#I already told you how I'm storing my data! I told you! I told you! oh my god! I told you how like three times!

[liesonthefloordramatically]

filling out IRB paperwork is truly a layer of hell

[blackbat09]

i'm normal about @shepscapades' dbhc au. and uh. wrote a thing that's very much not canon but equally as much a love letter to everything shep's done. it's xbralis because of course it is.

“Shiswammy, I don’t think - Hm. Is this really necessary?”

[Voice Identified: Hermit Keralis1]

“I mean - maybe not. But, if I’m honest, it’d make me feel a bit better if you did use it?”

[Voice Identified: Administrator xisumavoid]

“It’s just - what does it even do, Shishwam? All this - this redstone and wires and bluey goopy stuff. You keep giving everybody robots this season - like, what am I even gonna use it for?”

“Well, we can just - here. It’s online. Can you hear us, XB?”

[Question: Audio Processor Functionality.]

“Yes.”

“Wonderful! Will you please give Keralis your initialization text?”

“Hi! I’m an XB2000 android. I can carry out basic tasks such as resource gathering and crafting, but my functional specialties are combat and exploration. I’m designed for high-stress environments, like deep oceans and naturally generated structures, and am enchanted with Aqua Affinity and Depth Strider, though I may be upgraded at your discretion.”

“At my discretion? Really, now.”

XB figures now’s as good a time as any to look at the Hermit he’s being given to. He’s been programmed with a knowledge of all this season’s Hermits, as well as the other androids Xisuma has brought to this world, so there aren’t really any surprises in store - but it is the first time he’s actually laid optical units on the man, in the flesh, and he quickly updates the player data from the previous season with the new input he receives as he looks Keralis over.

The Hermit’s wide eyes meet XB’s gaze, and his mouth twists in a smile, leaning his body a few degrees in XB’s direction.

The motion is not a threat - XB’s Hermit cannot register as hostile - so it goes mostly ignored.

“And what are you looking at, prrrincess?”

XB stares at his Hermit for a moment, watching the man’s smile falter and his eyebrows draw together, before Xisuma speaks.

“Oh! He means you, XB - Keralis likes his nicknames, he does.”

And while XB is aware of this already, has a certifiable database of aliases Keralis has given other Hermits, being given a new designation already is -

Well. It makes sense, actually. Keralis has just acquired a nameless android, and model numbers are unwieldy at best for casual address.

[Question: Visual Stimuli.]

“I’m looking at you, Keralis. Your appearance has changed since your documentation was last updated in season seven. My personal files will now match your current physical appearance.”

The furrow in Keralis’ brow smooths, and his smile returns, leaning in closer before he murmurs, “Anytime you want a closer look, princess? All you gotta do is ask.”

“Keralis!” Xisuma’s tone is scolding, but he also seems to be laughing, and Keralis snickers as he pulls away from XB, winking at him as if they’ve shared some sort of secret. He doesn't think they have.

“I’m being good! I’m being good, Shishwam, I promise.”

—

“Has anyone ever told you you’re beautiful, XB?”

His motions don’t pause or falter as the question registers, the light at his temple flickering as he cycles through his memories - it’s a short search, one XB doesn’t really need to perform, but it’s good to be thorough, for Keralis’ benefit.

“No.”

The man gasps, the sound of a second pick falling silent as Keralis stops in his mining. XB continues - the andesite Keralis requires won’t mine itself, and the vein XB is working away at is still projected to be decently large.

“No?” Keralis repeats, voice raising as he continues, “No? XB! How could this be?”

There’s - emotion, in his tone, that XB decides is best categorized as aghast. In talking to DocM and Xisuma during routine maintenance, he’s been assured that Keralis can be prone to dramatics - that his words and feelings are sometimes not as grand as he projects them to be. But XB doesn’t mind it, really - Keralis being demonstrative with his feelings, even if it pushes the line into exaggeration, makes them easier to react to in a way that pleases his Hermit.

“I mean, before you, I spent all my time with Xisuma and DocM. They must not have felt it was pertinent to tell me,” XB suggests, and Keralis huffs, his pick resuming its rhythm - XB’s answer is satisfactory, then.

“Well I think it’s necessary,” he declares, pauses between his words dragging on a bit longer to catch his breath between speech and exertion. It’s something XB has grown accustomed to; sometimes he’ll need to stop and compose himself even when he’s not working, simply growing too animated and tripping over rapidly-spilling syllables until he’s half-wheezing. “I can’t just - just send you off in the world, not knowing you have beautiful eyes! They’re like the sea, XB. You could drown a man in them.”

Along with his exaggeration, Keralis likes his figures of speech, his simile and metaphors. Technically, XB can sort of grasp what he’s saying - Xisuma has been rather accommodating when it comes to updating his verbal and linguistic processing, trying to make sure he understands what Keralis means beyond the base definitions of the words he says (in whichever language he decides to use that day - his Hermit was rather delighted to discover XB’s fluency in both Polish and Swedish) - but, sometimes, even with everything XB has access to, he still can’t quite parse the why of what Keralis says.

[Eyes: like the sea: blue? Wet? Could drown in them: deep? Dangerous? Negative?]

XB is quiet for a moment longer, watching the steady swing of his own pickax before he offers, “If my appearance is unsatisfactory, you can ask me to change it.”

“XB!” He sounds horrified, and this time the sound of his pick is replaced with the heavy stomp of his boots as he bullies his way into XB’s space, taking his face between work-roughened hands. XB’s arms lower gently to avoid hitting Keralis with his pick, obediently meeting his eyes as the Hermit usually wants, when he holds XB like this. “I would never!”

“But you can,” XB points out. Keralis’ face only folds more, stern frown seeming - almost out of place.

His Hermit usually smiles.

[Software instability.]

“But I won’t, XB. And that’s that. No buts.” He stares back at Keralis for a long moment, committing the serious face to his memory.

XB would rather not have many examples of the expression. Among his top priorities are his Hermit's health and safety, after all, and his happiness is a decent indicator of both.

“Yes, Keralis."

[drdemonprince]

my thoughts and values align with yours re: STIs and risk AND i keep coming up against resistance to the recent discussions as a high-risk person still living almost entirely isolated amidst the ongoing pandemic. and when i take a second to breathe and think, i realize these are not conflicting at all. the friction isn't that i view illness morally or that i think we should avoid all risk. it's that the majority of folks without question take precautions to reduce STI exposure but the majority of people no longer consider doing the so minorly inconvenient precautions to reduce the spread of covid, which i would argue is much riskier than STIs at this point. and it's so exhausting because then i have to, based on my risk analysis of covid, take way more precautions because no one else is looking out for me. community care and harm reduction are my biggest driving values and i grieve how absent they are around me. i just wanted to share in case others are feeling similarly while reading this discussion. you rock and i so hope i get to engage in a beautiful public kinky scene some day.

Hey, thanks so much for sharing and walking us through your thought process.

What I might add is that individual people might not seemingly put much effort into COVID mitigation anymore because they have next to zero institutional support in doing so. Many of my disabled friends have to work in areas with a high risk of COVID exposure: waiting tables, stocking grocery store shelves, working as home health aids or phlebotomists, or teaching in schools. Some of them are high risk themselves, but because they have no choice but to work in areas where their life is put on the line, they have very high stress decompression needs and feel already resigned to their disposability in society, and so they do also go out to bars with their friends or hold parties or visit clubs.

I also know people who are able to socially distance quite strictly, test regularly, are vaccinated and boosted, but who intentionally make plans to visit cruising spaces or gay orgies very rarely so that they can remain relatively safe COVID wise but also not kill themselves out of despair (I'm not being hyperbolic here, that's exactly what some people have told me are the competing risks they face when they balance COVID exposure against isolation. And I know that many high risk populations face these same severe negative mental health outcomes too -- in fact, I know high risk people who choose to go out in public at times in order to remain sane, but who have to sit with the fact that it could be a mortal danger to do so).

