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Posted on: 2016-01-12 17:43:26 UTC
...and flicked away some of the wetness in his eyes with his index finger.
"Yes, ma'am. And sorry," he mumbled. "Th'was kinda embarrassing. Won't happen again. Sorry."
...and flicked away some of the wetness in his eyes with his index finger.
"Yes, ma'am. And sorry," he mumbled. "Th'was kinda embarrassing. Won't happen again. Sorry."
The Really Very Tiny Auditorium was a convenient place to hold any kind of gathering, as the thankfully-absent Notary would be quick to tell you. There was plenty of space for people to knock together a stage out of chipboard and pile up an eye-searing cavalcade of wrapping paper, some of it in Suvian colours that were doing odd things to the onlookers' collective gaze. There was also, unlike last year, an instructive and explanatory pamphlet concerning all the rules, regulations, and general guidelines of the Gift Exchange, though why they had been written in a peculiar phonetic cod-German accent remained a mystery.
Until, that is, the bell of a large brass instrument protruded from behind the slightly knackered lectern like Venus Arising From The MDF.
"Er, hallo? Is this think beink on?" Doktor Trollenfisch, a purple balloon about a foot across and covered in spikes, prodded the microphone with an outstretched fin. "Hm, I vill be testink zis accordinkly."
The resultant brass fanfare nearly deafened the crowd, as well as shake loose one of the light fittings at the back.
"Ah, it is vorking! Echt klasse! Hallo mein friends, und velcome to zer tventy-sixteen annual New Year's Gift Exchange! If you vould be so good as to look at zer tickets you vere handed on zer door by mein glamorous assistant Gabrielle, who ist no longer here on account of a FicPsych appointment, you vill be seeink ein number! If zer number you are holdink is vun, vould you please be comink up to zer stage und selecting your present!"
((A little cursory, I know, but I wanted to get it done. We're now live! =] ))
"Finally! My turn." He looked around at the assembled guests, then at their presents. Aside from the insta-kill gun that the Aviator now held, nothing seemed very appealing to take. The Spy briefly thought about stealing the revolver from the Time Lady but thought better of it. He walked up to the table and took the final gift.
"Right then. Let's hope it's actually something good this time..." he muttered as he opened the gift. He lifted a bottle filled with reddish liquid from the box. "It's a, um, thing. Drink. What is this?" he asked to the room.
"It restores your health completely. Getting one usually means you're about to go into a boss fight, so I'd save it for an obscenely powerful Sue."
Cupid was interrupted by Stephanie hugging him and Violet, but managed to add, "Uh, Steph? Y-you might wanna let go of my ex, hehe..."
Lapis sweatdropped and rubbed the back of her head, laughing nervously. "Cupid was the one who provided the Drinks of the Gods, by the way," she said to Harris, pretending not to notice. "He wanted to bring a vintage Bleeport bottle, but Sarah wouldn't have any of it."
"For obvious reasons," Sarah replied. "And I totally agree with what Violet said about saving them for when you need them. From what I've heard, that stuff's really hard to come by! Though I do have to wonder, how did Cupid even get those drinks in the first place?..."
(Elsewhere in the multiverse, a certain green-haired goddess giggled to herself.)
(OOC: Also, what, no reaction to Falc getting the Parthenon puzzle?)
"Thanks for not crushing me, though...Is hugging total strangers with all your tentacles a normal kraken thing?"
Miguel, who had been halfheartedly flipping through his cocktail recipe book, looked up at Violet's last sentence. "Whoa! What the heck?!"
"Somebody wanted to say hi," said Ami.
She'd been watching as the others received their gifts and now that her turn had finally come up, she'd already made her decision. As the pile of presents slowly dwindled and the odds of there being something cool left grew smaller and smaller, she figured taking one of the two remaining gifts just wouldn't be worth it.
She waved at the Skarmory sitting across from her. "Oi, Falch," she called. "Gun please."
"Just give it to her," the raptor said after a pause. "You already have your armor and your moveset to go around."
"But I-"
"She asked, Falchion. She is a friend. You aren't going to turn your back on your friends here at the PPC like you once did with me, aren't you?"
Falchion shuddered, and promptly walked over and handed it to her. Then he went and picked up one of the last remaining gifts from the pile, before heading back and opening it.
"Just what I need," he muttered. "A Parthenon puzzle."
"I'm sure you'll find a way to solve it without hands...I actually wanted to bring a mini-Missingno as my gift, but Chris shot it down. Apparently they're too dangerous or something."
"No, it's that since we started the mini-Missingno adoption center--please come visit our RC if you want one, by the way--I think it'd be weird to just give one away like an old T-shirt," said Chris. "The point of the adoption center is to get mini-Missingno to people who actually want them."
"But the end result would still be that a total stranger gets a mini, so I should be allowed to give one away next time we're at a party."
"She's not wrong," said Ami.
The Aviator tilted her head. "You know, we have an extra staser that Zeb never uses--"
"Don't like guns," the Luxray muttered.
"--so maybe I could swing by your place later and drop it off?" The Aviator ran a loving hand over her new gun. "Works great in nearly any sci-fi continuum as long as they use energy weapons."
"And I'd be totally down for something to shoot stuff with! Thank you, R- er, Aviator!"
Ripper cocked his head. "Wouldn't a staser be more limited in terms of operable continu-"
"No shut up."
"Ah! It's me! Oh, vhat kind of lovely surprise vill be surprisink me today? Ve shall see, ach ja, ve shall see-ee!" He bounced -- quite literally, and with some measure of complaint from the sousaphone still wrapped around him like a particularly noisy life preserver -- over to the pile of presents and blew a brief fanfare. "Ohhh, I am feelink lucky, my vord yes!"
The Doktor knew in a moment what he wanted. It was the most present-shaped present out of the lot, right down to the pointy rosette and the beautifully-tied ribbon, and since he'd spent a brief period of time as a Christmas present, he knew of what he spoke. It seemed... perfect. There was just one teensy-veensy little problemette. A truly bijou problem, perfect for the first-time buyer.
He flopped over to the closest biped, who happened to be Lola herself, and nudged her with his tuba. "Er, excuse me. Could I possibly be prevailink upon you to help me vizz my present, please? My partner, vell, she left our RC in a bit of ein hurry, und I cannot vork zer Disguise Generator vizzout sprayink mein qwills everyvhere und turnink zer place into a minefield for her soft und fluffy paws. I am most unfortunately bereft of zer useful opposable thumbs, and, if it ist not beink to much trouble..." The Doktor shrugged helplessly, no small feat for a spiky pink balloon wrapped in a brass instrument.
Lola, on the other hand, just set her box of fluffy lifeform down on the table and crouched in front of him. "Of course I will, Doc! Least I can do for the compere." She grabbed the present (indicated by a gesticulating fin) and began to open it, making sure the paper didn't tear. "Must've been difficult to step up to the plate. Flop up? Oh God, I'm doing it again. My foot's so deep in my mouth I'll be wiping bootblack for a month, as my ol' mum used to say."
"Oh, it vas not beink so very bad," the Doktor replied, totally oblivious to the human's panic. "I admit I vas beink ein leetle nervous, but zen I vas sayink to mein self, Herr Doktor, you are ein Agent of ze Department of WhatThe. Zis ist not being so very scary! Not compared to Harry Potter doing somezink unmentionable vizz too much lukevarm coffee und completely insufficient lubrication, ja?"
"I'll, uh, I'll take your word for that, Doc," Lola said, her eyes widening slightly. The paper was then laid neatly at the side. Waste not, want not, after all. Then she actually looked at it. "Oh, mate, I'm sorry..."
"It ist beink fine," said the Doktor as he eyed the Tough Glove. His sousaphone gave a sad, deflated-sounding parp. "I know it ist not necessarily beink zer most useful of presents for ein fish vizzout zer humanoid hands und zo forth, but it ist still ein present und I vill enjoy it very much. Vhatever it is."
"Listen, cob, you seem like a decent guy, why don't we trade-"
"Nein, nein. I vill be entirely okay vizz zis, und vill vear it vhen I am beink in human guise und practicing vizz mein Biggenbrassenparpenthingen. Thank you so much for your assistance, miss..."
"Lola, cob," Lola said.
"Indeed. You vill alvays be velcome in RC 347, Lola!" The Doktor bounced off again, the new present clanking in the bell of his sousaphone.
"... Wait, how did he pick it up -- oh, never mind. I'll drink to stop thinking about that later." And Lola wandered off, her tribble box under her arm.
"...you can always use that item when you're in human disguise on a mission!"
"What is that item, anyway?" asked Rayner. "I can't tell..."
Lapis gasped. "It's a Tough Glove!"
"A what?" asked E.V.L.
"That's right, a Tough Glove from Undertale!" said Backslash. "It provides +5 Attack, and your Attack will increase even further if you use up a Punch Card while wearing it!" He glanced at Lapis uncomfortably, rubbing his arm in spite of himself. "How did you know, anyway?"
Lapis side-eyed him warily, but replied anyway. "I have that game on Steam! It's amazing, and I'd highly recommend giving it a try if you have the time."
"I've seen a Let's Play of it, actually, including both the Neutral and Pacifist runs! I still need to play the game itself, though."
"Looks like Backslash and I are not the only ones who are filled with determination," Whitney laughed, before addressing the crowd at large. "We got that glove from a mission into that continuum a while ago. Sans/OC shipping... 'boners' and all."
"You do not want to know," Backslash added. "Trust me."
"So, does that mean we can pick our gifts together? Just this once?" asked Sarah.
"That would be a good idea," Whitney replied. "This way, we can save time for the remaining contestants."
The two of them stepped forward, nodding at each other, and simultaneously pulled out two different gifts. Whitney's was pretty tiny, but Sarah's was the largest by far, as tall as her and twice as heavy, and it was lucky her super-strength was up to the task of carrying it back.
Whitney opened hers first, raising an eyebrow. "Oooh, I hope I can adapt this to my dietary regimen. It looks and sounds pretty tasty!"
"What looks and sounds tasty?" asked Backslash, looking over her shoulder.
"The quesedilla recipe I just received. I'd like to cook up health-food-style Tex-Mex sometime, maybe even with the hot sauce that Crazy Dave used on the taco that kicks off the plot of Plants vs. Zombies 2!"
"I'll be the judge of that," said Backslash. "Perhaps you could teach me to cook as well, just in general."
"...You can't cook? Or the canon Shulk couldn't?"
Backslash looked visibly uncomfortable, so he tried changing the subject by calling, "Hey Sarah, what did you get?"
"Well..." The Super had peeled off the wrapping of her gift... and found herself hanging onto a giant cask decorated with a Viking motif. "...Let's just say I'm going to have to reserve a vault somewhere in the Incredibles equivalent of Fort Knox, preferably with a laser grid security system and a sixteen-digit combination lock."
