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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months ago

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China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

NERD HARDER! has been the answer ever since CALEA – and related Clinton-era initiatives, like the failed Clipper Chip program, which would have put a spy chip in every computer, and, eventually, every phone and gadget:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

America may have invented NERD HARDER! but plenty of other countries have taken up the cause. The all-time champion is former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who, when informed that the laws of mathematics dictate that it is impossible to make an encryption scheme that only protects good secrets and not bad ones, replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the-laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/

CALEA forced a redesign of the foundational, physical layer of the internet. Thankfully, encryption at the protocol layer – in the programs we use – partially counters this deliberately introduced brittleness in the security of all our communications. CALEA can be used to intercept your communications, but mostly what an attacker gets is "metadata" ("so-and-so sent a message of X bytes to such and such") because the data is scrambled and they can't unscramble it, because cryptography actually works, unlike back doors. Of course, that's why governments in the EU, the US, the UK and all over the world are still trying to ban working encryption, insisting that the back doors they'll install will only let the good guys in:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Any back door can be exploited by your adversaries. The Chinese sponsored hacking group know as Salt Typhoon intercepted the communications of hundreds of millions of American residents, businesses, and institutions. From that position, they could do NSA-style metadata-analysis, malware injection, and interception of unencrypted traffic. And they didn't have to hack anything, because the US government insists that all networking gear ship pre-hacked so that cops can get into it.

This isn't even the first time that CALEA back doors have been exploited by a hostile foreign power as a matter of geopolitical skullduggery. In 2004-2005, Greece's telecommunications were under mass surveillance by US spy agencies who wiretapped Greek officials, all the way up to the Prime Minister, in order to mess with the Greek Olympic bid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%9305

This is a wild story in so many ways. For one thing, CALEA isn't law in Greece! You can totally sell working, secure networking gear in Greece, and in many other countries around the world where they have not passed a stupid CALEA-style law. However the US telecoms market is so fucking huge that all the manufacturers build CALEA back doors into their gear, no matter where it's destined for. So the US has effectively exported this deliberate insecurity to the whole planet – and used it to screw around with Olympic bids, the most penny-ante bullshit imaginable.

Now Chinese-sponsored hackers with cool names like "Salt Typhoon" are traipsing around inside US telecoms infrastructure, using the back doors the FBI insisted would be safe.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

Image: Kris Duda, modified https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahorcado/5433669707/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #calea #lawful interception #backdoors #keys under doormats #cold war 2.0 #foreseeable outcomes #jerry berman #greece #olympics #snowden

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malcriada · 5 months ago

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URGENT: GFM ORGANIZER NEEDED

are you living in one of these following countries?

Canada

Australia

Mexico

Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, or Finland

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, or Switzerland

do you have experience setting up a GFM campaign or know someone who does? do you want to help a person suffering in Palestine? if the answer to these questions is yes, please read on further: Nesma @nesmamomen reached out to me and asked if i knew anyone who could organize a GFM campaign for her friend Tamer, who also lives in Gaza. Tamer lost his house and his father, sister and children died because of the bombing. he is in a desperate situation and needs support urgently Tamer has gone through unimaginable suffering and would need a trustworthy and experienced GFM organizer that can help him set up a campaign.

please get in contact with @nesmamomen if you fit this description or know someone that could help! if you are seriously considering this, please be aware that exchanging sensitive information needed for setting up a gfm campaign is not safe to do via tumblr messaging, please use more encrypted chat spaces (Nesma has whatsapp and you can contact her there!)

taglist for reach under the cut (if you'd like to not be put into these lists, please let me know and i will remove you)

@timetravellingkitty @meaganfoster @briarhips @mazzikah @mahoushojoe

@schoolhater @pcktknife @transmutationisms @sawasawako

@feluka @terroristiraqi @irhabiya @commissions4aid-international @wellwaterhysteria

@deepspaceboytoy @post-brahminism @junglejim4322 @kibumkim @neechees

@mangocheesecakes @kyra45 @marnota @7bitter @tortiefrancis

@toiletpotato @fromjannah @omegaversereloaded @vague-humanoid @criptochecca

@aristotels @komsomolka @neptunerings @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @heritageposts

@ot3 @amygdalae @ankle-beez @communistchilchuck @dykesbat

@watermotif @stuckinapril @violentrevolution @mavigator @lacecap

@socalgal @chilewithcarnage @ghelgheli @sayruq @northgazaupdates

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free gaza #gaza strip #free palestine #gazaunderattack

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innorogers · 1 month ago

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Veil

Steve Rogers x Reader (You / OFC)

Summary: Every inch of him missed you, his skin aching for the warmth of your touch, his mind desperate for the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes.

Warning: Desperate Steve /Protective Steve / Steve in despair

Characters: OC, John Walker, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Maria Hill, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton.

Also: Thanks in advance for repost or any feedback ❤️ Let me know if you want to be included in the taglist (DM, comment, repost and tag, whatever works)❤️

John woke up three days after your disappearance, groggy and disoriented, in the ICU. The world he knew was now in chaos. His room was heavily guarded, and the first familiar face he saw was Sam’s, stationed constantly at his door, watching over him in case of another attack and monitoring any communications.

He wasn’t a normal hospital of course, he was under strict surveillance within the Avengers compound. They’d done everything to save him: used the best medical care, cutting-edge technology, but he wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was anyone else.

No one was leaving.

Not until Steve, Hill, Natasha, and every spy loyal to Tony Stark had wrung out every last shred of information, every hidden connection, every detail that could bring them closer to understanding that attack, or finding you.

Everyone was interrogated, everyone needed to provide a hundred versions of their answers, and they had to match.

They’d match the lie detector, they’d match the CCTV, they’d match every record, every email, every sentence they’d said and that was captured by Jarvis.They’d match the fucking employee’s survey they filled two years ago. They’d match, otherwise they were facing hours and hours of ruthless, avenger’s style interrogation, led by Natasha, by Clint, by Sharon, and by Hill herself.

Vision and Wanda were busy, they worked tirelessly.

The mind stone explored its infinite powers: Vision immersed completely in the network, sifting through an endless flow of data: emails, files, surveillance footage, security reports…searching for any inconsistencies or traces that might have been overlooked.

Every security feed, every encrypted message, every buried piece of information was being drawn to the surface, handed to Jarvis and the team for analysis.

Wanda’s powers moved through the compound like an unseen force, a red wind that blew around the entire facility, spinning and sorting through the air. Looking for patterns, intuitive insights beyond what the data could reveal, in the hopes to catch something others had missed.

The barest flick of her fingers were like an instinctive hunter, reaching out to sense any lingering energy from the attack, any psychic residue that might hint at who was behind it.

Both in the search for answers, and for you.

Everyone had been looking, every single resource and agent was deployed, tearing through every lead, every rumor, every fragment of information to try to find you, but there was nothing—no trace, no sign, as if you had vanished into thin air.

Stark’s resources were being stretched to their edge: satellites repositioned, private networks hacked, and entire cities put under surveillance, but still, they came up empty.

Every asset, every favor, every underground contact was called in, yet there was only silence.

A terrible and horrible, empty void, It was as if the entire world had conspired to swallow you whole, leaving the Avengers grasping at shadows in their desperate search.

Steve was on the edge of breaking.

Days had blurred together, each one gnawing away at his sanity as he ran on scraps of sleep and barely a bite of food, his focus single-minded, unyielding, burning in a sleepless fear.

Half of his time was spent in the command center, his eyes fixed on every screen, every update, driving the team harder, faster, demanding more, obsessing over every detail, driving everyone, including him, insane but yet restless.

The other half he spent in the training room, pushing himself until his body was trembling, his muscles screaming, sweat pouring off him in sheets, and every cell in his body was begging for rest.

And then, maybe, he could get some sleep, only to wake up in some kind of nightmare with the worst scenes of his imagination.

He needed the pain—it kept him from losing his mind, kept him from the raw, pulsing panic threatening to choke him. He could feel it in every clenched breath, every aching bone: you were out there, alone, and every second he wasn’t by your side was a second he’d never forgive himself for.

And there was this enormous emotional pain too, an ache so deep it was almost physical. He could hardly bear the emptiness left by your absence; it was like a shadow that followed him everywhere.

He saw you in every corner: at the command center, at the dining table, in the lab, even in the training room that held the precious memory of the day you’d first met.

Every inch of him missed you, his skin aching for the warmth of your touch, his mind desperate for the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes.

He’d turn around at the hallucinated sound of your steps, the ghostly echo of your voice calling his name, and it was driving him mad, angry, sad, and scared.

He stepped back home just once, hoping, needing, to find some clue, any thread that might lead him closer to you. It was almost unbearable.

Your scent lingered in the air, filling the place with traces your left behind: mugs you used for breakfast left at the sink, the recipe book open and bookmarked to the page of the meal you were so excited to cook for him, his favorite wine in the fridge ready to open…everything only amplified the pain, the crushing sense that you were just beyond his reach.

And then, when the forensic techs arrived, the room was transformed into a crime scene: every item cataloged, every paper analyzed, every personal belonging scrutinized and stripped of its warmth. Steve could only watch, helpless, as every piece of the life you’d built together was dismantled and laid bare, a reminder that you were gone.

But he wasn’t the only one panicking, overwhelmed by fear and anger.

Tony and Maria were just as desperate. The breach was massive, and among the thousands of employees within the compound, there was no one, like literally no one, they could fully trust outside of themselves.

Every project, every ongoing research initiative was paused, and all information was locked down.

The world wanted intel? Advanced technology to defend itself? Was there any other alien army attacking? Well, it would have to rely on the UN or any other organization out there, because the Avengers were facing something worse than Thanos. This was a breach that had struck straight to their core, hitting the heart of everything they stood for—and they had no idea where it came from or how the fuck to fight back.

The Command Room’s lights stayed on 24/7, no one ever left.

Even Wakanda joined the investigation, cutting off all outside contact to protect themselves as they worked.

And after King T'Challa himself added his network of intelligence operatives, a hint finally emerged.

It happened 18 days after your disappearance.

And in these eternal days, to everyone’s horror and surprise, it looked like Steve was…normalizing. Exhaustion and fatigue were evident in him—something that had never, ever happened to Captain America.

He had a few gray hairs in his beard, and the dark circles under his eyes were plainly visible. It took some serious talks from Sam and Natasha, and a few heated discussions with Tony, to make him eat or sleep and keep him from spiraling into a state of self-destruction.

The news came back from General Okoye herself.

“There was only one…” The general was measuring her words. “Only one suspicious transmission. It was on a hidden frequency; we almost missed it. It was…lost, too short to intercept, but too strange to ignore. Hidden within encrypted channels, and when we got it, it actually took days to decode. Which made it even more suspicious.”

“Where is it leading to?” Steve listened with clenched fists, his gaze sharp, and his heart pounding in his chest.

The general sighed; she was being careful. “Most of the transmission was fragmented, but there was one mention that was unmistakable. It referenced The Void.”

“That…doesn’t exist.” Natasha replied immediately. “The Void has existed for ages and decades in the intel world, but only as a rumor. It’s a legend…like…fictional. It’s just a reference.”

“What’s The Void?” asked Sam.

