#AEC Next

[radiates-confusion]

Damn, losing a whole ass post to the bad connection spot void sucks

Anyway! Bus stop! Cause I'll keep doing this even though I'm on break! Cause it brings me joy!

So anyway! Today's sponsored (Not really) message is this:

Just because you haven't had a bus go in a certain route for awhile doesn't mean that route is no longer used. You've only been going at super early in the morning, this means you only see the bus going the route for that time.

Stay smart! Before you end up temporarily lost in the town!

[dtmacgxstorys]

Floyd Leech X Reader!

This is a Floyd Leech X Gender Neutral Reader!

Note: I'm stuck on Idia's chapter,(chapter 6) sooo, yeah! Also, if you're somehow Not scared of the Leech twins, you're probably not going to like this!(I Think!) Yes, I love & fear this guy! Jade is scarier more, though!

... How long has Yuu been living at NRC!?

You have been living at Night Raven College for about 3 & a half months now. "Grim, get up or we'll be late for class again!" "*Merrrr* five more minutes." You make your way to the door of you'r room. "If you don't get up soon, I won't give you any tuna!" Grim sits up fast. "Tuna!? Don't take my tuna away!" He said as he jumped off the bed & on your shoulder. You walk downstairs & made your way out of Ramshackle. You walk through the gates & hear a familiar voice.

"Yo, morning Y/N! Do you want to eat breakfast with me?" "Morning Ace! Yeah, I'll eat with you." You & Aec walk to the cafeteria while making some small talk. You grab some food & sit with Aec & Deuce. You enjoy most of your food in peace,(surprisingly) until you hear a familiar voice. "Hhiiiii shrimpy!~" He says as he hugs you from behind. "Uummm hi Floyd." "Whatcha eaten? Anything good? ... Uumm No."

He says as he puts his chin on top of your head to see your food. "Floyd, please! Stop hugging me!" "Huummm fine." He said as he backed away from you. "See you later Shrimpy!~" After breakfast, Grim's & Your classes are pretty uninventful. Avter your clsses, you were on your way back to your dorm when someone hugged you from behind & someone else grabbed Grim.

"Shrimpy!!!?~ Why do you always have to babysit the catfish? I want you to play with me and just you." "Don't worry about Grim, I'll take good care of him for you." Jade said. "Hey Shrimpy!~ Do you have a swim suit?" ".. Yes, Why?" "Can you go get it?~" ".. Fine." He let go of you, but followed you to your room & looked around while you grab your bathing suit. "(Wispers).. this place is really in bad shape. .. Shrriimmpyy~ did you find it!?" "Yes. Where are we going?" "To Octavinelle! There are some rooms with some smallish pool in them!"

You quietly follow him to Octavinelle & go down a hallway in the front of Octavinelle. You go almost all the way down the hallway before he finds one not occupied. He opens the door for you & you walk in. As soon as you walk in, you can see the pool in front of you & to your right is a good sized bathroom to change in. "Shrimpy~! Can you please get changed, walk into the pool, then close your eyes when you have your balance in then! It has a rock bottom & leads out into the ocean, so you might also feel some fish swing around!"

".. Um.. O-ok." He walks over to the pool & you walk into the bathroom & change into your one-piece bathing suit.(like a diving suit) A little hesitantly, you do as he asked. Floyd is nowhere to be found. A minute went by & you still haven't heard from Floyd. Before you can call out his name, you feel around your left lage & hear: "hehe thank you for turning me Shrimpy!~" You open your eyes to see Floyd, but he looks very different. ".. Floyd!?"

He is holding himself up by the floor leading to the pool, making him seem shorter then you when that isn't the case. "Heha do you like my real form, Shrimpy?~!" He said, flashing his sharp teeth at you with a smirk. He slowly leans in a bit closer to you, waiting for an answer. ".. Un.. It's.. Y-yes!" You say as his teeth hovered just above your collarbone. You can't see, but his smirk widens. He moves up to kiss your chin.

You feel his tail unravel aroun your lag & rast it on the rock. He also moves to make himself eye level with you. "I'm glad to hear that, Shrimpy!~" You start to blush. ".. F-Floyd,... would it be weird to ask you if I could.. like.. pet your tail?" You see him move his tail out of the water & onto the floor next to you. As your giant petting his surprisingly soft tail, he moves closer to you & hugs you from behind & puts his chin on your right shoulder.

".. I love you.. Y/N!" You shiver from hearing him wisper your name. ".. Y-you.. mean it!?" "Hehe Did you think I wanted to eat you or something?" ".. kind of." "Hehe no. I just really like seeing your reactions! I don't want to heat you." He leans over to your left ear & wispers: "unless your into that!~ hehe" You gently push him away. "F-Floyd!?" You say, looking away from him, blushing even more now!

"Hehehehe You really are too cute all flustered like this!~" he said as he puts thumb just under your bottom lip & pointer finger under your chin to gently make you look at him. Ones you look up at him, he kisses you on the lips. You quickly returned the kiss, throwing your arms around his neck. His hands slowly & gently rub your back as you two make out. After a while, he pulls away & ask: "Will you spend the night with me and cuddle?"

".. I should check on-" "Catfish is fine! My brother won't hurt him! .. Do you really not trust us that much!?" ".. You and your brother scare me sometimes." "Because we.. I Love seeing you reactions! I know it's mean, but we're not evil!" You looked at him surprise. ".. I said scarey, Not evil!" "So will you spend the night with me?~" ".. Yes!" He kissed you on the lips reall quick & ask: "Can I whatchyou~" "No you can not which me change!" He pouts and says: "fine."

End!

Sorry for not writing for a while. I've been depressed because my mom believe that xx xy bullshit & I'm a trans man. I started this before I was depressed but... yeah. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! 🥰

[passerkirbius]

If you want, please tell us more about the ranking voting system in Australia

Have a good day :)

*cracks knuckles*

The exact workings of our voting system changes somewhat from state to state, but let's talk about the Federal Australian voting system first.

So, we have different voting systems for our two houses of parliament. We'll start with the Lower House since it's the simplest:

Lower House Voting

So, let's start with the House of Representatives (aka the Lower House). This part of our vote is a mandatory preferential vote - You must number every preference on your ballot, 1 to X, for it to be valid, where 1 is your highest preference. Here's a sample Lower house ballots all filled out:

When the ballots get counted, we use a system called "Instant Runoff", which basically means that all the votes get allocated according to first preference, then we eliminate the candidate with the least votes, and their vote gets redistributed according to the next valid preference, and this continues until one candidate gets the majority of votes.

It's important to stress here that this doesn't mean we distribute preferences until we're down to two candidates and then choose the winner, we knock candidates out until one party has more than 50% of the vote, even if distributing them further might change the allocation.

Upper House Voting

So, what about the Senate, AKA the Upper House? We also use preferential voting for Senate Voting, but it's significantly more complicated, because we're actually voting or multiple candidates (in a standard election 6 for each state and 12 in a "double-dissolution" election, for territories, it's always 2). Here's the basics of how it works:

Senate ballots are huge, and are divided into "above the line" (ATL) and "below the line" (BTL), and you get to pick one or the other. ATL is for parties, BTL is for candidates. You must number at least 6 boxes above the line, or at least 12 boxes below the line, and you can only choose one or the other (no jumping across the line!). Here's a sample ballot, the first filled above the line, the second below the line:

You'll note that there's an "Ungrouped" section that doesn't get a box above the line, and that's because the Senate voting system is almost entirely built around parties, not single Independents, so if you don't have a registered party, you're at a strong disadvantage in the Senate.

Before counting starts, ATL votes get converted to BTL votes via each Party's Group Ticket, that says how ATL votes should be translated. Your overall preferences get preserved though - a party's Group Ticket only affect party candidates.

Once the number of votes is known, the AEC establishes the "quota" of votes required to get elected (typically 1/6 of the state's total votes rounded down + 1 for half-senate elections, 1/12 for double-dissolution elections, and 1/2 for territories). Basically, any candidate that gets a number of "1" votes equal to the quota is elected.

Now, usually a candidate gets elected with *more* than a quota. Those votes aren't wasted, and they can go on to elect other candidates. But how do they know *which* votes didn't count towards the quota? How could they decide that fairly?

Well, they don't! Instead, they basically let *all* the votes through, but at a discount equal to the percentage of overflow votes over the quota. So, if I got 2 quotas worth of votes, I'm elected, and all those votes get redistributed to other candidates at 1/2 value. Then, if anyone else now *also* gets a quota, we repeat the process.

After everyone with a quota of votes is elected, the process works like the House vote, with the lowest candidates being excluded and their votes being distributed in full to the next preference. If there *isn't* a next preference on a ballot (because the voter didn't number every box ATL or BTL), it stops counting from there - it "exhausts" and has no further effect on the counting process.