Indeed, she and Lapis were trying to hold off a certain angel in a pink toga, who was reaching for the cask with a maniacal expression and screaming "MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE!"
"CUPID, NO!" cried Lapis. "YOU'VE ALREADY HAD YOUR TURN!!!"
"At least, I think it is. If you get the health-food variation to work, can you send me a sample? Mom would be really happy to know other people like her cooking."
Violet, meanwhile, joined Sarah and Lapis in their struggle by grabbing one of Cupid's arms. "Cupid, if you don't calm the fuck down I'm going to chicken-wing you," she threatened. "Sarah, stop holding it in front of his face, you're only making it worse."
"Aww... but I got that for Cupid... that was a birthday present from my Granddad, and I wanted to share with Cu—"
"MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!" Stephanie was interrupted by a pitch-perfect imitation of the seagulls from Finding Nemo. Kala smacked her husband on the back of the head. "Valon, not the time!"
"Now I know how DiNozzo feels..."
"You mean... You wanted us to..." He stared at Steph, dumbfounded, and then he blushed, hiding his face in front of his wings. "Steph, please stop, I'm going to die again!"
"So that's why you wanted the ale," said Lapis, her large anime eyes seeming to grow even larger. "You knew it was from her..."
Cupid managed a flustered "yes". Then he added, "And besides, I'm literally the only person in our RC who can use it. Of course I know better than to get wasted on it right away - I was just hoping we could share everything we got..."
"We can do that after this party," said Sarah. "I'm the only one of us who can carry this thing, and I'm certainly going to be keeping an eye on you in case you abuse this stuff. If you blow it off all at once and wreck half of HQ, I'm calling the DIA on your sorry sacred buns. Got it?"
Cupid nodded, still blushing. "I'm sorry for making you mad, Violet," he added to the other angel, before turning to the kraken girl. "I lost control back there, and I'll try not to do that next time. Oh, and Steph? You, me, Arctic Inn, Sunday evening. I hope you're up for ale and a dip!"
"I'm sorry for flipping out. I must have looked like the crazy ex-girlfriend. How long have you and Steph been dating? How'd you meet? What the heck kind of crazy continuum is she from, anyway?"
"Says the angel to the other angel," Chris snarked.
"Look, the only creatures with tentacles in Kid Icarus are the Space Kraken and Monoeyes. Forgive me for not immediately accepting an anthro squid-girl."
"I'm a kraken from Monster Musume. Nice to meet you!"
She quickly reeled both of the angels into a many-limbed hug. If Violet expected the eleven-foot squid-woman to crush her, she would have been corrected very quickly by Stephanie's gentleness.
He meandered near-spherically over to the now depleted pile of presents and examined the remains in close detail. With him was a silver bowl, though he would not use it; that, after all, would spoil the surprise and not be at all in keeping with the spirit of the thing. His soft, rather dainty hands ran over the remaining presents, and a keen-eared observer would have noted him mumbling to himself about the possibility of their contents. In the end, however, he turned away and rejoined his partner, the smile on his face only a little bit too wide.
"Miss von Lilith? I believe you have something of mine."
"And Glitter Girl, it's now your turn to pick something out of the pile."
Eve shrugged, passed the whip to Algie, and moved towards the pile again. This time, she picked up a particularly large box, before taking it back and opening it. Rayner looked inside as well, and then the two of them glanced at each other.
"I am taking these back to my pocket dimension of incarceration and playing them nonstop until you beg for mercy," said E.V.L., grinning.
"I swear to Celestia, Glitter Girl, if you try that load of horse-apples on me, you'll be answering to the Sunflower!"
"Why not? It's not like I can't have fun on weekdays, either."
"Yeah, well, your idea of fun synonymous with annoying the dreck out of me even in my sleep! Is that what the Flowers want from you?"
"Considering that I was assigned as your partner to punish you for your little oversight all those months ago, yes."
Rayner facepalmed and growled, "I hate you."
What was it in the box that had prompted their argument? A set of Hi-Fi speakers... and a triple album labeled "Now Zat's Vhat I Am Callink Oompah!"
Her horn lit up, and she very carefully levitated a plain black present from near the top of the pile over to her. The pile wobbled three times but did not fall.
"Nice," said Chris. "What'd you get?"
She opened the box...and squeed happily. "A magician's hat!" She took off her ordinary black hat and plopped the top hat on her head. As it was sized for a human, however, it fell down over her glasses, knocking them askew, and also completely covered her ears and horn. "Uh-oh. Um, is there anybody who can resize this for a pony...?"
When it vanished, the hat was now much smaller and fit Ami perfectly.
"Apologies for that, luv," said William, as he swiftly maneauvered through the crowd. "Should've added somethin' that would detect the head that wears the hat. The only thing it can do is reach into the Hammerspace, so I think that makes up for the size, no?"
"I think it's time for number twenty, luv. That's you, right?"
VJ looked up from her plate of snickerdoodles, and turned towards the stage where not a lot of gifts were left. "Bah!" She handed William the place and a cup of ice cream. "Hold this, please!"
She hopped onto the stage and took a look around. One perfectly cubed package caught her attention. After a quick unwrap, which consisted of basically shredding the wrapping paper into confetti, VJ was holding a very pretty wooden box. It was salmon pink, polished and lacquered, with a matching lid. Just seconds later, the lid popped off and a small, plushie clown on a spring appeared with a loud "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
VJ yelped, dropped the box, and jumped away. She was staring at the wobbling jack-in-a-box, hissing like a cat.
I'll be updating this as the RP goes along. Note to self: do this earlier next time.
Agent and Gift Received
Falchion - R8 revolver - stolen by the Aviator - Parthenon puzzle
Wobbles - Dreamcatcher
Chris - Wii Balance Board
Cupid - Box of memes
Will - Dark Yagami's skull
Violet - Vial of glitter
Lola - Sue Whip - stolen by E.V.L. - stole the Tribble from Zeb
Gaspard - Duck box
Lapis - Stale candy
Rayner - Chocolate eclairs
E.V.L. - Sue Whip stolen from Lola - stolen by Algie - hi-fi speakers and triple album
Ripper - Epic of Gilgamesh
Stephanie - Shark tooth necklace
The Guardsman - Diamond pick
Kala - Suvian laser spanner
Zeb - Tribble - stolen by Lola - Harry Potter books
Miguel - Cocktail recipes and mixer bottles
Backslash - Drawing of Toon Link
Valon - Mini-Omnidroid
VJ - Jack-in-the-box
Ami - Magician's hat
Algie - Sue whip stolen from E.V.L.
Whitney - Quesadilla recipe
Sarah - Viking ale
Doktor Trollenfisch - Tough glove
The Aviator - R8 revolver - stolen from Falchion
Harris -
"Lesseehere…" He started pointing at each of the remaining gifts and singing to himself. "See how the game of life is playing all of us for fools… dancing a string around us, making all these silly rules…
Each apparent beat of the song, he pointed at a different gift. "See how he looks down on us like we're acting out a show, throw the dice, and let's see which head will roooooll…" He finished on a shaking box a bit bigger than a basketball. "… a present that's pre-shaken, how thoughtful!" He popped it open, and found himself staring into the single eye of a five-armed metal ball.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEE! IT'S A MINI! MINIMINIMINI!" Valon hugged the mini-Omnidroid, which seemed to be getting rather dizzy from Valon's overjoyed spinning dance.
Kala rolled her eyes. "If anyone didn't see this coming, you really don't know my husband too well."
(OOC: The song is "The Game of Life." Well, more specifically, it's the English cover, sung by JubyPhonic.)
"...well, as long as you aren't a Super, which I really doubt." She laughed and rubbed the back of her head.
"Wait, why does the Super thing matter?" asked Cupid.
"The Omnidroid was originally designed as an anti-Super weapon. Luckily, mini-Omnidroids are far less likely to turn you to pink confetti. Who knows, maybe Adéle could give it a few useful functions for you."
"Assuming she doesn't blow herself up in the process, of course," added Lapis.
"Wait, how did you-"
"You told me about her, remember? Y'know, after you got back from FicPsych and got hugged by Steph?"
"Wait... you guys know Adéle? And, wait again, weren't you two at my wedding? Uh..." Valon racked his brains for a moment, before giving up. "... dammit. I'm awful with names."
He stood up, prepared to walk towards the pile, and then decided that it would be better to reach over with his scarf and grab the nearest present, which was surprisingly small and flat. Whitney facepalmed.
"Show-off," Sarah mumbled, offering Cupid a tissue.
As soon as Backslash opened up his present, his eyes widened. "Is that... Toon Link and a Great Fairy?!"
"It looks hand-drawn," said Whitney. "I think this would make an excellent wall decoration."
"Why, I can't agree more! Whomever drew this, you have my thanks! And Whitney's too, I gue-OW!"
The trainer had whapped him on the back of the head. "There's no need for me to thank anyone," she laughed. "I'm sure this wasn't intended for anybody specific."
"...Oh. Never mind, then!"
"Toon Link is one of my favorite characters, so I figured he'd be the perfect one to practice my drawing skills with. Have either of you played a Zelda game before?"
"I thought your special talents were making stuff happen when you sing and generally being smart?" Violet asked.
Ami nodded. "Key word 'special'. Anypony can learn vocabulary lists or the history of the Best Young Fliers competition or how to treat a hurt animal or something. It might not be her special talent, but she can learn it. The way I see it, anything that ends with me learning something new is worth my time and energy and however much stress I go through."
"Even missions?" Chris teased.
"I'd say so, yes."
"We're from the Video Games Division of the DMS! Of course we know the Zelda games!"
"You do, Backslash," Whitney chuckled. "Not all of us have actually played the games, you know."
"Oh? I thought - You mean you haven't touched the Zelda franchise?! Like, at all?!"
"I've visited it on missions, yes, but it's not my cup of tea, to be honest. And honestly, you really do need to get out more..."
Backslash muttered thanks to Ami for the drawing, but resorted to sulking until the next turn.
"Bwuh?" Miguel checked his ticket. "So it is. Thanks, Chris." He headed for the stage. Fortunately, since the pile of gifts was much smaller, he could pick a gift from the bottom and not worry about the whole thing collapsing. He opened it carefully... "Oh my God. Please tell me this has virgin recipes in it."
"Wait, what?" his partners asked.
Miguel hung his head and sighed. "We got a book of cocktail recipes and some mixers. A virgin cocktail, if what I read on the Internet is true, is a cocktail without any booze in it. Since I'm fifteen and Chris is technically twelve..."
"I'll have to have them, too," said Violet with a serious expression. "I don't know what other parts of the Sue I used to be stuck around after I got rescued, and I refuse to risk finding out that I'm just as bad as Cupid where booze is concerned." A few rows behind her, a certain someone sneezed twice in a row.