“It’s a reference.” Natasha emphasized. “An urban legend, talked about over drinks, referring to an old, nearly forgotten facility on the outskirts of a war-torn city, once controlled by a covert organization that operated in the deepest shadows. It’s called that in intelligence circles: The Void, because supposedly no one has ever set foot in it. It’s empty; it’s…shadows and ashes. It isn’t real.”

“Yup. That’s true.” replied Clint. “The Void has been whispered about for years. It’s like…a ghostly facility that never existed on any official maps. It’s said that it was once a stronghold, buried deep in hostile territory. But that’s all…you know, legendary talk.”

“But that was years ago.” Black Widow still wasn’t fully convinced. “I haven’t heard of it in years. No one knows if it’s still standing, if it’s fortified, or even if it still exists.”

“It exists.” Suddenly, a voice interrupted in the room—John’s.

His voice was hoarse, the cut you’d given him had seriously injured his neck, and he looked somewhat funny with all the bandages around it. His eyes were darkened by heavy circles, and he had to pause before speaking again because his throat was burning.

“I was there three years ago on my first tour. It’s in the Altai Mountains of Kazakhstan. It’s nestled in a ridiculously hidden valley that’s…you know, inaccessible for normal people: extreme weather, uneven terrain. Something that would be impossible to reach for most folks, but probably looks like your training field number three.” He coughed as he talked.

“You sure?” Steve’s eyes narrowed, a glimmer of hope rising behind the exhaustion, but his jaw tightened with worry. He wanted to believe—he needed to believe—that John’s confirmation meant something real, something that could lead him to you. But doubt gnawed at him, a quiet fear lingering just beneath the surface, reminding him that this might still be another dead end. Or worse, it could lead to an end, one he was not ready to bear.

His fists clenched, his voice low and firm as he asked. “Are you certain?”

“Well…” John approached the screens and enlarged the map in front of him, showing it to everyone in the room. He tapped a point on it.

“Here. We could search for those files in the army from my first tour…” And as he spoke, Tony was already typing on the keyboard.

“But it should be here, look: secluded area, dense forests, jagged cliffs…Can I get a satellite view? Look at these buildings—sparse, abandoned Soviet-era infrastructure…see? And in winter? Dude, the place becomes even more desolate, with heavy snowstorms cutting it off completely from the outside world. Hey, Man in a Can, any chance you can overlay those X-rays or layer scans on the map?” He said, snapping his fingers at Tony.

Tony studied the map a bit longer, and under Steve’s expectant gaze, he frowned and ordered: “Cross-reference geological information with everything in Twelve’s archives. Don’t limit the search to her data only—look into her siblings, check the Winter Soldier’s files…Jarvis, search back and forth across 80 years of data.”

Bruce added, “Any chance we can get an energy scan below the surface? Whatever they’re developing, I don’t think it’s just there for a tour visit.”

Jarvis took less than a minute to complete the analysis.

“Sir, according to information found in files M001, M002, LocM001-X025-T29, and LocM001-X025-T31, test results were located in the indicated area.”

“M001 and 2?” Steve stood up immediately.

Those were the first two prototypes. He remembered you mentioning them when you told him your story: the ‘Apollo and Artemis’ siblings, the first successful models. When they began to fail, they created you and the rest of you.

“Run the analysis as we move.” Steve said, his fists tight and his eyes intense, as if he could see The Void itself before him. This was the first real lead they’d had, and the mystery of ghost town that didn’t even exist, added an unsettling layer—no one knew what they’d be facing.

But he didn’t give a fuck, even if it was hell itself, he would go to the deepest end of the abyss if that’s what it took to find you.

“Gear up. Moving out in 10.” He ordered, and as everyone started to move, he stopped Tony. “You stay here with Vis.” His expression was unwavering. “We need to keep the fort secure, safe. I need it cleaned when I’m back with her.”

Tony wanted to say something. He didn’t want to encourage Steve to pursue a ghost idea, but he just couldn’t muster a word. He patted Captain’s shoulder heavily and nodded.

“You sure?” Tony knew Steve was desperate, but he was also anxious, fearing Steve’s hopes might be raised, only to face the worst later. Tony brushed his hair back nervously. “Take Banner with you, then.”

“I’m sure.” For the first time in 18 days, Steve’s eyes held a glimmer of hope. “Vis and Wanda stay; I need the compound secure. Make them scan every last corner before we set foot out there.”

“Look,” Tony added solemnly, unable to help himself. He had to speak up. “It could be abandoned…or it could be more fortified than ever. We’ll need caution—and the element of surprise. If they suspect our arrival, they might vanish again…taking her with them.”

Or maybe she is already there, in a state that no one wants to think about. He thought to himself, not daring to make a comment about it.

“I know.” Steve’s gaze hardened as he looked around the room. Whether it was a ruin or a fortress, he would face whatever waited in The Void. He was ready to tear through every wall, every shadow, if it meant finding you.

“Ok.” Tony inhaled and forced a smile. “We’ll be ok.” His eyes fixed on Steve.

“We’ll be ok.” He repeated it, but he didn’t know who he was talking to—Steve or himself.

Steve didn’t say anything; he just nodded.

The Quinjet took flight in less than 10 minutes, with another ship following close behind. The team was geared up, and they weren’t going alone—the Strategic Operations Unit followed, fully armed with the latest tech, while Maria Hill and Tony Stark directed the operation from the Command Room.

The Unit was composed of the best military and special forces personnel: soldiers who had once served with S.H.I.E.L.D. or in elite units from around the world. They were humans who came just after the Avengers in strength and capability. And they were excited, determined. The Void was a legendary place, and they were eager to explore it.

Or tear it apart and burn it down to ashes and dirt if that’s what the Captain commands.

Steve sat in the back of the Quinjet, his mind a whirlwind.

There was an urge burning inside him, consuming him like wildfire: the desperate need to know that you were okay, that you were safe.

But alongside that, there was the crushing weight of the entire situation, the analysis you, Bruce, and Tony had pieced together days ago: Who took you? What dark, powerful organization had stolen you away? And what were they trying to achieve? Bruce had said they were close. That you were the missing piece in completing something monumental, something so massive it could render the enemy fearless, powerful enough not to fear the wrath of the Avengers anymore.

And that…was terrifying.

After defeating Thanos, the combined forces of the Avengers and Wakanda had been enough to prove to the world that they alone held the power to defend Earth.

But were they? Enough?

Because after all, power isn't just about brute strength or advanced technology; it is about control, strategy, and deception. The Avengers had faced gods, aliens, and everything the world had thrown at them, but this felt different.

This wasn’t a threat that announced itself with an army or a cosmic weapon. This was something calculated, something buried in shadows, pulling strings in the dark. And if there was one thing the Avengers weren’t particularly skilled at: navigating schemes or playing diplomatic and political games.

It was the kind of threat that could allow an organization to infiltrate so deeply, take one of their own without leaving a trace, and expose the Avengers as far less untouchable than the world believed.

And he, Steve Rogers, wasn’t as indestructible as he thought.

He had a weakness now, something that could shatter him entirely in the blink of an eye: You.

“Landing in four.” Sam announced from the pilot seat as the Quinjet began its descent, breaking through layers of dense clouds.

The scenery below unfolded like a haunting portrait.

It was exactly as John had described: hidden valleys carved from jagged rocks, hollowed mountains looming like forgotten sentinels, and a decaying forest cloaked in a heavy shroud of fog. Surrounded by high cliffs and dead ends mountains, almost impossible for common people to access. (And it was actually, looking really similar to Training Field 003 where the simulator portrayed a similar landscape.)

Everything seemed drained of life, abandoned, lost in time, cast in muted shades of gray and black, as if the place itself had given up—and every living thing within it too.

The streams of fog wove through the dried and skeletal trees, clinging to the ground like ghosts. Crumbling remnants of abandoned structures dotted the landscape: cracked walls and rusted metal consumed by time.

A biting chill seemed to seep through the Quinjet’s walls as they neared the ground. It felt as if they could be swallowed into this endless forgotten state, taken by the invisible hands of the oppressive atmosphere.

“Yeah, this really looks like…a ‘The Void’.” said Clint, stepping out of the Jet. “Whoever put the name definitely hit on the spot.”

Sam raised his eyebrow. “What are we, like in…Silent Hill?”

“Shush.” said Natasha. “The element of surprise is our only ally now. Any leads?” She pressed the comms. The complete team was on the other side, watching everything from the Command Room, scanning beyond their sight.

“Move forward.” Maria ordered. “Buildings at your twelve. I want complete silence. Team Alpha, take the right; Beta, take the left. Steve, you lead.”

“Got it.” Steve nodded. He noticed in the distance, nestled deep within the valley, an unnatural symmetry: rows of long-forgotten buildings that didn’t belong to nature’s chaos. It was subtle, almost hidden by the fog, but it was enough.

His jaw tightened.

This was the place.

“Gear up, and move.” He said, his voice low and steady, though his grip on the rail betrayed the tension surging through him. “We’re not leaving without answers.”

The team moved swiftly, like shadows. The jagged rocks and crumbling buildings provided perfect cover as they advanced, their movements silent, steps as light as feathers.

“Scan.” Steve ordered, his voice low but firm as he led the team deeper into the abandoned structures.

“What are we seeing? Or not seeing?” He pressed the comms, his gaze scanning the area with sharp precision.

Jarvis’s voice filtered into their earpieces. “Sir, a series of passages leading beneath the surface.”

“That’s a surprise.” Natasha chuckled. Typical.

“Looks like an underground stronghold.” Maria informed the team: “Seems like a water fortress. A helm, maybe? Dried out and abandoned.”

Steve’s jaw tightened as he glanced at the rest of the team.

“Let’s move.” He ordered.

The air seemed heavier as they pressed forward, entering what had once been the heart of the fortress. Everything around went stale and damp as they descended, the passage’s walls bearing cracks, rust, and faint traces of water lines that hinted at what the place had been before it fell into decay.

The deeper they went, the darker it became, the dim light from their gear casting eerie shadows across the ancient stone and metal.

It was a place that felt hollow, lifeless, but beneath the stillness, there was an unnerving sense of something waiting.

Steve raised his fist to signal a stop, and the rest of the team felt it too: they weren’t alone. There was a slight, almost undetectable sound in the thick air that ran through the place, something that only elite soldiers with hundreds of battles' worth of experience would recognize: someone was breathing around them.

“Sam.” Steve muttered, and the Falcon’s glasses started a laser scan around the place.

But before the results even came in, John, who was next to Sam, put a hand on his arm and lowered it.

“I don’t think we need that.” Walker said, barely above a whisper. When Sam removed his glasses, he saw it too, along with the rest of the team.

Eyes.

Lines and lines of people surrounded them, staring back at them with lifeless, empty gazes.

"Holy shit." said Sam and John at the same time.

“Attack from the nerds 2.0?” John grimaced.

“Stay sharp. Circle formation,” Steve ordered, clenching his fists around his shield. “Give me your best, and give them your worst. Got it?”

The eerie look on the enemy sent a cold shiver through everyone’s back. The team stayed silent for a moment, but when Steve’s commands dropped, they responded in unison with a roar.

The stillness shattered in an instant as the first wave of attackers surged forward.

“Engage!” Steve roared, his shield flying through the air and slamming into the nearest enemy with a thunderous crack before returning to his arm.

“Okay, to the dancefloor!” To his left, Sam launched into the air, his wings spreading wide as he maneuvered above the chaos. His goggles highlighted the attackers’ positions. “Commander, give me the source path. Where are these guys coming from?”

