text ↪ a. price

[cryptoherpetology]

Hey, I don't want to make too many assumptions, but I imagine a lot of people here haven't slept in hammocks before. If you're not used to them, they can be pretty uncomfortable, so here are some tips I've picked up while camping that've kept me from too many sleepless nights in the woods:

- Sit down when you get in instead of trying to climb in horizontally. This will make it easier to avoid tipping.

- Lay diagonally so that your knees don't hyperextend while you're on your back. After that you can shift up or down to where you're most comfortable, and should even be able to lay on your side.

- Not so useful right now, but if you're losing heat, add a layer of blanketing under the hammock with a few inches of slack hanging. You lose a lot more heat in a hammock than you do on a mattress due to the air flow, and this way you'll catch some of your own body heat to insulate yourself better.

- Try hanging the food end a little higher if you find yourself slipping.

- A pillow under your knees might help more than under your head if you're sleeping on your back.


I was going to offer to teach some kind of formal camping/survival course, but schedules here can change quickly and I'm a pretty terrible public speaker.
Instead, I'm just going to make an open-ended offer to just be willing to teach anyone what I can as you need it. If you weren't raised to live in the woods for weeks on end to hide from the secret genocidal organization your ancestors defected from, or you just weren't in any Scouting programs as a kid, let me know what I can help you with and I'll do my best.

Comments

@johnb

[baum]

so, which were you
living in the woods to avoid genocide, or boy scout?

[cryptoherpetology]

Oh, I never would've been allowed to actually join the Scouts. The Covenant of St. George tends to look at the Eagle Scouts like a recruitment pool for potential American agents.

And I wasn't actually living in the woods, just prepared to be able to do so if I had to in case something happened. And now something's happened, even if it isn't what I was expecting.

[baum]

I'm sorry, the Covenant of what? I thought the Scouts were Christian, I'm surprised a church would have a problem with them.

They gave you good skills, whoever they are.

[cryptoherpetology]

The skills the Scouts teach are useful in what they do and increasingly rare. They watch for people who've done really well in the Scouts and recruit them to their "lets kill everything we don't understand" cause. There's a lot they don't understand.

[baum]

So, not so much a Church as a cult?

[cryptoherpetology]

Cult would be pretty accurate, yeah. My ancestors broke out of their programming but recorded enough of what they knew about how they operated to keep them from establishing any foothold in North America.

[baum]

Good for them. They sound dangerous. Do they still operate?

[cryptoherpetology]

We still do, yes. Most of my family is active in aiding and protecting the cryptozoological world. It's the cryptids themselves who've done and continue to do the most, but they've also got the most to lose.

[baum]

So, cryptids. I've got to ask. That's not something I've heard of before.

[cryptoherpetology]

We use it as a term for any species that's not recognized by mainstream science. For the most part they're people and animals the Covenant has nearly wiped out.

What about your world? Were you a Boy Scout, or do you know most of this stuff from other experience there?

[ He's noting he hasn't said anything about needing to learn anything. ]

[baum]

[ Yeah, he probably had that coming. ]

Well, we don't have cryptids. At least so far as I know.

I wasn't a Boy Scout. Actually I think they'd expel me before I got in the door, I was kind of the opposite when I was a kid.

[ When he was a kid, whereas now at the ripe old age of 16, he's grown. ]

My mom and I went camping a lot. I'm more used to gross humidity than acid rain, but it's enough. And my uncle made sure I saw military school, so I'm covered for weapons, too. I guess I'm as prepared as I could've been for hatching on an alien planet surrounded by strangers.

@weaverville

[wittingly]

Awesome thing to offer, man. Let me know if you need any supplies or anything.

[cryptoherpetology]

If you want a wish list, that'll have to wait til I know what people want to learn.

But as a general rule when offering me things, I never say no to more knives.

[wittingly]

Bring me a knife whenever you want. I can duplicate and/or reshape, it shouldn't take more than a minute or two.

[cryptoherpetology]

If a petite blonde woman with a tattoo sleeve and a backpack full of grenades jumps out of a dimensional portal to declare you her new favorite grandson, I won't even be terribly shocked.