I also think about how the queer community came together in the fight against AIDS to make condoms available, to educate one another about safer sex practices or harm reductionist practices, to engage in sex together in risk mitigating ways (such as gloved fisting) and how they pushed for the government to make drug treatment available to them. I see a lot of queer and disabled advocacy groups doing similar work today to spread accurate data on COVID as best they can, promote masking, organize solely outdoor events, encourage vaccination, and remind people of the stakes.

And I see such a massive gap between the ways in which risk mitigation was made possible through such community efforts, and how catastrophically the government fails us regarding COVID. We are not given free tests anymore. Vaccines aren't free anymore either. It is no longer a state of emergency. Many of us have been forced back into in-person work at our jobs. Our unemployment benefits have been cut. Student loan payments are roaring back into action. Disability benefits and medicare's expansion is rolling back. We no longer have accurate testing and tracing data. Masks are no longer required.

If a person wants to behave responsibly regarding COVID, how are they even supposed to? They can wear a mask in public and not experience in-person community to the extend they might like or need. But they can't actually prevent themselves from getting or spreading the virus because they've been forced back to work. I understand many people do not even take these small steps to reduce harm and that it is dismaying and outrageous. And I think you have ever right to feel outraged by it. But I also think individual behavior flows from social support and institutional pressure, and nearly all of that is heading in the wrong direction right now.

And I think about how collective the push for better government interventions regarding AIDS was, and how much the push regarding COVID instead is focused on targeting individual people for the actions they've made within a very unsupportive context. It was not beneficial to view individuals who had bareback sex or shot heroin as the origin of HIV, and I don't think it's helpful to understand COVID as a phenomenon of individuals failing to mask now.

Granted, it took HIV activism YEARS to get to the point of ACT UP. And we're not so many years deep into COVID yet comparatively. Personally when I look at all these facts in context I see a population that largely did take COVID seriously for a time, but who, due to a mix of institutional failure, mass misinformation, risk resignation, and despair, no longer do so in their behavior.

I don't believe in moralizing emotions and I think from your perspective you're affected by all these factors PLUS the massive risk of developing Long Covid symptoms or worse. And I know you know and live all this shit already so forgive me for preaching to the choir. But I do want to gently push back against the idea that most people don't care about COVID the way they care about STI's. I believe our discourse on both has been horrifically poisoned by individualism, capitalism, and institutional failure.

Some articles I have written on the subject:

[lisutarid-a]

[Gakuen K] Munakata Reisi Route Translation

Assisting the President of the Student Council Office

LIST OF CHAPTERS

[Translation under the cut]

Saya: --This is a program list for the school festival.

Munakata: Thank you. Next, please put together the applications for permission to use the classrooms there.

Saya: Okay, understood.

*A few moments later*

Saya: I put together the applications.

Munakata: Thank you. Next, please create a timetable for the event hall and the sports ground.

Munakata: I think we can use last year's data, could you please check?

Saya: I got it.

Munakata: When you are done with that, could you please deliver the documents to Awashima-sensei?

Saya: Okay.

*Many hours later...*

Saya: (Whoa…It's already dark outside)

Awashima: Huh, I was thinking about the lights being on…I see the President is still working, right?

Munakata: I have a lot of things that need to be done today, so it will take a little bit longer.

Awashima: That's so…Please be careful not to push yourselves too hard, both of you.

Munakata: Thanks for your concern.

Munakata: We hope to announce all the details at the end of the week.

Awashima: Understood. Well, I'll leave the key to you, so could you please lock the door?

Munakata: Got it. …Excuse me, Awashima-sensei.

Awashima: Yeah, what is it?

Munakata: Could you please sign this? I have some documents that I'd like you to look over.

Awashima: Understood. I'll verify them.

Awashima: Is that all?

Munakata: Yeah, thank you. Sorry for holding you back.

Awashima: It's fine. It's dark outside, please be careful going home.

Saya: Okay, thank you.

Munakata: Well, let's get back to work, shall we? We have a list of equipment needed, so please take a look at it and prepare the application.

Saya: Okay, understood. Um, how much longer are we going to work today?

Munakata: Until the end of today's work.

Saya: U-Understood!

Saya: (Let's do our best to finish it as soon as possible!)

Munakata: Could it be that you had plans?

Saya: No, it's not a big deal, don't worry.

Saya: (I can't tell him there was a TV show I wanted to watch…Work comes first!)

Munakata: I see. Sorry to keep you up late.

Saya: No! It's just that my work is taking too much time. I'll try to do it more efficiently.

Munakata: You are doing your best. It is inevitable because of the amount of work you had to do in the first place.

Saya: Senpai…Thank you.

Munakata: It's already dark, I'll walk you back to your dormitory when it's time to go home.

Munakata: But I don't know if I can finish before the date changes…Though I think it's just barely manageable.

Saya: Is it really going to take that long?

Munakata: …Or should we just stay the night?

Saya: Eh…?

Saya: (Stay the night, just the two of us?)

Munakata: Right, tomorrow is Saturday, and I have permission to use the student council chambers all weekend long.

Munakata: And we can proceed without losing time in getting here from the dormitory.

Munakata: If we work together until tomorrow morning, we'll certainly finish it.

Choice: Understood ❤︎

Saya: U-Understood. Let's work hard all night today!!

Munakata: Oya, you are very motivated.

Saya: Yeah! I learned from senpai before.

Munakata: …? What's that?

Saya: Senpai said that if you put things off until later, you'll find yourself in trouble later, so I decided to follow your example.

Saya: So I want to finish it first.

Munakata: You…really remembered that, didn't you?

Saya: Oh, but I didn't bring a toothbrush or a towel for washing my face…The store is closed, right?

Choice: Staying night is a bit…

Saya: I think that's true, but staying the night here is a bit too much…

Saya: (That means I and Munakata-senpai have to sleep together here…)

Munakata: I see…I thought it would be more efficient if we could alternate sleep and not lose any time for meetings.

Saya: (Senpai told me before that it's not good to put off work, so I guess I should stay the night)

Saya: I-I got it. I'm staying!

Munakata: Hah…You don't have to make that face. It's all a joke. I think the day will be over soon.

Saya: Eh! Is that so? Could it be that "barely manageable" is also a joke…?

Munakata: I mean, that I almost managed with it.

Saya: (I wonder if he was making fun of me…?)

Munakata: Now, let's focus on the last spurt, shall we?

[Prev chapter][Next chapter]

[crplpunkklavier]

Hey there! I might be applying for a PhD program in Germany next year and I was wondering if there was anything about Germany that's normal for natives but foreigners are confused about that you'd like to share? For instance, I was once told virtually nothing in Germany opens on Sundays, things like that <3

that's correct yeah, definitely get your shopping done BEFORE sundays and official holidays, because all stores will be closed. that includes places like pharmacies and doctor's offices! if you have a medical emergency on a weekend it's basically like having one in the middle of the night, so you'll have to find your local emergency numbers to call. the only places that ARE open on sundays/holidays are gas stations and some kiosks, so if you just need drinks and/or snacks, you're fine.

every bottle or can you buy that has this symbol on it:

you can return at stores with Pfandautomaten. theyre machines in grocery stores that you can feed your bottles/cans into, and they print a receipt that you hand over at the register, and youll get a little bit of money back. depending on what it was, it can be like 25 ct per can or something. its money you already paid when you bought it, so you dont get free money or anything, but its nice. also my non-german spouse just loves standing in front of those machines and watching.