“Scanning…” Maria’s commands came through as Jarvis synchronized the analysis. Tony’s helmet illuminated as he synced all the data to the team’s gear.

“There’s some kind of base at your two o’clock, Sam,” Tony said as the heat map displayed the information. “Extremely low temperatures… Shit, what are you guys even fighting?” His expression darkened as the heat analysis became clearer.

“Gonna be hard to reach that two o’clock! They’re everywhere!” Sam shouted, firing his wing-mounted machine guns to clear a path below. One of the enemies leaped toward him, but Natasha’s knee struck first. She was a blur of lethal grace as she slipped between attackers.

“Wow, new toy?” Sam asked, spotting Natasha’s twin batons crackling with electricity as she took down two enemies at a time with each sweep.

“Keep moving! Don’t let them pin us down!” She called, her voice calm but sharp as she dodged an incoming strike and slammed her baton into an enemy’s temple. “Could use some help opening the line to two o’clock here!”

A chuckle came through the comms as Hawkeye stood back for a moment, his bowstring taut, stretched to its maximum capacity as he aimed for the target. The string was charged with an electrifying blue blast.

“Bruce?” Clint muttered as he loosed his fingers, sending an explosive-tipped arrow into the crowd ahead of the Hulk.

The blast tore through like a comet, breaking multiple enemy lines and clearing space. The Hulk charged through with a roar that shook the ground. He swung his massive fists in wide arcs, scattering attackers like leaves in a storm.

“Move!” commanded Natasha, leading the rest of the operations team as they tightened their formation, trying to push through and make it to the source.

Above them, Sam spotted reinforcements swarming in from the cliffs. “Guys, more incoming from the ridge!”

“More?!” John fought alongside Steve, his shield clashing against the attackers with raw force. “What do you mean, more? What is this? Like an army?!” he shouted, slamming his shield into one enemy before spinning and knocking another to the ground with a powerful kick.

“These are not regular soldiers,” said Maria through the comms, watching the live data analysis with a mix of nervousness and horror.

“No shit, really?” John replied. “Is like fighting an army of your finest tactical teams. I don’t think you see this on an everyday basis.”

“They just keep coming!” Steve replied, his voice strained as he deflected a strike aimed at his head and countered with a devastating blow to the chest of his attacker. “Tony, we need to know what’s at that source!”

“One sec.” Tony replied, commanding the screen with furious speed as he analyzed the scans. “Shit, I could really use your girlfriend’s powers right now. What the hell is in there? Something really powerful is blocking my signs.” He muttered while typing, overriding thousands of codes. “Commander, I think we’ve found what the lens from Steve’s fake brother-in-law was leading us to…”

“Okay, Jarvis, get me Robert Lin. NOW.” Tony ordered, his voice sharp as he broke through more passcodes. “I need him to reproduce that same cringy sound that woke my tech team from their Walking Dead state. And Steve, don’t try breaking through the entire World War Z wall… just send Sam over. I’ll have the command ready; he just needs to plug in.”

“You heard that?” Steve asked Sam as he slammed his shield into another enemy. Seeing the Falcon take flight toward the destination, Steve commanded with unwavering determination, “We push through. Everyone fights, no one falls.”

“Bruce, block them!” Steve shouted.

Bruce growled in response, grabbing a massive boulder and hurling it into the gap between the team and the incoming wave, creating a temporary barrier.

But the moment the rock landed, a sharp white light sliced it clean in half, the massive stone splitting as if it were paper.

As the dust and debris settled, a figure stormed into the battle, moving faster than the eye could follow, a cold blade weaving through the air in deadly arcs.

“Watch it!” John shouted, raising his shield for the first strike.

A muted sound echoed as the blade clashed against the shield, sending a shockwave that threw everyone nearby to the ground. John hit the ground hard, his arms numb and nearly unable to hold his shield.

“Shit…” he muttered through clenched teeth as he struggled to stand, but his face went pale when he saw you. Standing there, your eyes were cold, unrecognizable—hollow and devoid of emotion.

“Um… Steve?” John muttered as you spun the blade with an elegant yet deadly precision.

“Step back.” Steve replied, his voice thick with pain and fear he could barely suppress.

“I’ve got this.” His gaze met yours, and in that moment, his heart broke.

The End but TBC.

Continue to: 12- Labyrinth

Oh this was a stressfull but fun one to write, sorry for being late in posting, but lately seems my stress levels are on their highest. The story will continue but I'm maybe one or two days of delaying on posting, but still will try my best to continue posting on fridays ✨ Thank you all for the lovely posts and messages you've sent last week when I was having a breakdown, this community is just magical, I'll continue writing and try my best to have the best stories! (BTW I just love fighting scenes, they are so fun to write, and I love these groups interactions) 💓 See you next week!

Love., Moon.࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Tag list: @vioplay19 / @jamneuromain / @steviebbboi / @heletsmelovehim / @otterlycanadian / hisredheadedgoddess28

let me know if you want to be added! 🥰

#steve rogers x ofc #captain america x reader #steve rogers x reader #captain america x you #steve rogers x you #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers #captain america x ofc #captain america fanfiction #captain america fanfic #marvel fanfic #chris evans characters

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luminoustarlight · 1 year ago

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Your Eyes Only | Anakin Skywalker

You leave Anakin a special recording on his tablet.

rating: explicit | pairing: tcw!anakin skywalker x afab!reader | wc: 719 warnings: SMUT [masturbation, recording of sexual acts, breeding/pregnancy kink, dirty talk], swearing

this came to me last night after watching the latest ahsoka episode. no spoilers though!

There is a special place in galactic purgatory for one Anakin Skywalker. A secret marriage is one thing but this crosses a whole new threshold.

If it weren’t for the thankful prince who insisted on throwing a banquet for Anakin and Ahsoka after rescuing him, Anakin wouldn’t be in this position.

He’d be halfway back to Coruscant.

He wouldn’t be in a private room with his personal tablet in one hand and his stiff cock in the other. Like he said. Galactic purgatory.

He should’ve known better when you handed him his tablet before he left and emphasized, “for your eyes only.”

He thought maybe it’d be a few photos of you. Certainly not a video recording of you on your bed with your legs spread and fingers dancing over your clit.

“Do you have your hand around your cock, Ani? Are you making yourself feel good?”

“Yes,” he subconsciously replies to you, even though he’s watching a recording. You’re massaging one of your breasts while barely slipping two fingers into your hole. Anakin groans at this, the dark desire in his belly only getting stronger. He swipes his palm over his tip and drags his hand down his length, lubricating himself with his pre-cum.

“I miss you, Ani,” you insert two fingers into your pussy, moaning and arching your back into your touch. “You’re so much better at this than me.” Your fingers move in and out, in and out. “Your hands are bigger… fingers are longer…y’just fill me up so much better.”

It drives Anakin insane hearing how wet you are. He hates that he can’t taste you. He hates that he can’t nuzzle his face against you, holding your thighs open with so much force it hurts. His hand pales in comparison to how your cunt feels around him. So snug and warm, he’s convinced it’s the most divine feeling in the galaxy.

“I know you wish you were in this tight little pussy, fucking me hard… or soft, whichever you’d like… but you’ll be back home soon. Then you can have me as much as you want. Cum in me as many times as you want. Filling me up until it sticks.”

Your voice is music to Anakin’s ears. It’s astounding how such filthy words can sound like a sweet melody when coming from your lips. Maker, he wishes he was with you. You can’t tease him with the idea of putting a baby in you when he’s on another kriffing planet. He continues to twist and squeeze his hand around his dick to help alleviate the throbbing. The image of your swollen belly is too much for him to bear. His skin is burning— with lust or shame, he doesn’t know. But what he does know is that you’re about to cum. He sees it in the way your breathing changes, when you shut your eyes and purse your lips. And then you say it.

“Gonna cum, Anakin— oh, fuck! Ani, I’m cumming!” your toes are curling and your body is twitching as you feel an electric current course through you.

Oh, that sends him over the edge. He bucks his hips up, fucking his hand with fervor until he’s spurting hot white seed on his abdomen. “Shit- fuck—“ Anakin drops the tablet and puts his fist in his mouth to suppress the sound of his orgasm. He hasn’t cum quite so hard from his hand in a long time.

You’re coming down from your highs together, despite being planets apart. You crawl to the edge of the bed, your face now in clear view on Anakin’s tablet. You always look so beautiful, however, you’re especially stunning after you’ve orgasmed. Must be a result of the chemical reactions that occur during intercourse.

“I miss you. Come home safely,” is your last remark before the video ends.

“I miss you too, angel,” Anakin answers. Once he cleans himself up he’ll see if he can send you an encrypted message. That thought, however, vanishes as soon as there is a loud knock on his door.

“Anakin! Are you almost ready?” It’s Ahsoka. “The banquet starts in 3 minutes!”

Anakin scrambles off of the bed and hurries to wipe off the cum on his stomach. “Be right there, Snips.”

Yup. He is definitely going to galactic purgatory.

live action clone wars anakin is SENDING ME and the fact that hayden just naturally looks older.... ugh. he's so yummy.

◂ anakin masterlist ▸ main masterlist

#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker smut #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker x you #anakin skywalker x female reader #tcw!anakin

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robin-evry · 2 months ago

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HII i'm loving your works omg! could i ask you to make a bronya!yuu or silverwolf!yuu? (you can choose just one if you want). take care or yourself and do your work at your time, no need to rush! :D

I decided to do two but sorry if bronya is so short , aww thank you.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐋𝐅!𝐘𝐔𝐔 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐖𝐒𝐓🐺👾

A member of the Stellaron Hunters and a genius hacker. She sees the universe as a massive immersive simulation game and has fun with it. She's mastered the skill known as "aether editing," which can be used to tamper with the data of reality.

Silver wolf!yuu is rarely known in nrc, they prefer to stay behind the scenes only a few students know about their existence.

Rarely appear in public, mostly using their holograms to go to school. It's pretty rare to see them actually outside of the ramshackle dorm.

Has a habit of disappearing and appearing, imagine your standing there and suddenly a hologram or game particles appear and silver wolf!yuu appear beside you.

Every time Crowley manages to piss them off, silver wolf!yuu would choose an area to vandalize at school, and some students manage to learn when you take a photo of it you can get a hidden message from silver wolf!yuu about Crowley.

silver wolf!yuu has a habit of collecting data about students, they have a database about their past, quirks, strength and weakness.

A very famous gamer in twst known to beat unbeatable levels of any game in twst and they use a fake alias. They hear about idia ranting towards Ortho about their game persona and find it funny. And join many game tournaments and win them easily and they gained money for this.

The ignihyde dorm is their second home, the dorm has good wifi for gaming. And manage to get close to idia and Ortho and talk about games with each other.

Their uniform has technology imbued to it. allowing them to access and project holographic screens on command. These are mainly used for quick data checks, sending encrypted messages, or pulling up maps and files in real-time without needing a handheld device.

They possessed a higher advanced technology than anything in twst. Also they use their aether hacking to change the ramshackle to their liking.

In battle, they would dominate due to having a lot hex on their side, they can hack into reality and get in the students file and remove the overblot. Or use it to discover and apply weakness towards the enemy.

