly I was looking at Lord Aerrus through the gold visor of the immersion helmet. His gaze was fixed on me, and he gestured to the waste bag he had grabbed mere minutes earlier.
I nodded, and took off the helmet, then, placing it on the panel and opening the bag, my stomach violently emptied its contents into the bag. When the retching subsided, Lord Aerrus asked,
"Are you able to continue?" I nodded shakily, and replied,
"I see why you didn't want to discuss this with the crew..." He nodded.
"You're a veteran of the Uhines conflict, aren't you?" He asked, and I nodded, my tail twitching at the memories the name brought up. The planet was no more, but the scars remained.
"I am thankfully shielded somewhat by the knowledge that even if our reality is lost, I will survive... But those like you who do not have such a luxury... I'd rather protect you from as much of this knowledge as possible." I nodded, and placed the helmet back on. The feed flickered back to life as the helmet made contact with my head.
The being sighed, and waved its hand once more.
"Beyond those who are Corrupted, we have... The Taken. These are people who are so Corrupted that their physical form has been twisted by the Corruption. These are not Khaosians, however. At least not yet. A Taken can still be killed, although it takes the power to sunder realities to do so, according to current knowledge. No known material can be wielded against them... And even Luunrahkis Himself seems to fear for our civilisation if Khaotum ever reaches our reality." The being looked directly at me, and added,
"Sholhara, I... I don't understand... Why are you having me repeat all of this information to you? Is it not in the Scrolls? In the Archives of the Great Cascade?" My view bobbed, and a female voice replied,
"Of course. However, the Scrolls are made of Ordered Matter. If the worst were ever to happen and Ambere fell..." The being's skin deepened to a rich purple, and he swallowed. Then he nodded, the movement jerky and stiff.
"I think that should do for this Record though; I will go and submit it to the Archive. Your name and likeness will live on as long as the Archives survive." The voice continued.
As the voice fell silent, the basin shrank back to its normal scale, and my hands raised slightly from the basin, shaking as though I were ill, or cold. I heard a sharp exhale, as though Lord Aerrus was trying to calm himself within the memory, and then I walked over to another basin. My hands came down onto the basin's sides just like before, and I looked down.
"Most likely the one viewing this in the Cerebis chamber with me is Akyra... Hopefully I remembered to get you a waste bag. And, if Luunah smiles upon me, I got one with a reverse filter... Because you will most likely be using that bag again."

[Cewa]

I closed the connection to the Cerebis chamber, and sighed.
"You're not going to like what comes next..." I said to Akyra, and she looked at me through the helmet again.
"That basin? That's the Record I had Boltz make of his nightmare. The one that showed us what Khaotum was doing... A Cycle ago." She nodded, and I opened the connection again, allowing the memory to resume. We descended into the Record, and the nightmare began.

A few minutes later, as the nightmare ended and my memory rose from inside the basin, Akyra had to once again remove the helmet to retch into the bag. I couldn't say I blamed her however; If I wasn't prepared for what I saw, I too would have needed a bag to empty my stomach into. As she closed the bag, she shook her head, breathing heavily.
"That's... That's all I can take for now..." She said, and I nodded. She stood up shakily, and I took off the sensor cap, replacing it on the panel and shutting down the connection fully, before walking around to her side. She gratefully put an arm around my chest, and I reciprocated, helping her walk shakily towards the med bay. She would need to stay there for a little while to recover from what she had seen in the memories, but she would thankfully be fine aside from that.
I opened the door, and Lan looked around, before standing up.
Nobody tried to enter while you were in there, Stormborn. He said, and I nodded to him.
"Thanks, Lan." I said, and he fell in behind us as we made our way to the med bay.
That bad? He asked, and I nodded.
"That bad. She's a veteran, even more experienced than I am... but it was still more than she could handle. And this is unfortunately just scratching the surface." I replied. Soon enough, we made it to the med bay, and I guided her to a bed, before she handed me the waste bag and I dropped it into the incinerator chute.

A few minutes later, Akyra was laying on the bed, and I walked out of the med bay. Suddenly, my comm unit beeped, and I answered it.
"Aerrus." I said, and the voice on the other end said,
"Cewa, you might want to get into your suit, and then get back to Command." It was Boltz, and he didn't sound calm.
"Copy. Be there in around 3 minutes." I turned to Lan, who dipped his head. Giving a very thin smile, I climbed onto my companion's back, and we sped through the spacious corridors to my quarters, where I hastily stripped off my casual civilian clothing, dropping it on my bunk, and put on my flight suit. Once I was suited up, I climbed back on Lan's back like a Lupine horse, and we madly dashed back to the Command bridge.
Arriving under a minute later, I leapt off Lan's back and Boltz, seeing my arrival, waved me down to the CT.
"Raider band, one jump out. Looks like they're Fingers." He said, and I nodded.
"Let's get them then." I turned to the navigator, and said,
"Make the jump. Lieutenant Zerrekhul, you're with me. Lan, I want you in the hangar once we drop; Co-ordinate resupply with ground crew." Lan dipped his head and I mounted up. Instead of simply beginning to head to the hangar however, he looked expectantly at Boltz, and I grinned.
"Mount up, pilot." I said, and Boltz blinked before doing as ordered. On the back of Kaelani we made record time to the hangar bay, where Boltz and I slid off his back and rushed to our fighters.
The canopies were already open for us, and we both climbed in almost in sync Our canopies closed over our heads, and once we were secured in our flight seats, the fighters were tilted to a 90 degree angle for the drop. Focusing on my own craft, I activated each system, with the only indicators of the systems activating being the illumination of a series of small lights.
Taking a deep breath, I shoved my hands into the control gloves, and the craft whirred to life. As the energy flowed from my hands, the controls lit up, as did the panel itself. I locked my feet into place, and counted down. Three... Two... One... With a thud, the small craft dropped like a stone, and I powered the engines up to full. The sudden increase in power resulted in me being pushed back in the seat, and I flew away from the drop hangar with expert precision.
With another deep, focusing breath, I oriented myself towards the enemy, and looked around.
"Orientation... Planet with polar cap visible... Orient as down." In a rapid sequence, the lights indicating the rest of my squadron, who had deployed with us, blinked acknowledgements.
"Polar cap orientation... North." I added, and they blinked again. Now we had our orientation, because compasses would be no help in an exoplanetary environment, and there is no down without gravity.