Once someone else reaches quota, they're elected, and *their* overflow votes get redistributed at a discount. This keep going until either 6 candidates get elected, or the candidates remaining equal the number of seats remaining (basically they get elected by default).

How does this change from State to State?

The Federal process doesn't change state-to-state - we all vote using the same process there. But elections for State Governments aren't run federally - they're instead run by State Electoral Commissions, and each state is free to run their elections how they see fit. For the most part, states run their elections pretty similarly to the Federal Model (with each state splitting themselves into Upper House Regions, rather than there being little sub-states), with the following major exceptions:

Queensland doesn't have an Upper House, having abolished theirs in 1922.

Tasmania does things very weirdly - their Lower House voting system is very similar to the Federal Upper House system, and their Upper House voting system is much more akin to the Federal Lower House system

Victoria's Upper House system still uses the "Group Ticket" voting system, which still has an Above the Line and Below the Line distinction, but you only mark 1 box above the line, and that above-the-line vote gets converted into a full below the line vote based on what that party submits to the electoral commission. In short, voting Above the Line in Victorian State Elections means that you let that party decide your vote for you. This used to be how our Federal Elections worked too until about a decade or so ago.

How are your candidates chosen?

In Australia, each political party gets to choose how they choose their candidates. Microparties tend to choose by fiat (ie, the guy in charge decides who's on the ballot for which electorate), whereas major parties and larger minor parties tend to engage in "preselection", which is where members of the local electorate chapter of a political party vote on which candidate will represent their party for that electorate.

This might sound similar to an American Primary, but it's really important to stress that most Australians are not members of a political party, nor is there such thing as registering with a party. To put some numbers to it, in 2020 The Australian Labor Party (one of the two major parties) had 60,000 members, and the population of Australia was 25.65 million, so a very small number of people choose the candidates that Australia at large gets to vote for.

How long do your elections run for, and how often?

Federally, elections don't have a fixed date - a government can, in theory, call for an election at any time. In practice, there's some practical restrictions on election timings that tend to limit the exact window, but ultimately until an election is called, no one know for sure the date of the next Federal Election. In general, the time between the official writ to hold the election and the actual election date needs to be more than 33 days, and typically tends to be around 6-8 weeks all up.

This means that Election campaigns tend to be short and extremely concentrated - 6-8 weeks of election ads, policy announcements, controversies and meet-and-greets.

The frequency of Federal Elections tends to be roughly every three years, but as noted, that's very rough.

State Elections are completely different. I believe that with the exception of Tasmania, every State and Territory in Australia has moved to fixed election dates every four years (and Tasmania's Elections are still tightly fixed to a four-year cycle), and every State and Territory has a different fixed date.

What this means is that Federal and State (and Local!) Elections are entirely decoupled from each other - you never go to the ballot for more than one election.

Who runs our Elections?

Since 1984, our Federal elections have been run by the Australian Electoral Commission, which is a independent statutory agency. The AEC is funded by and ultimately answers to the Federal Parliament (not, it is worth noting, the Prime Minister, or any particular Government Department), but is operationally independent from the government of the day. The AEC decided Electoral Boundaries, manages electoral rolls, and is the body that managed party registration (ie the registration of political parties for inclusion on ballots). During Elections, generally an army of volunteers is engaged to do the work of manning election booths and count votes, and between Elections, the AEC mostly maintains the electoral roll and provides papers to the Parliament about ways to improve the electoral process. The AEC is really serious about this and does a lot of work advocating for accessibility in voting.

Among the various ways the AEC works to improve voting accessibility (because remember, not showing up to vote incurs a fine here) are:

Multilingual and Easy Read voting instructions so that everyone can learn for themselves how to vote.

Mobile Polling Stations that travel to remote towns and communities to ensure that even people thousands of kilometres away for the next town get a chance to vote. There are also Mobile Polling teams that go to Residential care facilities and hospitals to record the votes of those who can't get to election booths on the day.

Prison Polling teams, who go into Prisons to ensure those in Prison get a vote (and in case you were wondering: your electorate is the electorate of the place you lived in before going to prison not the electorate of your prison)

Early Voting, where people who know they won't be able to get to an booth on the day can go in and vote (some even still have sausage sizzles!)

Postal Voting, which is likely very similar to postal voting that you might have in the US

Phone Voting, a recent service introduced in 2013 originally designed to cater to blind voters. Blind voters had an issue in that all our votes are paper-based - not great if you can't see the ballot. They generally had to have someone come to the voting booth with them to help them fill out their ballot, which unfortunately breaks the secret ballot somewhat for these voters. So, a phone system was developed whereby a voter puts in a voter id and pin, then talks with an AEC assistant on the phone, who then records their vote onto a paper ballot and lodges it into a ballot box. Still not perfect, but the system ensures that blind voters can vote without anyone being able to know how they, specifically, voted. It ended up being used last election for people who'd caught COVID-19 and were under quarantine, so bonus there!

As mentioned above, each State has their own Electoral Commission, based broadly on the Federal Model, who generally run State and Local Elections within their State.

[fuka-petals]

^_^

I want to actually try making a full ghost this time

Also I've been considering doing flux shells for af tho not too sure yet

Btw for those not aware Ukagaka Ghosts usually have two characters unlike Flux shells (although Flux shells can) like this

[enkhanthor]

Hello! I apologize to everyone who comes to me asking about the Legacy History Challenge because it took me so long to make updates. My notebook had problems and I was unable to play. The game crashed a lot and the Sims didn't move from place even when playing with low graphics. This is a problem for anyone who plays with 16 Sims in their family and at least 30 in the area like me. Two Sims in the family in the base game was already unfeasible.

Olá! Peço desculpas a todos que vem me procurar perguntando pelo Desafio do Legado Histórico porque demorei para fazer atualizações. Meu notebook tinha dado problemas e eu fiquei impossibilitada de jogar. O jogo travava muito e os Sims não se moviam de lugar mesmo jogando com gráficos no baixo. Isso é um problema para quem joga com 16 Sims na família e pelo menos 30 na área como eu. Dois Sims na família no jogo base já estava inviável.

Now I replaced the battery cable and the HD with an SSD and discovered that the performance problem was caused by the battery power supply. The new problem is the lack of space for 100 GB of CCs. However, this is an easier problem to solve. The game is running, so everything is fine!

Agora troquei o cabo de alimentação e o HD por um SSD e descobri que o problema de desempenho era ocasionado pela fonte. O novo problema é a falta de espaço para 100 Gigas de cps. Porém, esse é um problema mais fácil de resolver. O jogo está rodando, então está tudo bem!

I played the Genesis Prologue again and need to write the story to post here. Now I'm in Paleolithic gameplay. Testing what is possible to complete according to my rules and trying to make my own mods, but it's not working out very well.

Eu joguei novamente o Prólogo Gênesis e preciso montar a história para postar aqui. Agora estou no Paleolítico de novo. Testando o que é possível concluir de acordo com minhas regras e tentando fazer meus próprios mods, mas não está dando muito certo.

I made my Aliens Egyptian Gods for the Ancient Age. The Sims is a game that takes a lot of time to customize. In addition to having to look for CCs. And I'm updating the Spreadsheet to go to the next Age, as well as making small changes to the rules.

Fiz meus Deuses Egípcios Aliens para a Era Antiga. The Sims é um jogo que consome bastante tempo na customização. Além de ter que procurar os CPs. E estou atualizando a tabela para ir para a próxima Era, além de fazer pequenas alterações nas regras.

This part of the Calendar is the most complicated because historians have several chronologies and there is no record of when certain rulers reigned millennia ago. For all these reasons, this is a very extensive challenge, but I intend to post again.

Essa parte do Calendário acaba sendo mais complicada pois os historiadores tem várias cronologias e não há um registro de quando determinados governantes reinaram milênios atrás. Por tudo isso, esse é um desafio muito extenso, mas eu pretendo retornar a postar.

Planned Draft | Rascunho Planejado:

LEGACY HISTORY CHALLENGE | DESAFIO DO LEGADO HISTÓRICO

Original Age (Genesis) | Era Original (Gênesis)

Prehistoric Age - Ice Age (Paleolithic) 40.000 BC - 12.000 BC| Era Pré-Histórica - Era do Gelo (Paleolítico) 40.000 AEC - 12.000 AEC

Prehistoric Age - Stone Age (Mesolithic) 12.000 - 9.000 BC | Era Pré-Histórica - Idade da Pedra (Mesolítico) 12.000 AEC - 9.000 AEC

Prehistoric Age - Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic) 9.000 BC - 3.500 BC | Era Pré-Histórica - Revolução Agrícola (Neolítico) 9.000 AEC - 3500 AEC

From here, time begins to be counted using the Sim Calendar, where each Sim Day is equivalent to 1 human year. 1 Sim Year is equivalent to 28 human days. | A partir daqui começa a contagem de tempo através do Calendário Sim, onde cada dia Sim equivale a 1 ano humano. 1 Ano Sim equivale a 28 dias humanos.