They also have a mysterious job, operated as a freelancer, known for taking on jobs that require skill, secrecy, and the ability to circumvent the most complex security systems. Their reputation was built on their expertise in digital infiltration, information gathering, and high-stakes hacking, often working for those willing to pay for their skills without asking too many questions. most of their clients seem to be suspicious or not morally good.

Notorious for being a phone addict always playing their game outside or inside of class and when they were asked a question they immediately answered it correctly.

They also have a talent of engineering zoning out imagining about creating new tech ideas, mods and strategies for games.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐅 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐀!𝐘𝐔𝐔 𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐖𝐒𝐓 ❄️🌬️

Heir apparent to the Supreme Guardian of Belobog. She possesses pride befitting of a princess, but also the determination and integrity of a soldier.

Bronya!yuu is the embodiment of what a leader and an heir should be. Their charisma is able to encourage people and lead them towards the right path.

As well a dignified soldier bronya!yuu may look weak but are by far one of the most efficient in hand to hand combat, able to pin down a student who is bigger than them.

Has a tendency to reminisce about their mother and would just sit there and reminisce about them and grim would always be there to comfort them.

An expert marksman, rook and them once a week have a contest with each other who ever is the better marksman.

They are by far one of vil favorite, they are dignified, elegant and strong like a soldier and a princess should be, they also inspired epel to be more like them he admired them and have lessons with him where they tutor him.

They are patient and calm in the heeds of battle always believing as being one in harmony they could work together and forge a more successful path, as well being the back bone of a battle planning and helping them behind the scenes by shooting at the enemy

Them and Lilia would usually trade military tactics to each other over a cup of tea and also discussing other topics

They usually get burned out and they don't know when to rest, since they always have to keep a princess like dignity many of the first years notice and comfort them during hard times.

Bronya!yuu abilities allow them to enhance their comrade ability extremely towards its potential, as well to summon winter soldiers to help them but it takes a lot of energy.

Have a love and interest in history, usually seen in the library studying about twst long history and enjoy talking about them to their friends.

As well being a top student, always studying and getting good grades without any issue and always be respectful towards people

By far have a good reputation at school for being a capable leader, many students admire their discipline, while others have some sort of a sense of rivalry with them.

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drekkavac · 2 months ago

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[ 𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐑𝐘𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄. ] 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘. ❝ oh she laughs ! She can smile too . ❞

𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 , 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐒 , 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐀𝐑𝐄? The laugh had come to her seemingly out of nowhere. Her life until this point had been nothing but waking nightmares for them. If she though hard enough , the last time she 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐃 herself to smile , to laugh … They found out. They 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 knew. Somehow …

Legacy had a way of finding out everything.

Even now , in a 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 attempt to find freedom that she still wondered was real or not. She could kill him right now. It'd be easy. It 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 have been easy before. It 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 have been easy. But for one reason or another , she couldn't do it. A momentary error that they were still debating was a good one.

It's when @halfdent brings 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 to the gesture of hers , that laugh that had snuck out without her knowing , causing her face to darken to a light shade of pink to betray the pale almost ghost like features. Had she known who her mother was … she would know her to be the one to give her those features , along with the one green eye she possessed to pair with the 𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐘 icy blue one on the other side. Eyes look down from him , cast now to her fidgeting hands. There is was , the quick 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐀𝐋 of emotion to bring back the cold exterior she learned to be the safer expression.

❝ Are bad jokes something everyone does? ❞ It was a 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊 deflect from her own actions. Common when someone pointed out something that made her nervous , as if 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 didn't make her nervous out here , so long without returning home. So long that she was beginning to wonder when she would be pulled back. It happened every time she ran. One way or another , they always pulled her back. They'd been watching , waiting for that to happen , but those agents never came. The joke had been the first time she had let that guard even in the 𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓. ❝ Or is it just you? ❞ The words she spoke were English , she was fluent in the language along with many others , but the accent that went with it 𝐎𝐁𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐋𝐘 had a Russian sound to it. ❝ You're different from most people. ❞

#║▌ THE UNBAPTIZED CHILD RISEN FROM THE GRAVE. // IC.#║▌ ENCRYPTED MESSAGES. // ANSWERED.#v. dc.#║▌ KISS ME YOU ANIMAL I NEED TO TAKE YOU IN REAL SLOW. // HALFDENT.#halfdent

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motherroam-rs · 10 months ago

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Sleep Deprivation

Relationship: Hunter x Reader

Summary: In the search for Omega, Hunter struggles to sleep and needs a push to get some rest.

Warnings/Tags: Sleep Deprivation, Angst, Comfort, uhhh I think that’s everything

Word Count: 1.2k

Notes: The first 3 episodes have me in a chokehold, I wanna see Hunter happy again - Here’s a super short angsty lil comfort fic for Hunter set just before the beginning of episode 2 🫶🫶 Apologies for any grammatical errors!

Every noise in the Marauder seemed louder with just the three of you in it. Any hum, beep, and sigh seems to be amplified, even Gonkys small movements seemed to echo through the empty space just as loud as Wreckers snores.

Though, it’s not the only change. The ship seems too big now, and it’s hard to remember a time where it was so over-occupied that you would all fight over who got to sleep in a bunk for the night, and who had to use a sleep mat on the floor. Durasteel walls that previously made you all feel like fish packed together in a can, now seemed to stretch out impossibly, making it seem that you were planets away from the ships other two occupants.

Currently you’re sat in the co-pilot chair, preoccupied with your glitchy datapad, attempting to send an encrypted message to Echo for any updates from the clone network. You’re biting down on a sigh at how you wished Tech were here to fix it for you when Wrecker nudges your foot with his own.

You look up, puzzled at the man but your silent question is answered by the attempted jerk of his head. Behind you both sits Hunter, staring abysmally at the control board of flashing lights with his fist tightened around a horn from Roland Durand. The lights cast a harsh shadow on his features and your lips can’t help but work themselves into a frown at the dark circles beneath his eyes.

It had been well over 24 hours since he last slept.

Glitchy datapad now abandoned, you give a quick nod in thanks to Wrecker, before leaving the cockpit to approach Hunter. His chair doesn’t turn, and despite his enhanced senses and the lack of noise in the ship to cover your steps in any way, he gives no indication that he’s heard you. You follow his line of sight to both Tech’s goggles and Lula, both of the items bringing a pain to your chest.

“Hunter?” You press your hand to his armored shoulder, and he finally turns to look at you, slightly startled and you can’t even recall a time that you’ve ever caught him so off guard. Now that he’s facing you, the exhaustion is evident in more than just the dark circles under his eyes, his body seems to slump against the support of the chair in some sort of emotional defeat.

He’s been running himself into the ground over the last few days in pursuit of the Pyke needed in order to get the lead you had all been after, but at least you and Wrecker still managed to somewhat take care of your basic needs of sleep and rations.

Before you can speak, he turns back towards the controls, as if sensing what you were going to say about the neglect to his sleep schedule.

“Tech made this all seem… easy.” Gloved hands gesture to the console of flashing lights, his throat bobbing with a dry swallow as he shakes his head. “All of it takes me twice as long as it took him.”

Hunters hand pinches the bridge of his nose, the same way he does when he has an oncoming headache and your hand presses to the unarmoured section between his shoulder and neck, an area that is usually covered by his scarf. At the touch, his eyes close and lips part with a soft release of breath.

He needs to sleep.

“Come to bed, Hunter.” The whisper echoes through the too-quiet ship, amplified like every other noise, and for a moment it looks like he’s going to refuse. He doesn’t speak, but gives a slight nod of his head, and brushes your hand away to stand and begin removing his armor as he follows you on the way to your shared bunk.

After so long of racing to be the first one on the Marauder after a mission to secure your own bunk for a night, there was some sad irony in the fact that you now couldn’t sleep alone. Following the loss of Tech, and the painful absences of Omega and Echo, all attempts to adjust to the atmosphere of loneliness on the ship were almost painful.

At the start, you think you barely managed a standard 8 hours across 3 full day cycles, let alone in one night, and your restlessness didn’t go unnoticed by Hunter, who had probably slept even less than you. On the fourth night of staring at the ceiling and trying to muffle your quiet crying in the too-silent ship, he had abandoned his bunk beneath you and climbed into your own. His arms allowed you the comfort of not grieving alone that night, and almost every night since.

At some point, it delved into more than simply finding comfort in each other so you could both sleep, sending you far enough past the line of friends for Wrecker to tease you both in an attempt to lighten the heavy atmosphere in the Marauder.

Now only wearing the lower half of his blacks, Hunter lifts himself into the shared top bunk, and offers you a hand up, immediately pulling you into him once you’re safely up. In the small confines of the bunk, you’re entirely pressed to his firm body, yet he still holds you tightly against his bare chest as if fearing you’d slip away the moment his eyes closed.

He’s pulled the thin blanket over you both, but with the heat of his body it’s more than enough to keep you warm. “We’ll get her back.” You murmur against Hunters chest in assurance as one of his hands pulls your leg across his own, entangling the two of you together.

You feel his hand twitch against you, “It’s been a long time, and we still don’t know where she is, the only lead we can get right now is by handing over a Pyke to the Durand family.” His voice is heavy with exhaustion and you crane your neck up, lifting yourself from his chest to place your hand on his stubble covered jaw, forcing him to look at you.

“We’ll get her back, Hunter, but you need to sleep.” You lean in to press a kiss to the lips that seem to have set themselves into an ever present frown since that day on Ord Mantell.

Hunters hand presses to your face to mirror your own, his other arm tightening around your waist protectively as he kisses you back. Even when you pull away and rest your head back on his chest, his fingers continue to trace slow patterns on your waist, still refusing to let you go as he gives in to his tiredness.

You wait for his breathing to slow, ensuring he’s asleep before you allow yourself to close your eyes and follow him. In the night, you dream of living together in a house on Pabu, where the only echoing noise is Omegas laugh, where there are no empty spaces to make you feel lonely, and where Hunter can finally rest.

#the bad batch season 3 #the bad batch #bad batch season 3 spoilers #bad batch hunter #tbb hunter #bad batch hunter x reader #hunter tbb x reader #angst with a happy ending

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wiseagent · 9 months ago

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smooch?

THE SPY CAN'T HELP BUT SMILE UPON TED'S PLEA , perhaps a bit too willing to comply with it & enthusiastically so as well. it has been far too long since they've had a chance to spend time together , his fault , as he's been drowning in assignments , & with anya & henry off to the side talking about their favorite cartoon shows , he didn't see any issue in divulging in some public affection. IS THIS NECESSARY FOR THE MISSION ? his mind would query , forever putting his work before anything else. for once , he knows the answer is no , but rather than do it for WISE , he'll do it out of selfishness ━━ out of his own needs.

❝ you have an amusing way of asking for affection , my darling , ted , ❞ loid whispers as he leans down to kiss @belasso's cheek , the contact brief , but it's enough to spark fireworks in his own chest. out of the corner of his eye , he spots anya & henry now looking their way , his daughter looking especially confused. WHAT IS SHE THINKING ? ❝ perhaps i should make you wait for a proper kiss when these two are not present , ❞ he whispers with a wink. ❝ for now , shall we all go to the ice cream shop ? i think after witnessing that bit of affection , the children are in need of some sweets. ❞ with a laugh at anya's immediate approval at his suggestion ﹙ screaming ❛ ice cream ❜ repeatedly as she dances around them ﹚ , loid lets an arm wrap around ted as they approach their children , ready for a relaxing , family day with the ones he loves.

