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AS THE DARK MONTHS APPROACH, our crew must prepare for the cold and rain.
The Command Center has been winterized, restrictions on new purchases have been lifted, and Bear has a new directive: Seasonal D.I.Y.
The Command Center has been winterized, restrictions on new purchases have been lifted, and Bear has a new directive: Seasonal D.I.Y.
Changes in protocol call for increased communication with others in the field. Along with this request come MYSTERIOUS HAPPENINGS... (that you may skip by disregarding the page jump at the bottom of any post containing one - not everyone likes scary stuff)
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"Ship's Log, Stardate 94398.38:
Welcome back! This will be my third series of reports from BCC. Orders from Mission Control this month are to take it back to black.
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| Please excuse my sausages - clear on matte on black lacquer. |
This is the time of year where, thanks to everyone's favorite holiday, I get to wear more black than usual without drawing any additional attention. Since I'm working so much within one color, I try to play up textures instead. Ruffles, pleats, lace, corduroy and velvet, matte and glossy.
One of my favorite things to do is black on black pattern nails. I start with a clear base coat, two coats of black, and a coat of clear matte polish. Once that dries, use a dotting tool and dip it into a high gloss top clear coat to create a pattern. For a simple cross, I draw two intersecting lines with a smaller dotting tool, making the vertical line longer. Then with a slightly larger dotting tool, I place three dots at the tips of each line to add a little weight to the cross.
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| This is my favorite matte top coat - I love it over Sinful Colors black and O.P.I. blood red! |
I have also been wearing more black (or mostly black) coords, though I only have one truly solid black dress, and it's not even out right now, it's in storage and might be sold, haha! (That's what I get for having big ol' biceps!)
Here's a coord that is probably a little more "blackxsilver" than black on black.
Shoes: Mojo Moxy
Blouse: Fanplusfriend
Capelet: Forever21
Petticoat: Fanplusfriend
Headdress: Bodyline
Wig: Offbrand
JSK: Innocent World - Glitter Seraphim
Purse: Angelic Pretty - Melty Moon
Tights: (sheer black, not pictured) Bodyline
I was hoping for a witchy vibe with the capelet, but to everyone else it was very Black Riding Hood, more of a Disney princess recolor than a villainess. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Up next, I'm going to try and knock out a few D.I.Y. projects. You may have already heard reports of the (now subsided, and honestly, not nearly as big and bad as the news made it out to be) typhoon that hit us recently? Well, it's still sort of here, quietly sulking and raining all over the place. Tutorial #1 is definitely related to this. Can you guess what it might be?
That concludes this week's report, Bear signing off!"
This frequency will remain open for response.
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*Bonus Content*
So, I thought I would share something new this month, *letters from my pen pal, Rebecca!
*Well, mostly emails with cute photos; bubble mailers with vials of pinned butterflies, tiny vole skulls, and iridescent beetles; and postcards with pressings from my garden - neither of us finds the time for handwriting very often and we get so wordy that text is easiest for us.
Yes, she is also American. I know, I know, it's not as romantic as learning a new language while you swap candy and cute accessories from your respective regions, but she's into a lot of the same aesthetics that I am and we've had a lot of fun sharing our interests.
The second to last email I got from her seemed like a good starting point, partially because we are past the awkward "getting to know each other as friends" phase, and partially because she's on an adventure right now up in the mountains and they encountered a wolf pack, babies included!
But then her last email made me hesitate. I didn't think it would be very heartwarming to share at all considering what happened, so I've just been texting her on and off (they have limited cell service) to make sure she's alright.
After getting a little more information from her, though, I think we both need some outside perspective, because I'm over here safe and removed from the situation, and I'm still freaked out. If you think you're up for it, below are the two emails she's sent from the ranger station up there. The texts are sporadic (due to limited service), cover more personal aspects, and mostly repeat what's happened in the emails, but the last one I got from her was what alarmed me:
"The rangers 'can't find the bodies'. That's a lie. They're gonna cover this whole thing up like they did with those kids."