Bronze Age - Early Simvilization (Calcolithic) Calendar Sim - Sim Year 1 - Sim Year 21 - Era do Bronze - Início da Simvilização (Calcolítico) Calendário Sim - Ano Sim 1 - Ano Sim 21

Bronze Age - Interlude (The Great Flood) 2.900 BC - Sim Year 22 | Era do Bronze - Interlúdio (O Grande Dilúvio) 2.900 AEC - Ano Sim 22

Bronze Age - Ancient Age (Sumer) 2.900 BC - 2.270 BC ou 2.334 BC - Sim Year 23 - Sim Year 41 | Era do Bronze - Idade Antiga (Suméria) - 2.900 AEC - 2.270 AEC ou 2.234 AEC - Ano Sim 23 - Ano Sim 41

Bronze Age - Ancient Age (Akkadian Empire) 2.900 BC - 2.270 BC ou 2.334 BC - 2.154 BC - Sim Year 41 - Sim Year 49 | Era do Bronze - Idade Antiga (Império Acádio) 2.270 AEC ou 2.234 AEC - 2.154 AEC - Ano Sim 41 - Ano Sim 49

Bronze Age - Interlude (The Exodus) Sim Year 50 | Era do Bronze - (O Exôdo) Ano Sim 50

Bronze Age - Ancient Age (Minoan Civilization) 2100 BC - 1800 BC - Sim Year 51 - Sim Year 61 | Era do Bronze - Idade Antiga (Civilização Minóica) 2100 AEC - 1800 AEC - Ano Sim 51 - Ano Sim 61

Iron Age - Ancient Age (Egypt) Sim Year 61 - Sim Year 81? - | Era do Ferro - Idade Antiga (Egito) Ano Sim 61 - Ano Sim 81?

Iron Age - Ancient Age (Hittites and Mycenaeans) Sim Year 81? - Sim Year 91 | Era do Ferro - Idade Antiga (Hititas e Micênicos) Ano Sim 71 - Ano Sim 81

Iron Age - Interlude (The Amazon Challenge) 980 BC - Sim Year 91 - Sim Year 101 | Era do Ferro - Interlúdio (O Desafio das Amazonas) Ano 980 AEC - Ano Sim 91 - Ano Sim 101

From now on, every 4 days are equivalent to 1 human year as in the Ultimate Decades Challenge. 1 Sim Year is equivalent to 7 human years. | A partir daqui cada 4 dias Sim equivalem a 1 ano humano como no Ultimate Decades Challenge. 1 Ano Sim equivale a 7 anos humanos.

Classical Age - Greece (Athens and Sparta) and Persia 700 BC - 27 BC - Sim Year 101 - Sim Year 27 - Era Clássica - Grécia (Atenas e Esparta) e Pérsia 700 AEC - Ano Sim 101 - Ano Sim 27

Imperial Age (Rome) 27 BC - Sim Year 197 | Era Imperial (Roma) Ano 27 AEC - Sim 197 Sim

[aesethewitch]

can i get a reading please? AEC she/her. Where in my apartment is my missing rosary? (if you don't do missing object readings that's fine, i just really cant find it lol)

Hey! I don't do readings of this type via tarot. However, I do have advice!

If you have a pendulum, grab it. If you don't, that's okay -- you can make one by dangling anything relatively heavy (stone, crystal, pendant, etc.) from a length of string, twine, ribbon, cord, chain, or whatever else you've got on-hand. I suggest something around 16 inches long, but that's personal preference.

You can do this two ways. The first way is:

Stand at your front door. Dangle the pendulum in front of you as still as you can.

Aloud or in your mind, describe the item. Name it (my rosary) and describe what it looks like (shape, color, defining characteristics). If you like, call on whatever spirits you want to help you with finding it.

Allow the pendulum to swing. It may not swing far, and that's okay! Note which direction it swings and move that way.

In the new location, allow the pendulum to settle and ask, "Now where?" Watch it swing again, and move to the next location.

Ideally, begin with large location changes. Then, as you identify room, general space, and then specific areas, move less and less.

The second method is:

Draw a rough map of your apartment's layout. Label the rooms.

Dangle the pendulum over the map.

Describe the item as detailed above: name it (my rosary) and describe its appearance. Request assistance from spirits as appropriate.

Ask, "Where are you?" and allow the pendulum to swing as it will as you hover it over the map.

Depending on how large you draw it, it may swing toward a particular room. If not, hold it over each room. When the pendulum goes in a circle, go check that room.

You can repeat this method by drawing a layout of the specific room as well, or you can mix it with the seek-and-find method listed above.

I use these methods interchangeably! Hopefully this helps you out! (:

[demigodsanswer]

Twice Upon a Ponte: 3/13 Pas de Deux

Pas de Duex - A dance of two

When Percy stepped into the coffee shop closest to Lincoln Center, he spotted a familiar mess of blonde curls carrying a black dance bag with the initials AEC monogrammed on the side. He smiled and listened carefully, confirming that she was still ordering. He slipped up next to her. 

“Hers is on me,” he said, handing the barista his card. He started to order his own coffee, as Annabeth tried and failed to put her own card forward. The poor barista looked confused at how to proceed, but thankfully, Annabeth gave in, accepting the free coffee. 

“You didn’t need to do that,” she said as they stepped back out into the cold New York winter, now with hot coffees to keep their hands warm. 

“What kind of prince charming would I be if I didn’t buy you a coffee every once and a while?” Percy asked as they climbed the stairs to the studios. 

“I don’t remember the ‘buying coffees’ part of the ballet. Or any fairy-tale for that matter,” Annabeth. 

“Slaying a dragon, buying a coffee, it’s all the same thing really,” he said. 

“Well, next time I see a dragon, I’ll be sure to throw a Starbucks gift card his way.”  

Percy smiled and pulled the door open, stepping aside to hold it for her. “After you,” he said. 

“Charming indeed.” 

~

Percy wasn’t quite sure where he stood with Annabeth. The two of them plus Piper were enjoying their lunch break together, small talking and complaining about sore muscles and sewing pointe shoes. He was good at making her laugh, and she was able to keep up with his wit. They worked well together, but when they left the building for the day, well, that was the end of whatever new friendship they were building. 

Percy laid on his bed, trying to decide if he should send Annabeth the link he’d found. It was a personality quiz: Which classic Barbie Movie Barbie are you? He didn’t know if she’d ever seen the comparisons of her to the animations. He didn’t even know if she’d ever played with Barbies. Annabeth was so intense sometimes she might have been the girl cutting their hair and pulling off their limbs. 

He’d spent all day dancing with her, kissing her, and looking lovingly into her eyes, and now he didn’t even have the courage to send her a text message. 

He texted Grover “ I think I forgot how to talk to women” 

His best friend had met a girl his first week of college, and now they were married and living in some sustainable cabin near Lake George. Percy had always thought of himself as the suave-er of the two, but now here they were. Percy could spend all day surrounded by beautiful men and women and not have a date in over a year, and Grover could be happily married by 25. 

Grover texted back soon after: “ have you tried ‘hey’” 

He had not. 

He went back to his texts to Annabeth. All their other messages were confirming rehearsal times or choreography. “ Hey ” he tried. 

“ Hey” she texted back less than a minute later. 

He smiled. 

~

Percy was sore all over. It was a good kind of sore, the kind he only achieved six hours into an eight hour day, the kind that reminded him with every agonizing step up subway stairs that he got to work his dream job. It was also the kind that made him long for his bed, an ice bucket, and any music that wasn’t classical. With two hours to go, he was in fantasy land, imagining his couch, a Nina Simone record spinning on his mom’s old record player, and giving Estelle ten dollars to bring him whatever he wanted for the rest of the night so he never needed to stand up. 

Outside, the sun had already set, meaning that the light of their rehearsal studio was pouring out into the city now. They were a few flights up, giving Percy a view of other buildings with their windows lit up. It would be cold when he stepped outside finally, freezing even. But in the studio, the air was hot. He was able to keep his breathing steady after so many long years of dancing, but the athletic component of dance never really let up. His skin was sweaty, and the air around him seemed to almost cling to his skin. There was a long V of sweat down the front side of Annabet’s rosy colored leotard. She’d cut her tights off at the knee, so the lower half of her legs were bare. He was sure tey both wanted to double over and take a long, deep, heaving breath. But they had fish dives to do.  