#belasso #˗ˏˋ ᶜᶤᵖʰᵉʳ ᵃ· ﹙ ic ﹚ ﹕ another role to play.#˗ˏˋ ᶜᶤᵖʰᵉʳ ᶜ· ﹙ answered ﹚ ﹕ encrypted messages.#˗ˏˋ ᵃˢˢᶤᵍᶰᵐᵉᶰᵗ· ﹙ mission 004 ﹚ ﹕ slipping through my fingers.#THEY RETURN #i have missed tedloid they are so soft #the family we never knew we needed ;___;

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techhiz · 9 days ago

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part 1.

Faded Spark 2

It didn’t take long for word to spread through the Decepticon base. The comms buzzed with frantic chatter, but it was when Megatron's voice thundered through the halls, summoning the troops, that everything came to a halt. The news had come from Soundwave, delivered in his usual calm but somehow haunting tone. His voice, even without emotion, carried the weight of devastation.

"Y/N... is dead."

At first, no one believed it. They thought it was a trick. Y/N, the young femme who had grown into a force to be reckoned with, had been the embodiment of fearlessness and loyalty. How could she possibly be gone?

But when Megatron summoned the high-ranking Decepticons to the war room, it was clear this wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t some cruel joke. It was real. Their strongest, most reliable medic, Knockout, had lost his twin sister—Soundwave’s favorite—and the Decepticons would never be the same again.

In the war room, Megatron stood in front of his troops, his expression cold, calculating as ever, but there was something—something—missing. His optics, usually filled with commanding authority, were now cold pits of sorrow, a bitter reflection of his grief.

“There will be no questions. Y/N's death is a loss for us all,” Megatron said, his voice low and full of authority, but lacking the usual harshness. He rarely allowed any emotion to show, but the pain was unmistakable. “Her death shall not go unpunished. We will strike at the Autobots, yes—but not today. Today, we mourn.”

The room fell silent, the usually confident Decepticons standing still as if the weight of the news had drained all life from them. It was as though the very spark of their army had been extinguished.

Soundwave, however, was the first to speak—or rather, to transmit his words through his familiar mechanical voice. "Y/N was... my most valued. A loss I will not easily overcome." His words, though few, were spoken with an unmistakable ache, a longing that only someone who truly cared for someone else could express. Even Soundwave, the one Decepticon who rarely showed emotion, was broken.

Starscream stood off to the side, his posture stiff and his optics dark. “So, she’s dead, huh?” he asked, his tone void of the usual arrogance. “A shame... But what happened?”

“No one knows,” Megatron answered sharply, his voice echoing through the room. “But we will find out. This is not something to be overlooked.”

Starscream said nothing further, his usual smugness gone. There was something in the air that made even him hesitate. No one questioned Megatron’s words. No one dared to. Y/N’s death was a turning point, and even the scheming Starscream knew it.

At the back of the room, Breakdown stood with his head lowered, his fists clenched in silent rage. His connection with Knockout was well known, and he could see how much this loss was affecting his partner. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Breakdown’s pain was written all over his face. He couldn’t fathom the grief Knockout was enduring.

For a moment, everything was silent again. The Decepticons were at a loss for what to do, for how to move forward. It wasn’t just the loss of one of their own—it was the loss of someone who had been a light in the darkness for so many of them.

---

Meanwhile, far across the battlefield, the Autobots were in their own base, oblivious to the tragedy that had unfolded. They hadn’t been involved. They hadn’t been responsible. But that didn’t mean they were free from the consequences of Y/N’s death.

Optimus Prime was the first to hear the news. Ratchet had received an encrypted transmission from the Decepticons, and though it had been marked with unusual urgency, the message itself was as cryptic as Soundwave’s usual communications. Ratchet, however, wasn’t a fool, and the strange note of sorrow in the transmission made his spark tremble. He immediately contacted Optimus.

"Optimus," Ratchet’s voice crackled over the comms, a tone of uncertainty threading through his words. "You might want to listen to this."

Optimus Prime, who had been busy overseeing some of the base’s operations, immediately made his way to the medbay, sensing the heaviness in Ratchet’s voice. He hadn’t seen his old comrade in such a state for quite some time. It was only when he entered the medbay that Ratchet handed him the transmission.

Optimus scanned the contents carefully, his optics flickering with a mixture of confusion and concern. It wasn’t an ordinary message. There were no typical demands or taunts—just a short, chilling line:

'Y/N is dead.'

There was a pause as the weight of the words settled into the room. Ratchet’s shoulders slumped, the anger and frustration of having fought so long against the Decepticons now mixed with something else: an eerie sense of responsibility. They hadn’t caused Y/N’s death, but the fact remained that she was gone—and Ratchet, for a moment, felt as though he had failed.

“Are you sure about this?” Optimus asked, his voice unusually soft. It wasn’t the kind of softness reserved for allies or enemies—it was the tone of someone who had just learned a hard truth.

Ratchet nodded grimly. “Yes. Soundwave was the one to transmit the message, and though I don’t trust him, there’s no mistaking the… sorrow in his voice.” He looked up at Optimus, his face etched with the exhaustion of too many battles. “I don’t know what happened, Optimus. But I think we’ve just lost someone important.”

Optimus Prime didn’t respond immediately. His processor whirred as he thought of the battle tactics the Autobots had used, the covert missions they’d conducted, and the occasional reconnaissance he had personally carried out. He thought of the many times Y/N had been caught in the crossfire, fighting valiantly by the side of the Autobots despite her Decepticon allegiance. She had always been one of the few who questioned the boundaries of the war—who saw the futility in it all.

“She was... an anomaly,” Optimus finally said, his voice thick with reluctant admiration. “In a way, she reminded me of some of our own. But now, she is gone. The loss affects more than just the Decepticons.”

Ratchet grimaced. “I don’t know what kind of impact it’ll have on the war. But this... this feels personal. Even Soundwave is shaken.”

Bumblebee, who had been nearby, overheard the conversation. He had seen Y/N’s fierce spirit, her strength, her determination—even if they hadn’t always agreed. They’d fought side by side before, and he couldn’t help but feel a pang in his chest. He had always admired her, respected her, and though their alliance had been shaky at best, they’d both shared a love for their home world.

He stepped forward, unable to hold back any longer. “I know she was a Decepticon... but... She was still... one of us, right?”

Ratchet looked at the scout, his gaze softening. “In many ways, yes. But her death doesn’t change the fact that we were at war.”

Optimus Prime placed a steady hand on Bumblebee’s shoulder, the weight of the moment settling on him as well. “We may not have been the ones who ended her life, but it doesn’t matter. A life has been lost, and we mourn that loss. We must honor her memory, and we must continue our fight.”

---

The Decepticons—especially Knockout—could not see beyond their grief. Soundwave, once so composed, was now quiet, distant. The loss of Y/N had left a void too deep to comprehend. It wasn’t just a member of their ranks who had fallen; it was a piece of their soul. The world they once knew had been irreversibly altered.

On the Autobots’ side, there was no victory to be had in the loss of Y/N. Optimus Prime, Ratchet, and the others all felt the sting of the sudden, heart-wrenching truth: war had claimed another life, and this time, it was someone who had once walked beside them. Not in their ranks, perhaps, but in the shared struggle. They had been family in more ways than one.

And as the universe continued to spin, it became clear that Y/N’s death wasn’t just the loss of a fighter—it was the loss of hope, of an ideal, and of a future that could have been different. The line between Autobot and Decepticon had blurred, and in the end, it was the innocent who paid the price.

For Knockout, Soundwave, and all those who had known Y/N, the war would never be the same.

#tfp #transformers #tfp knockout #transformers x reader #techhizz work

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goosewriting · 7 months ago

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hi! saw that you are taking requests, can you do a cal kestis one where him and reader go to some nice planet after a mission and reader asks Cal to dance under the stars. then reader remarks about the planet or view being beautiful, and cal says something like "but you are more so" and then they both get shy for a bit and one of them confesses, ending with a sweet kiss?

thank you love your work sm ♥️

Constant

summary: after a mission, Cal and reader get separated from the rest and have a sweet moment together.

relationship: Cal Kestis x gn!reader

warnings: none, fluff!

word count: 4k

A/N: it has been a while since i’ve written Cal and it shows omg i feel so rusty. also i may have gone a bit off topic with the intro/setting sdfsdf i really hope this works for you anon, thank you sm for requesting :D

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

— — —

Despite the mission ending successfully, you got found by an angry squad of troopers, and in your escape, you got separated from the team. Cere and Greez made a hasty escape on the Mantis; Merrin disappeared from sight in a green cloud, so you knew she was hidden somewhere, and she’d be fine. You and Cal however had to run through the maze that was the village, hearing the many boots behind you. Luckily you encountered a ship with a hyperdrive, so while in your mind you apologised to the owners for “borrowing” their ship (they’re not getting it back), you made quick work of hijacking it, kickstarting the engines and making a swift exit into the atmosphere, then jumping into hyperspace.

It wasn’t usual for the crew to have to steal a transport, but when you did, all of you knew the drill: access the computer, scramble the signal, and send out an encrypted message to the Mantis so the others knew you were safe.

After you mentally tick off every item in the to-do list, you let yourself fall into the co-pilot seat with a sigh. Next to you, Cal checks the scanner one last time, and is about to punch in some coordinates into the navigation system, but his hand stops mid-air.

“So, where are we going exactly?” he asks.

“We need to lay low,” you think aloud and take the holopad out of your backpack, bringing up a galactic map of the region you’re currently in. You scroll back and forth for a minute, until you find a suitable goal. Stretching your arm over to Cal so he can see your screen, you point to the pin you just set. The little ship is decently shaken by the speed, so Cal gently places his hand over yours to stabilise the device to be able to read the tag. Even though you’re both wearing gloves, and physical contact isn’t exactly rare between the two of you, you can still feel the slight prickle of heat on your cheeks. You mentally curse at yourself for being this affected by such small gestures. Your thoughts are quickly interrupted however as Cal lets go of your hand, fully leaning back into the seat with a huff.

“Is there really no other choice?” he asks.

“All things considered, it’s a good one,” you offer. “We need to land to properly dismantle the transponder before the ship gets reported as stolen.”

“Right,” he sighs and punches in the coordinates. The computer shows a loading bar quickly reaching the end as it finishes calculating when to leave hyperspace. It’s actually in just a couple of minutes.

You lean back into the seat as well, placing the holopad on your lap. You turn your face to Cal with a silly grin.

“Besides, I hear they have wonderful weather this time of year.”

The Jedi doesn’t answer but you can hear his light huff as he playfully rolls his eyes. BD, sitting on the seat behind Cal’s, beeps amusedly as well.

You smile to yourself, your eyes lingering on Cal’s profile perhaps a second too long. He seems to feel you looking, and just as he turns his face to you, you quickly look the other way. Before you can give in to the embarrassment of having been caught staring, the computer signals it’s time to drop from hyperspace.

Cal’s focus goes back to the front, and he places his hand on the lever, pulling it down. Adjusting your position on your seat, you can’t help but crane your neck a little as the flurry of lights in front of you comes to a halt, replaced by the image of a green planet: Takodana. As you approach the surface, you take in the sights, the mountains, the lakes. Everything looks so… lush, and alive. It's a nice change of pace after the multitude of arid, dusty planets you seem to have been limited to lately. You swear you still have sand in your boots from a mission weeks ago.