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FROM: coastalgirl@********
TO: lordbear@******
Oct 12th, 2016
Hey girl, we made it! It's beautiful out here! The sky has been gray every day, but it makes everything green that much greener, and the mountains are smokey and blue. Every little flower pops out of the drab like a flashlight. But it's damp, everything, everywhere, so I'm leaving my laptop here at this park ranger station. It's the only place with reliable internet anyway. I'll send you another email when we get back here for new supplies.
We spent the first two nights at the guest cabin by the drop off and got lots of hiking and sightseeing out of the way (and Meagan took a thousand pictures, omg). I tried finding some pink flowers to press for you, but so far all of the ones I have seen are tiny yellow common ones you've already got. There is so much monkeyflower here, it's crazy, like nature is trying to remind us that we aren't really that far from home (even though it totally feels like another world out here) but we think we saw some chocolate lilies waaaaaaaaay down in a valley, maybe we'll get to them and I can grab one for you!
It's definitely too cold here for swimming, but we did go rock climbing! It was terrible, lol, because the girls and I weren't TOTALLY LYING about being able to rock climb, but both Byron and Red thought being big and strong automatically means you can pull your bodyweight up by your fingers, right, so it's okay to lie about being pros. We got two ledges up before we started feeling bad and headed back down to help them. The bright side is Red conceded to trading rock climbing for hunting for Sasquatch instead! We told them the ground is too wet and loose for much more climbing anyway (which it is).
After that, we drove around a bit for the day. There are two park relay stations nearby. We met the rangers at each one, Mitch and Bart (goes by Beetle) and got tips on good campsites, trails, a mini museum dedicated to Sasquatch we can drive out to, and, as if we needed another reminder that we really aren't "that far" from city life, a road to a little convenience store, mini outdoor market, and a bar run by some locals.
Speaking of locals, of course we hit the bar (thanks Byron) and Red and Nasheed got some some of the folks buzzed up enough to tell us some spooky stories that are apparently "real". Get this:
There is a story going around up here that years ago, a local woman's two grandkids got lost in the woods, and when they were found, they were lying on the ground as if they had fallen asleep, but were dead. The woman contacted local authorities and the children's father, and there was a huge dispute over what to do with the bodies, whether there would be an autopsy. The town was superstitious about removing their bodies from the woods and "cutting them up" after the forest took them, and the grandmother thought their spirits could somehow still be rejoined if they were left intact. The father wanted to know what had killed his children, but for some reason, local authorities blocked him, issued a gag order, and the children were just buried. A few years later, after fighting in the courts, the father was granted an autopsy and they exhumed the bodies, but nothing was conclusive. The old woman eventually walked out into the woods for answers one day and was found a week later, in the same spot that her grandchildren were found, untouched but dead.
We had a single bar of service, so we just had to fact check (which I thought was rude, but whatever), and apparently there is a little truth to it, but it says online that the kids were found completely unharmed, not dead. It also says the old woman died of either natural causes or exposure, and was found a half mile from where the children were found, so nothing suspicious there. Funny, though, these kids must live off the grid because you can't find a single trace of them after they apparently died.
Anyway, here is something way less depressing: when we went to the museum, we met a real cryptozoologist, Royce W******. We asked him a bunch of questions about Loch Ness and Sasquatch at first and he started laughing. He's "not some UFO conspiracy theorist", lol, he's "an honest skeptic". After a few minutes with him we realized we were the weird crazy ones, this dude has discovered (and named!!) two new beetle species, and was the first to photograph and record audio of a bird found only in this area of the Pacific Northwest. Cryptozoology is just one thing he studies (he mostly looks for new species in micro-environments) and he takes it seriously as evidence towards not only the possibility of unknown creatures, but the history of predatory fears of the people of the region, and their folklore and culture.
He's up here for a little less time than we are and is a pretty cool guy, so we've been spending the last few days with him learning animal tracking, and you are gonna be SO JELLY - we tracked a wolf pack!