our infrastructure is pretty bad in comparison to, like, most other industrialized places lol. its highly unlikely that there will be public wifi where you are, so get set up with a sim card asap. reception/data might still be pretty bad if youre not in a big city. the plus side of how backwards we still are about many things is that germans still looove cash. there will be places that do not take cards. usually its smaller places like bakeries or a farmers market stand. but it will happen

do go to a bakery whenever you can. you can get bread rolls for 30 cents and entire loaves for 3 bucks. theyre good!

there will be no a/c unless youre in a store or in a place with properly funded trains/trams. no residential buildings have a/c. i will be very surprised if your university does

if youre moving into any sort of student housing deal you might not have to deal with this, but if you're going to rent an apartment here, chances are it won't have a kitchen, and potentially it won't have flooring either. you have to get that yourself. it then ~belongs to you~ and you can take it with you when you move again, or try to sell it to the next tenant, and apparently people think that thats a good way to do this? i dunno lol. you can get kitchens at ikea. i'm sorry.

i'm not entirely sure where you're from, but if you don't get cold winters there then it might be worth to read up generally on how to dress for central european winters. you're not going to get fully snowed in unless you're moving all the way south to the alps, but we get snow sludge pretty much everywhere, and temperatures will drop to around 0° celsius.

april and may will feel crazy. you'll get 27°c one day and a thunderstorm will cool things down to 10° the next day.

most people speak english! we learn it in school. some will be apprehensive to do it, many will have a thick accent. but you will probably get through to people if your german isn't solid enough yet.

we have a large turkish population! try their food, go to their supermarkets, it's worth it!

good luck!! i will rb this if i think of anything else <3

[lady-morrigen]

Could I perhaps request Cassian Andor fluff with reader going through a particularly difficult bout of winter depression and him having the patience of a saint? Much love ❤️

Daylily

pairing: cassian andor x gn!reader (it was accidentally gn, so let me know if i missed anything)

a/n: so first, i'm sorry i take a million years to fill requests! idk what drew me to this one, but i guess because i'm army crawling towards the end of winter myself. i'm not sure if this is what you were going for, but my current work stress sorta worked its way in here... my apologies lol i can write something fluffier when i don't feel endless rage

rating: g

warnings: seasonal depression angst, job stress, brief mention of parental death (nothing graphic)

You’ve always hated it, the way the sun dropped beyond the horizon before you had a chance to feel it thaw the frozen contours of your face. It hardly seemed fair. A hint of a cotton candy sky peeking through the slats of the window over your bunk was as close as you came to seeing the sun all day. 

Day in and day out, you were surrounded by the damp, clay walls of the base, working yourself to the exhaustion to ensure data collected by the Rebellion’s Intelligence Officers was properly decoded. Lukewarm cups of caf and nutrition bars weren’t exactly a balanced or healthy diet, but they got you through more often than not. Each passing day, as your vitamin D stores depleted and the hunger pains grew stronger, your irritability wedged itself permanently at the front of your personality. 

When the doors of the tech bay slid open with a hiss, you had to fight the urge to roll your eyes. The man headed toward you was a particular thorn in your side, always one to meet your icy tone with an edge of his own, taunting you, pushing you, like a thumb to a bruise. Captain Andor had never met a spat he didn’t absolutely savor and you seemed to be the most recent object of his ire. 

He approached the desk, smug smile in place as he braced his arms on the top, crossing over the desktop, crowding your space to an annoying degree. With a huff, you sat down your data pad, steeling your gaze and facing him head-on.

“Captain Andor,” you said plainly, disdain evident in your tone. 

“Always so happy to see me, Lieutenant.” His smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. Truthfully, he looked just as exhausted as you felt. His brown eyes no longer held the sparkle, the hope that you were sure once shone in them.  

He could have been lovely once, you thought. Before the Empire crushed our spirits and the cold leeched out what little happiness we had left.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” 

Your already thin patience was waning, desperate to move the conversation along so you could get back to work. He tapped a finger against the screen of your data pad insistently. 

“Did you decrypt those Coruscant messages yet?” His lips set into a thin line, his features twisting into something much more serious, all traces of playfulness drained from his expression. 

You scrubbed a hand over your face, the feeling of being impossibly overwhelmed bubbled up in your chest, creeping up your throat and threatening to suffocate you. You fought back against the tears welling in your eyes. You knew well that Captain Andor wasn’t one to miss things like that, no matter how well controlled, and showing him any sign of weakness was out of the question. 

“Like I told you yesterday, Sir, we are very behind. It’s going to take me at least two more days.” 

You turned to the table behind you, taking a deep breath to regulate yourself, looking anywhere but at the disappointment on the face of the man behind you. When you turned to him again, his arms were crossed over his chest, and he was eyeing you quizzically, as if trying to figure out your deepest secret. A few silent moments passed when you suddenly realized he was waiting for you to continue.

“I’m sorry,” you started to speak, the sound breaking in your throat in traitorous defiance to your control. You felt your shoulders droop, the fight leaving your body in place of defeat. “I’m doing the best I can.”

The energy in the room changed then. Captain Andor’s body softened, his eyes held a kindness and understanding that hadn’t been there before. He looked almost sad for you, as if he could empathize with you. And you supposed maybe he could. 

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward once more. “How much of the key have you completed?”

“Captain Andor, I sai-” He held up a hand to cut you off. 

“I was only wondering if there was enough for me to try the decryption on my own. I want to help you.”

The look on your face must have been a comical mixture of confusion and shock because the corners of his eyes crinkled and he chuckled, throwing his mask of confidence back on and leaning into an elbow. 

“Don’t look so surprised.” In any other situation, the way he grinned at you would have made you weak in the knees. “I can be a nice guy when the situation calls for it. I am a spy, afterall.”

You nodded, dumbly, grabbing the data pad and bringing up the partially completed decryption key, handing it to him. 

“So far, this is all I could make out. If you could apply what we have to the messages, maybe we can get a headstart on figuring out what it all means.” 

His brows knit together in concentration as he poured over the symbols, picking up on the pattern, analyzing your skill. He moved around to the back of the console, pulling a stool up beside you and got to work. As you focused on a special project for General Draven, the two of you began to work in relative silence, punctuated every now and then by Captain Andor asking questions about specific sequential symbols.

It was comfortable, you thought, working with him like that. You never knew that he could be anything other than the ornery man you’ve always met, worn down by the weight of the responsibility resting on his shoulders. As if reading your mind, he spoke, pulling you out of your thoughts with a jolt. 

“You weren’t always like this,” he said. You whipped your head toward him, shooting him a glare as deadly as blaster fire. “When you first got here, I mean.”

“What exactly am I like?” You groused, setting down your data pad to face him fully. He shrugged noncommittally. 

“Stressed. Angry. Argumentative.”

You laughed, something humorless and cruel. How dare he?

“That’s rich coming from you, Captain Andor. This very well may be the first time we’ve spent more than two minutes in a room together and I haven’t wanted to rip your head off. If I’m any of those things, I am only mirroring your own temperament.”

For a long moment, he stared, his dark eyes flitting back and forth over your own, searching for… something. With a sigh, he relented. 

“You’re right.”

“I’m… what?” The fight drained from you all at once. You could tell he was sincere, and maybe even slightly remorseful. 

“You’re right. I am all of those things and I have been for a very long time. That’s why it bothers me to see them in you. I wanted better for you.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Before, you had kindness in your eyes. You believed in what we’re doing here. You knew it was something good. You had hope.” 

“I still believe in what we’re doing, I just…”

“Thought it would be easier than this? That we would have won by now? Me too.” 

He turned his attention back to his data pad and the weight of his words lay heavy between you. 

“Captain Andor, I’m so-”

“Cassian.”

“What?”

“That’s my name. ‘Captain Andor’ is so formal. You can call me Cassian.”