Soon enough, I was circling the raiders' craft, my weapons reaching out like teal arms to strike the hull. Within minutes, the craft was crippled, and I dropped my visor, sealing my helmet. As soon as the seal indicated full contact, I popped the canopy of my fighter, and launched at the hijacked ship. I floated through the void of space, eventually hitting the airlock, and cycled it. I watched as the air vented, before I pulled myself into the airlock, faint thumps accompanying my fingers making contact with the entry rails. It seemed the raiders, or perhaps the crew, had disabled gravity. I hit the airlock release, and the door slid shut behind me, before a moment of silence, followed by a hissing sound as the airlock filled with atmosphere. The inner door opened, and I spoke into my comms.
"Boarding successful. Moving interior." I said, and Akyra's voice crackled over the comms in reply.
"Aurora copies, Storm Leader. Good hunting." I grinned inside my helmet, and pushed off the airlock door.

After a few minutes, I heard voices, but they were... Slightly garbled. I sighed; They were Corrupted. Reaching deep inside, I took hold of my power, and floated around a corner, revealing a group of around seven or eight of them. I popped my visor, and said,
"Sorry, but this party is over." One of the Corrupted turned, and I saw their eyes were swirling black and brown.
"Khget theh eentreudah!" It said, in extremely rough Khaotic. I simply grinned, and replied fluently,
"I'm a native. And you? You've defected. Pity it was to the wrong side." The Corrupted blinked, and then the others rushed me. I threw my head down to lock my visor back into place, and shoved my hand out, fingers shaped into claws. As my fingers connected, I allowed the Tempest to flow, resulting in an inhuman scream ripping itself from the throat of the Corrupted I touched.
Another came at me from the side, and I spun around, using the now floating body to give myself angular momentum, and the second Corrupted was sent flying as my boot slammed into its gut. I pushed off from the wall, only achieving a very slow speed due to my distance, and grimaced. I turned on my jetpack and gave myself a boost, then rotated myself with the maneuvring jets and assumed a crouching position. I landed on another Corrupted, and fried its internals as well, before leaping off towards another, slapping my hand onto its face and pushing the Tempest through my palm.
The face almost immediately blackened from the electricity I poured into it, before I flipped off it into the fifth Corrupted, which just so happened to be the one who ordered the others to attack.
"Orderis says hello, Khaotum." I grinned, and placed both hands on the Corrupted's head. I pushed the Tempest through both hands, causing the head to pop into black goo. I leapt off its now headless body and slammed into the sixth Corrupted, riding it into the seventh, leading both to hit a control stick of some kind. The stick penetrated the second Corrupted in front of me, and partly embedded itself into the first.
I flicked my wrist, sliding out my plasma dagger, and I stabbed its chest, before ripping my arm out to the side. Black slime flew across the room and splattered on the walls, before I turned to the final Corrupted. As I prepared to leap at it, the Corrupted shook violently, before its body twisted unnaturally, and then the swirling darkness spread from its eyes to its entire body. Once the conversion was completed, it grinned at me, showing slick, black teeth, and I got the distinct impression that it was holding a singular form to make it easier for me to comprehend it, as a taunt.
I refused to acknowledge the taunt, and the grin faded slightly.
"Chiild of Oorder... Why do you resist the inevitable?" It asked, the sound like an evershifting ocean of lava. I shrugged.
"Call it the Terran spirit. I suggest you pull back from this reality, unless you want me to hunt down your core universe and rip it apart from within, just like Aberra did with the Twilit Raelm to deny it to you." I said. The thing laughed, the sound like clashing metal, and I pulled down my small Kaurine Blade from its inverted sheath. The hilt was already attached, so I simply held it at the ready.
"A pitiful defence, Mortal..." The thing crooned, and I grinned.
"It's called Kaurine. And it's about to make you feel a new emotion: Fear." I said, and Empowered the Blade. The creature seemed to be unfazed by it... At least until I activated my jetpack to boost past it, slicing through its arm in the process. It twisted around, howling with rage and pain as I held out a hand to stop myself on the far wall.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" It roared. I simply opened my visor, and allowed the Tempest to fill my body. I felt my eyes begin to glow, and grinned. As I let the Tempest spread ever further, it filled my body, before beginning to creep up the Blade in the form of fog. The creature floated backwards, and stammered,
"W-W-What ARE you? You are no Mortal!" I spun the Blade, something only possible without gravity, and replied simply,
"A Guardian of Orderis." And with that, I launched off the wall, slicing the creature in two, the Tempest-covered Blade burning its form as I passed. As it died, its body slowly being consumed, it asked,
"What is that material?!" I turned around and replied,
"Ambere and Haldios combined. Two realities, in one cosmos. It is crystallised Orderis, and a biphysical material. You can target one reality, but not both... And that will be your downfall." The thing screamed in agony and rage as the body was reduced to no more than a head, and finally, it was gone. Almost as soon as it vanished, the gravity returned and I fell to the floor.

Almost immediately, a voice came through the comms system of the ship.
"Whoever you are, thank you. We... We couldn't stop them. We tried, but... Anyone we sent in... They... Changed. It was like they were being puppeted." I walked over to the nearest viewscreen, where a Draekkus male was speaking. His face seemed to light up with happiness when he saw my face. I nodded, and replied,
"That's because they were. They are what are referred to as Corrupted. They've been taken by a new force that has only just made itself known in our universe." The Draekkus blinked, and said,
"So... So these aren't just ordinary raiders?" I shook my head.
"No, they are attempting to sow discord and division within our galaxy, in order to give them an entry point deep inside the universe. The only solution is to eliminate all that are Corrupted, or, as I plan to do, take the fight back to the enemy." I said, and then looked towards the airlock.
"Would you be able to give me a boost back to my fighter? It's the one that's floating with the canopy open." I said. The Draekkus nodded, somewhat surprised, and I smiled.
"No gravity, meaning I can use the venting atmosphere to launch towards my craft." I explained, anticipating the question.

A few minutes later, I was looking through the window to my fighter, still floating where I left it. I nodded to a viewscreen to my right, and said,
"Blow it." There was a pop, followed by a hiss that got cut off almost as soon as it began, and I was floating towards my fighter, the only one left deployed. I impacted the edge of the cockpit, and maneuvred myself into the seat just in time to see the freighter ship's engines begin to glow a deep purple, and it vanished with a flash of light. I pulled the hatch down, and flew back to the Aurora after a job well done. But this would be only the beginning of our work.
[Next: An Angel of the Forest]

Hi! I have a haircut on June 15. I always go to a salon and just ask for a short wolfcut, ever since I’ve been given pixie cuts and bobs I risk stepping into the territory of asking for a masculine haircut. Does anyone know a “female haircut” that’s really short that I could get? Or what I can tell the stylist