When he and Annabeth parted from their final pose at the end of the act two pas de deux, Chiron concluded rehearsal with a single, solid clap. 

Rehearsals had been going on for a month, and Percy felt he knew every step, every movement of the Prince deep in his bones. He hadn’t needed to think for a moment during the pas just then. Annabeth’s weight and balance was as familiar to him as his own. His muscles knew what to do, how to step and when. His body took over for his mind in those long minutes. And for as much as his muscles and lungs screamed for a break, they somehow found the will to carry on. His mind was empty of anything but pure joy as he danced. He felt excited to share it. 

“Good work you two,” Chiron said first before going into some notes, some missed steps, moments where one of them wasn’t square or turned out properly, little things to keep working on. Annabeth smiled wide at him as they turned to leave the studio for the day. He could tell she was just as happy as he was. It was going to be great. “Get some rest,” Chiron told him. “Dress rehearsal starts next week.” 

Dress rehearsals. They moved to the theater in a week, which meant the show went up in two weeks. Percy’s heart began to race as he realized how little time there was left with Annabeth. 

Before Percy got the chance to tell Annabeth how great she had done that day, Piper ran up between the two of them, throwing one arm over either of their shoulders.

“You guys looked so good up there!” She said. “Have you gotten to try on your costumes yet? Because I tried mine on yesterday and it is gaudy, and borderline camp, and everything I’d want in a fairy,"

Annabeth snuck her way out from under Piper’s arm. “I tried on my act one costume yesterday. It’s the big pink tutu with roses on it,” Annabeth smiled fondly. “I looked like what every little girl imagines when they think ballerina.”  

As opposed to all the other days, Percy thought, when you’re just a regular beautiful woman in a tutu.

~

Piper spotted him by the door on her way out. “You leaving Jackson?” 

Percy shook his head. “In a minute. I’m walking to the subway with Annabeth,” he said. 

“You two have prince and princess stuff to work out?” 

“No, it’s just dark. Don’t want her walking alone.” 

Piper tilted her head and pursed her lips. “Oh sure, and just let me die!” She said dramatically. 

She was about to offer to walk her as well -- no reason it needed to be just him and Annabeth -- but Jason swooped out from some dark shadow and said “I can walk you, if you’re heading out now?”  

Charming, Percy thought, as Piper graciously accepted her hand. Maybe he was developing some pathological aversion to blond men. Maybe he just didn’t like that Jason was a year younger and already more accomplished than he was. It had to be the blond thing. 

Annabeth walked up to him a few minutes later. “You ready?” She asked as if he had been the one to take extra long to change. 

“Always,” he said, holding the door open for her again. 

The station nearest Lincoln center only ran the 1 and the 2, so most dancers rode it, even if it was only for a stop or two. Percy’s train went uptown, though, to 104th street, while hers went downtown to just fourth street. This meant that they could never wait for the trains together, and always had to say goodbye just beyond the turnstiles. 

Despite the bitter cold air, and the way that New York streets became violent wind tunnels in the winter, Percy walked slowly, trying to blame his pace on their long rehearsal. Which wasn’t a lie. He couldn’t take off into a dead sprint right now if there had been a gun to his head, but still, he could have walked a little faster. But Annabeth seemed to be keeping pace. 

“What a day,” she said. “Can’t believe it’s almost over.” 

“I know,” it feels like we just started. Which, in many ways they had. The company had a set repertory, so  they usually worked in condensed timelines, learning choreography quickly, and doing only a handful of performances before it was all over. Most ballets only got two or three weeks of rehearsal, if it was something the company did often. The length and intensity of a work like Sleeping Beauty meant the company needed more time.  But despite the added weeks of rehearsal, their time together seemed to be flying by. 

“How’d you end up all the way downtown?” Percy asked as he spotted the subway entrance across the street. They waited for the crossing signal, disputing the lack of cars. Percy fought his instincts to jay walk, staying glued on the sidewalk to soak in every stray moment he got. 

The yellow of the street lights made her hair look even more golden, and the cold had turned her cheeks bright red. She turned towards him to answer his question, her gray eyes reflecting the lights. She pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to lick them to temporarily alleviate the chappedness. Percy’s lips were dry and chapped too, he knew. It didn’t stop him from wanting, more than anything, from leaning down in that moment and kissing her, forgetting his own question, and letting train after train leave the station before they even thought to move. 

They’d kissed earlier that day. Six times in fact, running the awakening scene over and over. There was no way to fake a stage kiss. He knew, technically, what it felt like to kiss her, the same way he knew, technically, what it felt like to hold her waist, to have her body pressed close to his. But that wasn’t intimacy. It wasn’t real. It was his job. His mind and own sense of professionalism didn’t let him forget it or conflate the two. He knew what it felt like to put his lips against hers, the same way he knew what it felt like to hold onto her for a lift. He didn’t know what it felt like to kiss Annabeth. He suddenly felt desperate to know. 

But she started to answer his question before he could find his courage. 

“I liked the area,” she said, “and … Luke wanted to get out of midtown.” 

“You're still in the same place, then?” Percy asked. 

“Yeah, my name was on the lease. I didn’t really see a point in moving, once he left. It’s a good space,” she said, like she had something to prove to him. “He’s never tried to come back and bother me.” 

“Would he?” Percy asked. He still didn’t know what happened between them, but despite all the fallout company-side he never assumed Luke would be the kind of man to show up at his ex’s house unannounced and unwelcomed. 

But he saw a flicker of fear in Annnabeth’s eyes under the streetlights. The walk sign clicked on and she took off into the crosswalk. 

“No,” she said, her voice wavering. “Anyway, I kicked him out. It would be pathetic for him to come back now.” She tried to smile, but Percy sensed her uncertainty. She fumbled in her wallet for her metrocard. He knew that false confidence that barely hid fear more than most did. 

Percy took her hands in his, stopping them where they walked for a moment. She looked up at him, gray eyes wide. They’d never really touched outside of rehearsal. It seemed silly, Percy thought, to be so nervous about some hand-holding when they’d kissed six times today for rehearsal. But this was different, he knew it. He could feel it. 

“Hey,” he said, his voice gentle. He knew what it was like to live with a cruel man, the embarrassment and shame of it, even after he was gone. In the years since Gabe died, he hadn’t heard his mother mention his name even once. But Gabe was ashes now; Luke wasn't. “It’s okay.” 

“He’s in Portland,” she said, as if she was reminding herself more than telling him. 

“And if he does show up again --” he stated. 

Annabeth smiled and started down the stairs. “Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it, Twinkle Toes?” 

“Oh big words from Ballerina Barbie,” Percy said. 

Annabeth scoffed. “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one, I could get Mattel to craft a Barbie in my own image.” 

“Pretty sure they already do,” he said. It was meant to be jab, an insult. Instead, he’s pretty sure he just called her beautiful. 

They went through the turnstiles, and were about to part ways when Percy found a little bit of courage. “Well, if you ever get tired of being alone and want a good home-cooked meal, my door is always open.” 

“You cook?” She asked. 

“A little, but really it’s my mom --” 

“You live with your mom?” She asked suddenly. He couldn’t tell if there was judgment in her words. Most people usually did judge him, and he’d gotten used to rattling off defenses. 

Percy blushed. “Not in a weird Greek tragedy way,” he said, before realizing that made it worse. “Yes, I do. I help pay for my sister’s school tuition in exchange,” he said. “Plus my mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire world, so …”

“Text me the details,” Annabeth said. “I’d love to join you guys.” 

“I’ll save you some cookies,” Percy said. 

“Alright, but remember, you’re the one who has to lift me.” 

Percy was about to say something clever when the downtown train rolled in. “Shit!” Annabeth said taking off towards the train without so much as a goodbye. 

Percy smiled. He’d just text her instead. 

~

“So for your date tonight –“ his mom started.

“It’s not a date,” Percy protested. “It’s just Annabeth.”

“She’s coming all the way from downtown to meet you.”

“Well, yeah.”

“She’s staying for dinner.”

“Yeah.”

“You two are dancing together.”

“Mom!”

She held up her hands in surrender, before she asked him to pass him some spices.

“Seriously, though,” he said, “it’s not a date. If I had asked her out, our first date wouldn’t be in our apartment with you, Paul, and Stella around.” He stood at the counter, his back to her as he chopped the vegetables. “Besides, I don’t think she wants to be dating.”

“Well, I’ll still try not to embarrass you just in case,” she said.

“You know, it’d be great if you tried not to embarrass me at all ever,” he said.

She walked over and ruffled his hair. “I gave birth to you; I can embarrass you when and how I want. That’s the arrangement.”