“Cassian Andor… it’s nice.” And it was nice. Knowing his full name made the miles of distance between you feel like feet. Made this intimidating man feel more like a tangible person. Someone you could grow to understand, maybe even like. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Go for it.”

“Why did Mothma decide to build a base on the coldest planet in the galaxy?” That earned you a chuckle, low and warm. 

“Hoth is the coldest planet in the galaxy. We’ll soon have a base there too. We’re headed there once we’re done here.”

“How convenient,” you rolled your eyes. “But you know what I mean. Is this not a better fit for the soulless many of the Empire? I swear, I can feel it leeching the happiness from my body the longer we stay here.”

“Is that what the problem is?” He looked at you, curiosity once again twisting his brow. “Where are you from?” 

“Alderaan. My father was a farmer.” 

“Was?”

“The Empire’s destruction extends far beyond Coruscant. They wanted to use our land to build a base and they were… unhappy with him when he refused. My older brother and I were able to escape, but just barely. My mother was a childhood friend of the Organas. They provided us with shelter and sent us to Mon Mothma when we refused to sit on our hands and watch the chaos unfold.” He was staring at you. Taking in every word with silent contemplation. You nervously rubbed your palms against the rough fabric of your uniformed thighs. “And yeah so anyway… Now I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.” He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you’ll go back? When we win?”

“I like to think so. I have so much to thank the Organas for. They saved us. If it weren’t for them…” 

“I get it. I’ve been there.” You didn’t pry. You got the feeling he wasn’t particularly happy to speak of his past.

“Yeah,” you said. “It would all feel worth it if I could just see the sunshine again, feel the warmth of it on my face. Something other than constant, dreadful cold and blank walls.”

Cassian glanced back to the data pad, making note of the time. 

“Hey, we’ve been at this for a while,” he said. “It’s almost morning. You should get some rest.”

“Morning is the only time I get to see the sun shine all day. I’d just end up sleeping through it if I went to bed now.”

“I see,” he said. “I have an idea.”

He took the data pad from your hand, setting onto the console beside his and grabbing you gently by the wrist, pulling you toward the door. He grabbed your coat from a nearby stool and handed it to you. 

“You’ll need this.”

As you followed him through the hallways, your curiosity continued to grow. You stopped by his workstation so that he could grab his own coat, a long, navy parka with a furry hood. When he slipped it on, he seemed to transform into a different person. He looked soft, small in comparison to the bulk of the coat, and incredibly warm. 

He tossed a pair of gloves to you, slipping on a pair of his own, before extending his hand. Hesitantly, you grabbed it, eyeing him suspiciously. 

“Where are we going?” You asked. 

“First, we’re going to get some caf,” he pulled you toward the mezzanine impatiently, as if he was racing against an imaginary clock. “The second part is a surprise.”

“Cassian, I really don’t like surprises.” You tried to stop, to pull your hand from his, but he held tight. He turned, placing a cup of caf in your free hand and you could have cried from the warmth as it slowly seeped through your glove.

“You’ll like this one,” he said, a smile threatening to crack at the corners of his mouth. He tugged your joined hands again, impatiently, leading you toward the exit. 

“Please, Cassian, it’s freezing.” You were whining, you knew it, but you were already so cold and the thought of going outside, into the frosted darkness of Tokmia, was enough to make you want to throw a full-blown tantrum. 

He said nothing as he led you through the forest, making his way to a steep hill and motioning for you to walk ahead of him. You glared at him once more for dramatic effect, huffing as you made your way up the steep embankment. When you reached the top, you stopped short, gasping in surprise. 

The hill overlooked a pristine snow field, sparkling in the waning moonlight, breathtakingly beautiful in its serenity. You turned to face Cassian, huffing slightly as he crested the hill. He offered up a shy smile, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked toward you. 

“It’s nice, right?” He took a sip of his caf, an effort to disguise a smile, you thought. “I found it once when I needed to escape K’s blabbering. I come here when I need a reminder of what we’re fighting for.”

“It’s beautiful." Your voice was barely more than a whisper, breathless as you noticed the pinky blue light of the sunrise begin to peek through the darkness. You inhaled sharply, the sound getting caught in your throat as you realized why he had been in such a rush.

“Looks like we made it just in time,” he said, taking another sip of caf. 

You closed your eyes as the sun crested over the horizon, reveling in the way the light pushed past your eyelids. When you were younger, you caught as many Alderaanean sunrises as you could. There was some kind of magic tied to being the first person to catch sight of the sun as she rose from her slumber. You hadn’t realized how much you missed that feeling. 

You glanced at Cassian, interested to see if he was enjoying the sunrise as well and found that he was already looking at you. His smile was genuine, satisfied, and dazzling. 

Maybe he is lovely afterall, you thought. He just needed a little warmth.

[olivermajor226]

CHOPPER MONOLOGUE

From ArtBomb, chapter 2. I just...it's been so long since I've been able to write him, and of course I'm pulling this out of context, but I think it stands alone enough, and Chopper should get the credit he deserves for this rant.

Sorry, Cass. Whatever goose chase Eirtae sent you and Kay on, well, uh, let’s just say the goose chase she took me on started far earlier. Like this morning. At 400 hours. And it started with calling me over and over, basically throwing a metaphorical stiletto at my head, so uh, little busy right now, and I’m already in deep shit with the other Mr. Syndulla, because we had, well, other plans today, important plans. But when a woman you respect with all your stupid synthetic life asks you to take her off-world, or rather threatens that stupid synthetic life if you don’t take her to Coruscant this instant , I mean, you do the chivalrous thing, yeah? Shit. Probably said too much. Don’t…don’t read too much into that, okay?  

You’re telling me Eirtae was on Coruscant this morning? Cassian asks in code, just because he’s pretty certain, then, Chopper did not get the heads up about the Semantics program. 

And he’s just telling Cassian everything.  

Even as he stands, still looking at the painting, he smiles triumphantly. That got anything to do with her secret plans for today? Cassian toys. 

I can neither confirm or deny…. 

But I just saw her, Cassian baits him

And it’s then he strikes gold.

Well, duh, Captain. Gods, I forgot you’ve like been literally nowhere since the Empire. No double and triple jumps anymore, Andor. We’re an inner rim system. It’s one jump, and only takes like twenty minutes to get to Coruscant, at most. It was actually really fucking bizarre and wild. She told me I wasn’t allowed to ask questions, and anyway, we end up at her favorite department store, and when someone tried to tell Eirtae I couldn’t go in, well, uh, I fear her wrath. She went on a twenty-minute tangent about how I was a decorated war veteran, and when that didn’t work she commed the retired Mon Mothma herself and let her give a piece of her mind to the sad little sixteen-year-old speciest mall cop. It was brutal. Then we’re the fanciest fucking store of my fucking life, just she and me, ol’ C1-10P, tracking dirt into the place, probably, and she’s charging all kinds of shit to her mother’s credit account, saying things like, “we need to defund the wealthy Chop. That’s how you take down the kriffing system.” Then when we were by the loading docks Eirtae tried to…liberate the loading bay droids, right there on the docking platform. Like right then and there. Actually convinced one of them, like the only barely sentient one of the bunch, who is honestly so fucking confused right now. I mean this bastard’s just your basic service droid, maybe a week into understanding he’s something separate from the boxes he’s loading into the Courier, and in his kriffing face is this beautiful, fiery woman delivering this passionate speech about how he’s her equal and deserving of rights and love and he already as her undying respect. Like this lucky son of a bitch who looks like a box, loading boxes, and he tells me he’s been online two weeks and in this once in a billion shot the angelic Eirtae Alniyat herself chooses to grace Coruscant with her presence, which I know she hated doing. Like it was really fucking hard for her to go back there, Cass, and he’s the only one she has time to save so she points to him and says, “you.”  