Ami smiled approvingly. "How mature! I'm impressed, Vi!" She created a magical hand for Violet to high-five.
"Common sense isn't the same as maturity," Violet grumbled, but she accepted the high-five anyway.
(Though I'm pretty sure we can revise that to having Sarah saying "Gesundheit" and "double Gesundheit" to her partner off-camera or something. XD)
"Ooh, is it my turn?" he asked. He checked his number and stood up, going over to the pile. He delicately grabbed a box in his mouth by the ribbon and carried it back to his spot, where he sat, puzzling at how to go about unwrapping it until the Aviator leaned over and pulled the paper off for him. "Thanks," Zeb said, nosing the lid off. He looked inside to see...
A ball of fur.
He tilted his head. "Um..."
The ball of fur purred and his eyes widened." Is that a Tribble?" he asked, backpedaling away from the box.
The Aviator leaned over to see for herself. "Looks like," she said, scooping it out of the box and cuddling it. "Aren't you a cute little thing?"
"Sure, it's cute now," Zeb said, "until you're neck deep in them and they've eaten everyone out of HQ."
"Hi, cob! Forgot you were on the guest list. If you're concerned about being able to control a Tribble, well, I'd be only too happy to take the little fluffball off your hands." Lola prodded the Tribble in the box. "Whosa good Tribble? Whosit? Is it you? Yes! Yes, it's you!"
Zeb's ears flattened against his head. "Just, these things breed really fast if you let them eat anything..."
"That's okay. I'm DIA; it's not like I'm not good at keeping stuff locked up. That was a joke. Why're you looking at me like that, cob?"
She did not look too happy at Lola's last statement.
"Erm, well, if you're sure," he said. "Seriously, though, don't let it eat anything. It won't be pretty if you do." He nodded at the Aviator, who gingerly handed the Tribble to Lola like she might bite.
Lola stroked it idly as she looked around. "Thanks, cob. I appreciate that. And, er, listen, whoever you are..." Lola sighed. "I'm guessing you've had some bad experiences with my colleagues. It happens. Way, way more than it should. If there's anything you need, anything I can do to help, you come find me, okay? We're not all bad." She gave a chirpy, slightly winsome grin.
"We-e-ell," Zeb said, trying to think of some way to break the hostile silence, "I, uh, I guess I need to pick again, right?" He padded over to the pile of presents and picked out a rather heavy one, pushing it along the floor with his nose until the Aviator got up and carried it back for him.
"Opposable thumbs, much?" she muttered.
"Shaddap," he said good-naturedly, and set about ripping the paper off with his teeth. His eyes lit up when he saw what was inside. "New Harry Potter books!"
((Would it be possible for the spreadsheet to show who's picked what? I'm starting to lose track.))
"Heh, I love those books too. My partner - he's over there, I think you've met - absolutely adores them, but then he's really into magic as a field of study. I mean, I just kind of let him get on with it, y'know? Just so long as there's something heavy to hide behind." She looked back at the Aviator, took in her scowl, and looked back at Zeb with a raised eyebrow. "Is... she alright? I'd ask directly, but I'm not sure I'd get an answer."
He looked back at his partner, then at the gathered agents, laughing and having a good time.
"I'll tell you later," he said quietly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Aviator slouch further in her seat.
"Alright, cob. It's obviously a bit of a touchy subject, but I'll hold you to that. See you in Rudi's sometime, maybe? Feel free to bring your partner along too. Now there's a woman in need of a Screaming Orgasm or six." She grinned. "It's a cocktail, before you ask. Oh, jeez, I've said something else wrong now, haven't I? See, this is why I let Algie do the talking. I'm no bloody good at it when it's not being shouted over a comm."
"It's probably not a good ide--" he began.
"Rudi's sounds great," the Aviator butted in, cutting him off. She gave Zeb a tight smile and nodded at Lola. "After this is done, then?"
"Sure! Just warning you, I'm not completely human. I got augmented in my homefic with a bunch of weird alien tech we didn't really understand, so, er, just... be careful. Or don't. Up to you, really, but just let me know in advance so I can bring the wheelbarrow for you behind the bar. Of course, if you're not quite human either, that just makes things more interesting." Lola's grin stretched ever wider. "See you both there! Oh, and I promise not to let my partner try out his bleep stuff on you again. They're getting better, I'll give him that, but I prefer drinks that don't bend space and time into interesting shapes."
"I'm a Time Lord. Got two livers and a fast-acting metabolism, so it should be interesting to see if your alien tech can keep up."
She flinched at the presence of an alien.
"Yeah. Um. I... know a bit about Time Lord biology. Well then!" She tried to brass it out, and to her credit she almost succeeded. "I guess that'll make things really interesting then, eh, cob? I'll have to put you on the good stuff too. Make things a bit fairer. See you after this?"
Zeb just groaned and put his head on his paws.
Kala scuttled up to the pile of gifts and selected one of the smallest boxes. She rapidly tore the box apart, and looked at its contents curiously.
"… what is it? It looks like a sonic screwdriver, but I don't recall those having a hook at the end, or having these really stupid eye-burning colors…" She pressed a button on the device, and a red laser connected the base and tip.
Valon stared covetously at the gadget. "… hon? I think you just nabbed yourself a laser spanner."
((The laser spanner's got a wilver casing and bismange light, so it's not fun to look at.))
"Yep, that's a laser spanner," the Aviator said. "Sorry about the coloring, but what do you expect from Suvian instruments? And just a heads-up, I don't know how long that one will last. Alex's broke down after about seven months, so..." She shrugged.
"All right, my turn. Let's have a go at it, shall we?"
He sauntered over to the gift pile and examined it for a few seconds. Once again, there was a flat envelope-- but the Guardsman decided to skip it this time. Instead, he chose a largeish plain-looking box and returned to his seat. He popped the lid and lifted a diamond pickaxe from the box.
"Ooooh. Shiny," he said, turning the pickaxe over in his hands. "Right when I was considering putting money into some short-range bludgeoning weapon. Perfect."
"Then you'll love that pickaxe! We snagged it from the PPC's first ever Minecraft Sue a while ago. The fic didn't specified what enchantments it had, but we now know it's got Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, and Fortune III. It didn't have Silk Touch, though. Wonder why they skipped that?"
"Because it's ridiculously counter-productive when mining for diamonds and other gems, and renders the Fortune III completely useless?" asked E.V.L.
"...Dang. I never thought of that before!"
The Guardsman gave it an experimental swing, trying to get a feel for the pickaxe's balance. "Well, that suits me just fine. The point man should be the one to breach the doors and walls after all." He examined the glowing pickaxe head. "Plus, it's a shiny. Shiny things are powerful-- that's a proven law of nature, y'know."
"My turn my turn my turn! Let's see..." Her two tentacles grabbed a small box that seemed even smaller next to the eleven-foot kraken. "Ooooh, what's in heeere?"
Carefully opening the box, so as to not damage its contents, Stephanie found herself holding a bunch of bony triangles on a string. "Shark teeth?" Her skin momentarily changed to the shock-white color of fear, before its color and texture changed to match burnished gold. "I don't know who made this, but I love it!"
(OOC: Yup, Stephanie's skin is a mood ring when she's not paying attention to it.)
"And don't worry, it's 100-percent ocean-friendly! I even made it myself..."
"...from your own shed teeth, right?" said Sarah.
Lapis yelped, her face turning first blue and then red. "Sarah! Who gave you the right say that?!"
"Hey, I was just asking!"
"Huh? Your teeth? But... they're sharp and pointy... and I hate sharks... sharks eat kraken kids that play alone..."
"Aah! I'm so sorry, I totally forgot about-"
"It's okay, Lapis," said Sarah. "They're not ACTUAL shark's teeth."
"Yeah, but they still-"
"So, what? She still liked it!" Cupid patted her shoulder. "You don't have to get upset as long as she knows what it really is."
"Yeah, but... my homefic gave me the teeth I have now, remember?" Lapis looked at the floor, sniffling. "I got them after channeling the power of a fan made legendary Pokémon, and they've stuck with me ever since."
"We know, Lapis, and we completely understand," said Sarah, patting her head. "It's just that, well, you're past that now, like we both are with our histories. Get over it," she added with a chuckle.
Lapis snuggled the other girl, still sniffling. "Well, uh, thanks. I guess."
(OOC: Since a new RP is starting up, will there be a conclusion post to this one? Thanks!)
...and picked up a rather tiny gift in his jaws, before carrying it back to his seat. The object inside looked rather delicate, so he had to be extra careful peeling the wrapper off with his teeth and talons. Inside was... a book.
Falchion looked at the book in confusion. "Uh... Ripper? Are you sure you can read that? It looks like it's written in some kind of alien language-"
"It's Sumerian. It will take me a while to translate it, but I could hopefully transcribe it. Perhaps it contains some secret message that only a very specific recipient can understand..."
"Ah. I'll leave it up to you, then."
(OOC: Terribly sorry about the wait! Between preparing for my new job starting next week and working on a new mission, I haven't gotten the time to do Internet things as often as I'd like. Hopefully that'll change once I get my schedule reorganized after the job starts!)
Kala's tail waved back and forth. "The world's first epic. And, if the legends of my people are to be believed, our ancestor was the guide of Gilgamesh himself."
Her husband shrugged. "Who knows? In your world, he might have been. There's no telling what historical liminals were like."
..."I'm sure this would be an interesting read. Thank you, Kala."
"Technically, she didn't give it to you," said Falchion, stifling a laugh. "She just put the gift in the pile and you picked it randomly."
"Ah. Very true. Though I suppose Rashida would like this even more, seeing as mythology is more suited to her. Maybe I could give it to her sometime?"
"Shhh! Not in front of Kala!"
(We did finish it last year, after all. I was waiting on SeaTurtle's reply regarding the chocolate eclairs, though. If that's already turned up or doesn't turn up by the end of today, I'll post Ripper's turn and then we can continue.)
Funnily enough, I was waiting on you (or, more specifically, E.V.L. Knievel) to respond to Algie and/or Lola. Which you could conceivably have done quite easily while waiting for Gaspard's response to, er, cream-filled buns, thus filling up a bit more time. Just a thought. =]
@SeaTurtle: Sorry about not responding to Gaspard and Wobbles' interaction. I, er, didn't really have much more for Wobbles to say, though I should probably have put that in the thread. Apologies again.
(...I actually didn't have a response planned for E.V.L. And I was busy preparing for work and stuff, so I probably didn't get the time to think of any, sorry. :c On the flipside, though, wasn't Lola supposed to pick a new gift since hers got stolen? That could've been taken care of during the holdup as well, I guess.