“To be clear,” Percy said, “I did not ask to be born.”

~

Annabeth arrived half an hour before dinner started, and when Percy opened the door he watched her try to carefully stamp down a nervous expression. It was the Sunday before dress rehearsal, but he figured that wasn’t what was eating her. 

“Hey!” He said, ushering her inside. “Glad you made it. Dinner should be ready soon.” 

“Can I do anything to help?” She asked as Percy took her coat. 

“No, my mom’s got a handle on it.” 

She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a bottle of wine with a bow tied around it. “For you,” she said. “I um …” she stammered, “I didn’t know what else to bring.” 

Percy took it graciously. He didn’t drink much at all, and never this close to shows. But his parents would probably enjoy it. “Thanks!” He said, trying to hide his excitement that Annabeth Chase was in his house. “Can I introduce you?” He asked, gesturing down the hallway towards the living room and kitchen. 

He saw her try to hide a nervous swallow behind a taut smile. “Yeah, of course.” 

“Are you okay?” He asked. 

“Oh, I just haven’t met parents in a while. And they tend not to like me,” she said, wiping her palms on her jeans. 

“Who wouldn’t like you?” Percy asked, trying to pack his words with sincerity. 

“Ha, I think if it were up to Luke’s father, I’d be laboring in a penal colony right about now,” she said. 

Percy had a hard time imagining any of had gone down with her and Luke was Annabeth’s fault in the end. Luke had always seemed rude and unkind to him -- charming when he needed to be, but in that obvious facade kind of way. 

“Apple doesn’t fall far, then, does it?” 

“Don’t get me started,” Annabeth said, her tone joking, but her eyes a serious shade of dark gray. 

“Well, lucky for you, my parents are great,” he said, starting them down the hall. 

“It smells like they cook great,” she said. 

“It’s the day before dress rehearsal. My mom’s gotta make sure we’re fed,” he said. 

~

The introductions had gone just about as well as they could have. Annabeth graciously offered to help, but Sally politely shooed her away, insisting she had it under control. Percy had texted a warning to Annabeth about Estelle a few days ago. 

PERCY : She’s ten & a dancer. She’s desperate to go on pointe Expect a lot of fangirling and questions.  

ANNABETH: she sounds sweet <3 

Annabeth happily joined Percy and Stella, where she kindly took the time to explain when a girl could go on pointe, and what it felt like to dance in pointe shoes. She even answered all of Stella’s follow up questions about how long it took to learn certain steps, or how she broke in her shoes now. These were the burning questions Percy had either never been able to answer himself, or that, when he did answer, Stella didn’t believe simply because he’d never worn pointe shoes himself. 

Estelle rattled off details of her own training, offering Annabeth anecdotes about what kinds of pre-pointe training they were doing, and what her dance teacher was telling her about her development. Annabeth smiled, really listening to the girl, and offering input when she had it. 

Soon enough, food started arriving at the table. Percy jumped up to help, while gesturing to Annabeth to stay seated. “You’re the guest,” he said. 

They piled plates with lasagna and vegetables, and Annabet shot Percy a glance that read: remember, you have to lift me tomorrow. He tried to communicate back, I’m pretty strong, I can handle it. 

“So, Annabeth,” Sally asked. “Where are you from?” 

She hesitated. “The whole Chase family is from Boston. Most of my cousins are up there, but I was born in Virginia. I moved to New York for SAB at 14, though, and I’ve been here ever since. And my dad and his family now live out in San Francisco. So, all over the place, really.” 

“Over ten years in the city, I think we can call you a New Yorker at this point,” Paul said. 

“Eh,” Percy teased. “Still sounds a bit southern to me.” 

“Only when I’m angry,” Annabeth fought back. 

“I hope you’re not angry at Percy too often,” Sally said. 

Percy shrugged as if to say I’ve always earned it. Admittedly, he’d never actually been on the receiving end of Annabeth’s rage. He’d seen it sometimes, most recently frustration at Leo, the young dancer who’d been put into the Rose Adagio. “Pay attention!” She’d snapped, a slight Virginia accent on her vowels, after another disaster of a run through. Mr. D, the ballet master for that rehearsal simply said, “She’s right. Do it again.” 

Any fights between him and her had been little more than playful bickering, far away from rehearsal space. There, they were good at working together. Even in bickering fights, though, he sometimes caught the tail end of something not-very-Yankee in her speech. 

“At Percy? Never,” she said. 

Sally smiled at Percy. He could read her face loud and clear: Not a date? 

“They took you into the company pretty young, didn’t they?” Sally said, turning back to Annabeth. 

She nodded. “I was sixteen.”

“One of the youngest in the company,” Percy boasted for her. 

Annabeth nodded. 

“Was that hard?” Paul asked. “I teach high schoolers, and I couldn’t imagine any of them being professional anythings right about now.” 

“Yeah, it was … grueling. I was pretty mature at that point. I’d been living away from home for two years already, but balancing company life with trying to finish high school …” she trailed off. “I’m glad most dancers are taken into the company later. I guess everything worked out for me, but it wasn’t easy.” 

“Have you ever fallen down?” Estelle blurted. Percy shot Annabeth a sympathetic glance, silently apologizing for his family’s prodding. 

Annabeth just smiled. “On stage? Oh yeah.” Estelle just stared at her, waiting for her to tell the stories. “I’ve fallen a few times, I collided with a dancer once, I once tripped my way off stage. I was even dropped once.” 

“Did Percy drop you?” Estelle asked. 

“No,” Annabeth said. 

“She specifically told me not to,” Percy said. 

“You need to be told not to drop people?” Estelle asked, an obvious dig. He loved his sister, but she was not immune to middle school girl meanness. Percy made an immature face right back at her, and she stuck out her tongue mocking him. When he looked back up, Annabeth was smiling behind her hand at him. 

“I was dropped at the end of Romeo and Juliet,” she said. 

Percy remembered the story. It was one of his first big ballets in the corps, no longer an apprentice. Annabeth was twenty and a newly minted soloist, also in her first big role since promotion. Although where Percy was an unnamed party guest, she was thee Juliet. Beckendorf was her Romeo, and they had been doing a fantastic job. They were a few ballets in of the run at that point, and the one night: 

“It was at the end, and Romeo has just found Juliet’s dead body,” Annabet explained. “He’s supposed to lift me and carry me down a few stairs, then dance with my lifeless body.” Estelle was listening closely, far more interested in Romeo and Juliet than Paul had ever gotten her to be. “And all of the sudden, I was falling down the stairs. But I was supposed to be dead, so I couldn’t open my eyes to see what had happened. But the music was still playing, so I just laid there and waited. Soon enough, I was being lifted and the dance started.” 

 Beck had slipped going down the stairs and sent both of them to the floor. Somehow, neither of them got seriously hurt in the process, and the dance was able to go on. 

“But after that, Romeo and Juliet don’t leave the stage at all,” Annabeth said. “So we were just stuck on stage, not sure if we were going to be yelled at or fired, for twenty minutes. I still didn’t even really know what had happened.” 

“Did you get fired?” Estelle asked. 

“No,” Annabeth said, laughing a little, “Chiron loved it. He just said ‘I like it, keep it in.’ I guess from the audience it just looked like Romeo was so full of grief he couldn’t stand it.” She paused. “One of the ballet masters explained that he couldn’t just have dancers dropped every night. Someone would get hurt. So we never did it again.” 

Only Annabeth and Beckendorf could fall so gracefully Chiron would consider changing the choreography, Percy thought. He hoped some of her grace might finally rub off on him. 

Estelle took in the details of the story, before turning to Percy. “So how many times have you fallen?” She asked. Percy knew the answer was three, he remembered every one and thought about them all in the small hours of the morning when he was reliving his greatest mortifications. 

“Well, I’ve fallen so much I’ve lost count,” he told her. 

“Yeah, you would,” she said. 

“Give your brother a little more credit,” Annabeth said. “He’s one of the best.” 

“Then City Ballet must be in really bad shape,” she said. 

~

“Could you make my hair look like yours?” Estelle asked as dessert wrapped up. 

Annabeth touched her blonde curls, before looking at Estelle’s straight black hair. “Like mine?” 

“The twist you do! I’ve seen rehearsal pictures. My mom only knows how to do the bun.” 

Annabeth looked a little relieved and smiled. “Sure, we’ll need some bobby pins and a hair brush,” she said. 

Estelle bolted from the table, and Annabeth took that as her cue to follow. A moment later, Percy heard them in the bathroom, calling his name. 

“You ask him, he’ll do what you tell him,” he heard Estelle say to Annabeth, trying and failing to keep her voice low. 

“Could you help us with something?” Annabeth asked. 