Picking your holopad back up, you zoom into the map, giving Cal instructions on what route to take and what altitude to maintain. There’s a clearing in the forest that seems big enough to fit the ship, so you decide to land there. Once the engines are turned off, you three get to work: Cal walks out the short ramp to start working on the transponder to fry it, while BD stays in the cockpit to wipe the travel logs. You check the small cargo hold, opening all storage containers, looking for anything useful, be it rations, equipment or medical supplies.

After a while, you find that there are some tools and miscellaneous things that could be useful. Those you put in one of the bigger storage boxes and leave it near the door so it’s easy to reach; the rest you just put away again where it was. Giving yourself a nod of approval, you stand up and dust off your legs, as you’ve been kneeling on the metallic floor which apparently did not get mopped very often. You exit the ship, walking around to the other side, where you see that Cal has removed a panel from the outer hull to essentially start taking the ship apart to access the parts he needs. Several ship modules now lie freely on the soft grass, and Cal’s upper body is hidden from sight as he’s leaning far into the machinery. You hear him grunt and curse under his breath as he struggles with particularly stubborn bolt.

“Can I help?” you ask as you approach him.

He evidently did not hear nor feel you coming, as he was too focused, so your presence takes him by surprise. You see him flinch at being startled, his head hitting on something to which he flinches again, now from the sharp pain on his temple, and he crawls out completely, a hand shooting up to where you could see a reddening spot on his skin. You can’t help the little snort that escapes you at his antics, and he looks at you in mock offence that you are amused at his expense.

“You good?” you ask, taking a step closer towards him. Your hand instinctively reaches up to his face, gingerly brushing away his own so you can check for any injury.

“Yeah, just didn’t hear you…” he mumbles, not pulling away from you, and letting you inspect his face closely.

“I thought Jedis could feel someone’s presence,” you tease him, and only then do you realise how close your faces are. Cal doesn’t give you any snark back, instead he just holds your gaze. With a sudden strong gust of wind, the late afternoon sun manages to peer through the thick tree canopies, and you’re like hypnotised. The warm sunlight catches on his copper eyelashes, and you catch a glimpse of the specks of gold that swim in his ocean eyes. If they’re green or blue, you never quite settled on, as they seemed to change depending on the light. This is by far one of the more beautiful versions you’ve had the pleasure to see, though.

His eyes are just as focused on yours, and for a split second, they dart down a bit, then back up to hold your gaze again, and your breath hitches. Did he just–?

BD’s beeping breaks the spell, and you take a step back from him, clearing your throat.

“Yeah, no. Uhm, you might get a bruise but uh, other than that you’re fine,” you give him your diagnosis, fidgeting with your sleeve. “Sorry again for startling you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

You stand there in silence for a second, rather awkwardly, when BD beeps again, a little more insistent this time.

“Huh? Yeah,” Cal turns to the droid. “I’m almost done here. You’re gonna fit into the opening far better than me though, mind giving me a hand?”

BD agrees, quickly hopping over to where the hull still stays open and exposed. As the two get back to work, you take out your holopad again, looking at the other pins you had marked on the map earlier.

“While you work on the transponder, I’m going into the ‘city’–” You use your free hand to gesture quotation marks in the air. “–to get us some food.”

“It won’t take long though,” Cal says, peeking back out from the ship. “If you wait for a bit we can go together.”

You tilt your head at him with an apologetic smile.

“No offence, but we’ve seen your face and name plastered on multiple wanted notices across several systems now,” you point out. Cal opens his mouth to retort something, but you don’t let him. “I’m still unknown, all in all. There’s going to be bounty hunters, mercenaries and who knows what else that might recognise you.”

Cal hesitates for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek, until he has to admit to himself that you’re right. Especially with a ship currently out of commission and as such unable to make another quick escape, you really want to make an effort to stay hidden until you can meet with the rest of the Mantis crew again. He sighs deeply, making it evident that he’s not really entirely on board.

“Just… be careful?” he pleads.

You pat the blaster on your thigh holster twice and give him a winner smile.

“When am I not?”

Before he can reply (and you’re sure he has a carefully curated list of shenanigans of yours spanning over several years), you turn on your heels to grab your things and head out into the forest. Using your holopad, you navigate through the thick vegetation. You take a little detour to check out the lake though, and find an overhang at the cliffs which is decently hidden, but has a wonderful view of the water and the mountains on the other side. You take in the sight for a few moments, then continue your trek to your goal, the Takodana castle. Also known as Maz’s castle, since it’s run by the so-called queen of the pirates, Maz Kanata. You’ve heard stories about her exploits, and while you don’t necessarily have any emotional attachment or feeling of belonging to pirates and certain groups of outlaws, you do appreciate what she’s done here, making a place for people to take a respite. As long as things are kept civil, anyone is welcome.

The clearing you chose to park the ship at was a really good decision; despite being quite far away from a castle, as it took you nearly an hour to get here, you notice that the closer you got, the more movement there is. And the less people know you’re here, the better. As you walk up to the entrance of the tavern in the central hall of the castle, you wish you had worn some sort of cloak or hooded cape. You’re pretty sure no one has any means to recognise you, but you can’t help feeling a little exposed.

Taking a focusing breath, you push the heavy entrance door open, and enter the space. Some faces turn to look at you, but most customers ignore you, keeping their focus on their conversations and games.

You beeline towards the bar, and the bartender gives you a hard once-over, raising a brow as you take a seat on a stool. You order food and drinks to go, placing some credits on the slightly greasy surface. He merely grunts in response, taking your payment and disappearing into the kitchen.

While you wait, you take a moment to look around. You see all sorts of people and creatures. Most of them seem relaxed, just trying to have a good time before they continue their journey to wherever they’re headed next. There’s some more… suspicious individuals in the darker corners of the establishment, hiding their faces under hats, masks or large hoods pulled down to their noses. You take mental note of a Nautolan to your left, who hasn’t let you out of her sights ever since you came in. She doesn’t look particularly suspicious, but the contrast of ther white outfit against the deep green skin caught your attention. From under the wide brim of her hat, her staring is starting to make you a little uneasy, but before you can glare back, a kitchen worker comes out from the back, handing you two bags of greasy food which to be quite honest, smells better than expected.

You thank them with a smile, stuffing everything into your backpack, then take your leave. It’s a shame you won’t make it back in time for Cal to have his food while it’s warm, but beggars can’t be choosers, you suppose.

The trek back is uneventful, but you take a different route than the one from before, just in case. Every now and then you look over your shoulder, listening carefully to check if anyone is following you. But other than your somewhat laboured breathing, the buzzing of insects and a raspy bird call somewhere above you, you hear nothing.

By the time you’re back at the ship, the sun is starting to set, and you find that Cal has set up a makeshift camping site next to the now reassembled ship, consisting of a tarp hanging from one of the wings and held down on the ground by carefully laid out rocks of appropriate size and weight. It creates a canopy of sorts, under which the Jedi is sitting on one of the storage boxes you left within reach behind the cockpit. Two more boxes serve as improvised seating around a lantern set to a dim, warm light that projects Cal’s shadow onto the greenish-beige tarp.

This time, he feels your presence before he sees you, so even though you approach without making a sound, his head is already turned in your direction by the time you see him. You meet his gaze and greet him with a smile. Making your way to where he’s sitting, you set your backpack on the ground, kneeling down to get everything out.

“Room service has arrived,” you announce, handing him the now cold food. “Wish we had a microwave though.”

He chuckles, taking his portion from your hands, opening the packaging rather eagerly.

“Lighting a fire would also work, but that would make the whole ‘stay hidden’ thing redundant.”

“Yeah,” you sigh as you sit down across from him. “Oh well. Let’s dig in.”

“You could have had your food while it was hot though,” he remarks and takes a bite. He hums in pleasant surprise; it’s not too shabby.

“I could have,” you respond, inspecting the food in your hands, looking for the best angle to bite into. “But I wanted to eat with you.”

He just looks at you for a moment while he chews.

“Why?” he asks after he swallows.

“Because it gives me a sense of–” domesticity, is what you want to say, but you stop yourself just in time, trying to find an alternate answer while willing the heat creeping onto your cheeks to go away. “A sense of normalcy. Across species, planets and time, sharing meals with your loved ones has always been a constant.”

You hope he doesn’t take the “loved ones” too literally. Then again, there’s no denying that you do feel rather strongly towards him.

“And given what we do,” you continue. “I appreciate little moments like these even more, I suppose.”

Cal gives you a look that you can’t quite read, so to stop yourself from saying anything else, you take a big bite of your food, your gaze falling to the ground. He seems to be thinking over your words, his eyes drifting to the side.

“I do too, by the way,” he says after a few moments of silence.

“Hm?”

“Appreciate these moments, I mean,” he clarifies. “Up until now, I never found the words to describe it, but the way you put it, that’s exactly it. The crew, you and the guys. Despite everything that’s going on right now, you’re my constant as well. And the little moments of normalcy we get, as you said, I cling onto them too.”

You shoot him a genuine smile. It warms your heart to know he feels the same about the little patchwork family you find yourself in. People you trust your life with, and people you can’t imagine a life without. Especially without Cal.

You both continue eating in silence, surrounded by nothing but the gentle breeze blowing against the tarp, swaying it slightly, and the sounds of the forest.

“Did you contact Cere yet?” you ask after a while, remembering that you aren’t here on vacation, but you actually have to properly regroup with your crew soon.

“I did. And yes; I used the encryption you showed me,” he adds with a chuckle before you can ask. “They’re currently waiting for an opening to pick up Merrin, and after that they’re headed here.”

“Any idea on how long that might take?”

He hums to signal he’s unsure, while crumpling up the foil wrapper now that he’s done eating and throwing it into a trash bag.

“Not sure, could be anything between a couple of hours and a rotation. Two at most, I think.”

“Huh.” You tilt your head at his response, and realise that for a relatively short but still undetermined amount of time, you’ll be stuck here. Alone. With Cal. Your heart quickens ever so slightly, and you clear your throat as you also throw away the waste.

Standing up, you clasp your hands together with a clap.

“Let’s make the most of it then, shall we? C’mon,” you gesture for him to follow you.

“Where are we going?” he asks, giving you a suspicious look, but he can’t stop the boyish smile spreading on his face either way.

“Just follow me.”

You bend down to turn off the lantern, and in an instant you’re both surrounded by darkness. It takes a couple of seconds for your eyes to get used to it, and in a sudden moment of confidence, you take his hand in yours. He doesn’t say anything nor does he pull back, letting you guide him through the forest to that one spot at the cliff you had found earlier.

“I hope you know where you’re going,” he says with a chuckle.

“Oh please, when have my orientation skills ever let us down.”

“Well,” he starts.” There was that one time on Kashyyyk. And in the Zeffo underground. Oh and let’s not forget about–”

“Alright, alright. I get it,” you laugh. He still hasn’t let go of your hand, so you use your free one to push away a branch to pass through a thick bush. “But trust me this time, you’ll like it.”

“I trust you,” he replies, so truthfully and genuinely, without a second of hesitation nor a drop of sass. It almost makes you stop in your tracks, but you continue walking, and you wonder if he can feel the way your heart is beating against your ribcage through the Force.