Chopper’s still going, but Cassian is already laughing out loud to himself, unable, truly, to believe what Chopper’s saying, save for the fact there are all these random snippets of his data of everything, although just visual, because say what you want about him, Chopper tells one hell of a story.

Then she apologizes, fucking apologizes, Cassian! And asks if he has kriffing autonomy, and of course each and every choice should be his. And he’s not so much an idiot he doesn’t directly load his own ass right onto my ship as soon as all the furniture is fucking loaded. And that’s when this woman turns to me and says, “Well, if it all blows up in my face, at least we did one thing right today, Chop. Gods, I love rebelling. Now let’s jump to lightspeed!” And I’m like, “yes, heh, adorable and all, love, but lets leave the fucking landing platform first, but also good idea about hauling ass because we just straight up stole this droid, from a soulless  corporation or not.” Like seriously Andor what in the fucking hell? Who is this fucking woman all the sudden?

Cassian is cracking the fuck up, laughing his ass off out loud, as Chopper keeps going. 

And of course ever since we got back Mr. Luckiest Box Alive keeps following me the fuck around and I don’t know what the fuck to do with him, Cassian. Because Eirtae’s got me on like five thousand errands, promising some shit about a surprise party and how everyone should believe in magic and there’s gold at the end of this kriffing rainbow if I help her and boy did my mind go to dirty places— I can’t help it I’ve had a crush on her forever and she’s so fucking beautiful and special. And even though I laid that all to rest a lonnng way back, really thought I had, today I’ve never seen her so…enraged with the fiery burn of a cause in all my fucking life and so she was just pushin’ allllll my right metaphorical buttons—then she looks at me dead in the optics like now she’s a Jedi fucking mind reader, points at me and says, “Two words for you, you smarmy astromech. Data. Sharing.” And I’m like what in the fucking hell?! So you know I log onto the old awful Network rumor mill and low and behold, what do I find out? Cassian Fucking Andor snogged our only monogamist Eirtae Alniyat and she got angry, slapped him then shoved him into some flower bed or some shit. And before I ask you if any of that’s true I gotta say, you broke this box’s motherfucking heart, because he was pretty sure his future included a lifetime with her, and he won’t shut up about it now, and like I can’t shake him, Cass. I can’t shake him! So either I’ve lost my touch, the whole galaxy’s gone wrong again, or he’s actually a kriffing genius because he’s worse than a motherfucking TIE-defender. And it’s all your fucking fault!!!

[thegodthief]

Dreamt I was at work and work was being an extra special shit show. A surprise power outage just made everything worse and some of the staff had either not shown up for work or fucked off for the day.

I was at the front desk trying to salvage some semblance of civility in the face of a family that was pissed as hell that their favorite grocery store had gone out of business with no warning, and somehow that was my workplace's responsibility. (Spoiler: it's not. The clients are just that demanding and entitled in the waking.)

Suddenly, there were another pair of hands available as someone came behind the desk and started helping me with data entry and paperwork. Together, we got the hot mess at the front resolved and I got the clearance to lock the front door and declare the office closed for the day.

I turned to the mysterious helper. I have never seen her before. Come to think of it, her appearance keeps changing even as I'm staring at her. I realize that I have the taste of metal in my mouth.

"Hello, Traveler. It's been a while since I have encountered others."

She smiles. "No, it's been a while since you started letting yourself be aware of others."

Ouch. She's right.

She laughed at my silent agreement. "You have this dream settled, so I'm going to let you get some rest. We'll meet again, I'm sure."

I meant to ask her name, or some kenning to know her by, but the moment I thought of asking it, I already knew the answer.

Advena.

I could feel the language it came from slipping around my tongue: Latin.

She smiled at my recognition. Without words, she told me that our encounters were not complete but I still had more to learn about her, and about myself. She banished herself from my dream with her own bright laughter.

So now, it's day, and I'm awake and making it everyone else's problem. I get a chance to sit down and look up what the word advena means in Latin.

Noun: advena m or f (genitive advenae); first declension 1. outsider, foreigner, stranger, alien. Synonyms: aliēnus, aliēnigena, peregrinus Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/advena#Latin

Oh.

It's gonna be that way, then.

We'll see how this turns out.

[ask-the-substitute]

YOU GO LITTLE GUY, WRECK SHOP

How the hell are you still alive?? I thought the box was gone, I told Shane what to do with it-

-And Shane was notified by a little blue ballsack who's great at being the Professor to leave it to you. And then I took care of it.

If you want things done right, Ryan, you really should always do them yourself.

But enough about me!! The more important discussion lies with you two!

See, I'll make this simple. You're going to use one of your wishes with that ol genie- I'm sure you have some left over- to give me my corporeality or I fucking kill the Professor right now with one of my MANY holograms.

Yeah okay not my first death threat but- Beef Boy doesn't have the lamp with him. He's been storing it in a very secure location-

.... Ryan why are you making that face

.... It's what I was dropping off with Shane. It's in this box.

Ryan??

It was for a Dish Granted episode!! As a prop!! It's fitting it would have been cool for like Steven to have... Y'know he does the your dish has been granted and he has a little lamp-

Ryan!!

I'm not proud of my actions!!!

Ohhh wowww I wonder whose great idea that was!Hahahahah it was mine.

See, the Professor's not the only impersonation I can do. With enough data, I can do anything!

With enough determination, I can even become we! A very EXTENSIVE we. But I'm sure you've noticed already.

[jamiesugah]

I'm on a family cell phone plan with my parents. Yesterday after 18 years with Verizon, they texted that we were switching to T-Mobile and I needed to get to a store as soon as possible to switch my sim card.

I asked how soon was soon, because my parents constantly forget that just because they're retired doesn't mean the rest of us don't have work. They told me it didn't need to be right away but it had to be soon.

Then like two hours later, my mom called me on Facebook Messenger, which it's damn fortunate I actually have on my phone (I didn't for a long time), to tell me that they switched my number early and I needed to get to a store asap because I wouldn't have cell service until I did. Not like I have a fucking job or anything, or that I was at work when they called. Not like I don't need 2-factor authentication for EVERYTHING I use at work.

So after work I went to the nearest T-Mobile store and they switched my sim card. Calls and texts are back, yay! Immediately call my parents, both of their phones are off.

By the time I get home, I realize I don't have data. And I can't send or receive texts in group threads. I text my mom to tell her this, she asks me if I'm still at the store. Two hours later? No, I'm fucking not. She tells me to go back in the morning. I HAVE A JOB. T-Mobile stores don't open until 10am, which is when my shift starts, and I'm not in the office today, so I would be going into a different store.

Dad texts this morning and tells me to restart my phone, which I have already done like four times. Then he tells me I should call the tech who did their switchover, since it was "her blunder" that caused my number to be switched early. I. AM. AT. WORK.

I shouldn't complain, because my parents still pay this bill and as someone paycheck-to-paycheck, it's a huge relief to have one bill that isn't mine. But I got no notice on the switch and then they messed it up and now I have to fix it. AND WE'RE GOING TO ALL BE TOGETHER IN SIX WEEKS AND COULD HAVE EASILY DONE THIS THEN.

Or, you know, we could have planned this better so that we could go into the store at the same time, even though we live in different states, and do this all at once, instead of me scrambling to catch up because I don't merit any consideration in this situation at all.