I don't know whether to label it a Remix/Re-Cut/Hybrid Cut or what. Since the vast majority of changes are subtle and the running time is only slightly shorter than the unrated version, while still longer than the R rated version.
Regardless. I finally found the U.S. blu-ray(has the highest bitrate vs the U.K. release) for a decent price considering it's out of print. While the few seconds of footage from the R rated version will remain SD as I must use the DVD release for that footage. I don't think the quality change should be too obvious. So the majority of the film will be in HD.
The biggest change between both versions of the movie and my edit is the opening scene and ending.
I trimmed down the opening kills so we don't see Pluto's face immediately(that's saved for the big reveal 50 minutes into the movie), as well as the scene being over the top in the worst way with the scientist being slammed up and down repeatedly with Pluto in full view. So now we see the beginning of the death, and a couple slams, then it cuts to the other scientist running away, and then just as he reaches the top of the hill, he's grabbed by Pluto and pulled down the hill/out of frame.
I cut the stinger ending which is a cheap cop out that ruins what is an otherwise effective film/ending. The characters(and viewers) have been put through hell in the movie, and they deserve a break. We don't need to know the family probably dies after the credits roll since mutants still exist in the hills. Let's end it on a high note, and then the realization that they still are stuck in the desert and must find a way out somehow sets in.
I also removed the cheesy heavy metal song that plays after the old country song during the end credits. It just ruins the mood set by the ending song. Originally I just inserted audio from the scene where Doug discovers the crater in the desert to keep things moody and ominous sounding.
The other changes are much smaller and all revolve around the violence(since more explicit violence is the only real difference between both versions besides Dougs longer walk through a cave in the unrated version). I removed what I call "show off edits/camera angles" to make the violent moments effective instead of calling too much attention to itself with a "cool" edit/angle. Aja's whiplash pan/extreme zoom shot he uses in most of his films is still left intact(the scene when Bob is first set on fire).
For example when Doug kills two mutants later in the film. I basically use the R version of the deaths which show a longer shot of Doug after he smashes them in their skulls. So there is no extreme zoom in close up of the impaled mutants eye or the split second floor looking up POV shot of Pluto with the pic axe sticking out of his jaw and a brief bit of splatter shoots out of the top of his head and falls towards the camera.
The more explicit addition of Bob burning to death and his eyes turning white I moved up earlier in the scene when the family is first running out to him confused and distraught with what is going on. It's more effective this way and makes the families attempt to put out the fire and save him more futile vs where the scene was inserted later in the unrated version(my very first edit of the film I just left that moment out completely, until I found a spot where it works).
There were some extra shots of Bob burning that I trimmed and replaced with exclusive footage from the R version of Doug and the fire extinguisher and Bobs wife crying in despair. I did include extra Bob burning shots from the unrated version, but cut out a side shot for example after it already showed an extended frontal shot of him burning(then immediately cuts to a side shot), since it felt show-off gratuitous by that point and not needed.
I'll let everyone know once it's complete.