EDIT: I'm a derp and mentioned the wrong player. Sorry! ;)
Plus, I didn't want to take up a whole new post; it would have just confused people. =]
((Nah, it's cool. He doesn't have much to say either.))
((Oh, you can go on right away-- Gaspard doesn't have anything to say about his éclairs. He's got other things on his mind.))
...who stepped in and immediately plucked what looked like a gift-wrapped bag from the pile. Taking it back to her group, she opened it up and...
"...What the heck? I know this isn't as nasty as E.V.L.'s glitter, but who in Unova would wrap up and mail-order a pile of stale candy?"
"Can I eat it? I'm hungry!" Cupid piped up.
Lapis' face turned slightly blue. "No, don't! What if it's turned into something poisonous?!"
Rayner, meanwhile, had stood up as well, and picked another box from the pile. He undid the wrapper, opened it up, and pulled out something much more appetizing: A box of chocolate eclairs.
"I'd give these to you and pick something else, Cupid, but you've already got your gift. Ah well. Chocolate's fine by me."
"Can we share?" asked E.V.L.
"NO. Also, it's your turn."
E.V.L. smiled broadly. "Alright, then. Time to sow the seeds of chaos. Algie, give me that whip."
"But you already have your-" Rayner began-
"Give. Me. The whip."
(OOC: Totally forgot that I was next in line. Derp.
EDIT: Edited twice - Turns out I had the next three turns in a row! Saving Ripper's turn for after the fallout from this post, btw.)
"Though far be it from me to get in between a woman of such... singular stature and her quest for a family heirloom. If you care to look to your right, you will see the object of your desires in the possession of a stocky, heavily augmented professional soldier, a leader of men and obliterator of monsters from beyond the dome of Heaven, which I shall presently fetch for you. Now, if you'd be so good as to excuse me?"
This was about as close as Algie ever got to breaking out the effector fields and turning someone into an art installation, but he remained outwardly calm and smiling. He wandered over to where Lola was still... gyrating (poorly, and to music that only really existed in her head), for want of a better phrase, and produced the pamphlet. He then spent a few minutes trying to make Lola see reason, before sighing and having her march over to the ex-Sue and thrust the whip at her, in a rather sulky fashion not quite befitting the Commander's station.
"And aren't you supposed to take a new gift now that yours is mine?" she asked, winking.
"Yeah, what she said," added Rayner. "You can either steal from someone else or pick a new gift. Your choice."
"Well, as you can see, I took the second option. It was that or pick one of the presents left on the pile, and, well, take a look for yourself." Sure enough, the pile of presents had been eaten away at the base, so that the entire edifice was as precariously balanced as the latter stages of a Jenga game. "I still would've liked the whip though, but it's like Algie said. I wouldn't want to deprive you of something so obviously close to your heart. Anyone you knew go into making that, cob?"
"It's not stale, either, I kept it in the minifridge and everything! Wait...do you have a nut allergy? I think I left some Hershey's almond bars in there by mistake."
"No you didn't," said Violet. "Remember? Miguel and I ate all the almond candy bars in like a week."
"You ate all the almond ones," Miguel corrected. "And the sour gummy worms. And those disgusting black Twizzlers. And at least half the Tootsie Rolls, even the flavored ones. And all five of those giant lollipops..."
Violet turned red. "Shut up, Miguel! You're making me look bad!"
"I can prove it, too," he said with a wry smile. "I mean, it'd totally break the universe since I'd be meeting myself, but I can take you back in time and show you exactly how much of Chris' Halloween candy you ate."
The angel promptly smacked him upside the head.
Ami rolled her eyes. "Guys, I know you're both teenagers, but stop acting like them."
"Miguel started it," said Violet.
"I don't care who started it, don't fight in public," said Chris.
"Whatever, Dad," Violet snarked.
There was an extremely uncomfortable silence.
In response, the Spy snored gently in his chair. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was tilted precariously to the right in his seat. Harris, who was seated next to him, looked around the room at the other guests.
"It's your turn, Gaspard. Wake up. "
Again, he snored. Harris leaned over and poked his colleague with a finger. "Hey, wake up." No response. Harris got up and tapped Gaspard's shoulder. "Come on, now..."
Gaspard started leaning more and more to the right. As the inevitable approached, Harris stepped back. "Well, that's sure to wake him up," he muttered as Gaspard fell to the floor with a crash.
"Argh." Gaspard slowly got up and looked at Harris, who wordlessly pointed at the gift pile. He then noticed the entire auditorium staring at him. "O-oh! S-sorry, I, um, I…" He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. "I-it's just th-that I had a, um, long day, er, days and I haven't had m-much, er, time to… um… sleep, and I've not b-been having the best times recently, and, em…"
"Just grab your present, Gaspard," said Harris as he regained his seat. "C'mon, keep it moving."
"O-okay… Sorry…" Gaspard quickly made his way to the pile of gifts, staring at his shoes all the while. He selected the first thing that he saw—a medium-sized box—and quickly shuffled back to his seat.
Cheer up, he thought to himself. You should be happy that you got a present. You don't want to look like an ingrate, do you? Smile. Remember to smile. Be normal. Smile, and be happy. Whatever is inside will make you happy. It's going to make up for the awful day you've been having.
Still conscious that all eyes were on him, he slowly lifted the lid. It was weighted and seemed to be holding something down. A small wheeze escaped from inside the box. He swallowed nervously and opened the box. He was greeted by a Pandora's Box of wailing, squealing rubber chickens. After the infernal noise died down, Gaspard was left looking at the box, lid still in his hands.
"Thank you," he said quietly to whomever was the owner of his box and, for reasons he didn't quite understand, dissolved into a giggling fit, pausing occasionally to draw breath and wipe tears from his eyes.
((Don't worry about him. He'll be all right after his fit.))
Wobbles couldn't help herself. She joined in with the other agent's slightly manic laughter and walked over to him, bouncing up to hang her dream catcher on a convenient stacked chair. Yes, the ducks were funny, but there was an edge to that laugh that she knew all too well, and all the more for how vividly she remembered it.
She put an arm around him as his giggling fit died away, the lights on her bow tie turned off and the comedy squeakers in her shoes silenced with a deft flick of a toe. "Y'know," she said softly, "I've been where you are. I know how to spot when someone's there. So have a.little extra gift from me, and if you're struggling at all, day or night, just... know that you don't have to go it alone all the time. Okay?"
...and flicked away some of the wetness in his eyes with his index finger.
"Yes, ma'am. And sorry," he mumbled. "Th'was kinda embarrassing. Won't happen again. Sorry."
Despite that, what she wanted to do was grab him and give him a hug, but he was obviously so deep in what she'd once called Negative Response Territory that she was certain it'd do more harm than good. "You don't need to apologise. Not here, and never to me."
Gaspard accepted the handkerchief and wiped away the final traces of tears from his eyes then offered it back to Wobbles. "Yeah, I'm okay. It just comes out every now and then-- I'm good now. Heh. Nobody likes a crybaby anyways, so... yeah. Let's just pretend it never happened," he said, looking at his box. "But, um, asking me to stop apologizing is really going against everything I stand for as a Canadian. It's in our blood to apologize, see." He smiled weakly at the Floater agent.
"I was... technically from Forks, Washington, once upon a time. I felt like I had to apologise for existing, the first few months I was here. Both for my home canon and for my home fic, which was... yeah. Hoo boy, that was a doozy." Wobbles looked quickly at the handkerchief. "Keep it. Please. I got a ton of 'em." And she tugged at her ear and began to produce a string of flags-of-all-nations, enough to wind around her entire arm. "See? Proof. Besides, take it as a sign that you don't have to be alone if you don't want to be."
She smiled, and fought desperately to refrain from giving him another hug. She could see what was wrong with him, but more than that, she could feel it, rolling off him in black waves. Everything he said was hollow and forced, the brittle, self-effacing politeness an act she'd seen a lot of people use during her time in FicPsych. She'd only ever suffered from Suvian depression, but this was quite self-evidently the real deal.
And she was scared for him.
Gaspard very carefully folded the handkerchief and placed it on top of the box. He felt that it would be rude to cram it in a pocket in front of Wobbles. "Not alone if I don't want to be. Heh. Well, I try," he said, discreetly gesticulating at the rest of the partygoers. "Sometimes it doesn't turn out the way I hope. Oh well. Try and try again."
Doesn't turn out right 'most of the time', added his brain. I mean, you did cry in public today. For shame. Go and hide or something-- save what little honour remains after all these years.
...who doubled over, laughing so hard he could barely speak. As did the agents of RCs #333, #1,333,316,666, and #88224646BA. (Ripper simply stared at the Duck Box in utter confusion.)
"Well, looks like somebody knows how to use that box," said Backslash.
"A box of screaming rubber chickens!" Cupid cried. "Why didn't I think of that?!"
"They're pelicans, technically speaking," Falchion replied, having barely regained his composure.
"Well, this certainly makes up for your gift from LAST year," said Sarah.
Falchion snapped his beak at her. "Not. A word."
(OOC: Sorry for not replying sooner, btw. I can't use the Internet on my computer till Comcast service arrives on Monday, so I had to make do with mobile.)
"Come in number seven, your time is up," Lola muttered under her breath. She'd rather lucked out, in her estimation of things; not right at the start when everyone was staring and all excited, but not so low down that she'd only be left with the presents that spat sparks. She bounced amiably up to the stage and managed to avoid tripping on the mike, and looked up and down at the presents. Algie's big lump of a thing was supporting a few of the others, so that was out. Hm. What was another box...
Her gaze alighted on a disc-shaped present at the bottom. Intrigued, she selected it and finally unwrapped it. And there it was. A Sue whip, made of 100% ethically-sourced glitter-powered abomination. She ran her fingers gently along the length of it, feeling how the hair was still salon-soft, despite having been hacked off the Suvian or Suvians in question some time ago and still containing flecks of glitter, sparkling like hot pink diamonds.
Then a bad thing happened. A very, very bad thing. It was very easy to tell how bad of a thing it was, because of how much Lola was grinning.
Algie, who knew how to look for the signs of the Commander breaking into song, had quietly sidled off to the impromptu bar at the back.
VJ, who was also attacking the mini-bar, looked at Algie. She was holding a small paper plate full of snickerdoodles. Crumbs on her shirt, and around her mouth, suggested that some of the cookies have already met their doom.
"Making that whip was fun," she said. "Even months after the mission, the hair stayed supple enough to be woven. The only problem was the shape; those stupid locks seemed to have the memory of always staying perfect, so every single time they would simply turn into curls."
