Un titled

Stratt's Vat Documented Shenanigans Part 3

Short list this time since I also wrote a little discovery fic for the phone.

You guys have my full permission to use anything in these posts for writing or drawing. Just tag me so I can yell about it, please!

--

Grace is bored. Bored, bored, bored. Capital B, bored.

Rocky, his partner in crime and entertainment is currently 2 hours deep into his 6 hour nap leaving Grace on his own in these enrichment deprived times. He's currently laying starfished on the floor of the dormitory running through every project they've come up with to fill time and get ready for arriving to Erid but none of them are sparking joy at the moment.

Grace groans, rolling onto his stomach and thumping his head on the floor hard enough for Armando to chirp in concern.

“It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine,” he mumbles into the floor, “Not going crazy or nothin'.”

Armando chirps in a decidedly disbelieving way but returns to standby anyway.

Another minute passes before Grace fails his legs in frustration like a toddler and introduces his toes to the wall -hard-. He yelps, pulling his leg up to grab his toes so he can continue rolling around the floor like an idiot.

“Oh, sugar honey iced tea, that was a bad idea. Mother fluffer.”

He almost doesn't hear the panel he kicked fall to the floor..

“Oh good, now I'm breaking the ship,” he wheezes, “Sorry, Mary.”

“Apology accepted, Dr. Grace.”

He drags himself over to pop the panel back into place when he notices a device crammed between the wire bundles. Carefully, in case it's actually a part of the system, he works it out from the space and finds himself holding a smart phone with OLESYA written in silver sharpie on the back.

Heck yeah, contraband.

The brain worm of "aperture" continues to burrow in my brain.

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

He and Simon are alone, slowly trying to figure out a solution, forgetting about how Simon appeared mysteriously, because Simon is like "fuck it, im here now, there's stars that are alive and need saving, I did it before and ill do it again, at least this alien is nice"

Simon basically blipping onto the Mary some way or another.

I think it'd be really cool if Simon's mom was Mary too. Because there's this otherworldly voice telling him what to do, and giving him assistance when he needs it.

And it doesn't sound like his mother, but he latches onto it.

"Would you like to go on a walk, Simon?"

"No thanks, Mom."

And maybe he thinks the COI sent him on another mission with other people. But two of them seem to be dead, and the other one- the other one is still comatosed.

He has no specific feelings about this, just walking around the Mary, eating food and asking questions to Mary. Messing around with this and begrudgingly reading things when his mind can't really focus on the words (I'm trying out dyslexic Simon, bare with me) before just asking Mary.

"Mom, what's going on here? Why are we here?"

"To collect samples from Tau Ceti and send them back to Earth."

"Earth? Jesus, how old is this ship?"

But it can't be very old. It's brand-spankin-new. It has more food available than Eden did, and there's only four of them.

Maybe they expected him to be the pilot to the destination while their team rested. God knows he picked up the controls of the Mary fast enough.

But what gets him are the stars. He can see them out the windows. Every window available showing the same picture at different angles.

It would take too much power to blast this 24/7. Then again, the lights were on almost 24/7 anyway, so how much power does it really take to show a fake screen of stars?

Either way, Simon is suspicious.

"What's all this equipment for, Mom? What's it do?"

"The equipment is for capturing and studying various chemicals and compounds on the mission to Tau Ceti."

"Okay? How is that helpful?"

"For more information, a manual has been provided in cubby unit 438219648-"

"No, No manuals. Skip the manuals. How can I learn about this without all the reading? Isn't there a video I could watch or something?"

"For additional help, I suggest a conference with the Science officer."

"Where is the science officer?"

"Science officer Dr Ryland Grace, Comatosed."

Great.

So Simon attempts to wake him, much to Creepy Arm Robot's dismay as he managed to override the coma beds and bring the science officer's down.

He's in a weird water bag bed thing, and when Simon opens it all comes out all over the ground. He has to manually pull out the tube- which is terrifying cause that thing is so freaking long- and tried to slap his cheek away.

"C'mon, wake up already,"

But he doesn't, even when Creep Arm Robot shocks him with a defibrillator and puts in a heart monitor.

He definitely did something wrong, because this guy was now getting 24/7 attention from the robot. Maybe he should've let it pull him out instead.

"I'm sorry," he says one night at the man's bed side, his head level with the man's flat resting body. "I hope I didn't -... But then again I'm -... I'm the butcher anyway. What do you expect?"

He helps Creepy Arm Robot- Aptly now named CARson, cause Creepy Arm Robot is getting to be a mouthful, bath the guy, and cut his hair.

He looks more human. This Dr. ryland Grace. Sleeps so peacefully that Simon has fallen asleep at his bedside, lulled into clam by how soundly the man sleeps. Then again, coma, so what does he expect.

But it's a nice routine. Among all the things that confuse and frustrate him while trying to figure out what exactly to do, taking care of this unconscious man makes him feel a little better more in control.

Not control control. He's not like- treating him like a doll or anything. But it makes him feel a little more stable? That's not right.

There's a being that relies on him. That's more like it. He'd probably be fine without Simon, really, but it feels nice not being the one helping instead of hurting.

It's a routine.

He eats food by the man's bed while CARson sticks him with a nutrient saline bag. Goes off and tries to figure out what the hell he should even do in a situation like this. Last time he did what the COI asked for it him killed. But there's not exactly anything else he can do.

He tries looking more into the science stuff, even though going through those manuals and tablets is like hell itself.

He goes back to the sleeping chambers, helps CARson wash the guy, then makes dinner, eats it, stares out at the stars, and returns to the one of two unoccupied sleeping beds.