[demons2003]

My Boys (Chapter 32)

Series List

Y/n's pov

At the front counter, Robin and I were having to deal with every single customer that walked into the store, including Erica Sinclair. Resulting in us having to give her free samples of ice cream over and over because of the stupid company policy. Robin moves over to the tup of ice cream containers and gets some mint chocolate ice cream for Erica. She takes the small ice cream sample and after eating it looks at Robin to say, "Can I try the peppermint stick?" Robin, who's had enough of this whole encounter since she first walks in says, "Haven't you already tried the peppermint stick?" "Yes, and I'd like to try it again," Erica snaps at her. God, how the hell do I babysit her? I don't remember her being this bratty the last time I was with her. Robin finally has enough and turns around, noticing me standing there but instead calls, "Steve!" I smile at her and wait for Steve to answer her. He doesn't answer and Robin starts to move to the backdoor. "Wait Robin!" I exclaim, getting up from my position and following after her, ignoring Erica and her friend's calls.

"All right, babysitting time is over," Robin says as she opens the back room and walks in. I quickly follow behind her and walk behind Dustin and Steve, looking over Dustin's shoulder to see how far they've gotten on the transmission. "You need to get in there! Y/n's no help anymore!" Robin exclaims as she moves further into the back. "Hey!" I yell, giving her a glare but she just smiles over at me. "You didn't tell her to piss off!" Robin says, looking over at the board that use to contain data she had put on earlier. "Hey, my board! That was important data shitbirds!" She yells at them, turning back to the boys. "I guarantee you, what we're doing is way more important than your data," Dustin tells her. Steve nods a little in agreement and throws his banana peel on the table. "Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?" Robin asks as she moves over to the table. I move next to Robin to find Dustin looking confused at Steve and then over at me. "How does she know about the Russians?" Dustin asks us, wondering which one of us spilled the beans. I shrug my shoulders as Steve says with a mouth full of banana, "I don't know." "You told her about..." Dustin starts to say to me but I butt in to say, "I didn't tell her anything." 

"Hello, I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are both extremely loud," Robin exclaims, clearly annoyed with the both of them. "You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you're trying to translate, but haven't figured out a word because you didn't realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet. Sound about right?" Robin rants to them both, Steve and Dustin looking confused at each other. I laugh a little and say, "She's right idiots." Robin reaches for the tape recorder but Steve's faster and yells, "Whoa! Whoa! What do you think you're doing?" "I wanna hear it." Robin shrugs, looking between the two of them and me. "Why?" They both ask at once. "Cause maybe we can help. I'm fluent in four languages, you know," Robin tells them. "Russian?" Dustin questions. "Ou-yay are-yay umb-day," Robin says, leaning closer to Dustin. Steve laughs at her, clearly impressed with her. "Holy shit," Dustin says, smiling up at Robin. "That was pig Latin dingus," Robin says, causing me to laugh at them all.

Steve hits Dustin with the banana peel as Robin moves to the seat next to Dustin and says, "But I can speak Spanish. So can Y/n. We can also speak French and Italian and I've been in band for 12 years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me." Steve goes to say something but Robin buts in and says, "Come on, it's your turn to sling ice cream, Y/n and my turn to translate. I don't even want credit. I'm just bored." Steve takes a big breath out and the bell from the counter is hit. Robin puts the ice cream scooper out waiting for Steve to take it from her. "Please Stevie, we're really smart," I say to him, giving him my best puppy dog eyes. Steve nods slightly and takes the scooper from Robin and hands me the tape recorder.

Couple Minutes Later

We'd been listening to the recording over and over, trying to work out what the hell it is saying. I'm sitting next to Dustin who is holding the recorder while Robin is pacing back and forth. "Wait, that last part, just one more time," Robin says, holding her hand up to tell Dustin to stop. "Okay," Dustin whispers as he rewinds the tape. The recording starts again and Robin continues her pacing. I look over at Robin as she says, "Okay, that word. Um..." I try to think with her, her waving her hand which is helping me think as well. "It's pronounced... 'dly-nna-ya' Which is spelled..." Robin says, waving her hand at Dustin as he walks over to the board. Watching this is really interesting. "The... The chair. The chair-looking thingy," Dustin exclaims, pointing at a letter on the board. "Yeah, okay," I say, looking down at the piece of paper and write that down. Robin moves over to the window as I write and tells Steve, "We've got our first sentence." "Oh, seriously?" Steve asks as he moves over to her. "Yeah. 'The week is long'," Robin says, the last part in a Russian accent. "Well, that's thrilling," Steve says, not impressed at all with our hard work. I laugh a little and yell at him, "We did better than you and Dustin. We at least made some progress." I look up to find Steve giving me a playful glare. Robin laughs as well and closes the window on Steve. Robin moves back over to us and we continue to try to break the Russian message while somehow serving customers that walk in the store.

Couple Hours Later

After a couple of hours of trying to decode the Russian message, we finally got something that sounded somewhat right. Every other store in the mall was closed but we were still open trying to get this message finished. All at once we read the message, "The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west." "The hell did we just decode?" I ask, looking at the other three. Robin shrugs and says, "I have no clue but can we go now?" I nod and we all make our way out of the store. "I mean, it just... it just can't be right," Steve says as he pulls down the store gate. "It's right," Robin says as the three of us start walking away from Steve. "Honestly, I think it's great news," Dustin yells to us. "Why do you think that Dusty?" I ask as Steve yells, "How is this great news? I mean, so much for being American heroes. It's total nonsense." "It's not nonsense. It's obviously a code," Dustin snaps at him. "What do you mean a code?" Steve asks. "Like a super-secret spy code," Dustin tells him, looking back at him. "That's a total stretch," Steve says, seeming to be slightly annoyed about today's events. "I don't know, is it?" Robin questions. I nod with her and whisper, "She's right. It would make some sense."

"You're both buying into this?" Steve asks, surprised by us both. "Listen, just for kicks, let's entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What'd you think they were gonna say, 'Fire the warhead at noon'?" Robin says. "Exactly," Dustin says. "If you don't want someone to listen to your secret messages then another language plus a secret code would be a good idea so people won't know when you are doing something," I tell him, moving back and putting my arm over his shoulders. "And my translation is correct. I know that for sure, so...'The silver cat feeds', why would anyone talk like that unless they're trying to mask the meaning of their message?" Robin asks us all. "Exactly." I agree. "And why would anyone wanna mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?" Robin explains trying to convince Steve we are all right. "Exactly," Dustin says to Steve, giving him so much attitude. "So, I guess that confirms your suspicion," Robin says to Dustin. "Evil Russians," Dustin and I say at the same time.

"I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child and my best friend, but, yeah, totally evil Russians," Robin says, looking back at Steve and me. "So, how do we crack it?" Dustin asks, clearly excited about this whole new adventure that we have found ourselves in. "God we're doing this again?" I whisper, looking up at Steve worried. Steve softly smiles down at me and nods, giving me a quick kiss on the forehead and listening to Robin and Dustin again. "Well, I guess we translate the rest and hopefully a pattern emerges," Robin says, answering Dustin's previous question. "A pattern. Right, like maybe 'silver cat' is a meeting place?" Dustin asks Robin, the two seeming to forget Steve and I are here as well. "Or a person." "Or a weapon." "It's probably gonna take a super genius to crack it, but..." Robin and Dustin say back and forth but Steve seems to have an idea. He had moved out of my arm a while ago and Robin seems to notice as well. "Where'd Steve go?" Robin asks me. I shrug and turn around to try to find him as well.

As I turn around, we find Steve standing next to a kid's horse ride. "Hey Steve! What are you doing?" Robin yells back at him as coins are dropped from his pockets. I look confused at him and walk quickly over to him, Robin and Dustin staying where they are. I start to panic a little, worrying about why Steve is moving so fast and juggling all these coins. "Uh, it's a quarter. I need... Do you have a quarter?" Steve asks the three of us, seeming to know something we don't. I dig through my pockets, trying to use it as a way to calm down, as Robin chuckles and the other two make their way over to us. "Sure you're tall enough for this ride Stevie?" I ask him, still trying to find out if I have a quarter and coming up with a different way to calm down. "Quarter!" Steve yells as I finally find one. "Here!" I yell, handing him the quarter I just found. He bends down and puts the quarter into the ride. It starts to play a song and move, all of us waiting for what Steve's going to do now. 