"Indeed?" His tone was studiedly mild. "I confess to being entirely ignorant as to the construction of Suvian artifacts; a personal preference on my part. But it brings the Commander evident and keenly-felt pleasure, and for that you have my deepest thanks. As, I am sure, you have hers." The round little man drained his glass and smiled. "May I get you anything? The wine list is a little sparse since last week's incursion into Stores, but there's a rather daring Montrachet '06 on offer that I wholeheartedly recommend. An underrated year, in my opinion, and worth further consideration."
She hummed the Lunar Sanctum theme as she walked up to the stage. "Wow, check out all that shiny wrapping paper!" She picked a small box with red paper and opened it. "Aw, what?! Whose dumb idea was the glitter?!"
Rayner stopped giving the feathery Floaters an admiring look, and instead glared at his partner. "Please don't tell me you saved your extracted glitter for THIS!"
She blew a hair strand from her face. "I didn't intend to give it away in this Gift Exchange specifically. I simply had no use for it and decided to save myself the trouble of finding an actual gift."
Rayner facepalmed. "Well, you sure sound like you'd be fun in class..."
"Are you telling me that this is capital-G Glitter and therefore basically your blood? 'Cause that's fucked up even by PPC standards."
"I can get Cyndaquil to burn it if you want," said Miguel.
"NO!" Chris and Ami protested.
"...so it's not like it'll corrupt anybody anytime soon. Of course, I was hoping someone who knew a contact from the DMSE&R could get their hands on it. You know, for research purposes."
She glanced at the other participants (some of whom looked understandably grossed out - especially the one with the blue hair). "Though of course, if anybody actually WANTS it, there's always the option of stealing it..."
Rayner, meanwhile, had sunk to the floor and buried his face in his knees now. "Note to self: Avoid inviting Glitter Girl to parties at all costs. Next player!"
With his hands hidden inside the frock coat's pockets, William casually strolled onstage. He briefly glanced over the packages, before picking one. There was no need to deliberate; every box was covered with a gift wrap, so why not just let Lady Luck decide? The box that William grabbed was wrapped in black paper and dark red ribbon.
"Oh? What do we have here? Let me see..." He reached into the box, and pulled out... a skull. Seemingly a human skull, except for the front part which had way more eye sockets than necessary. Seventy-nine, to be exact. William grabbed the skull with one hand, and raised it slightly above his head. He then put his other hand against his forehead, and looked at VJ. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio..."
His partner only smiled and shooked her head.
"...he hath borne me on his back a thousand times..." Ripper continued, trailing off when Falchion stared at him.
"Since when did you start quoting Shakespeare?"
"Since now. Though I have been reading the works of that author for quite some time."
"And is that really Dark Yagami's skull?"
Rayner turned to stare at Ripper. "Did I hear that right? Did you guys kill THE Dark Yagami?!"
"With help from a magic fireball," Ripper replied, ruffling his feathers a little. "To use hominid parlance, no biggie."
The warlock hopped down from the stage, holding the skull with both hands. Faint glimmer of green light seemed to be coming from his fingertips, encasing the skull in a thin net of green veins. The skull suddenly escaped William's palms, and smoothly levitated next to the man's head.
"Adds to the whole 'Master of the Dark Arts' vibe, doesn't it?" William smiled, and the skull opened its mouth. Trail of green smoke came out of it, briefly formed into a snake, and dispersed as quickly as it appeared.
"I should've put a sign on that Balance Board saying, 'Batteries not included'!" Whitney chuckled. "It comes to life once you put them in, by the way."
"Well, that explains why it threw me halfway across the room when I tried to use it," said Backslash. "I'm not so concerned about the batteries, though, but rather the fact that those guys don't have a game to go with it!"
Whitney facepalmed. "That's what I was missing! I'll tell you what, uh, Chris? That's you, isn't it? I'll send you a game disc for Wii Fit as soon as I can, and one for Wii Fit U as well to compensate for today."
Backslash reached over to Cupid with his scarf and poked him in the side. "Uh, Drunky? It's your turn."
"Huh? Oh! Right, coming!"
A few moments later, the angel had brought back a rather large box. He tore the wrapping to shreds, opened it up, and-
Lapis, as usual, screamed in terror and leaped onto Rayner's head. It was then that the two agents noticed the words "BOX OF MEMES" written on the side of the box.
Cupid stared into the contents of said box for several moments, during which they let ouy more memetic cries of "AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA", "PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME", "HEEEEEYAAAAAAAAA", etc. Then he shut the box and stared off into space.
"...I have mixed feelings about this."
"But since we don't have a Wii U yet, could you give us Wii Fit Plus instead?" asked Chris. "I know that sounds rude, but..."
((OOC: Sorry for the late reply, the Internet's out at my house.))
"Yep. Just like my husband to donate one of the weirdest things possible."
The tall agent calmed down just enough to put words together. "Heheheh... yeah, I basically just shoved an MLG compilation in there." What appeared to be a Magnemite, with a baseball cap and a hashtag in place of one of its magnets, escaped from the box and floated around Cupid. "Congratulations, Pitthree, you now have a pet Swagnemite!"
He suddenly noticed someone else in the room, and nudged his wife with a whisper. "Hey, Kala..." He pointed out Lola. "Doesn't she look familiar to you?"
As for Cupid, he put the box down gingerly and then reached out to touch the Swagnemite... which shocked him while letting out a noise like an airhorn.
His hair standing on end and smoldering, he turned to Sarah. "Could you do me a favor? The Writhing Mass must never know about this at any cost. EVER."
Lapis continued whimpering in terror even after the racket had stopped, still clinging to Rayner's head.
(OOC: As of today, I will be doing all of my Internet things from Chevy Chase! The road trip there and unpacking all my stuff was the reason I wasn't available to post earlier, so I apologize if you were expecting something sooner. Anyway, I've decided to challenge myself for this Gift Exchange - since I have no less than nine agents participating, I want to see if none of them gets a gift from each other, i.e. each of them gets a gift originally sent in from an agent from another Boarder. With that, let's get started!
As a reminder, the rules for the Gift Exchange can be found here.)
"D'awwww," the Skarmory cooed, stepping forward towards the massive pile and singling out a rather small present.
"Adam, you featherbrain, it's 'awe', not 'aww'!" called Sarah, facepalming with a laugh. "With an 'e'!"
"I know that!" Falchion replied. "I already awed at the pile in general, but I think this little shiny box looks pretty cute! Y'know what, I'm taking it."
Picking the box up in one of his talons, he hopped back to his place in the crowd, pecked it open, and pulled out...
...a gun.
"Oookay, not as cute..."
"Hey, it's cute enough-- especially when you realize that this thing is ridiculously overpowered. It's a R8 revolver from a previous patch of that new Counter-Strike game," said the Guardsman. "Completely broken. You load it with .357 Magnum but it hits harder than a fifty-cal round. Seriously. It's fantastic! It can one-shot a humanoid target in the head, chest, arms, and stomach at mid-to-long range regardless of if your target is wearing body armour or not. Doesn't matter if your Suvian target is protecting itself with armour, a shield, a brick wall, whatever-- the R8 is going to punch right through it. Have fun with that and don't point it at your friends.
"Just, uh... it's obviously not loaded at the moment and I didn't have enough spare change to buy some ammo. You're gonna have to get it yourself."
((EDIT: spelling, cleanup.))
"At the risk of tempting the Ironic Overpower, I think I'm keeping this." Falchion fawned over the revolver with a cooing like a Pidove, trying to hold it properly with his talons.
"Falchion, are you sure about this?" asked Lapis, sweat-dropping and soaking her shirt. "I kinda doubt you'll be good with firearms even with an aim that good."
"Hey, I'm turning 23 this year. I'm 100-percent sure."
BLAM! A button-sized hole appeared on the ceiling, making Lapis scream and hide behind Cupid's wing.
Falchion yelped and put the revolver down. "...99-percent sure."
(OOC: Is it okay if people can start up their turn after the previous player has opened up their gift, without waiting for responses for the previous turn? I think this fast-tracking would help speed up the completion of this RP. Thoughts, guys?)
Careful, obviously, to avoid the microphone. Or the wires. Or, for that matter, anything that looked even vaguely technological.
"Oh boy oh boy oh boy, I can't wait! I'm... I'm gonna take this one from up top here!" She leaned up and grabbed the most innocuous looking present she could, promptly disembowelling it in a frenzy of wrapping paper that rained down over the Doktor like confetti. He didn't seem to mind, possibly on account of being as terminally cheerful as Wobbles was herself.
"Oh, wow! It's a... it's a thing! Yup, definitely a thing of some description or another!" She held the dreamcatcher aloft and gave it an experimental prod with her free hand. "Wait a minute, I know what this is! Oooooh, this is definitely going on the ceiliiiiing!"
((OOC: Having had a look at the gift list... er, Skarm, would you care to explain why Algie's gimmick (his fascination with Bleeport has long been a characteristic) that he can't get to remain stable (also a defining characteristic) is currently in possession of someone he's never bloody met? And that's leaving aside the fact that white port is absolutely godawful...))
(AFAIK, the only similarity I see between Cupid and Algie is their drinking habit, and that is a complete coincidence because I didn't know Algie even existed when I wrote the first few missions with Cupid. The fic I sporked in the mission that led to Cupid's creation featured Pit getting a nasty drinking habit among other things when the memory sickness affected him. I picked Bleeport as his signature drink because it fit the Greek theme (I don't recall vodka or whiskey being a thing in the Hellenistic era), but Cupid has never once experimented with it even if he knows the cultivars. I picked Chardonnay because I wanted an expensive wine cultivar, and that was the first to come to my head.
At the interest of distinguishing Cupid's gift from Algie's, though, I've changed the former to a six-pack of Drinks of the Gods, from Kid Icarus: Uprising. I apologize for the confusion. :C
Also, for all future turns, can participants please reply to the introductory post rather than to the post with the previous turn? This way, it'll be easier for us to keep track of whose turn it is.
(I'll follow my own advice sometime tomorrow morning, along with posting Whitney's reply. I meant for my earlier sentiment to go to everyone in general, though, so nobody would get confused about whose turn it was.)
He walked onstage and up to the massive pile of gifts, trying not to trip over a wire or the strange, shiny, talking Qwilfish. The pile looked a little unstable, so Chris pulled out a generic blue present with a white ribbon from the middle. "Hopefully this one's not gonna be creepy like last year's." He untied and pocketed the ribbon, then opened the gift to reveal a Wii Balance Board. "O...K? Well, I think we have games this'll work for..."
"Kind of a letdown, huh?" Miguel whispered to Ami.
"I just hope we have enough batteries," she whispered back.
((The Guardsman just said that the R8 was unloaded. There wasn't anything to shoot in the cylinder's chambers.))
(Ignore my last two lines in that case, please. Onto the next player!)
Especially guns that can instantly kill anything no matter what part it hits.
Yep, absolutely hysterical.
((...for ease of access. Here we go!))