“This geriatric bunch in cold sleep?”
“Affirmative. But their records show that they have been in cold sleep multiple times. They should respond quickly to the resuscitation procedure.”
“But, why? Wouldn’t it be more merciful to leave them in stasis while the Jaxorians intercept us?”
“Yes, but Allyson says that these individuals are the ones who might get us out of this situation.”
“The Terran engineer? You’re trusting her?”
“In a zero-sum analysis, her suggestions have net positive outcomes.”
“Just for the record, I think this is a bad idea.” A pause. “Resuscitation sequence activated.”
“Duly noted. Alert me when they are awake.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
William Exeter hated the feeling of coming to after cold sleep. While the modern systems were better than those he first encountered, he still felt like his muscles were infused with lead and that he was suffering from a hangover that he never got the enjoyment of deserving. But hopefully this would be one of the last times he would ever have to use the procedure, and he could finally settle down.
As the capsule’s lid slid back, harsh light assaulted William’s eyes, and he squinted in an attempt to lessen the pain. The silhouette of a triangular head above him let William know that a Dravitian was checking on him. He swallowed and got his voice working so he could croak out, “I’m up, I’m up.”
“Ah, Mr. Exeter, yes? I am…” The insectoid started to come into better view to the Terran’s adjusting eyes. “Captain? Yes, Captain of this ship. I am… We all are in need of assistance.”
“Uh, what?” William’s croaking voice hid some of his annoyance. “Yeah, I’m Exeter. But if you’re going to get my help, you’re going to have to get me a Jolt. I’m still half asleep from the drugs.”
The Dravitian’s head tilted to the side in an obvious gesture of confusion, “You require an electrical discharge?”
And this was why William hated waking up among aliens. He had to explain everything to them. “A drink. ‘All the sugar and twice the caffeine.’ Bah!” He started to force his muscles into action and pushed up on his elbows, “Just get me a goddamned stimulant, okay?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Of course!” The Dravitian’s head disappeared as the insectoid moved over to a wall-mounted workstation.
William turned his head and saw several other cold-sleep capsules with their lids open. He cleared his throat and then called out, “Venture crew, sound off...”
“Here!”
"I hear you, Bill.”
From a nearby capsule there was a dry coughing, but a hand in a ‘thumbs-up’ gesture rose in response.
“Well, good, I won’t have to suffer alone.” William turned his head again and looked over the other closed capsules, “But they didn’t wake everyone, so something’s up. Try to shake this shit off and get ready, okay?”
There were murmurs of ascent and more dry coughs from the other capsules.
The Dravitian come back from the workspace and addressed William, “Stimulant beverages and some cakes are on their way, Mr. Exeter. While I know that you are still under the effects of the stasis pharmaceuticals, I do need to apprise you of our need. You know of the Jaxorians, yes?”
William’s brow furrowed, “What, those crab-guys who go around in those water-suits? Didn’t we beat them in that big war?”
The Dravitian pulled back a little, “It was a negotiated settlement, I believe, but yes, your descriptive words adequately fit the Jaxorian physiology.” He paused, “Well, the Jaxorians, and their rulers the Drasalites, are once again at war, and we are now targets. I would not have woken you , but our Terran engineer was sure that you could help.”
William frowned and shook his head, “We should have finished them once and for all when we had the chance, but we have to let the Soviets fail as Soviets, don’t we?” He sighed, “And we’re humans, dammit. Homo sapiens sapiens by fuckin’ scientific classification. We once lived on Terra, but our genus and species doesn’t change when we move to another-” He noticed the paling colors on the edges of the Captain’s chitinous facial plates and stopped his Duckman-esque rant, “Look, nevermind. How much time do we have?”
The insectoid paused, as if surprised be the direct question. “We estimate a cycle, if our engineer’s modifications to the engines hold. Our speed has been dramatically increased, but the Jaxorian ships still gain slowly. We will eventually be within the effective range of their weapons. Please, direct us.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
After some of the greasy-spoon diner-ish coffee and the supermarket quality yeast-raised, honey-glazed donuts, the four Terrans looked and felt better. William glanced at his colleagues, noting the wear of time on their bodies. He chuckled as the slightly altered movie quote of ’It’s not the years, it’s the light-years’ ran through his mind. But they’d been together ‘asleep’ much longer than they’d been awake, and they’d spent more of their ‘awake’ lives together than apart.
Tony Scarpetti’s pudgy fingers tipped his cup almost upside down as he tried to get the last drops of the coffee and granulated sugar sludge into his mouth. His once black hair was now mostly white, and his tough physique that ran circles around them on the soccer field had shrunk a bit, though he was still stocky.
Peter Hoffman had finally gotten control of his coughing, and was munching on ‘just one more’ donut, and William once again wondered where Peter fit all the food he ate in that short, diminutive frame. His signature mohawk had been fluffed up with fingers, but lacking styling gel and a razor to clean up the stubble that had grown out in cold sleep, it ended up looking more like a peaked mound than the sharp style that Peter would have usually rocked.
Alex (AJ) Johnson’s hair had finally receded so much that his braid only held back reddish hair from behind his ears, though his scraggly beard was long enough that he could probably have braided it as well. Always tall and gangly, his frame seemed a little more gaunt than William remembered, though it had been almost a decade of cold-sleep travel since they had last seen each other.
“Hey, Doctor Exeter?”
William turned his head toward the voice, and looked at the young woman with blonde hair striding toward the table where the four sat around their coffee and donuts. Her utilitarian grey coveralls had scorch-marks and grime all over, and there was some of the same on her exposed hands and face, but bright teeth were visible in her smile.
William nodded, “You must be the plucky human engineer who got us woken up before our alarm went off, huh?”
The woman nodded, still smiling widely and, as she got over to the table, thrust out her hand toward William in the manner of one who just remembered something. “Yeah, sorry about that, Doctor. I’m Allyson, and I’m the only Terran on the ship. Besides you guys, that is.”
William took the extended hand and shook it, being a little more gentle than he usually would have been, given the way that the woman’s grip and lack of fluid motion showed that she wasn’t experienced in shaking hands as a greeting ritual. But she had looked it up, and that counted for something. “Well, us humans have to stick together, right? You sure you want us geezers to help you out? Don’t you have some flashy alien tech to get away from these crab guys?”
Allyson grinned as the handshake seemed to go correctly and shook her head, “Well, if you had been four guys who weren’t from the Space Venture, I would have let you sleep and hoped that I could come up with some way to escape, but well… you are, and well…” She looked at the men around the table, “You guys solve problems, right?”
“Troubleshoot.” AJ corrected, his voice still a little rough. “We’re Troubleshooters. So we’re likely to be able to fix problems on the ship, but not necessarily the situation. It gives us an out on some problems…”
Allyson’s brow furrowed, but before she could say anything, William offered, “But we’ll try and get you out of this alive, okay?” He looked over toward AJ, “No need to haze the newb, ‘kay?”
AJ chuckled and nodded, going for another sip of his coffee.
Allyson looked between the two old men and shook her head. Weren’t these guys the stuff of legends? Why didn’t they act like it? But they were what she had. What the whole ship had. Oh, the ship, right. “And we don’t really have any xenotech. This is an old decommissioned TA vessel, a combat freighter, so it’s kind of structurally overbuilt for a freighter. It was the TAV Thuban, but after being bought up by a Dravitian company it’s now the CCV K’gara B’rak. That translates to something like ‘Ugly Worker Beetle’.”
William raised an eyebrow, “I thought those bugs didn’t like old ships?”
Allyson grinned, “They couldn’t build a new ship to these durability specs at anywhere near the sale price. I think that it vexes the Captain to no end.”
Tony finally set his cup down on the table, finished fighting with the sludge, and looked at at the woman with a playful grin, “Likely to be really upset once we get going, then…”
William grinned as well, “Well, we’ll get there as we get there. So, is Skynet running things here?”
The engineer blinked and cocked her head a little in her confusion, “Skynet? Um…” Her words trailed off as she tried to decipher the meaning.
William sighed, “Artificial intelligence. Is there one running the ship?”
Allyson shook off her confusion, “Oh, uh, no. Of course there are still core hook-ups, but the company didn’t recruit one. There are some smart systems, but they don’t come up to AI levels.”
William nodded, slowly and resignedly. He looked at the other older men, “Okay, so I guess I’ll be spending my time hacking while you guys get to have some actual fun.” He looked back to the engineer and started to get up out of his chair, feeling the ache in his lower back. “Well, let’s get me to a terminal, and rummage up some walkies so we can keep in contact.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
William glowered at the large touchscreen that sat angled on its adjustable armature, and muttered, “What fresh hell is this operating system?”
The Dravitian Captain at the nearby navigation station on the ship’s bridge looked over, “Sir, this is the newest release of the Efficient Interface. While you are viewing it in Terran Standard, it is optimized for the Dravitian language.”
William shook his head, “So other than these cosmetic changes that I can get to in settings, where can I actually get to control configurations?”
The Captain pulled back its head in surprise, “What? You can’t change the control configurations! They are all optimized!”
William sighed and shook his head, “You jammed the ‘economy’ button down, so we can’t get to the ‘power’ button. Right…” He tapped open the program that accessed the file storage and began examining what was there.