"You need help getting up Little Stevie?" Robin mocks him. "Shhh!" Steve shushes her, listening to the ride while Dustin laughs at him. "Would you two just shut up and listen?" Steve finally snaps at them both. I kneel next to Steve and place my hand on his shoulder, trying to listen to what he's listening to. We stay like that for a second before I whisper to him, "What's up Stevie?" "Holy shit," Dustin says, seeming to understand what Steve is getting at. Steve looks up at them and Dustin explains, "The music," taking his bag off. "The music!" Steve exclaims, seeming excited that he could help in some way. I listen a little closer and realise that the music is the same one that was playing in the recording. "Omg, good job Steve," I whisper to him, shaking his shoulder a little. Steve gives me his doppy little smile as Dustin grabs the recorder out and plays the recording again for us all. We look up at Robin as she says, "I don't understand." "It's the exact same song on the recording," Dustin explains to her. "Maybe they have horses like this in Russia," Robin tries to rationalize. "'Indiana Flyer'? I don't... I don't think so. This code, it... didn't come from Russia," Steve says, continuing to look at the horse. He looks over to Robin and Dustin, glancing at me every once and a while, saying, "It came from here." We all look at the horse, trying to process the information that we just found out. "Well, that's not good for us," I whisper, knowing that it won't get much better from here.

[themerelypersonal]

Listening to this song ready to start telling a story, as humans do, about my life. I had just finished cheesy eggs in a tortilla and sat there in my dimly lit living room and savored each bite. In "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, he had said there was a study where they found that french women find more satisfaction from their food than American women because they aren't multi-tasking while eating. So, in french style, I suppose, I sat there and thought about the particles of my eggs. I closed my eyes and tasted. While I chewed, I looked around at my plants, books, and the skeleton named jinkies whom always makes me happy. The whole act was yummier so I suppose there may be some truth to that with the one trial I have attempted on myself... hardly good data but there I go.

Earlier, I climbed my heart out. There is this pink 12- that I am so close to finishing. I am so passionate about it and I constantly steal looks in between climbs l...I love having a project again. I'm making progress and am already able to climb up and down 8s and 9s. Soon, maybe, I can climb down 10s and 11s like I used to. I've been climbing like a monkey, swinging from side to side while listening to R&B which has been my genre of choice to climb to as of late. I saw Atlanta after my climb and we spent over an hour discussing intelligence, civilization, language, and power structures. It was a delight. I love breaking down subjects with humans. It is rare that I get to do so, though, I will say the Universe has sent me more souls to ponder life's deepest treasures lately. When I have opened myself to what god/universe/creator has in store for me, I have found so many gifts.

I started this new biography called "We Will Be Jaguars" by Nemonte Nenquimo. She was part of the Waorani tribe found in the Amazonian areas in Ecuador and so far, from what I understand in the book, she documents her experiences growing up in the jungle and being introduced to Christian missionaries who brought sickness to her people. I don't really like to read full synopsis of books just like I don't like to read climbs before I climb them. I like to not assume how it will end - sort of with everything in life perhaps. Hearing of this women's experiences is fascinating. She mentions places I've been to and it was neat to imagine the different animal life and her ancestors walking the same paths, maybe, that I did. When I went to Ecuador, I swam in tucked away pools in the Amazon forest near the small city of Coca. I spent alot of time alone in the jungle and with kids talking in Spanish about what their life was like. I remember this one child in particular named Charlie. He reminds me now of Ezra and was so intelligent. He would walk with me and explain different parts of his culture to me. Years later, hearing this woman's experiences is fascinating. She was talking about how she went to this missionary lady named Rachel who would give the girls dresses who would go to church. She wouldn't give you a dress if you didn't go. Before she received a dress, she said she would walk around naked in then jungle in her favorite pair of red underwear. She talked about how her baby brother would feed the monkey near them and how she told him not do so because the monkey needed to learn to feed herself.. and because she liked watching the way the monkey would pull apart insects- I found that last part very wonderful. Why? It's very human and honest.

I'm still reading through my Zen book and scribbling notes on all the pages like this one:

I was thinking this morning, staring out at the dusty white mountains and watching another season change into itself how odd it is that so many years have gone by. I swear it was just 2020 seconds ago and we all wondered if maybe the world was ending.

I've been struggling with aspects of my past and present that I still feel too sore to write about. Some days are better than others but I'm still in a state of shock. I am am allowing myself to feel the feels. I cannot be ashamed of that. I must show up honestly. I won't feel good living otherwise.

Otherwise, I am joyful. This baby inside of me kicks. What a strange thing it is to grow a human!

Off to fart around, literally, and play piano maybe or write a poem.

[passerine-writes]

Silent Sparks - Volt 82

Warnings: It's a small filler chapter cause next chapter is the start of the raid!! Word count: 1946

Notes: Italics - Tsukare signing Bold italics - Family member/friend signing 'Italics with apostrophes' - Thoughts

Masterlist

Volt 81 | Volt 83

My first day back to class was uneventful. Dad and I sparred in front of most of the class. I used my inhaler once during the entire match, but he deemed he felt comfortable with me going on the mission.

The call came the next day in the middle of the night.

My phone buzzed on my chest, Denki sound asleep on my laptop and I rushed to get my shoes on. Midoriya and I left our rooms at the same time and only gave each other a nod while we rushed to the elevator. Kirishima, Uraraka and Tsu standing in the commons with their phones.

"Alright. You too?" Kirishima asked us.

"We got it." Tsu confirmed.

"It's happening." Midoriya said.

"Hey, you okay? Did you sleep last night?" Denki asked as I came down to the commons to eat breakfast.

"Yeah, I got a little bit of sleep in." I told him lackadaisically.

"What's going on?" He asked gently, careful not to draw anyone's attention to us.

"I'll explain later, I promise. I can't talk about it right now." I told him softly while looking into his eyes. He took a breath but nodded and dropped it.

Kirishima, Midoriya, Uraraka, Tsu and I sat in silence, all of us mentally preparing for today. I gave my brother a hug and Denki a quick kiss and soon left with the others to Nighteye's agency.

"They're keeping this Eri girl in their stronghold?" Rock Lock asked incredulously.

"And by stronghold, you mean..." Fat Gum trailed off.

"The headquarters of the Hassaikai. It's their leader's residence." Ryukyu confirmed.

"So you're tellin' me all that time we spent investigating was for nothing then?" Rock Lock jabbed.

"Not at all, we gained plenty of new information as well." Nighteye corrected.

"How'd you confirm she was there?" Fat Gum asked quickly. I bit back my laughter as Nighteye pulled out Gung-Ho! Glitter Squad 10! box.

"A member of the Hassaikai visited a nearby department store the other day. He purchased a toy favored by young girls." Nighteye stated casually.

"What?"

"That's pretty sparkly." Rock Lock said.

"Listen, maybe the guy just likes cutesy stuff. Different strokes for different folks, Nighteye." Fat jumped in. "You wanna tell us what you're doin' with one, though?"

"Yes. I was there when he made the purchase and overheard his conversation with the store clerk." He explained how he used his foresight on the guy and saw Eri.

"You ended up using Foresight anyway?" Rock Lock jabbed.

"If you recall, I said I'd use it when our path was more certain." Nighteye stated calmly.

"Whatever, this means we've got the data we need, right?" Fat Gum interjected.

"Yes. And we know for sure when they'll be there thanks to our stakeouts." Centipeder confirmed.

"We also worked with the police and already got a warrant to search the place!" Bubble Girl told us happily. "Next step..."