Edit: I'm blind. Didn't see the other post down below.


text:
Inaburra School
Love tells a story through several intertwined vignettes on the themes of love, gender, fate and consequence. It is a depiction of what I have learnt about human nature: that men and women are equally deadly in design, equally guilty. It is based on the consequences of drink-spiking, unfortunately a problem in our society that is not going to disappear. This film is my interpretation of its effects.
I chose 'film' to make a moving painting – the images and music are intended to disturb, much like the people and the substances that create these harsh realities.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
AMES, Iowa (AP) Tyrus McGee scored 16 points and Will Clyburn and Georges Niang each added 14 as Iowa State remained unbeaten with an 86-57 romp past North Carolina A&T on Tuesday night.
Melvin Ejim contributed eight points and 10 rebounds for the Cyclones (4-0), who put the Aggies away with a big run late in the first half after a terrible start.
Unchallenged so far, Iowa State's competition will crank up several notches when it meets No. 22 Cincinnati on Friday in Las Vegas. The Cyclones have won their games by an average of 32.5 points
Jean Louisme led North Carolina A&T (1-4) with 11 points.


text:
Contracted MRSA and Herpes from being rimmed
To Dr. Bob,
On May 31st, 2007 I went to a Massage Parlour where I received oral sex with saran wrap on my penis for about a minute and then was rimmed by the prostitute while I masturbated until I finished. I was extremely nervous afterwards and went home and washed thoroughly. There was a cut around my anus from my girlfriend niking me while she rubbed down there previous. About 2 weeks later I had a fever, pus, and sores around my anus. I went to my primary care and she suspected herpes and MRSA. I also went to my Dermatologist who confirmed both. In June 2007 I got tested for HIV and tested negative. In July, I was tested by blood for Herpes and this came back positive for HSV 1. My girlfriend (now wife)was also tested in August 2007 for Herpes and HIV, the herpes came back positive for HSV 1 and HIV negative. I then got tested by a swab to my penis for other std's and they came back negative. My dermatologist also swabbed my nose and no MRSA was present. By September of 2007 the MRSA was all cleared up and I received another HIV antibody test by blood from my Primary care on Sept 19 2007 and this was negative. In early January 2008 I got tested again for HIV and this was negative. I then got tested in April of 2008 any May 31 2008 for HIV and these antibody tests were also negative.
My concern is this happend when I was 23 going to be 24, and now I am 25 and still not sure whether or not I conclusively do not have HIV. My girlfriend (now wife) has also been retested for HIV in early MAY 2008 and she was also negative.
I have been only with my wife (since this incident) and according to her (which I truly believe) she has only been with me during the 6 plus years we have been together. I am still very concerned as I have neck pains, diarrhea, swollen lymph nodes, pink eye, various pains throughout body, head aches, pain in groin, sides of body, unexplained rashes, on and off till this very day of 12/14/2008. Me and my wife continue to have unprotected sex (oral, rimming, fingering etc...)throughout this whole time...even though we have been completely monogomous with one another since my incident on May 31st 2007.
I am very concerned about and have questions with regards to the following:
Could HIV not show up on the antibody tests yet due to exposure to Herpes 1 and MRSA at same time?
Could the chronic herpes outbreaks every two months in the anus region (easily cured by valtrex after couple of days) indicate HIV?
Is herpes a chronic condition? Is it an immune suppressing condition?
Could the mark (hole) by my anus from the MRSA indicate anything?
I get tested at my primary care physician's office and this is sent out to a lab....could these samples which mostly sit over the weekend be contaminated and not produce the accurate results?
Is my immune system taking longer to produce antibodies to HIV due to the dual exposure of MRSA and herpes?
Thanks in advance Dr. Bob, this website and your foundation is doing great things....I am a fortunate individual economically speaking and plan on contributing a great amount to further your admirable cause.
If you could respond as soon as you could as it would be helpful, cause I am still verry worried and am wondering if I should go see a infectious disease doctor, go directly to the lab to get tested, or get a pcr test....not sure.....thanks again.
The massage parlor used Saran wrap on your Mr. Happy? Hmm . . . I'm glad they are adhering to safer sex principles, but when a sex worker, I mean massage technician, doesn't have a supply of latex condoms on hand and needs to resort to items found on aisle three at the local Piggly Wiggly, it's usually not a good prognostic sign.
No doubt your anal nick put you at risk for MRSA and possibly HSV as well. These types of infections are much easier to acquire than HIV. Your repeatedly negative HIV tests out to one year from the time of your massage sexperience are definitive and conclusive. HIV is not your problem.
Responding to your specific questions:
No. If you were HIV infected, the HIV-antibody tests would have been positive. Having MRSA and HSV-1 would not affect the accuracy of these tests or the duration of the "window period."
Your HIV-antibody tests are definitive and conclusive. You are HIV negative. Consequently, your recurrent herpetic outbreaks are not related. No way. No how. By the way, if they recur that frequently, you should consider chronic suppression therapy taken on a daily basis rather than just treating the outbreaks.
Yes, it is a chronic condition. However, it does not suppress the immune system.
This is most likely just a healed defect in the skin caused by the infection (indented scar tissue).
No. Your physician's office and the laboratory know how to handle specimens to assure the results remain accurate.
No, absolutely not.
Your worries about unrecognized or delayed HIV are unwarranted. No doubt this entire experience was psychologically terrifying for you and this may account for some of your symptoms and persistent fears of being HIV infected. However, I can assure you that you dodged the HIV bullet. No further HIV tests are warranted. Whatever is causing your ongoing symptoms, one thing is absolutely certain: it's not HIV! Your general internist (general medical doctor) should be able to help you sort out any persistent symptoms.
Thank you for your willingness to make a donation to the Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation (www.concertedeffort.org). Please accept my heartfelt appreciation for your desire to help those whose lives have been shattered by the AIDS pandemic.
Be well. Stay well.
Dr. Bob


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Posts tagged 'house-hold'
By Blogger June 22, 2011
I'm going to share something with you, and you have to promise you won't judge me. Here goes........my sink stinks......sometimes. I don't know why, maybe it's a renters curse but I'm going to share with you my two favorite homemade tricks for keep and clean smelling sink. And it's always in my kitchen so I always make sure I have these things on hand just in case.


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Jeremy Kay talks to the co-founders of the Los Angeles-based company whose Cheap Thrills won an audience award at this year's SXSW.
Of the handful of SXSW entries that secured US distribution at last month's low-key festival, New Artists Alliance was behind two. Magnet picked up the dark comedy Milo and Drafthouse Films took the audience award-winning thriller Cheap Thrills, while Cinedigm struck a deal in Austin for Static, which was not in the festival.
Jeremy Kay meets New Artists Alliance's Gabe Cowan and John Suits, the film school friends who launched their Los Angeles-based company in 2007 and are finally ready for their close-up.
You seem like good friends. Actually you are. How did you meet?
Gabe Cowan: John and I met at Cal Arts [California Institute Of The Arts] in the masters programme in film directing. At the end of our first year we decided to make a feature [Breathing Room]. We wrote it in two weeks and shot in eight days for $19,000. Somehow, the film got into several festivals and gained worldwide distribution at the AFM in 2007.
John Suits: It came out [in the US] through Anchor Bay, which was cool.
GC: Next, John made a drama called Family Of Four and I went to Rwanda and made a doc about reconciliation called Flower In The Gun Barrel.
JS: We thought they too would make money…
So you decided to focus on genre films?
GC: Turns out these genre films are way easier to sell – plus they're fun as hell to work on so, as we were graduating, we decided to make a sci-fi popcorn flick called Growth in Martha's Vineyard. Sure enough it sold to Anchor Bay for domestic and became the number one horror rental on iTunes.
JS: Our goal with that one was to make something that looked bigger budget…
GC: First it was 'can we do it'?' Then it was 'can we do it and make it look big budget?' And then it was 'can we do all this and have it actually be good?''
What came after that?
JS: Extracted, which premiered at SXSW 2012. Then we wanted to get more recognisable cast so we hooked up with Caliber Media and Dallas Sonnier and used our different strengths.
GC: We wrote and produced Static and actually built a unique 3D rig.
You arrived in SXSW with Static, as well as Cheap Thrills and Milo, and they all sold. How did that feel?
GC: We had sold movies before [SXSW 2013], but going into SXSW with these films and scoring the first sale of the festival and winning the award for Cheap Thrills was unexpected and wonderful. We have three films going theatrical in 2013 and are working with bigger and better distribution companies and actors than ever before.
JS: Last year we made five films. We read scripts all the time and you run into things all the time that don't necessarily come from genre but you love them and you have to do them. Three of the films we did last year had genre elements and two were dramas.
Gabe is shooting a juvenile justice documentary now and you've lined up the comedy Why Now?! with Sam Rockwell, Marisa Tomei and Brian Geraghty that shoots in May.
GC: It feels like all the hard work and sleepless nights are finally paying off. It's not an overnight success story – John and I are about incremental advances – but we believe that by not skipping steps, and sticking to a realistic model we are getting better and better at this movie-making thing. Looking back each year and seeing how far we've come is really exciting.


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Friday, July 1, 2011
How to get gmail.com banned - not that I did this
As it turns out, that didn't happen. Sure, some sites do ban Mailinator and some are even really (really) excited about the idea, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not really very many. Thousands of people use Mailinator everyday, so clearly, its a useful tool that many sites accept.
Back in the day however, I sadly fell prey to the words of doom that I was being fed. I mean, holy mackerel - what if sites DO ban it? What then?
So I drew up a plan. A plan, that at this time I can say I may not be fully proud of. A plan that involved guile, wit, a few domain names, and some rate-limiting (thread-safe) data structures.
I write this now because, well, for the most part the war is over and Gotham has grown past needing Batman anymore. Mailinator is not really the rogue tool it once was. Heck, hotmail supports disposable email now. It's mainstream.
Typically there are two reasons people want to ban Mailinator. A few years ago, people really had some sort of notion that your email somehow equated to your identity. Given the radically insecure setup of email in general, that was really a ridiculous technical assumption. Nonetheless it was pervasive.
Secondly, people banned Mailinator for fear of people abusing their website. Now keep in mind, anything you can do with Mailinator, you can also do with YahooMail or Hotmail. Its just that Mailinator lets you do it faster, but Yahoo is plenty happy to let you sign-up for 100 email accounts.
I get occasional emails from people asking me to have Mailinator stop accepting email from their site. Usually for the reason of stopping abuse. If they're nice and it makes sense, I almost always do it. But in my experience, usually when the existence of Mailinator is pinpointed as a cause of abuse, it is in truth merely an avenue that is already inherent to the internet or your website. Even shutting Mailinator down wouldn't solve the problem. The bad-guys just go somewhere else and keep on abusing.