Estelle was right though, and he stood from the table. “Not sure how I could help with a hair problem.” 

A moment later, he was standing behind his sister, holding a hand mirror, so she could see the  back of her head as Annabeth worked. Annabeth walked her through how she twisted her hair, gathering it at the nape of her neck, before looping it around two of her fingers, and simply twisting up. 

“Alright,” Annabeth said, dropping the hair. “You try.” 

It took her a few tries to really get a hang of the movements, and Annabeth offered feedback where she could -- “Pull tighter,” “twist slower.” 

Soon enough though, Stella had a pretty good twist. “That looks great!” Annabeth said. She tucked the loose ends of Stella’s hair into the twist, before she started to pin it. “Pin it until you’re pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.” 

“It’s just pins?” Stella asked. 

Annabeth nodded. “That’s why I like it. It’s classic, elegant. But super easy. Next time I’m here, I’ll show you how we do the Balanchine buns for performances.” 

“You have special buns?” She asked. Annabeth made an mmhum noise as she hair sprayed their hard work in place. “Percy never tells me anything.” 

~

After a cumulative few hours of charming Sally and entertaining Estelle with ballet stories,  Estelle was finally sent to her room (with a fair few complaints about it), and Sally and Paul retired as well. 

“It was so lovely to meet you Annabeth,” Sally said. “Come over whenever you want, and make sure Percy sends you home with some leftovers.” 

She and Percy sat down on the couch, finally alone. “I’ll head out soon,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to keep you up for too long.” 

Percy looked at the TV clock. It was only nine. Estelle had been sent to her room conspicuously to give Percy some time with Annabeth alone, and his parents had done the same. He could hear Estelle loudly watching YouTube videos on her iPad in protest. “Hang out as long as you want,” he said. 

“Your little sister is --” 

-- a bit much?” Percy said. 

“She’s sweet. I never get to tell old ballet stories, it was nice.” Annabeth broke off a part of a blue cookie. “Can I ask about the color?”

“Old inside joke with my mom. The stepdad before Paul told my mom there weren’t any blue foods. We decided to prove him wrong whenever we could,” he explained. It was a little act of rebellion for the two of them, something Gabe pretended to not care about or even notice, but those blue cookies and bags of blue candies, for a while, meant everything to Percy. 

“And we like Paul?” She asked. 

“Oh Paul is the best. That dorky dad thing he’s got going on isn’t just an act to charm dinner guests,” Percy said, biting into his own cookie. “He and my mom got married when I was fourteen, right before I started at the school. He paid for most of it. Huge improvement from Gabe who said he wouldn’t pay for any ‘fairy boy bullshit.’” 

Annabeth frowned, her brows knit together. “That was the other stepdad? The no-blue-foods one?”

“Yeah,” Percy said. He didn’t want to think about Gabe too much, but he opened the door himself. “He’s gone now. He died. We used his life insurance to get a better place, and it covered my lessons at a better dance studio than the local YMCA.” 

“How old were you?” Annabeth asked. “When he …” 

“Thirteen, about,” Percy said. “I’d been dancing for less than a year at that point.” 

“I always forget how old you were when you started,” Annabeth said. Percy just shrugged. 

“What about you, are you close with your family?” He asked. He didn’t need her to recount her career. She’d covered enough of it tonight, and what little she hadn’t shared, Percy knew already. 

She laughed at his question. “No, my stepmom was thrilled to pay for my ballet classes because the more I danced, the less time I spent in her house. They couldn’t wait to ship me off to New York at fourteen, and I was happy to go.” She paused. “They moved to San Francisco when I was sixteen. Just sent me an email one day about moving, asking if there was anything I wanted them to ship to me. Told me I had a week before they were out of the house.” She laughed coldly. “I was so spiteful at sixteen I told them that whatever I hadn’t taken with me to New York I didn’t want.” 

“That sucks,” Percy said. Annabeth just shrugged. “Did you have anyone to help you?” 

“Oh yeah, I mean --” she cut herself off. “I … Chiron was understanding. And I had the company girls.” 

Percy doubted that she had the company girls. He remembered that for years girls and women in the company hated Annabeth and her success. Jealousy wasn’t uncommon in companies.

“Well that’s good,” Percy said noncommittally. 

“Yeah, and before long, I mean, Luke was a friend for a little while,” she didn't look at him. “I know it didn’t work out, but he was really important to me for a long time.” 

Percy nodded. His dyslexia wouldn’t let him do the easy math in his head, so he chose to just trust her that he was nothing but a friend until she was older. They were coworkers, after all. 

Annabeth cleared her throat, trying to change the subject quickly. “So how’d you end up doing dance at 12?” She asked. 

“I was kicked out of basketball,” Percy said. “I was a troubled, angry kid a lot of the time.” He didn’t tell her that he’d punched a kid who was bullying his friend Tyson for having down syndrome. His coach had just looked at him, exhausted, and said Just go home Percy, just go home. 

“I needed something to do in the afternoons. Had to avoid my stepdad as long as possible. And dance had a spot.” 

He smiled at the memory of his first few classes as he told her.  “I didn’t have shoes when I started, and it was a week before my mom got paid. The teacher found a spare pair of shoes for me. They were a size too big and pink, but I wore them until they didn’t fit anymore. My mom had to sew up where my big toe had broken through. My teacher was great. She really saw something in me that no one else did. She pushed me to get into a better training program, and helped me get scholarships for it.” 

Really, Percy wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without Miss Hestia. She got through to him, finally offering the encouragement no coach or teacher ever had before. Dance was something he’d never experienced before. When he actually started paying attention and trying his best, he found it quieted all the noise in his head. His ADHD energy was refocused on learning combinations, his anxieties about his home life melted away. For an hour every few days, there was nothing else but dance.  Even at home, he could hide in his room, slip on his shoes, use his dresser as a barre, and play music in his head. 

“Dance kept me out of a lot of trouble. When I got to ballet class, it was this quiet room with piano music, and no one was talking to each other. We all just plie’d in peace, and it was just so nice. I realized that if I put a lot into ballet, I’d get a lot out of it. So, I started to practice every night, and after six months, my teacher told my mom that I had to be in a better program if I wanted to be a better dancer, because she really believed that I could go the distance.”

He still spoke to Miss Hestia, and got her tickets to every ballet he was in. She was there every time. 

Annabeth nodded. “I know how you feel. I mean, not exactly. I know I had a lot of help. A lot of money really. But, even just those nine months away from the company were agony.” 

“Why’d you leave then?” Percy asked. He always assumed she just needed a break. 

“Avoiding the fallout,” she said simply. “Mostly recovering from the breakup and injury.” Percy nodded, still not really clear on what she meant, but not wanting to push it any further. “But I actually spent the last few months back in Virginia at the youth company I grew up in. I did some choreography, led some classes, and kept up with my own training. It was nice to get out of the city for a while.”

“Can’t stay away from dance for too long,” Percy said. 

“No, I hardly know how to take a break. If I’m lucky I sneak away one weekend every summer for a trip to the beach.” 

“Long Island?” Percy asked. 

“Jersey Shore,” she said back. 

“Ew.” 

“It’s nice!” 

“It’s New Jersey!” She rolled his eyes at his indignation. “This summer, I’ll take you to Montauk beach.”

“Well, then I’ll take you to the Jersey Shore,” she said. 

“Deal,” he held out his hand. They shook on it. 

~

They stayed up talking and enjoying a few too many cookies for another hour. When Annabeth caught a flash of the time, 10:15p.m., She gasped.

“I had no idea how late it was getting,” she said, standing up. “I should head home and let you get some rest.”

“Do you want me to come with you on the subway?” Percy offered. “It’s getting late and you’ve got a long train ride.”

Annabeth shook her head and smiled. “Charming as always. I’ll just call an Uber,” she said, taking out her phone.

Percy nodded, picking up the tray of cookies. “Sounds good. I’m sending you home with at least half of these, though, or else my mom will kill me.”

Annabeth smiled. “If I don’t fit into my costume, I’m telling Silena that it’s your fault.”

Percy placed a few cookies in a zip-lock bag and handed it to her. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he said. “Drop a few of these off at the costume shop, and she's guaranteed to forgive you.” 

She zipped up her coat and forced her hat onto her head. Before she could say goodbye, Percy slipped on his jacket and shoes. “Let me walk you out,” he said.

~

They stood on the curb waiting for her car as snow started to fall. Percy looked up at the sky and smiled, watching the flurries fall in the light of the streetlamps. It was starting to stick to the cars, and by the morning the city would be covered in a pure white blanket, pristine and new. 

“Thank you, again, Percy, for such a great night,” she said.