It's a calm routine, and eventually he figures he might as well get with the program.

Talking to him clears his head. Crying over his chest feels like the most human Simon has ever felt.

"I know you'll wake up, Ryland," he says softly, brushing back blonde hair from the man's forehead. "Take your time. We're in the safest place we can be."

It isn't until one day when Simon's scrubbing the guys legs with the washing mits, rubbing off dead skin as usual, that the man opens his eyes, peaking down.

"Uh."

Which makes Simon's head snap over his shoulder to look at the very awake Science Officer, who's squinting at him with a pinched expression.

"Did I smell that bad?"

Anyway yeah, now the scientist is awake. And very confused on who he is and what he's doing here.

"Are you with the COI?"

"I don't think so," Ryland says, where he shoved himself into the crevice tunnel sort of area of his bed, wanting to feel more close in. "I don't remember- why are we in space?"

"you tell me."

"I don't know."

"Great."

"You woke me up. Why don't you know?"

"I dunno what kind of bullshit this is-"

"Language please-"

"This is the biggest station I've ever seen! Even Eden wasn't this big!"

"Eden? Like the garden of Adam and Eve?"

"no, filament station."

"What the hey is filament station?"

And that's when they begin to realize that neither of them have any clue what's going on.

Grace minorly understands something, it takes some time before his mind comes back to itself and they're actually making progress. Simon is way better at making stuff that he is. He's crafty with what they have onboard.

Anyway yeah, I mostly like the idea of Grace being like "okay, so what's next?" And Simon being like "why are you asking me, you're the science guy!" "You're the captain. It says it on your space suit!" "I took this off the dead guy! My name isn't Yao!"

I just think it's funny, because when he was alone, Grace was just figuring it out, but there's already a guy here taking care of stuff and is labeled as the Pilot so sure, he's head honcho, tell me what to do. What do you mean you want me to tell you I don't know anything, you tell me what to do. Please, I'm pretty sure I'm just a teacher, I don't know why I'm here.

Bonus points for things coming later on with Rocky and all that and they're both freaking out and Grace's just keeps pushing Simon towards all the dangerous stuff like "you're the leader, so lead, I'm a coward"

Till the end whenever he remembers.

"you weren't on this mission." Ryland whispered after coming off Rocky's ship, staring into the ground.

"I didn't... I didn't volunteer... They drugged me... And you weren't... Your not supposed to be here."

I'm seeing a lot going around about people not liking how violent Simon is being portrayed.

And I do get that, but I don't think there's enough balance to who he is. We see him get angry, but only when provoked. He gets mad and wants to be heard, but when he finds out he's caused someone to be hit with radiation from his camera, he immediately flips, because he's just human and trying to be heard.

I can understand him being distrustful after all of that. Having to live with the trauma and the PTSD of not only the Blood Ocean, the Eel, the Iorn Lung, but the Distrust he might have with humans because of the COI and Eden. I get that he can be violent when first approached from what he thought was his death. Violent after waking up from a nightmare. But I more understand him trembling awake, sobbing and curling in on himself. Him standing to the side and staring blankly if Grace got angry and started throwing things, half because he knows Grace won't hurt him and half because he doesn't really know what to do even if Grace did.

I think he's a solider and a man. And all reactions are plausible and possible. I for one, would love to see more balance.

Simon can be violent, but don't make him only violent.

Make him eerily calm in terrible situations. Make him cower in a corner and only flinch away at a touch. Make him awkward and not know what to do, not know what line to cross.

Based on the post under!

From the planets’ perspectives, Grace landed on Erid around the same time that the beetles got back to Earth. I thought about Earth racing to launch the taumoeba to Venus at the same time that Erid was racing to save Grace from starvation. Grace was healing his starved body at the same time Earth was healing her desecrated lands. Even if they didn’t know it for so many years afterwards, they were healing together. When Grace was well enough to start truly living on Erid, Sol had already begun to shine again.

Contact established with the Iron Lung.

Is he deadass, question?

In return, Danny helps them with their studies. Mostly it's Anthropology these days, but there's still some biology that needs to be done.

The Maple Pomegranate Brussels Sprouts That Can Defeat Any Evil.

the original version of this recipe is from unpeeled journal, but I'm writing this out on my blog my way bc it's the season of the brussels sprout. take my hand let's go to brussels sprout world.

for the sprouts:

2 lbs brussels sprouts

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp kosher salt

24 turns of freshly cracked black pepper

for the vinaigrette:

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tbsp cider vinegar

3 tbsp olive oil

1/8 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp whole-grain mustard

3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

3 tbsp pomegranate seeds (measure with your heart)

preheat the oven to 420°F. halve all your sprouts and remove any stumps or outer leaves that don't look particularly edible. (if eating-quality leaves fall off, you can just roast them along with the rest for extra crunch.) toss them with the olive oil, salt, and pepper, spread them on a half sheet pan, and roast for 20-25 minutes without stirring or turning. I like to do a quite hot oven and a quick roast for an extra crisp sprout, but ymmv.

meanwhile, chuck everything else but the parsley and pomegranate seeds in a bowl and whisk them together. if you do this towards the beginning of the roast, make sure to whisk again later because it'll start to separate quite quickly.

chop up your parsley into fine confetti. my favorite trick for this is to put the parsley in a cup and snip it violently with kitchen scissors a few leaves at a time, since this helps it stay light and fluffy.

sprouts should be done now, so transfer those over to a serving bowl, pour the vinaigrette over top, and toss with the parsley and pomegranate. eat right away, but in the event of leftovers, these are still really good fridge-cold.