Any sort of abuse is needless to say, no fun for anyone. Mailinator has specific code built-in to detect scripts and stop them.
In truth, Mailinator's system for detecting and shutting-down scripts and abuse really only serves one purpose. Its like that silly metal bar people put on the steering wheels of their cars. Let's be real, if a thief really wants your car, some dinky metal bar on the steering wheel isn't going to do diddly to stop him.
Same with Mailinator's anti-abuse code - it won't stop a determined person - but it does make it more of a pain than simply using something else.
So -Dear hacker bad-guy abuser dudes - other disposable email sites probably don't have that sneaky anti-script pain-in-the-butt hacker-stop code like Mailinator. Go use them.
1) Solved hacking and abuse on the internet ? --> Not even maybe
2) Solved a little of the hacking and abuse on the internet possibly for me? ---> DING!
Ok, back to the story - as I said, in the beginning, the idea of wide-spread Mailinator banning scared me a lot. So what did I do? I bought some additional domains for Mailinator.
To this day, you can email email@example.com and it will end up at mailinator (in the bob inbox) just like email@example.com.
Cool. Alternate domains. Problem solved.
Wait a second. How exactly do I tell the world about the alternate domains without telling the people that want to ban them all?
Every few weeks I get an email like:
Hi! Love your service. Can you send me the exhaustive, comprehensive, and complete list of alternate domains so I can pick a nice one that suits my individual personal style? kThxBai
At first, I was like "Neat! People love Mailinator and want to...heeeyy.. waaiiit a second".
If I give them the whole list, then they will, um, have the whole list. And then they can ban the whole list.
Ok. I know. I'll list one random alternate domain on the homepage every time you visit. No one will have the whole list. Just one here, one there. Perfect !
There problem solved. Again. Well, sort of.
Soon after I put up this "one random alternate domain per homepage load" system - the scrapers started. Every now and then I'd notice several hundred homepage loads from the same IP in a very short period of time.
They were scripts; scripts that were loading the homepage over and over and scraping out the random alternate domain that was shown. Sneaky. By doing this they could eventually formulate the entire list of alternate domains.
Drat. Now what. For awhile, nothing. I just let them go. A few months later however, I got an email from a Russian guy (sorry Russian guy, I don't remember your name).
You are dumb. Your homepage is easy to scrape and doesn't change so its easy to scrape your alternate domain. You are dumb.
He was right. Well, I'm not sure about the dumb part, but my homepage was easy to scrape. Someone could probably write a script to scrape it in short order. Probably just took a few minutes.
Could I make it harder to scrape? Well, I could, but wouldn't really slow anyone down much.
It was then however, I had a flash. An idea of simply epic proportions. A thought so crazy - that dad-burn-it, it just might work.
Let's not make the page scraping harder - let's make it EASIER.
I removed the bit of code that displayed the alternate domain and put it in its own (teensy) webpage. That "webpage" had absolutely nothing in it, except the text for the randomly chosen alternate domain itself.
Then, I embedded my new tiny webpage into the homepage (so it showed as before). Basically, to the viewer of the homepage - nothing was different. You saw the homepage and a randomly generated alternate domain, just where it was.
But to the folks that had been scraping my site, things looked plenty different. In fact, I probably broke all their scrapers (Sorry nice people trying to get all my alternate domains just to ban them! (ok, not really)).
Now here is a finer point of semantics. If you go to the Mailinator homepage, there is some text that says "Here is an alternate domain" followed, by, well, a randomly chosen alternate domain.
However, now that I split off that tiny little webpage with JUST the alternate domain in it - you could go there too by typing in the url directly. And you'd see nothing BUT the alternate domain. No surrounding text. No text saying "this is an alternate domain". That little page showed a domain, but made no claim about what it was displaying.
For your browsing pleasure, here's the only direct link to that page that I know of: Go ahead, reload the page a few times. (You can see this also on the Mailinator homepage on the lower left).
After the script guys got over the minor annoyance of their scripts breaking because o f my new setup, I'm sure there were office parties across the nation. Mailinator! Now even easier to scrape!
Now for the record, the rest of this post is hypothetical. An unimplemented idea if you will. Who knows - I'll bet nothing you read here on out ever happened. Just random thoughts. Musings. One big theory. Consider it random daydreams of guy who runs a fun email service.
Remember all that script-detecting code from the anti-abuse system? Well, what if I put that in here too I thought. Let's "detect" when a script is hitting our weensy alternate-domain page.
And, what if we also detected when the little web page is being viewed but not "in" the homepage - but by itself (just like the link above). And what if after about 30 page hits from the same script (or so), stop displaying actual alternate domains and start sprinkling in some other things. Hmm... but what other things?
I know - how about "gmail.com". Or, um "hotmail.com". Or maybe, "yahoo.com".
What, in our completely and totally hypothetical situation, would that do?
Well, let's see. There are these folks out there running scripts against Mailinator collecting all my alternate domains. Those scripts probably put results in a database or something and connects to their website. When one of their users tries to sign-up on their site using one of my alternate domains, it's in their database as a banned site and its immediately rejected.
Now imagine the wacky fun if somehow, some way, (totally theoretically speaking) some silly person snuk "gmail.com" in that list. I'd guess banning your users trying sign-up with "gmail.com" addresses is probably not what you want.
And, hypothetically speaking if you had code that would sneak in these non-alternate-domains in the page they weren't supposed to accessing anyway, when would be the best time to set it into action?
Well, those scripts ran at many different times, but just after midnight seemed like a popular time-slot.
If such code existed, making it active Sunday morning from Midnight to 2am seems nice. I mean heck, if my website stopped accepting signups from "gmail.com" on some Sunday morning, I'm sure I'd be downright chipper to hop into the office and find out why.
Boy. If all that stuff happened - I wonder what kind of email conversations I'd have on that Sunday afternoon? I bet they'd be like:
Your alternate domain list displayed 'gmail.com'!
Hi Fred, no it doesn't. Just reloaded the homepage 10 times, nothing like that. all the best.
or I bet another would be like:
Yahoo.com? What is this some kind of joke?
Sorry, did you mean to email this to Carol Bartz? Not sure what you're talking about.
Phew. Well, that's surely a fun thought experiment. As you can see from the link above however, it surely doesn't do anything like that. Honestly these days, most of the scrapers are gone. I think simply that the internet evolved and more of them simply lost interest in the fight.
Every now and then I'm still asked what I think about banning Mailinator. I've mellowed a lot since the early days and I pretty much always give the same answer. If you think banning Mailinator going to solve your problem, go ahead. In my experience, it won't. And by asking I am guessing that you are making some assumptions in your site that will surface as issues in other ways.
And of course, script writers, you now have the direct link to the alternate domain page above. Scrape away. But keep in mind, the best way not to trigger any Mailinator abuse systems is to not do anything "too fast". Those script detectors are pretty fickle little beasts. It's not a bad idea to try and stay on their good side.
42 comments:
- Farnz said...
You have script detectors. You could make them help in the evil - if a user is not detected as a scraper script, only give them real answers. If you've detected a script, include the fakes.
This massively reduces the risk of getting a message from someone not trying to abuse the system in some way - and means that if you play your dumb responses right, you're likely to set the scraper script authors puzzling over what the bug could possibly be that added gmail.com to their DB.
- July 1, 2011 at 5:11 AM
How about something like "'; DROP DATABASE;"?
- July 1, 2011 at 5:40 AM
Very very evil. I would have done the same tho.
You want domains?!?
Here have domains: gmail.com yahoo.com
- July 1, 2011 at 6:36 AM
Just firewall out the mailinator mx ip. Alternate domains be damned.
- July 1, 2011 at 7:24 AM
- Juan said...
Not to mention that I can still use my own domain by pointing an MX record to Mailinator, right?
- July 1, 2011 at 7:38 AM
Theoretically though you can script a full browser, and there would be no distinguishing between that and a full script.
- July 1, 2011 at 7:58 AM
I just broke my F5-finger trying to get your script to say gmail.com.
I am apparently dumb and cannot read.
(Thank you for your wonderful service, btw! It's come in handy often.)
- July 1, 2011 at 8:00 AM
if scraped_domain not in (gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com) {
insert scraped_domain in database
Problemo solved ;)
- July 1, 2011 at 8:01 AM
How about putting alt domains in an image rather than test? Oh and add a capcha (or three) that users must enter before seeing it.
- July 1, 2011 at 8:20 AM
A hilarious and completely legal notion! You should definitely have tried this.
In my experience, the only way people learn anything about the internet is the hard way.
- July 1, 2011 at 8:26 AM
- Nikhil said...
That is fucking awesome.
You my friend are a genius.
- July 1, 2011 at 12:20 PM
But since the alternate domains redirect to mailinator.com, it would be really easy to determine which ones to ignore.
- July 1, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Bah. Don't just mix in large e-Mail providers. Also look up the script runner's IP's MX and return the scraper's MTA...
- July 1, 2011 at 2:09 PM
Well, you messed with some people, and likely with poor firstname.lastname@example.com who didn't deserve it. But you could have solved the core problem in a more realistic way. You say the problem is that scrapers could collect the entire set of alternate domains in minutes. So the solution seems easy. Link the alternately displayed domain to a clock, and only change it every 67 minutes or so. Visitors will still see an alternate domain when they visit, but rapid access will not get them anywhere.
- July 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Have you thought about detecting the domain where the script is running and placing that in your teensy weensy webpage? Then they can ban themselves.
- July 1, 2011 at 2:27 PM
And everyone misses the part between the lines where he didn't do this recently but instead did it awhile ago and there isn't much use for it anymore.
- July 1, 2011 at 3:56 PM
You don't need to detect.
Just base your random number on the IP of the client. This way, a script sees an unique result, where as your user base is averaged over all.
Only a botnet or large network can still acess them all with effort.
- July 1, 2011 at 3:57 PM
have you tried cutting off those so called dinky bars from a car's steering wheel? Its pretty tough stuff. I think they do a pretty good job from keeping the lower end criminals off your car.
- July 1, 2011 at 5:05 PM
The dinky bars are tough, but the steering wheel itself is typically only rubber, which is cut quickly and easily. Thus, it makes a great analogy for a false sense of security.
- July 1, 2011 at 7:24 PM
- Likai Liu said...
You could divide your alternative domains into buckets, hash the originator's IP address or netblock to a bucket, and only give out the alternative domains that fall in that bucket.
On the other hand, if you start giving me false answers, the truthfulness can still be easily checked by examine these domains MX records. It's a little more work, but not too much.
In fact, I don't even need to scrape your page. Whenever someone signs up, I just need to check the domain's MX record to see if it points to one I want to ban. You will need multiple IP addresses as well, and hopefully they are not in the same netblock.