After a few minutes of the bridge crew watching the Terran scroll and tap and curse in a low voice, William let out a exuberant, “Got you, you bastard!” On the touchscreen, a simple text box came up, indicating that it was a Root Command Shell, with a blinking block cursor.
William’s fingers flew over the virtual keyboard on the angled touchscreen, and another window bloomed on the screen. He slid it off to the side, then continued to tap and another window popped up. He slid it off to the top corner of the screen. In each of the windows, progress bars slid slowly from one side to another, character strings rolling down past the bottom of the window, the screen indicator on the scroll bar on the side getting smaller and smaller as the list grew and grew.
The Captain leaned over from its workstation and observed the workings on the Terran’s screen, “What is all that? I’ve never seen this option in the interface.”
William chuckled, still typing commands in the first window, “Oh, it’s a command line interface. They just slapped your interface over the military OS, and that still had lots of useful modules and programs in archive. I can bypass the ‘pretty’ GUI you guys use and actually get to controls.” He paused, “Holy hell! They left a media archive in here. Let’s get that unpacked right now!”
A new window popped up on the touchscreen, with another progress bar. William brought up yet another window, and worked inside it, and the progress bars started to move across their respective windows faster.
The Captain cocked its head, “Sir, I find fault in your judgement that what we need in this situation is media. The Jaxorians are not known for their imaginative capabilities.” It paused, “And I think your tasks are slowing down the computational processors, which again, I find fault with in these circumstances.”
William chuckled, “Well, sure it will seem slower. I made all my operations high priorities for the processors. And you can’t expect us to do our best work in silence. We’ll need a good jam.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
Allyson led the three older men through the hatch into the huge engineering bay where the three reactors were lined up with the longitudinal axis of the ship. Aft of those, the floor fell away beyond a safety railing, so that the bulk of the four huge engines could be accessed by a network of ladders, platforms, and gantries. Most of the floor was clear, but here and there hatches, tools, and parts lay askew on the deck, and wires and tube of various sizes and colors snaked between components in a way that belied the hasty, jury-rigged engineering tasks that had been recently undertaken. A couple of insectoid engineers were working on maintaining parts of the unstable system.
“And this is the playground,” offered Allyson as she spread her arms to indicate the whole open area. “We’ve got four Hammond LS-V-3400 ion drives backed by three of the Niagara-class fusion reactors. I’ve, uh, removed some of the safeties on the engines and tweaked the safety specs on the reactors, so we’re making just over five percent above rated maximum speed.”
Tony walked away from the others to lean against the safety railing and take in the sight of the engines.
Peter glanced around the area, then noticed the machining and fabrication tools and sauntered over to inspect them, hands tucked in his pockets and his boots scuffing the floor.
The two Dravitian technicians looked up from their work momentarily, apraising the Terrans, but staying quiet.
AJ made his way over to the reactors, and frowned as he looked at the readouts showing that the reactors were running hot, right on the edge of red-line. “Cutting these pretty fine.”
Allyson nodded as she looked over toward the tall man and started slowly walking toward him, “Um, yeah. I couldn’t figure out a good way to get more output from the engines, so I was just trying to route more power through them. These are still safe, but they’ll be burning up the plating faster than they should.”
AJ nodded and continued perusing, leaning down to look into an open hatch and seeing how one of the patched in high-energy line had been connected.
Tony continued to watch the engines and called, “Hey, Allyson, these still work with Cherenkov dispersal for additional thrust?”
Allyson quickly changed her trajectory to veer away from reactors and back toward the engines, “Uh, yeah, they do. There are controllers in there that help to make the emissions more directional.” She got to the railing and pointed at an orange ring that was visible on each engine right near the aft bulkhead. “Those big electromags help control the dispersal. I have plans and simulations on the computer if you want to see how they work.”
Tony peered in the indicated direction, then nodded and turned toward Allyson, “Yeah, get me to a terminal with some VR goggles and I’ll take a lo-” His voice cut off at the sudden sound from the engineering bay’s speakers.
A syncopated drum beat sounded over the hum of the machinery, then came an almost gravelly yell-singing voice. ”Come on, feel the noise. Girls, rock your boys. We’ll get wild, wild, wild.”
Allyson’s surprised gaze swept up to the big speakers mounted in the corners of the room by the ceiling.
Grins and smiles grew on the faces of the three older men, and they all joined in with the words as an electric guitar sawed into being and the rest of the band added their voices to the lead singer on a response answer of “Wild, wild, wild!” And then the drums picked up and the rest of the instruments kicked in, bringing the song fully into swing.
The singer continued as Peter’s hands played air-drums over a CNC machine’s working space, ”So you think I got an evil mind. I tell you, honey, I don’t know why. I don’t know why.”
Allyson had never heard the song, but the beat was compelling, and it somehow invigorated the men in a way she hadn’t expected. Just out of cold sleep, in the midst of an inevitable chase, with such limited resources, they were singing along with smiles on their faces. AJ was tapping on a reactor interface, and Peter was almost dancing as he poked about her workbench storage space, going over her tools, a screwdriver and electric ratchet stem in his hands as drumsticks for his air-drums.
The Dravitian technicians huddled in a fearful pose at the sudden noise.
Tony grinned widely at Allyson’s surprise, and said loudly over the music, “William’s got good taste for montage music… Show me that terminal.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
The Captain looked over to the Terran’s workspace which was now exhorting somebeing to ‘get wild, wild, wild’ over and over again. It seemed to have some detrimental affect on the older Terran, as its head was bobbing up and down as it continued to work with the code. The insectoid in command just had to say something. “Excuse me, sir. Are you sure that the distracting audio stimulation is beneficial for you? It does not seem to be related to your current task …”
William glanced over at the Dravitian, “Look, bug-boy, the music keeps my endorphins up, and tricks me into thinking I still have all the energy of a teenager. You’re just lucky that I know what my crew likes, and that this archive is low on industrial music.” He pauses and types intensely, then continues, “So no, it’s not related, but if you really want a chance to get away from those crab-guys, this music tips the scales in our favor, okay?”
The Captain abruptly looked back to its console. “Affirmative answer, sir.”
William nodded to himself, and cocked his head as he read something off the screen. “So, a bunch of the cargo is plasma generators for terraforming?” He looked over to the insectoid who was pointedly not looking at him. “Are those things as dangerous as they sound?”
-=-=-=-=-=-
“Hey guys!” William’s voice echoed from the big loudspeakers in the engineering bay as the song came to an end.
“Yo boss!” Peter called up toward the ceiling from the tool bench where he had accumulated a selection of choice tools.
“I got control of the control code up here. Some of it’s military code under all this glossy shit. What have you guys got back there?”
Tony stood amidst a holographic simulation of an engine, and called out, “We got some damped down ion engines. The design is like the old McPherson Mark Five, and I think I can flare ‘em up the same way. Gimme six hours or so.”
AJ looked up toward the ceiling after Tony finished, “These fusion reactors are running flat out, Bill. I’m thinking about patching up a capacitor bank so we can push things farther, or at least have some extra power when we need it. Three or four hours, depending on how easy I can find the parts.” he paused, “And I’m officially putting in a request for you to put something dance-able on your wheel of steel.”
Peter called out, “And I’m just waiting for these slackers to tell me what they need. But I’m all tooled up for just about anything they want.” He grinned playfully at the other two.
William’s chuckle came over the speaker, “Gotcha. Those sound like good projects. We get a powerful flare, we’ve got a chance to run.” He paused, “Allyson, you there too?”
Allyson, still near the holographic engine display, had been turning her head this way and that to try and follow the conversation and understand what the forming plan of the ‘troubleshooters’ was. She forced herself to call out, “Yes, Dr. Exeter.”
William’s voice came from the speakers, “Okay, Allyson, I need you to take Pete down to Cargo Bay Three and help him uncrate all of the plasma terraforming engines you can find there. Pete, I want those things sky-side against the outer wall of Bay Two and fastened in place. If we need power for them, I want you to run a line back to AJ’s source, and it will need to be vacuum sealed. We’re likely to depressurize that bay so try not to make too many unnecessary holes, okay?” He paused, “And don’t worry, that bay has some speakers too. I won’t leave you silent …”
Peter grinned and nodded, then started to load tools onto a nearby hovercart. As he worked, he called out, “On it, boss! Do they have any Ramones or Dead Kennedys or anything with more energy in that jukebox? That’s my request, Mr. DJ.”
William’s voice carried his chuckle, “I’m on it, guys. I’ll keep you updated, you guys let me know the word. Out.”
As the beats of New Order’s Blue Monday started to bounce around the engineering bay, Peter looked over at Allyson, “Hey, give me a hand with some of this. We need to bounce!”
Allyson registered the words and jogged across the bay to the hovercart, “Sorry, sir, we have to ‘bounce’?”
Peter chuckled, still pulling tools from the bench to add to the load. “We have to get moving. Can we bring that welder and thermal lance, or is there a better option?”
Allyson let out a quiet ‘oh’, then shook her head, “There’s a backpack unit that can cut and weld. Much easier to move.” She pulled open a a nearby locker.
Peter grinned, “Oh, sweet! Are there two?”
Part 2