Just a moment later, you arrive at your goal. Letting go of his hand, you turn to face him, stretching your arms out to the sides.

“Ta-da,” you announce in a sing-song voice. “I think it’s better in the daylight when you can see the landscape, but–”

“Look,” he interrupts, grabbing you by the shoulders and turning you back around to face the open space in front of you. “It’s not bad at all like this either.”

You can’t help the light gasp escaping your lips at the sight: there’s a short trail of lights along the shore on the other side of the lake, their reflections dancing in the water, but the rest of the forest is dark, allowing the starred sky to fully shine. There are no clouds obscuring the view, and the moons hang low in the sky, covering everything in a silvery hue. The stars seem to sparkle up above, and your eyes are mesmerised by them.

“It’s beautiful,” you whisper.

Cal hums in response, and your heart almost jumps out of your chest both in surprise and anticipation at how close he is to you. Standing behind you, Cal essentially speaks into your ear and it sends a tingle down your spine.

“But you are more so.”

Your brain all but short circuits at those words, and you react only when you feel him gently turning you around to face him. Your hands shoot up to his biceps while he hesitantly places his on your waist. Is this really happening?

You open your mouth to say something but nothing comes out. you're once again completely lost in Cal’s eyes, now reflecting the map of stars in them, the usual blue turned a dark petrol in such little light, deep and rich and threatening to drown you. A threat you’ll gladly accept as a promise.

“I, uh,” Cal swallows hard, trying to gauge your reaction in the dark. “I hope I'm not crossing a line here.”

“You are,” you reply, and for a split second you can see the panic wash over his face. “But I want you to.”

“Okay,” he says with a shaky breath, one hand coming up to gently stroke over your jaw with his knuckles. He looks away with a light scoff at himself. “I don’t actually know where to go from here.”

Your hands slowly inch upwards until you're holding Cal’s face, and he leans into the touch, momentarily closing his eyes, relishing the moment.

“Wherever it is, let’s go together,” you say, and he smiles at you, which you mirror.

He starts swaying you softly from side to side, and you chuckle, but follow his movements. For a few moments, you two dance under the stars to the symphony of the forest.

“I was so worried earlier today when you left alone,” he admits after a while, coming to a stop. “Not because I don’t think you can’t take care of yourself – I know how capable you are first hand. But the thought of something happening to you… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I feel the same, Cal. You’re so important to me. In this mess of a galaxy, you are my constant.”

Instead of replying, he finally closes the already small gap separating you, and captures your lips with his in a short but sweet peck. He pulls back just barely to tilt his head to the side slightly, kissing you again, his arms now properly snaking around your lower back to pull you closer.

After breaking the kiss, you pepper some more all across his face wherever you can reach, just for good measure, ending with one to the tip of his nose, exaggerating the ‘mwah!’ sound. His chuckle is more akin to a giggle, and the sound is heavenly. He leans in again, this time to touch his forehead to yours.

For a moment longer, you just stand there in each other’s embrace, breathing in one another. Then Cal breaks the silence.

“We should do this more often.”

You pull back to look at him.

“Which part?”

“Spending time together, just the two of us,” he says, holding both your hands in his as he sits down and pulls you down with him, and you lean your head on his shoulder.

"Hmm, I agree."

“Let’s message the Mantis again and tell them to take their time.”

You laugh, playfully pushing your body into his, and he laughs as well.