We started with tracking deer and then found wolf tracks. There are two leaders, the alpha female and male, three older looking wolves, one of which is really really shaggy looking, poor guy, four puppies, and two adolescents. Normally, I am all about wolf puppies, puppies of any kind, really, but as cute as the furry chubs are, the adolescents took all of our hearts away. They seem to be a male, charcoal black, almost bluish, and a dark and light gray patterned female with contrast in her pattern as strong as her brother is solid. They can run so fast, and they trip each other on purpose and roll down the hillside. They also yip the loudest and we can hear them playing when the group is out of sight. Even from far away, you can tell they have the brightest personalities in the entire group!
We got so far out tracking them last time that this time, we're going back with our camping gear. The plan is to get close enough for photographs and video before packing up the camp and hiking back to the cabins. Wish me luck, I am hoping to get a photo of Coal (I named the black adolescent, the others are calling the female Misty)!
- Rebecca
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FROM: coastalgirl@********
TO: lordbear@******
Oct 16th, 2016
I'm so sorry, I wish I had never named him... We found the four puppies, and Misty and Coal yesterday morning.
I'm the only one in the cabin right now, and I'm trying to wrap my head around what just happened.
We're all okay, we're just... Okay, so we left the morning before last to track the pack. We found them, everything was fine. We even heard them singing two nights ago, it was amazing. The adolescents were only just starting to get the hang of the howling and the pups just sounded adorable. We took recordings and everything until around 3 am. Early yesterday morning, we headed out to track them further. That's when things started getting weird and hazy.
So, I don't know if I was just dehydrated or tired from staying up too late the night before, but I started feeling really light headed. We were following the trail downhill a ways, and I guess I fell. I must have fallen quietly, and then passed out, because when I woke up the others weren't anywhere near me. I shouted and was really pissed that they didn't even think to make sure we were buddied up, but then I saw Nasheed on the ground about 20 yards from me. I went over to her and it was like she had just passed out for some reason. I took a couple seconds to get her standing and to make sure she was alright, and she shared some of her water. Then we thought we heard Meagan making a weird sound.
We started fast walking up a ridge towards the sound, and as soon as we were up and over, we saw her. Meagan was just a little ways up on the other side of the dip in the ridge, with her arms wrapped around her knees, crying.
At that time, the guys and Aleksandra started shouting back for us, finally. They had been all split up, said that they heard a big boom, and a big growl, and that it scared them so much they just took off without really thinking. Nasheed and I hadn't heard anything. Byron seemed the most disoriented and out of it, and like he couldn't catch his breath. Meagan was still crying. Nasheed and I started to cross over through the grass to help her calm down and we stepped right into them.
All six of them, dead. Perfect and untouched and cold and stiff. They didn't even look like they curled up and went to sleep, it looked like they just seized up and fell over. Meagan had found them first and thought they were sleeping until she realized. They had no wounds. We didn't touch them, we just put up an orange trail marker and got the hell out of there as fast as we could.
The trip back here seemed like it took forever. We had to make camp out there last night too, there was no way to make it all the way back by dark, and that was the longest night I have ever spent in the woods. Coal's eyes were still open. I feel like this would have never happened if I hadn't named him. We reported the deaths to the rangers, and we're all going to stay in the cabin tonight... This could be people (poison) or biological (virus), we don't know, we just know we're safe for now and shouldn't leave yet until this situation, and we, get checked out, especially considering what happened to everyone with passing out or losing track of time and hearing things.
I'm sorry to tell you all this bad news, I just had to let you know after the last thing I sent was all about the pack. Don't worry, we're alright. I'll email again when we hear something back from the rangers.
I'm sorry to tell you all this bad news, I just had to let you know after the last thing I sent was all about the pack. Don't worry, we're alright. I'll email again when we hear something back from the rangers.
- Rebecca
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I'll let you know what we hear next, I guess...
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