I have a bob and I can't be doing this shit monthly. I used to go to Chinatown but had a bad experience so I admitted to myself that the $35 haircut and train ride is not worth the savings

The woman across history dash full of colors in the woods. The tribe cult gave rise the woman who would take over man. I am a man that has the mask. I can't love my cowgirl doll. I can't love teddy bears. The world has come to a closure. Last night, a large hareless dog stood over me 10 feet tall. He lunged at me and said "Woman take over man." He then vanished into the giant cave lake from up above. I get two for one. A long time ago, I used to scuba dive with my college buddies. It was my passion. It made me feel like an intrepid explorer, charting the unknown and discovering the unseen.
That was way before my daughter. Way before my ex-wife, too. Like so many things, I gave it up when the drive to start a family kicked in. After Penny was born, scuba was just a frivolity I had no right to focus on. And that was that.
Twelve years later, after the divorce, I started looking at the world like I had before it all went south. I could resume the activities and hobbies I’d abandoned. Scuba diving was at the top of the list.
Once everything was finalized, I bought a house two states away from the one I’d shared with my wife and daughter. It was nothing special. It wasn’t the house I cared about when I closed the deal on the property. It was what sat behind it: a lake.
The lake behind the house is huge; not exactly Loch Ness, but nonetheless impressive. When I told the realtor I was into diving, she told me if I looked hard enough, I’d probably find some old Indian artifacts. That was all well and good. I just wanted to be underwater again. I felt like it might bring me some peace after such an acrimonious split with my former soulmate.
The first time I went out, I was dismayed by the amount of silt impeding my vision. It was like I’d been trapped in a brown fog. I got discouraged and quit after only fifteen minutes, but I resolved to give it another try.
I was glad I persevered. The next dive was beautiful. I guess the heavy rain from the night before the initial dive had been the reason for all the silt, but it had since settled. The water was crystal clear and I could see for what felt like miles all around me.
I swam around and explored. The lake was exceedingly deep. When I bought the place, I asked the realtor if she knew how far down it went. She estimated it was 900 feet. I didn’t believe her until I saw it firsthand.
The steep drop-off after the first twenty feet reminded me of a video I saw of divers leaping off the edge of a continental shelf. The drop was staggering; I knew my equipment couldn’t handle the full depth of the lake, but I’d be god damned if I wouldn’t try to see as much of it as possible.
That was how I spent my summer. I’d work from home, like normal, until the market closed at four. As soon as the closing bell rang, I was out the door and into the water.
I’d been keeping track of the areas I’d explored on a rudimentary map I’d drawn up on my computer. On that fateful Wednesday in late June, the only area I’d yet to explore in the grid zone nearest the pier was the wall of the drop-off itself. To be honest, I’d been avoiding it.
This may sound a little weird coming from a man in his late 40s, but I’d held off on exploring that section because of dreams I had after my first dive.
In the dream, I am underwater. It’s not an unusual setting for one of my dreams. Normally, the sensation is freeing. I float and bob in the currents and enjoy weightless bliss. I should tell you this is not my normal dream.
This dream begins with me standing on the edge of my pier. The sky is black but everything else is bright enough for me to see without any problem. I look down to where I’d normally see water. The lake is empty; or, at least, it appears that way. Something causes me to lose my balance and I tumble off the pier. I scream, expecting to crash on the rocks below. Instead, I float. The water is invisible.
I bob on the surface for a moment, but then something unseeable wraps around my leg. I gasp in a lungful of air and am torn below the surface. I fight against whatever the force is, but it’s hopeless. I get carried down.
To my eyes, it looks like I’m floating through the air. I still feel water against my skin, though. I know I have to continue holding my breath. And hold it I do. Helpless to return to the surface, part of my mind says to just wait until I can wake up gasping.
My body is sucked down, over the edge of the shelf. A sheer wall of granite towers in front of me. After about fifty feet, the pulling stops. I float, motionless, in front of a massive hole in the rock.
In the perfect clearness of the water, I can see the hole is a cave. It goes far into the rock – farther than I can see. I notice multiple tunnels in the sides and know those, too, branch. A feeling of dread enshrouds me. My lungs burn. I feel the pressure of a hundred feet of water on top of me, squeezing my skull and threatening to perforate my ears. God, my ears hurt so badly.
“Wake up,” I whisper to myself in the dream. “Open your eyes.”
“SEE ME.”
A voice bursts from the mouth of the cave with a colossal surge of water pressure. The air explodes from my chest and my eyes bulge. I gasp. Invisible water fills my lungs.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
My eyes open to the morning light flooding my bedroom.
I’ve had the same dream three times since I started diving in the lake. It’s stuck with me. I hated how it tainted my subsequent dives and caused me to dread exploring that one unseen zone. That would have to end. I’d see for myself it was all just residual stress from the divorce impeding on the one thing I love. How typical.
That Wednesday, I stood on the edge of the pier like I had in my dream. The water was not invisible. It was gray and calm and sloshed lazily against the pier’s wooden supports. The sky was cloudy. It looked like it might rain. I’ve always enjoyed diving in the rain. Something about the water in the sky meeting the water of a sea or ocean or lake gave me a feeling of connectedness, as if I could swim all the way to the clouds if the rain were heavy enough.
I checked the readout on my tank. It was full. I was planning on doing a two-tank exploration before retiring to the lonely house and drinking my night away.
Into the lake I went. A few feet below the surface, the visibility was low. Silt. I was instantly disappointed.
It wasn’t as bad as it had been that first time. I could still see maybe twenty feet in front of me. But it wasn’t what I’d hoped. Part of me wished for the invisible clarity of the water in the dream. This was anything but. It made the prickles of dread I’d tried to ignore force themselves into my consciousness.
I swam toward the edge of the underwater cliff. It was easy to locate. A stygian abyss loomed ahead. I floated to the edge, crossed myself, and lept off.
The silt cleared quickly once I was on the other side of the muddy drop. I descended slowly, my hand never leaving the sheer wall of rock at my side.
I checked the depth gauge. Forty feet. Fifty. At sixty-five, a fissure developed in the granite wall. It widened as I sank further. I did my best to avoid connecting it to the memory of the cave in my dreams.
Eighty-five feet down, the fissure was a chasm. Glancing lower, I saw it widened more. Everything in me said to start kicking my feet and swim back to the surface and forget about this part of the lake. I had miles upon miles of lake I could be exploring. There was no need to see this particular spot.
My body overrode the protestations of my mind. At ninety-six feet down, the mouth of a cave yawned before me.
There was nothing I could do but stare with disbelief at the gaping hole in the rock. I had no reason to know of its existence. Dreams aren’t prescience. They don’t convey new information. I had never been here before. “Never physically,” my mind reminded me.
I was helpless to ignore the message in that little reminder. No, I’d never been there physically. But I had been mentally. Somehow.
“Just go in,” I thought. “See what it’s all about.”
The hatred I felt for myself for betraying my better intentions was profound. And I knew I’d obey that betrayal. Curiosity always won out with me. I aimed my body at the center of the cave and kicked. I switched on my headlamp. The ghostly beam illuminated the dim, lifeless walls.
A hundred feet in, I thought back to all the warnings I’d heard from diving instructors. “Never explore an underwater cave on your own,” they’d say. “You WILL die.” They emphasized “will” as if it were a foregone conclusion. Like the first person to discover a cave always died. Like it was the law.
Two hundred feet in, I would have sworn the water was brighter.
Three hundred feet in, I realized it really was brighter.
Maybe “brighter” isn’t the right word. “Clearer,” maybe. “Becoming invisible,” my mind interjected.
Four hundred feet in, I couldn’t deny it. The water was invisible.
I looked back at the mouth of the cave. Its enormity was far less pronounced from that distance. I checked my air. I had a half hour left. If I left in ten minutes, I’d have to swim for twenty straight minutes. I’d be cutting it close. Maybe too close. I needed to leave right away.
“Don’t go yet. Just a little deeper.”
More betrayal. My flippers pushed me ahead. The walls of the granite were pockmarked here. It appeared as if each hole was a separate branch, disappearing deeper into the cave. I imagined myself getting stuck in the narrow walls, struggling and screaming until my air bled away and I’d drown, never to be found.
Five hundred feet into the porous confines of the cave, an expanse opened before me. I’d reached the top of a colossal chamber. Thanks to the invisibility of the water, even though it was dark, my light shone hundreds of feet down. It never reached the bottom.
“Maybe it’s time to turn around,” my mind suggested. It was the first hint of sense it had made since I leapt from the pier.
I obeyed. I began to turn. Then something in the water changed. I felt the pressure shift, as if something had pushed an enormous amount of water out of the way. I turned back toward the chamber.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
Before I even saw what had made the sound, I screamed around my mouthpiece. The voice was so loud. It was a sound unlike anything I’d experienced. “Except for the dream,” my mind reminded me.
Except for the dream.
My headlamp illuminated a creature of massive bulk and impossible proportions.
“SEE ME.”
Paralyzed with primal, palpable horror, I tried to train my eyes on it. It shimmered and shifted, moving with erratic and stuttering jerks, but, at the same time, remaining in place like the infinite presence the universe itself.
“SEE ME.”
My head spun. The creature was the embodiment of expansion and collapse. Boulder-sized clusters of eyes would open, bulging outward and popping out of existence like soap bubbles. Mouths gaped and inverted in the same instance, pinching into geometries that caused pain to erupt behind my eyes when I tried focusing on them.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
I reflexively checked how much air I had. Three minutes. My panic had exhausted all my remaining oxygen. I was dead.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
The water pressure shifted again with a hideous jolt. I felt my sinuses and bladder and bowels contract and release. A coiled spiral of matter shot from the center of a fleshy bubble between a honeycombed mass of eyes. It tore through the water in my direction, and before I could move, it had split into multiple, thinner coils and penetrated my nostrils and eyes through my facemask.
I howled with agony. Everything went black. I felt the coils corkscrewing behind my eyes and packing my sinuses. I screamed again. My mouthpiece fell out. I scrambled in the darkness for it as my lungs burned. I located it and plunged it back in. I took a deep breath. Nothing came out. This was the end. My end.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
The blackness evaporated. I gasped, expecting water to fill my lungs. No water. Air.
I looked around. I floated in the chamber. The water was still invisible. Now, though, the darkness was gone. Everything was bright. My panic, still near its peak, had again taken the backseat to fascination and curiosity. I could see the creature in front of me without experiencing pain or disorientation.
I had underestimated its enormity. What I had seen before was only its topmost portion; below, previously hidden by the darkness, was a thick, tube-shaped body reaching a thousand feet down to the cavern floor. At its base were webbed appendages like veined leaves or fleshy wings.
I tried to blink. My eyelids fluttered uselessly against the coils piercing my eyes. I felt them turning, drilling deeper and deeper into my head. Same with those in my nose – they coiled throughout my sinuses and chest. I assumed they were why I was able to breathe.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
Impelled, I gazed at the creature. Its angles were foreign to me. It was as if it occupied physical dimensions I’d never before encountered; dimensions my brain wasn’t wired to process.
“SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU.”
The coils in my eyes widened. I felt my pupils stretch.
The world dropped out beneath me. I stared at the creature against the backdrop of dense stars and glowing nebulae. Violet light illuminated us. It was even larger in this new setting – its bulk stretching beyond my line of sight.
“SEE WITH ME.”
I observed the cosmos stretching before me. In the distance, I saw a planet with a yellow atmosphere.
“WE TRAVEL.”
Before I could register the words, the view had changed. We hovered under a yellow sky. Geysers of mercury erupted below and showered us in a constellation of liquid metal.
“WE TRAVEL.”
Light beyond light bathed my vision. It was a star. Before my coiled eyes, it burst in a supernova. Hard radiation that would have vaporized me a billion times over struck my body like a gentle caress. I began to weep.
“Please. I want more.”
“WE TRAVEL.”
I could tell by the change in pressure we were back in the cavern. The water was black and impenetrable. I could not see the beast looming ahead of me, although I could still feel its coils.
“What happened there? What are you? I want to go back. Please, I want to explore. God, I want to see it all.”
“TWO FOR ONE.”
“What is two for one?”
“TWO OF YOU TO INCORPORATE INTO ME. THEN YOU MAY TRAVEL.”
“Two of me?”
A light burst from the direction of the creature. The coils pulled me toward it. Its flesh split and I peered inside. It was filled with bones and carapaces and chitinous matter I couldn’t recognize. They looked like parts from entirely disparate beings, all knit together by slabs of muscle and tendons to form the interior of the colossus before me.
“TWO FOR ONE.”
A dull sense of realization bloomed within me.
“If I give you two people, you will show me how to explore like you do?”
“YES. TWO FOR ONE.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “Two for one.”
I felt the coils straighten as I was moved backward though the cave. I reached the mouth and swam upward, assisted by the gentle water currents. At the surface, I felt the coils retract from my eyes and sinuses. There was no pain. Only a sense of emptiness.
I pulled myself to the shore and looked around. It was almost dark. I walked to the house and let myself in. I was exhausted.
Ignoring the confusion and hunger I felt, I hauled myself into bed and slept. My dreams were of the stars.
The next morning, I called Meg. I told her I wanted to reconcile. I said I wanted her and Penny and me to be a family again.
It’s been eight months. Meg and Penny moved into the lake house with me after Christmas. From all outward appearances, we’re a lucky family who triumphed over divorce and despair. Sometimes, I even believe it.
Every night, though, I’m granted visions of the sights I’ll see. The planets. The galaxies. I’m teased by glimpses of what lies outside the curvature of the universe – and everything beyond that, as well.
Penny and Meg had their first scuba lessons on our trip to Jamaica in January. They loved it. Once the water warms up in the lake behind the house, I’ll give them more lessons. We’ll go deeper and deeper every time. I know they’ll be amazed when they see the cave. As for what waits inside it, they’ll learn, too, what I did.
The difference is, I’ll get to leave that cave while they’ll become a very special part of it. What part, I can’t say. But I’ll be long gone by then. I’ll be exploring the stars. All I have to do is fulfill my part of the bargain: two for one. And I’m well on my way to doing just that.
Categories