And as you both look at the stars, you know in your heart that things will be okay. Everything will work out just fine. The Empire, Jedis, inquisitors. Right now, nothing of that matters. All you need is here beside you, and as long as you have Cal, you know you can take on whatever the universe has in tow for you next.

~~~~~

🐥 taglist: [link to join in my pinned post!]

@DyByNyght, @galaxtic-writings, @kalea-bane, @soka-writes-things, @Padawancat97, @Riddikulus-Obsessions, @optimisticprime3, @starilicious, @ivelostmyabilitytoeven, @alternatescififandomelover, @lovelyygirl8, @Cathyket, @wildefire

#please don’t come at me for using a planet from the sequels #it’s a pretty planet ok!!#goose feathers #cal kestis x reader #star wars cal x reader #jedi fallen order x reader #jedi survivor x reader #star wars x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months ago

Text

How to design a tech regulation

TONIGHT (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. TOMORROW (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel (13hPT) and a keynote (18hPT) at the LOCUS AWARDS.

It's not your imagination: tech really is underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value and widespread public destruction.

Making good tech policy is hard, but not because "tech moves too fast for regulation to keep up with," nor because "lawmakers are clueless about tech." There are plenty of fast-moving areas that lawmakers manage to stay abreast of (think of the rapid, global adoption of masking and social distancing rules in mid-2020). Likewise we generally manage to make good policy in areas that require highly specific technical knowledge (that's why it's noteworthy and awful when, say, people sicken from badly treated tapwater, even though water safety, toxicology and microbiology are highly technical areas outside the background of most elected officials).

That doesn't mean that technical rigor is irrelevant to making good policy. Well-run "expert agencies" include skilled practitioners on their payrolls – think here of large technical staff at the FTC, or the UK Competition and Markets Authority's best-in-the-world Digital Markets Unit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

The job of government experts isn't just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts' role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on "listening tours" where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan's tenure, to its benefit, and it shows):

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of companies, the resulting cartel finds it easy to converge on a single talking point and to maintain strict message discipline. This means that the evidentiary record is starved for disconfirming evidence that would give the agencies contrasting perspectives and context for making good policy.

Tech industry shills have a favorite tactic: whenever there's any proposal that would erode the industry's profits, self-serving experts shout that the rule is technically impossible and deride the proposer as "clueless."

This tactic works so well because the proposers sometimes are clueless. Take Europe's on-again/off-again "chat control" proposal to mandate spyware on every digital device that will screen everything you upload for child sex abuse material (CSAM, better known as "child pornography"). This proposal is profoundly dangerous, as it will weaken end-to-end encryption, the key to all secure and private digital communication:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/encryption-is-deeply-threatening-to-power-meredith-whittaker-of-messaging-app-signal

It's also an impossible-to-administer mess that incorrectly assumes that killing working encryption in the two mobile app stores run by the mobile duopoly will actually prevent bad actors from accessing private tools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

When technologists correctly point out the lack of rigor and catastrophic spillover effects from this kind of crackpot proposal, lawmakers stick their fingers in their ears and shout "NERD HARDER!"

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/01/12/nerd-harder-fbi-director-reiterates-faith-based-belief-in-working-crypto-that-he-can-break/

But this is only half the story. The other half is what happens when tech industry shills want to kill good policy proposals, which is the exact same thing that advocates say about bad ones. When lawmakers demand that tech companies respect our privacy rights – for example, by splitting social media or search off from commercial surveillance, the same people shout that this, too, is technologically impossible.

That's a lie, though. Facebook started out as the anti-surveillance alternative to Myspace. We know it's possible to operate Facebook without surveillance, because Facebook used to operate without surveillance:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Likewise, Brin and Page's original Pagerank paper, which described Google's architecture, insisted that search was incompatible with surveillance advertising, and Google established itself as a non-spying search tool:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Even weirder is what happens when there's a proposal to limit a tech company's power to invoke the government's powers to shut down competitors. Take Ethan Zuckerman's lawsuit to strip Facebook of the legal power to sue people who automate their browsers to uncheck the millions of boxes that Facebook requires you to click by hand in order to unfollow everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Facebook's apologists have lost their minds over this, insisting that no one can possibly understand the potential harms of taking away Facebook's legal right to decide how your browser works. They take the position that only Facebook can understand when it's safe and proportional to use Facebook in ways the company didn't explicitly design for, and that they should be able to ask the government to fine or even imprison people who fail to defer to Facebook's decisions about how its users configure their computers.

This is an incredibly convenient position, since it arrogates to Facebook the right to order the rest of us to use our computers in the ways that are most beneficial to its shareholders. But Facebook's apologists insist that they are not motivated by parochial concerns over the value of their stock portfolios; rather, they have objective, technical concerns, that no one except them is qualified to understand or comment on.

There's a great name for this: "scalesplaining." As in "well, actually the platforms are doing an amazing job, but you can't possibly understand that because you don't work for them." It's weird enough when scalesplaining is used to condemn sensible regulation of the platforms; it's even weirder when it's weaponized to defend a system of regulatory protection for the platforms against would-be competitors.

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in government-protected monopolies. Somehow, scalesplaining can be used to condemn governments as incapable of making any tech regulations and to insist that regulations that protect tech monopolies are just perfect and shouldn't ever be weakened. Truly, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when the value of their employee stock options depends on them not understanding it.

None of this is to say that every tech regulation is a good one. Governments often propose bad tech regulations (like chat control), or ones that are technologically impossible (like Article 17 of the EU's 2019 Digital Single Markets Directive, which requires tech companies to detect and block copyright infringements in their users' uploads).

But the fact that scalesplainers use the same argument to criticize both good and bad regulations makes the waters very muddy indeed. Policymakers are rightfully suspicious when they hear "that's not technically possible" because they hear that both for technically impossible proposals and for proposals that scalesplainers just don't like.

After decades of regulations aimed at making platforms behave better, we're finally moving into a new era, where we just make the platforms less important. That is, rather than simply ordering Facebook to block harassment and other bad conduct by its users, laws like the EU's Digital Markets Act will order Facebook and other VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms, my favorite EU-ism ever) to operate gateways so that users can move to rival services and still communicate with the people who stay behind.

Think of this like number portability, but for digital platforms. Just as you can switch phone companies and keep your number and hear from all the people you spoke to on your old plan, the DMA will make it possible for you to change online services but still exchange messages and data with all the people you're already in touch with.

I love this idea, because it finally grapples with the question we should have been asking all along: why do people stay on platforms where they face harassment and bullying? The answer is simple: because the people – customers, family members, communities – we connect with on the platform are so important to us that we'll tolerate almost anything to avoid losing contact with them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Platforms deliberately rig the game so that we take each other hostage, locking each other into their badly moderated cesspits by using the love we have for one another as a weapon against us. Interoperability – making platforms connect to each other – shatters those locks and frees the hostages:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But there's another reason to love interoperability (making moderation less important) over rules that require platforms to stamp out bad behavior (making moderation better). Interop rules are much easier to administer than content moderation rules, and when it comes to regulation, administratability is everything.

The DMA isn't the EU's only new rule. They've also passed the Digital Services Act, which is a decidedly mixed bag. Among its provisions are a suite of rules requiring companies to monitor their users for harmful behavior and to intervene to block it. Whether or not you think platforms should do this, there's a much more important question: how can we enforce this rule?

Enforcing a rule requiring platforms to prevent harassment is very "fact intensive." First, we have to agree on a definition of "harassment." Then we have to figure out whether something one user did to another satisfies that definition. Finally, we have to determine whether the platform took reasonable steps to detect and prevent the harassment.

Each step of this is a huge lift, especially that last one, since to a first approximation, everyone who understands a given VLOP's server infrastructure is a partisan, scalesplaining engineer on the VLOP's payroll. By the time we find out whether the company broke the rule, years will have gone by, and millions more users will be in line to get justice for themselves.

So allowing users to leave is a much more practical step than making it so that they've got no reason to want to leave. Figuring out whether a platform will continue to forward your messages to and from the people you left there is a much simpler technical matter than agreeing on what harassment is, whether something is harassment by that definition, and whether the company was negligent in permitting harassment.

But as much as I like the DMA's interop rule, I think it is badly incomplete. Given that the tech industry is so concentrated, it's going to be very hard for us to define standard interop interfaces that don't end up advantaging the tech companies. Standards bodies are extremely easy for big industry players to capture:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

If tech giants refuse to offer access to their gateways to certain rivals because they seem "suspicious," it will be hard to tell whether the companies are just engaged in self-serving smears against a credible rival, or legitimately trying to protect their users from a predator trying to plug into their infrastructure. These fact-intensive questions are the enemy of speedy, responsive, effective policy administration.

But there's more than one way to attain interoperability. Interop doesn't have to come from mandates, interfaces designed and overseen by government agencies. There's a whole other form of interop that's far nimbler than mandates: adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interoperability" is a catch-all term for all the guerrilla warfare tactics deployed in service to unilaterally changing a technology: reverse engineering, bots, scraping and so on. These tactics have a long and honorable history, but they have been slowly choked out of existence with a thicket of IP rights, like the IP rights that allow Facebook to shut down browser automation tools, which Ethan Zuckerman is suing to nullify:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Adversarial interop is very flexible. No matter what technological moves a company makes to interfere with interop, there's always a countermove the guerrilla fighter can make – tweak the scraper, decompile the new binary, change the bot's behavior. That's why tech companies use IP rights and courts, not firewall rules, to block adversarial interoperators.

At the same time, adversarial interop is unreliable. The solution that works today can break tomorrow if the company changes its back-end, and it will stay broken until the adversarial interoperator can respond.

But when companies are faced with the prospect of extended asymmetrical war against adversarial interop in the technological trenches, they often surrender. If companies can't sue adversarial interoperators out of existence, they often sue for peace instead. That's because high-tech guerrilla warfare presents unquantifiable risks and resource demands, and, as the scalesplainers never tire of telling us, this can create real operational problems for tech giants.

In other words, if Facebook can't shut down Ethan Zuckerman's browser automation tool in the courts, and if they're sincerely worried that a browser automation tool will uncheck its user interface buttons so quickly that it crashes the server, all it has to do is offer an official "unsubscribe all" button and no one will use Zuckerman's browser automation tool.

We don't have to choose between adversarial interop and interop mandates. The two are better together than they are apart. If companies building and operating DMA-compliant, mandatory gateways know that a failure to make them useful to rivals seeking to help users escape their authority is getting mired in endless hand-to-hand combat with trench-fighting adversarial interoperators, they'll have good reason to cooperate.

And if lawmakers charged with administering the DMA notice that companies are engaging in adversarial interop rather than using the official, reliable gateway they're overseeing, that's a good indicator that the official gateways aren't suitable.

It would be very on-brand for the EU to create the DMA and tell tech companies how they must operate, and for the USA to simply withdraw the state's protection from the Big Tech companies and let smaller companies try their luck at hacking new features into the big companies' servers without the government getting involved.

Indeed, we're seeing some of that today. Oregon just passed the first ever Right to Repair law banning "parts pairing" – basically a way of using IP law to make it illegal to reverse-engineer a device so you can fix it.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/28/oregon-governor-kotek-signs-strong-tech-right-to-repair-bill/

Taken together, the two approaches – mandates and reverse engineering – are stronger than either on their own. Mandates are sturdy and reliable, but slow-moving. Adversarial interop is flexible and nimble, but unreliable. Put 'em together and you get a two-part epoxy, strong and flexible.

Governments can regulate well, with well-funded expert agencies and smart, adminstratable remedies. It's for that reason that the administrative state is under such sustained attack from the GOP and right-wing Dems. The illegitimate Supreme Court is on the verge of gutting expert agencies' power:

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/05/us-supreme-court-may-soon-discard-or-modify-chevron-deference

It's never been more important to craft regulations that go beyond mere good intentions and take account of adminsitratability. The easier we can make our rules to enforce, the less our beleaguered agencies will need to do to protect us from corporate predators.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability

Image: Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #cda #ethan zuckerman #platforms #platform decay #enshittification #eu #dma #right to repair #transatlantic #administrability #regulation #big tech #scalesplaining #equilibria #interoperability #adversarial interoperability #comcom

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mulders-too-large-shirt · 2 months ago

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my favorite scully moments from s4

in episode 1, she cracks encrypted messages, commenting that “you say ‘a twenty letter code’ to any scientist and they immediately think ‘protein amino acid sequence code’, which is what this turned out to be” <- and that is genius at work right there!!

skinner pulling her aside to ask “do you realize what you are promoting?” when she puts together there's a whole international smallpox conspiracy, and she cuts him off with a clear “i am a SCIENTIST, sir” <- that is right!! you tell him!!!

trying and failing to come up with a theory for how the photos in episode 4 became terrifying: “plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” “the-the photographic chemistry could have changed” “uh-huh” “the-the dyes fade… they… alright, that’s your theory?” (had me absolutely giggling)

we also learn in episode 4 that she took german in college <3

in episode 6, she spends a great deal of time explaining the science behind sleeping pills and their controversial effects

(and i also loved her fury that such an advanced facility was being used for plastic surgery rather than life-saving care)

tearing into the culture of lawlessness while testifying in episode 9; talking about how she left the medical field to protect the innocent and punish the guilty- such an excellent moment, more of that good old fashioned scully righteous rage combined with inherent optimism- and her continuing to read her statement despite the council repeatedly cutting her off (as she should!)

choosing to be jailed rather than reveal where mulder was located, because she will do the right thing no matter the consequences (and is also just a really great friend)

((and bonus points for skinner checking up on her: “you holding up alright?” “i’ve got plenty to read”, she says, as she flips through medical texts))

“it is my natural inclination to believe they are acting in the best interest of the truth… but i am not inclined to follow my own judgment in this case” (casting aside her own optimism in the face of such corruption, understanding her personal bias and objectively putting it to the side… i admire her ability to do so)

((but still. after all she has been through, it is natural for her to believe that the government means well. it's incredible))

this exchange from episode 12: “where could he hide an adult body where it wouldn’t be found?” “i’ll show you” (cut to them sorting through the medical waste, mulder looking horrified as she casually says she needs his longer arms to sift through the body parts)

((but isn't it just great that she knew the answer to that question instantly?))

in episode 12, when she realizes that leonard betts trying to kill her means she has cancer, she responds to mulder saying she should be proud of stopping him with a quiet “i just want to go home”

(we get another "i'm going home" moment in episode 22, after their confrontation in the hallway about her fears, and the exhaustion contained in those few words could make me weep)

in episode 14, she writes letters saying goodbye to mulder, trying to convince him her inevitable death was not his fault: “and if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done”, she wrote, knowing how he would blame himself, trying to spare his feelings of guilt even as she knew she had so little time left

later on, her nose starts bleeding while they're making an arrest; “quit staring at me, i’m fine!”, she says in the voice of someone who is deeply not fine, her helplessness inspiring a fury that thrashes about and digs its claws into everything inch of her

how she told mulder she was going to die, but insisted to her mother that she was fine- her mother is furious she didn’t tell her she was sick, shaking in fear, giving her a kiss and a hug, and saying that she is her only daughter now as they hold each other. while she can tell mulder the truth, she can't find the words to tell her mom how bad things really are

writing in her journal that she needs to draw strength from mulder, needs someone to lean on, even though she works so hard to be entirely self-sufficient; “i need to know you’re out there if i’m ever to see through this”

(contrast this with her earlier attempts to do absolutely every single thing by herself and bask in the character growth)

((but then she REJECTS what she wrote in the journal, saying that she isn’t giving up, and she has so much to prove to herself and her family- they have the conversation in the hallway that made me cry and cheer and yell and experience every emotion in between as she realizes that she is something worth fighting for))

in episode 18, she tries her best to save pendrell, telling him that “we still haven’t celebrated my birthday, pendrell; i’m not gonna let you off the hook like this” - it's the way she spent his last moments on earth trying to make him smile that gets me so emotional

later, she's having this very tense face off with skinner until he notices she was trying to hide her nosebleed; he grabs her hand and says “i have a responsibility for the safety of the agents under my supervision, agent scully. i’m not going to put another agent’s life in jeopardy just to keep her out in the field”, and she assures him she’s okay with tears in her eyes (the way he pierced through her best attempts at a stony exterior… i'm emotional)

they visit max fenig’s trailer again and she still HATED it lmao, she says “i remember being amazed at what some people will call a home”

(and then she disses the very bare hotel room they visit in the next episode, saying “i’m not sure if ‘living’ is the word i would use to describe this space” - give her all of the blankets and throw pillows, she wants a cozy house)

((this, combined with her saying "i want to go home" when she is experiencing moments of earth-shattering grief, made me realize how important to her it is that she have a nice, comfortable, safe space for herself))

smirking at her own stupid joke in episode 19; “what was he wearing, a long black robe and carrying a scythe?”

she knows the lowest temperature a human body has ever reached and survived (70 degrees) and also uses the phrase “nuclear magnetic resident spectra”, both of which made my heart skip a few beats

“okay, so this photo that was never taken, when was it never taken?” <- SEVERELY underappreciated line!!!!

in the opening of episode 20, she starts reciting facts about babies born with extra appendages in incredible detail, and i want to know so badly why she is educated on the subject. scully, please give us the story time video

she also mentions her plans to write an article on “diminished acetylcholine production in recidivist offenders” when she goes home from work. because that is how she spends her evenings, very casual. no big deal (said with great sarcasm)

her realization in episode 22 that the killer had been switching around the rings on each victim’s fingers, based on some blurry photos (it was a very good catch!)

talking to her therapist, admitting she struggles to talk about her fears, and that mulder’s passion has been a source of strength during her sickness

(we then, very briefly, see her praying in her nightgown in her apartment, before mulder knocks on the door to ask for her medical opinion. i find that shot so compelling, especially when you contrast it with her saying in the finale that she is not ready to return to the church- it must be too personal to talk about, god must be something she wants to experience on her own at this point in her life)

((and she grapples with the revelation that everyone else who had seen the spirits had been dying, knowing what it means for herself))

the way she shoots the evil nurse in the shoulder not to kill her, but to incapacitate her… scully, your aim is legendary

fun facts with scully, episode 23 edition: dostoyevsky had waxman-geschwind syndrome!

VERY FIRMLY telling mulder that he NEEDS to get to the hospital, and when he continually refuses, instead asking to go on a road trip, she agrees... ONLY on the condition that she drives!!!!

and when his terrible trauma ketamine trip culminates in him almost shooting her and himself, she manages to talk sense into him, before she rests her entire body on him, shielding him, not letting him move, weighing him down like an anchor back to reality

(her being the one taking charge in this episode even while she feels she is losing so much of her agency in her life makes me so emotional)

when mulder interrupts her family dinner in episode 24 to go on a quest for alien answers, she reminds him that this is his goal, and not hers. when he tries to convince her, she refuses to budge- it was frustrating to watch him put her in that situation, but amazing to watch her stand her ground

(and the fact that she wasn’t able to tell him her cancer was getting much worse is also so fascinating to me- why couldn't she bear to break it to him? would saying it aloud make it real?)

and of course, her tracking down the dude that shoved her down the stairs and nearly hitting him with her car (it was deeply satisfying)

#so many good moments. she is my girl!!!#the x files #txf #dana scully

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