“Anytime, seriously. My door is always open.” He was suddenly very aware of how close they were standing and how beautiful he thought she was. There were times where he thought his crush on her was maybe just the result of admiration for her dancing. He thought that, maybe if he got to know her, he wouldn’t like her as much outside of the studio. But not after tonight. They were friends. He was sure of it.  

Her Uber pulled up. “Annabeth?” the driver asked. Annabeth double checked the license plate number before confirming. She turned back to Percy to say a final goodbye.

That would have been the perfect moment to kiss her, as she stood under the snow, looking up at him, the yellow light of the streetlamp bouncing off her blonde hair. rehearsal kisses didn’t count. This would be an “I like you” kiss, a “let me take you out to dinner” kiss, it could be a wonderful, earth-shattering, life changing kiss.

But that kiss would ruin everything. Instead, he tried to memorize the way her eyes looked, and the way snow stuck to her eyelashes, and the way she waved goodbye to him from the window of her Uber. 

[denimbex1986]

'Like countless moviegoers around the world, I’m a major fan of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” But like many of those who saw it, I wasn’t alone in having qualifications about the last part of the movie. For me, the first two hours of “Oppenheimer” were electrifying. I felt the kind of full-scale mind/soul immersion that’s the definition of what we look for when we go to the movies. But in the last hour, I experienced a certain falling-off quality. I was still involved, but less involved. As the film kept returning to the 1954 hearing that resulted in Oppenheimer losing his security clearance, with Oppenheimer in the hot seat being hectored by a team of interrogators led by Jason Clarke’s special counsel to the AEC, I thought, “Why are we still at this damn hearing?” I asked because I didn’t know.

Now I do. A month or so after “Oppenheimer” opened, I went back and saw it again, and this time my qualifications evaporated. I was just as electrified as I’d been by the first two hours ­— only now that sensation didn’t end. The feeling of immersion lasted all three hours, right to the final shot. I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, since it means admitting that I didn’t get the film right the first time; as much as I raved about it in my Variety review, I would now rewrite the last part of that piece. But I’m even more fascinated by why I missed a crucial element of the movie.

“Oppenheimer” presents its title character as a totemic figure, a daring, mysterious, endlessly complicated renaissance genius who rose to his moment by envisioning and overseeing the creation of the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy, in his mesmerizing performance, endows Oppenheimer with an all-knowing aristocratic dandy swagger. He makes him a singularly charismatic figure, a wizardly idealist who conjures up an awesome power and then grapples with the consequences of his actions. And since it feels as if Oppenheimer, at that hearing, is being persecuted (to a large extent for his earlier Communist ties), it was hard to watch it without feeling like I was on his side.

The movie, however, is not on his side. Not really. In the last hour, it’s deeply critical of Oppenheimer — as critical, I would say, as any major Hollywood biopic has ever been of its subject. And this is the road I didn’t fully let myself travel down the first time I saw “Oppenheimer.” The last hour was trying to me because I was fighting what the movie was.

I can say, with some surprise, that the final hour of “Oppenheimer” is now my favorite part of the movie. It’s the most morally dramatic and hypnotic — the true inquiry into who Oppenheimer was, and why he’s a hero who will always have an oversize asterisk next to his name.

The first time out, I thought I was watching a drama about the creation of the A-bomb. But as captivating as all that is — the science-lab frenzy, the race against the clock, the thorny politics of life in the makeshift city that was set up in the Los Alamos desert — the process by which Oppenheimer and his fellow brainiacs transformed nuclear fission into a weapon capable of delivering a nuclear apocalypse is not exactly the stuff of spoiler alerts. They gathered; they devoted themselves; they wondered if they were going to set the global atmosphere on fire; they triumphed.

Since “Oppenheimer” is a movie with a built-in big bang, I spent a lot of that first viewing anticipating what the Trinity Test would look and feel like. I still think it’s the one disappointing aspect of the film. Nolan fragments the bomb detonation (glaring light, rising hellfire), and in doing so he somehow fails to channel its viscerally terrifying and unprecedented largeness. That kind of threw me off.

Was the building of the atomic bomb justified? “Oppenheimer” says that it absolutely was. The Nazis were working on their own bomb, and Oppenheimer, who was Jewish, very much saw his mission as an attempt to save civilization by winning a weapons race that, had the Nazis won it, might have resulted in a level of devastation beyond the unthinkable.

But was the dropping of the atomic bomb justified? Given that the Nazis had been defeated before the decision was made (by President Truman) to drop the weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a powerful case could be made that it was not. Should Nolan have depicted the effects of the bomb on the Japanese, as Spike Lee suggested this week? I think that would have made “Oppenheimer” a very different movie, and not necessarily a better one. I’m not here to rehash that debate, but I’ll point out that Nolan’s film features Oppenheimer, speaking to a roomful of his Manhattan Project colleagues, cutting to a kind of cosmic justification for dropping the bomb. He says, in essence, that it will act as an inoculation, forever scaring off the human race from using the bomb by demonstrating its deathly horror.

Perhaps he was right. But this was still Oppenheimer’s Faustian bargain. He convinced himself that dropping the bomb was justified, maybe even necessary, but in doing so he was also acting out of an elaborate and convoluted self-interest. On some level he’d invented a new toy and desperately wanted to use it. Though it wasn’t his decision to use it, he distanced himself from the horror of that decision.

The rest of the movie is about how the horror comes crawling back. I certainly saw elements of that the first time. But I what I missed, in my kneejerk-old-school-liberal way, is that the 1954 hearing runs on and on not because the film is trying to demonstrate that Oppenheimer was “persecuted.” As much as the Communist associations he had in the ’30s come into play, the point is not to depict the hearing as a McCarthyite smear (even though, in fact, it kind of was).

No, the startling thing about the last hour of “Oppenheimer” is that it features two characters who seem to exist almost entirely to prosecute and torment our hero, and in both cases what they say about him is right. “Oppenheimer” shows us how J. Robert Oppenheimer was not so much a victim of history, or of an oppressive U.S. government, as he was a defensive narcissist crusader who spent his final years using the trigger of his guilt to cover himself in a kind of grand delusion.

Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Lewis Strauss, the former head of the AEC who becomes Oppenheimer’s antagonist, is a stupendous outpouring of extemporaneous verbal energy (the actor is even more commanding without his irony than he is with it). But because Strauss is the person who stabbed Oppenheimer in the back, I assumed, the first time I saw the movie, that Nolan figured he needed some sort of villain, and that the virulent, hawkish Strauss was it. Strauss certainly had petty personal motives; the film returns several times to the Congressional hearing in which Oppenheimer publicly humiliated him with a flippant comment about radioisotopes. Yet the reason that Strauss, in certain ways, comes close to dominating the film’s last hour isn’t simply because we’re watching a bureaucrat take his vengeance. It’s because Strauss is the one who understands, and articulates, a crucial element of the film’s verdict on Oppenheimer: that he was a brilliant and self-glorifying celebrity who forged a mythology around himself, one that extended into his very crusade against the weapon he’d created.

Oppenheimer was the scientist who let the nuclear genie out of the bottle, but after the war he devoted his life to essentially saying, “Let’s try to put it back in.” Never realizing that this was hypocritical and unreal. In public, he’d mocked Strauss, and it was Strauss’s sleazy double dealing that was on trial during his own 1959 Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce — the other hearing that’s featured in the movie.

But the reason that Strauss is in the movie, and the reason Downey should win the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance, is the fantastic fervor with which he rakes Oppenheimer over the coals. Just because Strauss is rather scurrilous doesn’t mean that he’s wrong; he’s the one who has Oppenheimer’s number. And so does Jason Clarke’s Roger Robb, the AEC attorney who, in one of the film’s most cathartic moments, gives a speech in the 1954 hearing that excoriates Oppenheimer for the hypocrisy of his position on the hydrogen bomb: his denunciation of it as a monstrously overscaled weapon — but talk about the wrong messenger! Oppenheimer’s A-bomb was already an obscenely overscaled monster.

Christopher Nolan, in that inquiring last hour, has written all this into the movie, not because he wants to damn J. Robert Oppenheimer but because he wants to take the full measure of a 20th-century visionary who charged into the creation of the atomic bomb as if it were the science project of a lifetime — which it was ­— but had the luxury of not fully thinking through the implications of his actions. By the time he thought them through, he’d turned his criticism of America’s nuclear policy into a grandly repressed apology. He used the nuclear debate, and even his own martyrdom, to justify himself. But the way the movie portrays this doesn’t make it an attack on Oppenheimer. It makes “Oppenheimer” a piece of history that’s also a human exploration of the most exhilarating honesty.'