My younger sisters, who are in high school equivalent level grade rn, had always frequently acknowledged my very boyish personality and appearance before. Note that i am not out yet to any single person abt my gnc sexuality.
For context, my hair has grown a bit, like chin length, which i keep tied up in a small ponytail knot cuz for many weeks, i could not find time to see a suitable parlour for a haircut. I have to find the right ones or else they try giving me horrible bob cuts instead.
So my youngest one has been begging me to cut my hair short cuz they "suit me the best" and i look kinda off putting with longer hair. (Big thing cuz people around me would foam at mouth if you as girl cut your hair completely short)
But yesterday, she said a lot more. In a nutshell, she said i was a weird mix of girl & guy and she hopped i would just start dressing up completely like a guy, with short hair and masc dress, but still call myself a woman. It would confuse her less about what im trying to be and besides, i looked good that way. Morever she said she was no color analyst but she thought i looked better in dark colours, especially black.
It may not sound like much but for a religion centered, conservative community that we are, what she acknowledged about me is a huuuuge thing. I feel so happy that despite her not even knowing what my sexuality is or the term gnc, she knew and wants me to be my true self and actively encouraged it. My sisters don't and never cared what i wore or how i acted, as long as i didn't embarrass them with my behaviour and jokes in public hehe, oops (for all they knew i was like a mischievous, fun loving older brotherly sister who teased and scared them but was protective and responsible when needed to be)
So, yeah. I feel better knowing if i ever come out there would be someone to support me, at least. Now, if only they figure out what sort of men i like (they just know i have no interest in romance or socialising in general cuz yk, mainstraights are usually insufferable)
Edit: me and my mother had a fall out for a bit, so yea a lot of scene was created, and it was a weird time and place to be affirmed but basically my granny, who's also quite supportive of my masc personality and calls me 'Daniel', said that i should listen to my mother, whatever she says and be a son who would stand by her side and a son who would be her support and stuff. It really stopped me dead in my tracks. I do wish they would see me masc as a woman since to them no woman can be masc (idk they treat me as an exception since i break down everything they ever knew and believed) unless one's body is secretly inhabited by a dude lmao but im still happy that my gnc sexuality is being acknowledged positively in some way or another.