- July 1, 2011 at 7:52 PM
Sorry, but the scraping the site for domains seems rather silly (of your adversaries). Just a few random checks and all domains I found point to the same MX. That's a 168 msec delay.
Main question is, why would you waste any further time on this, apart from it being a fun pet project. For over 10 years I've used "mailbox+[whatever]@domain" with the related postfix configuration to handle random emails for sign-ups. If you really want to be clever on this, you need a few more tricks up your sleeve.
- July 1, 2011 at 10:06 PM
After a few page reloads slip in one image of Peter Griffin eating a sandwich and sticking out his tongue.
- July 1, 2011 at 10:55 PM
Don't cut the bar, cut the steering wheel. :)
- July 2, 2011 at 12:16 AM
Nope, the dinky bars do nothing. They snip easily with a bolt-cutter. If they are particularly strong the thieves just cut the steering wheel.
The bars give car owners the mere illusion of security.
- July 2, 2011 at 2:30 AM
Not many readers in here -- the author distinctly, and repeatedly, said this was just a thought experiment.
He didn't actually do it...
BTW Anonymous, criminals don't even try to cut the steering wheel locks off, they just cut through the steering wheel instead. Much faster, and easy to fix later.
- July 2, 2011 at 3:37 AM
on the steering wheel lock... just use a hacksaw on the wheel itself. slip the lock off the wheel through the cut wheel. A new wheel is cheaper than new car!
- July 2, 2011 at 3:51 AM
The best way to discourage them is to force them to spend lots of human resources on getting your domains. Have you considered using —these nowdays popular— visual captcha systems? One per new domain request...
BTW your idea is very interesting, at least if they read this post, they might be restless... When will Paul force us to have a look to our database? :-D
- July 2, 2011 at 5:25 AM
- InvisiBill said...
Anon, have you tried installing a titanium lock on a cardboard box? Steering wheels are designed to collapse in an accident, and a hacksaw will go through one in a few seconds. One good slice can result in the bar falling off the steering wheel. The strength of a lock is irrelevant if it's put on something flimsy.
I always get a kick out of these sneaky, geeky tech solutions to people trying to game the system. Keep up the good work!
- July 2, 2011 at 8:21 AM
Hi! I think you're absolutely *BRILLIANT*! I love this post. Great ideas and I learned a lot about how websites provoke new issues or aggravate old issues by trying to solve problems by banning. For me this is a real eye opener and I'm grateful for it.
Thanks so much!
- July 2, 2011 at 8:44 AM
- Carangil said...
- July 2, 2011 at 10:40 AM
- Sherwood Botsford said...
More ideas for you:
1. partition the set of domain names. No single IP will ever get more than one subset of names.
E.g. Evens and odds. The set is divided in half, even IPs get one set, odd IP's get the other. Use the 3rd octet to decide. Or even the second. Not many people have access to multiple class B domains.
2. Make a non uniform distribution random number generator.
40% of the name pool used by 80% of the queries
20% of the name pool used by 16% of the queries
10% of the name pool used by 3% of the queries
7% of the name pool used by .4% of the queries.
3% of the name pool used by .1% of the queries
You get the drift. So it takes many thousands of queries to be convincing that you have got them all.
remainder get well known domains.
3. A second query from the same IP address gets a delay of 10 seconds. A third query has a 20 second delay. Each query within a certain period of time doubles the delay.
4. While the domain names are in clear text, they are surrounded by a graphic that says this one is the only true address the rest are false. The graphic itself is text that is easily read, but is obfuscated by the usual graphic debris. The false domains are ones that are real, but not connected to you.
Don't use this one -> ATT.com
This one isn't a good one -> Rogers.ca
Maybe not a great idea ->gmail.com
Try this one ->SpiffyMail.com
Not really -> SperryRand.com
You have to be kidding -> IBM.com
- July 4, 2011 at 10:24 AM
- Jonadab said...
> if scraped_domain not in
> (gmail.com, yahoo.com,
> hotmail.com) {
Those were of course purely hypothetical examples. In fact, time was when a lot of sites specifically blocked Yahoo and Hotmail, on the grounds that "anybody" could sign up for them. So, naturally, nobody would be so sinister as to include things like comcast.net or rr.com or aol.com or verizon.net or earthlink.net on a purely hypothetical "fake alternate domains" list. Such a thing is unthinkable.
Similarly, it seems clear that the "alternate domain page" would never display any such thing as .co.uk or .oh.us or even .com -- especially not if some of the real alternate domains were always prefixed with one-off randomly-generated subdomains.
- July 4, 2011 at 12:52 PM
I love it. Although I'll take your "Sunday" and raise you "Christmas" or "Thanksgiving". Oh, Thanksgiving would be nice. Right before Black Friday, or Black Monday....
- July 4, 2011 at 10:51 PM
- kosiakk said...
Still not a good solution.
IMHO, it should be like this:
1. Get the IP of client, calculate some hash value out of it.
2. Every hash should correspond to 2-3 records in your domain database. Always the same chunk.
3. Just show those domains to a client + some random domains, if you already implemented this.
Thus, no single computer will see the whole database. Scripts would have to use thousands (due to hash collisions) of proxy-servers to get it, but will never be sure that the list is complete!
- July 5, 2011 at 3:47 AM
- Will Shattuck said...
I love all these suggestions for more complicated systems. I think the elegance of the current idea is in its simplicity.
Well Done! :)
- July 6, 2011 at 1:37 AM
More thought experiments... not that you should do these:
1. Maintain and share the list of scrapers/bouncer/abusers you are able to detect. I'm sure some of your site supporters will find creative use for them ;-o
2. provide scrapers/bouncer/abusers each other's address
3. use scrapers/bouncer/abusers in randomly generated address - for those who truly only need throw away addresses, and does not need to see any resulting emails
- July 17, 2011 at 3:48 PM
- Ragnarok said...
Thats sure an evil way to to get gmail banned I bet thats why too alot of other email providers have a lot of security options now that kind of force you into using your mobile phone to make the accounts now.
- September 10, 2011 at 7:24 PM
You're a funny guy. I like to read everything you write. You would make a great technical manual writer.. or better yet.. a game developer.
- October 11, 2011 at 5:14 AM
Wildcards! Hypothetically.
- November 20, 2011 at 1:58 AM
I applaud your actions committed in the spirit of checkmating the checker. What's good for the goose is even better for the gander.
- December 4, 2011 at 7:20 PM
- Paul said...
The suggestions about ip hashing don't wash, because these guys are likely using proxies anyway.
What I'd like to see is an ability to automatically add a domain to mailinator's alt domain pool. I point the mx records, fill out a form, mailinator checks the mx records and adds it to the pool. Combine that with a dozen extra ips on different /24s -> profit ;)
- December 25, 2011 at 6:12 AM
i like the hypothetical solution
- December 14, 2012 at 4:26 PM
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Dong Zhou wrote:At no point did I read Bush Leagues advocating child labour or slavery in that post. Wondering quite the post got so hostile.
You do the first two segments of your post WWD in a pleasant, amiable debate which is you at your friendliest, then a few aggressive taking a point directly which is perfectly good and then it just gets... an unpleasant tone.
I'm saying only that that is a highly incomplete, and indeed rather anti-humanistic, read of American history during that era. I have an allergic reaction to reading, particularly the 1920's and before, and particularly the 1860's and before, through rose-coloured spectacles. ('A time of moral fiber', I believe was his exact phrase. If you are going to make that argument, you should have to contend with slavery and child labour, along with a number of other public policy, cultural and societal choices.) Life was better for the average American in the 1950's through the 1970's, I believe, only because we placed certain regulations on the financial system and implemented measures to give more people access to a something resembling a living wage and a decently stable lifestyle. It certainly isn't as if everything was hunky-dory back then because the average individual was particularly thrifty or industrious, which seemed to be his primary point. And when BL himself mentioned that children would be better-disciplined if they lived in those times, well, that stance has some... unfortunate implications.
Dong Zhou wrote:First the equivalent of "you clearly advocate child labour and slavery you monster" (if your saying that wasn't a moral time and such light touch regulation led to horrors, there are less hostile ways of doing it but done it myself) and then the bit that concerned me:Be very careful when you talk about history, Bush Leagues. For most people the past isn't over. It isn't even past.
So a bolding for some reason (which I doubt was to highlight you love the username) plus sentences that feel like your carrying a metaphorical club and shutting down the debate.
I'm sorry, Dong Zhou. But in my own defence, I've been bolding everyone's usernames. Including Sun Fin's and CaoCaoTsundere's, in this very same conversation, if you'll care to check the edit history. (You are a mod, yes?) It's a habit I picked up on another forum as a courtesy to see when specific users are being responded to. I've also used it for titles of movies over in the movies thread. If you think it is inappropriate here, I'll cease and desist. But it's not like I'm singling him out when I've been doing it to everyone.


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OMG, ya'll!
The first Gallery Jacket! Is it vain if I say that I think it's freaking adorable? Julie is right, you can style it a million ways...it was difficult to pick one way to show it in the catalog to be honest.
I haven't been the best blogger lately...I've been consumed with school stuff but somehow, after chatting with Lisa Shroyer at Stitches East, I thought it'd be a good idea to submit a few designs to Knitscene. I was all flattered and big headed for a few minutes but then I saw that it was more of an open call...heh...oh well, it was wicked fun to play designer for a week, it was just like playing with Fashion Plates! I suck at sketching so I did a little collage work. I'm in love with some of the swatches, here is a peek:
Speaking of secret designs, I can reveal the secret from an old post. Norah Gaughan designed a pattern, Lotus that was knit to fit my exact measurements (acoustic guitar-like: long neck, long torso, flared bottom/hip region, also monkey arms)! It was knit in Jasper, velvety soft Jasper in a deep wine red colorway that had stripes of charcoal of beige. I love it!!
What else...I'm knitting some simple winter accessories, the cold has finally arrived and they're very much needed, I play the same game the Harlot mentions here. The most exciting is the shawl I've started with Jenna's handspun:
I'm calling this the Girl Power shawl because Spunky Eclectic dyed the fiber, Jenna spun the yarn and I'm knitting it up, using a Spunky Eclectic pattern. The cirrrrrrrcle of yaarrrrn...
Poor Jenna was at my house for the final Red Sox World Series game...she is a Yankees fan and...we...may have bickered. The lovable underdog days are officially over, so I was kind of at a disadvantage, but I refuse to believe that Yankee fans outnumber the citizenry of Red Sox nation, which is much larger than just Massachusetts! Jenna ate some of my overcooked and bitter broccoli rabe and I felt slightly vindicated.
This song is currently stuck in my head and I don't mind at all...
Labels: design, gallery jacket, handspun, modeling, red sox, shawl, the office, WIP