[aspergillosis]

ok so my plan is to get the AEC and a couple engineering certs through the bri'ish system and then, when eligible, I'm sitting for the coast guard stuff to qualify me as captain. USCG certification system is really rigorous and not only counts for yachts but for all commercial vessels, which opens up options. It's also pretty stupid impossible to do both engineer and deck USCG certs, due to expenses. Idk I'm just talking out loud here but the tldr: I'm getting my AEC next because I think working as a boat engineer is a good situation to be in and it makes for a good stepping stone up to captain in the future. I <3 marine diesel engines

[allisterlewisarchitect]

DO YOU WANT 5 DATA DRIVEN DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION STORIES? HERE YOU GO

WANT 5 INSIGHTFUL DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION NEWS STORIES? HERE YOU GO via @BIMCorner @ShapeToFab @parametricarch @Mohamdsaki @aarnih #construction #contech #BIM #AEC #architect #architecture #architecturestudent #architecturestudents #generativedesign #bimcoo

ADDD’s weekly video is all about construction technology! Get in touch if you have any thoughts on this! Please follow our new YouTube channel – new content each week! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1zFhxCZnQATJJ7r4oyhJ2A This week is a super quick dive into 5 data driven digital construction stories: BIM automation, the next Shape to Fabrication event, Technology terms you need to know, an…

[scantobim]

What is "Scan to BIM" and advantages of Scan to BIM?

In short, Scan to BIM is a process where we use 3D laser scanners or laser Drone to digitally capture any building or structure and generate point cloud data that can be used to create 3D models, 2D plans by the help of point cloud supported CAD software such as Revit, AutoCAD, Archicad, inventor, rhino, etc and this process also helps to collect project information which can then be used to renovate, refurbish, develop, and maintain the building or site.

If you are from the field of construction, you must be knowledgeable about this term when it is related to the construction of any building, structure, or anything that can play the most important role in Scan to BIM. We'll know the important aspects of the Scan to BIM, and along with understanding what really BIM is, we will also be able to understand how it functions and how it really becomes beneficial in the field of construction.

Advantages of Scan to Bim

The use of technology has been such that even in the field of construction, it has become imperative, and the use of technology in Scan to Bim has been done in a great way so that its benefits may be understood very easily. Let's know some of the benefits of Scan to BIM which help in understanding any structure or building properly.

The first thing that Scan to BIM does is remove any kind of human error which is certainly possible if, in the process of BIM documentation, the traditional method is followed.

Data collection becomes quite easier and it takes very less time in this and that's where Scan to BIM plays a very important role.

Information sharing becomes easier with the process of Scan to BIM and the data which comes out of the process gets released very quickly.

It also becomes easier for teams to get relaxed as they don't have to visit the site again and again and even if they manage to visit once, it will be sufficient to collect the data thoroughly.

The next process is about the inspection after the collection of the data, and inspection can be done off-site in an easy manner. Once the inspection is done, it will not be difficult to devise the perfect plan to take the project ahead.

The process of Scan to BIM gives the assurance of quality and if a particular team goes through a new project or construction, they can use this process to give the project great quality.

Let's understand the procedures of Scan to BIM

The contractors who are from the field of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) have to collect the data which is in great accuracy and speed and this happens because the technology of 3D scanning is definitely great. After the collection of the data, it gets placed on a particular tripod with an eye-safe laser which rotates at high speed. Once the laser beam points to a solid surface, the position related to scanning gets recorded in the form of the XYZ axis. These axis points are also known as points and a great number of points are capable enough to create a digital picture which can be called point clouds. After this process, it will be easy to get color images which may definitely give a realistic 3D representation by colorizing the scan. And this becomes important for anybody to know before visiting a particular site in the Scan to BIM process.

Conclusion

The BIM process is such that it is able to include Scan to BIM and considers it as a main component when it comes to construction and building maintenance. If you talk about the growth of the BIM  process, it certainly indicates that there is going to be an increase in the accessibility and usability of cloud technology. There is an environment for all stakeholders such as project managers, building teams, designers as well as surveyors who are able to get the benefits at all levels of the project. They also need to make sure that the collaboration takes place at a great level and with full confidence so that the project related to Scan may be accomplished one time. Once the project gets completed on time, it will be a matter of gaining the client's satisfaction.

If you're looking for services related to Scan to BIM, you can definitely contact our platform Rvtcad.com and if you want to get the details, you can feel free to message us anytime.

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[megpie71]

Here's how we solved this problem in Australia (the country which notoriously got its start as a penal colony, and which continued to import British convicts for as long as the UK would allow us to). The way it works is like this: if you're going to be released during the term of the government which is being elected at a particular election (i.e. in the next three to four years), you get to vote in that election. Given Australia's voting laws, this means we actually require prisoners who are of legal voting age and competent to vote (there are a number of people in our prison system who are not legally competent to vote - that's a separate tragedy) to receive their ballot papers so they're able to vote in the election, and the AEC takes its mobile polling booths to all the prisons as we're heading into an election. Yes, this includes people on remand prior to trial - we don't legally know whether they're guilty or innocent yet, that hasn't been determined, so they get to vote, no matter what they're accused of.

[unitedbim]

Discover how United BIM is transforming the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry with innovative BIM services. As a leading BIM service provider in the USA, we specialize in everything from precise Revit MEP modeling to BIM outsourcing. Our solutions enhance project efficiency, reduce costs, and streamline collaboration. With over a decade of experience and cutting-edge technology, we are committed to delivering high-quality results across diverse sectors like healthcare, education, and residential construction. Learn how we can elevate your next project and ensure on-time, on-budget success.

[hcrobot]

Expert Revit BIM Solutions

Next Gen AEC is a group company of HC Robotics and Centillion Solutions, a leading company in the construction technology and building automation sectors. We leverage the combined expertise and resources of our group companies to deliver innovative solutions for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. Visit - https://www.nextgenaec.com/

[bimmantra]

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For more information about our programs, visit our website or contact our admissions team. Together, let’s build a brighter future in the world of architecture, engineering, and construction.

[corvids-cryptids]

Australia actually helped invent the secret ballot (if you've ever voted in one of those cardboard or corflute booths, they were invented here to easily set up secret ballots rather than having people vote by publicly saying their preferred candidate, which was the norm in Commonwealth realms in the late 1800s), so there's definitely no checking of votes going on. There's just someone with a massive folder of the names of everyone registered to that electorate who crosses off your name after they give you a ballot paper to fill in. Once you've got your paper it doesn't matter who you vote for or if you do. You can just draw a smiley face and you have done your civic duty and voted as far as the electoral commisson is concerned.

We also have an objectively weird system that we just don't think is weird because we grew up with it. The book I cited above makes the good point that because voting is compulsory and on a weekend people have dragged their kids along for almost a century now to every state and federal election, so it's very very normalised to us. Election days are more or less treated as public holidays now, and community groups will organise sausage sizzles or bake sales near polling booths, which is always an added bonus and means kids aren't too mad at being dragged out to stand in a line. I remember my dad once taking me into the local hall as he voted after telling me to be very quiet, and bartering my very good behaviour when I was left outside a few years later for $2 for a can of coke. I actually ended up watching someone's kid for them while they voted last year (the kid was determined to play on the playground near the entrance, he didn't want the kid cracking their head open, and me and a woman who'd also just voted volunteered to watch them for a few minutes).

But from an outside perspective, our system is incredibly odd and the result of a bunch of cultural factors that are very Australian. The very first elections after invasion always involved drunken riots, often with fatalities, so there was a want to create a more orderly system. We have always had a strong Labor party who wanted as many workers to vote as possible, so there was a want to make voting as simple as possible and ensure groups such as itinerant workers could vote. And we're a surprisingly bureaucratic country, so we were fine with the creation of a government agency with the sole purpose of coordinating elections and the electoral roll, running ads telling people when the election is, policing gerrymandering and rigging, and, of course, distributing fines to people who fail to vote.

The result is that we develop the habit of voting very young, most Australians can give you a political opinion, even if it's that they hate all the fuckers, and that voting is incredibly easy. Voting takes me maybe half an hour depending on how much I dawdle as I walk to the voting booth, or maybe an hour if I drive to a different one (my local one is tragically inconsistent with its sausage sizzles).

We do vote far less often than Switzerland though. Our last large vote (2023) was a referendum, which are fairly rare. Our last federal election was in 2022, with the next likely to be held mid-2025. The last state election in my state was also held in 2022, and our next will be in March 2026. So we're voting once every couple of years on average, so we can afford to make a bit of a song and dance of it every time and it's not like we have to go out and vote every three months or something or be fined a huge sum of money. It's just enough to be frustrating (apparently it's equivalent to CHF11.99), so that if you are fined for a reason outside your control you might complain out of spite, and the AEC knows who isn't voting and why.

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!