Mobula 6 2024 -- PID tuning suggestions? I'm having a terrible time with my new Mob 6 when flying indoors. It flies great outside, when I have lots of room and can throttle up, I'm able to zip around trees, hit some larger gaps (still a noob) and all that, but when I bring it inside to try some house ripping, all I do is crash. the mob 6 responsiveness seems to be very laggy, I have a terrible time trying to fly through my DIY race gates, and I know, that does take time and practice but I feel like I should at least be able to fly slowly through them. But when I try to fly slow and level, I just end up bobbing up and down, overcorrecting my throttle a ton because I can't find a 'sweet spot' for level, indoor flying. doesn't help that the angle of the camera is really suited for a higher speed. So maybe I need to adjust the tuning? Any advice?

These are the results after my wash and style today, no products applied when I took the video
Im a teen with 4C African hair. The top of my head grows faster than the rest of my head, and my crown always gets messed up whenever I do W&S. My last cut was 6 weeks and 4 days ago with a 2 WTG low taper.
For the first 4-5 weeks, I’d do 60 strokes each angle and do that twice maybe three times throughout a day but was inconsistent with it due to life events.
Once week 5 hit, I went heavy with the brush and comb (1 hour brush session in the morning, 1 hour brush session at night with 60 stroke intervals with hard medium & soft brushes). After 6 weeks and 4 days my right side is still weak, but slowly coming in.
No lineups, no tapers, and my hairline is overlapping a little bit due to my wolf. My family thinks I should get a haircut because they believe my hair is too long and doesn’t look nice. What should I do? What advice do y’all suggest for my 360 journey?

Any tips on where I’m going wrong?
My initial prompt produced the photo I was keen on “a beautiful white couple standing at a high table in a dimly lit bar, talking close to each other+smiling+there are people mingling in the background+f/2.8+editorial photography+he is wearing an expensive grey suit with navy blue shirt+she is wearing a dark green velvet gown+wide angle+he has warm brown wavy hair+he has green eyes+he is clean shaven+she has a brown bob and a straight fringe+she has blue eyes+she is holding a vodka and cranberry drink --s 800 --style raw --v 6.0 --no beard”
I had created a prefer option set without —cref in the value field (I’ve also created with —cref in the value field and it didn’t work then either! Although it seems to work seamlessly in the YT videos I’ve watched!) of a few different photos of the characters I want to in paint in to this photo.
I then launch vary region and highlight first over the females face area, with the following prompt, removing any sections of the prompt that don’t refer to her, “a beautiful white couple standing at a high table in a dimly lit bar, talking close to each other+smiling+f/2.8+editorial photography+she is wearing a dark green velvet gown+wide angle+she has a brown bob and a straight fringe+she has blue eyes —cref https://cdn.midjourney.com/2a1fb882-1d02-4bc4-88bd-101192f3fd4f/0_0.png --s 800 --style raw --v 6.0 —cw 0” I’ve also tried the “—cref —jade” in place of the actual image URL (my prefer set option) and in both cases, I received the error: “Submission Error!: SyntaxError: The string did not match the expected pattern” Any tips of how to get the cref function to work in vary region so i can get multiple of my characters to appear in the image??