[wittingly]

I have several questions
is it a random portal
is it a random grandma or your grandma
why does she have a backpack of grenades
who is my competition, because I need to stay on top of the rankings here

[cryptoherpetology]

You're almost definitely going to have more.

she controls them, kind of, so not random but definitely also not predictable
Grandma Alice is my paternal grandmother, but looked younger than me the last time I saw her. Frequent dimension hopping can apparently Benjamin Button a person a little every so often when you do it the way she does. Which, no, she won't explain to anyone else in the family.
She uses them a lot but we also haven't ruled out sentimental attachment
Myself and my cousin Artie. She currently has made no declaration between the two of us but the potential for endless knives would definitely end her stance of grandchild neutrality.

[wittingly]

I haven't had a grandma since I was like four, so jockeying for first place is suddenly the most important thing on my priorities list.

Your life is fucking weird, man.

[cryptoherpetology]

You're a human 3D printer who's been through two dimensional jumps. I think we might be tied for weird.

Disappearing into another reality has probably put me lower in the running for Best Grandson too, so you've got a pretty good chance overall.

[wittingly]

Yep, you know what, you got me there.

Thanks for the pick-me-up. This has been coffee for the soul.

[cryptoherpetology]

Glad I can be of use even to people who don't need tips for falling asleep into a hammock without turning into the letter U.

[wittingly]

I'm 6'1 so it's really more of a V shape

un: s.wilson

[unclesam]

man this sure is bringing back memories of sere training...
so you just gonna skip right over the whole 'hiding from a secret genocidal organization' bit?
'cause I think that calls for some storytime.

[cryptoherpetology]

My great-great grandparents quit a secret order of zealots called the Covenant of St. George. The Covenant credits itself with the extinction of dragons, but there's a very long list of other species they've wiped out if not to extinction, very close to it.

They go after anything or anyone they decide is unnatural, from animals like Crow to people who were born to a different species or who have a little too much inclination towards magic.

[unclesam]

[ Some white nonsense. No offense. ]

alright so that's fucked up
and I imagine those guys ain't too happy about the whole defecting your ancestors did, yeah?

[cryptoherpetology]

[ The whitest. ]

They might've let it go if the agent they spent to spy on us in the 60s didn't also defect in order to marry my grandmother.

That, and we more or less made a family business of doing the opposite of what they do. The less part being the lack of money involved.

[unclesam]

hah, now that is familiar. fighting the good fight don't pay quite as well. you need a loan, suddenly it's all 'sorry, but you haven't had an income in 7 years' - yeah I was busy kicking a mad alien god in the teeth, sorry 'bout that.

so you spend your days hiding out in the woods, then?

[cryptoherpetology]

Grew up on the family compound, which was fairly deep in the woods but with the added luxuries of electricity, running water and a barn full of taxidermied field samples.
I was in suburban Ohio before I got here though. I had a job at a zoo and my grandparents needed some help taking care of my cousin after she got hurt. So I spend my days hiding in a cramped office at the back of the reptile house in between giving children tours of The Wonderful World of Reptiles.

Sometimes I think being here might be slightly less stressful than explaining the word "hepetology" to junior high students. And then I read words like "mad alien god" and kind of miss keeping kids out of the alligator enclosures.

@CL4PTP

[annoyware]

Wow, this is a lot to consider! No wonder you guys always complain about be tired.

[cryptoherpetology]

The interdimensional egg-trip probably took a lot out of most of us too. But hammock sleeping can be pretty tricky, yeah.

[annoyware]

Aren't you ape-descended? It's weird how bad you all are at climbing!

[cryptoherpetology]

Humans do share common ancestors with apes, yes.

Some of us take to climbing a little better than others. I think one of my sisters spent about half her childhood in trees or scrambling up walls.

@romanoff

[dissemblance]

Who knew hammocks were so complicated?

[cryptoherpetology]

I'm not sure camping is as common a hobby in every universe, going by the number of people I've seen stretching the cramps out of their calves in the mornings.