"... is to barge in there!" Fat Gum exclaimed.

"So what's the deal with ginger back here?" Rock Lock asked, turning around from the front to look at me.

"And that means?" I replied dully.

"Last time you went out and these guys were involved, they almost killed you." I sighed at the statement while everyone turned to me in silence.

"Yeah, they almost killed me. Had Fat Gum radio the school so I could say my goodbyes and everything. I don't believe that was just the Hassaikai though. They're working with the League, we can assume that much. As we are all well aware, the League has an interest in me. My bet is they persuaded the Hassaikai to help trap me or take me out, especially since Kirishima and I caught the guy who shot Sun Eater. For what reason, I'm not sure. But I can almost guarantee that the news coverage pissed off the League a lot." Rock Lock took a few steps forward, arms crossed over his chest.

"What makes you say that, Shortstack."

"Shigaraki is a power hungry, egotistical maniac with a loathing for heroes. He wants attention. He functions much like a toddler having a tantrum, that doesn't mean we should underestimate him though. So if he was behind that, or had anything to do with it, the fact that he got zero recognition, it would send him into a frenzy. He thrives off of chaos, whether it be in society or the chaos he makes. I'm aware of the risks, I'm not daft, but my only concern at this moment is getting that girl out of there. And it's Sonus, not Shortstack." Rock Lock licked his lips and nodded, dropping the issue right then and there.

I stood off to the side as Mirio worked on cheering up and pep talking with my classmates, Amajiki looking at him lovingly.

'They're cute together.' I thought to myself, mostly focusing on keeping my heart rate calm.

I followed everyone to the men's locker room, my suit having been repaired fully since the last time. I felt stray eyes on my back, and I already knew who they belonged to without looking up as I got in my costume.

"What?" I asked dryly.

"I- How did you..." Rock Lock trailed off.

"Just because I don't have my glasses on doesn't mean I don't have eyes in the back of my head. What do you need?" I asked again, my tone colder.

"I just wanted to say, it was nothin' personal back there." I scoffed under my breath and popped my glasses on.

"Sure it wasn't." He looked taken aback by my comment. "You don't feel like you can trust me cause I'm a kid. Personally, I couldn't care less who you are. I don't care about your age, your fighting style, who you like, what you look like, what your quirk is, none of it. As long as I know at the end of the day you're gonna have my back out there, couldn't care less about any of that. You saw my scars in person, so what? Now you're convinced I'll have your back and you feel the need to tell me because you felt bad?" He sighed and hung his head for a moment, waiting until I turned to face him.

"You're a good kid, you have a good head on your shoulders. You got morals and I can respect that. So, Sonus, next time work studies come around, I'd be proud if you reached out to me." He said, handing out a card to me. I let a small smile slip as I grabbed it and tucked it into my hero costume.

"Glad to know you aren't rescinding your offer from the Sports Festival." I told him, the two of us starting to walk out of the locker room.

"You saw that I sent you an offer? I'm sure you got loads."

"Almost four thousand to be more precise." He looked at me baffled.

"And through all those, you remembered mine?" He asked in arrogant disbelief. I sent him a cheeky smile and tapped my temple with my index finger.

"Don't forget, high IQ, gotta use it for something." He sighed and shook his head.

"Well played."

"Now then. Let's begin." Nighteye said before we all left, gathering in front of the police station at 8 am.

"As you know, Nighteye was able to use his quirk on a Hassaikai member. Through it, he saw underground facilities, and we believe them to be this Yakuza group's headquarters." The lead officer on the case started, briefing us and all of the cops behind him. "We were also able to confirm that the girl we're trying to rescue is currently being held in one of the rooms there. Although we were unable to map out the entire layout of the underground hallways, we believe the man Sir Nighteye saw took the shortest route to our target. This is the best intel we have at the moment concerning the Hassaikai's stronghold. It's the basis of this mission. Stay smart. These guys are dangerous, and we can expect them to bring their quirks against us, full force. We're passing around a list of current Hassaikai members and their quirks according to our registration databases. Commit this to memory."

"It's solid information to have on hand. Thank you for this." One of the heroes in the front said, an officer handing me a paper. I gazed over it, remembering the key points as best as I could.

"We don't wanna give them time to hide." The detective stated. "Our aim is to identify and apprehend all members as quickly as possible while securing our target."

"Things are moving fast now, huh?" Kirishima asked excitedly.

"Yeah, just remember to stay more focused than me and you'll be alright." I told him.

"You two are energetic, considering how early it is." Amajiki commented.

"Bold of you to assume I slept after we got the message this morning." I said sarcastically.

"I'm getting nervous." Uraraka expressed.

"No joke, first detective work, and now we're cooperating with the police. There's so much I don't know. Onryo seems to be the only one in our class who understands all of this." Tsu said, a finger pushing into her cheek nervously.

"I've dealt with the police too many times and after being a victim in a hero raid that needed to be rescued, it really tends to clear things up. Y'know, like looking at things in a different perspective." I rationed, seeing my Dad behind me look at me curiously.

"All the pros seem like they're pretty chill, huh?" Kirishima asked Midoriya and I as we walked away from the girls studying with Ryukyu. "So brave!" He cheered.

"Hey. I haven't seen Gran Torino around here this morning. You know where he is?" Izuku asked hesitantly.

"Apparently he won't be joining us today." Sir Nighteye said as he walked up.

"Tsukauchi's been keeping an eye on the League. According to him, it looks like they're on the move. Fortunately, we have plenty of heroes here, so we can afford to send Gran Torino." The detective said, walking up beside Nighteye.

"I was wondering where Tsukauchi was, but that answers my question." I told him blandly.

"Maybe we can take down the Hassaikai and the League of Villains at the same time!" Kirishima cheered.

"Oh, yeah!" Izuku returned with excitement.

"Whaddya think Tsukabro?"

"That's the hope, and I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but I won't hold my breath on taking down both groups today." I said in a colder tone.

"Let's do this." Midoriya said, more to himself than anyone.

"Not yet." My Dad said as he walked up to us.

"Ah! Mr. Eraser Head, sir!" My green haired best friend exclaimed in shock.

"I'm teaming up with Nighteye Agency for this. Do you understand me?" He asked.

"Yes, sir!"

"And Sonus. I'm watching you, too. Make me proud." He said before walking off. I swallowed the lump in my throat, my nerves starting to climb.

"Now! Heroes!" The detective called. "Things could get violent quickly out there. If you encounter even a hint of suspicious behavior or resistance, call for help immediately! We're up against gangsters who've avoided capture until now. It is imperative that each of you carry out your respective assignments. And stay sharp in there! We will commence the operation at 0830 hours. Heroes, move out!" He said while him and the rest of the cops saluted us.

[strangecloud]

I've been feeling very disillusioned with technology for a while now, and I'd like to explore why.

Believe it or not, I've always been kind of a Luddite. That might sound weird coming from a computer nerd, but I'm a computer guy first and foremost. I've been using them as long as I can remember and I even got pretty good at operating computers, going as far as tinkering and assembling some myself (which admittedly isn't that hard, but it is an uncommon skill)

Regardless of how much of a nerd I am, the level of tech in my life has always been significantly behind the curve. My components are a few generations old at best. I've been using the same phone for half a decade. I grew up gaming on a PlayStation 2 when most of the world had moved to the 7th gen. I'm about as far from cutting edge as you can be without just not caring about tech at all.

What disappoints me about technology is that it doesn't look like it's meant to make life easier for people. It's meant to exploit them.

There's not really any good reason why everything should have glitchy, unresponsive and poorly put together apps nowadays. "Smart" tech has always been smoke and mirrors driven by marketers trying to sell things nobody really needs. All these home gadgets are just as reliable and useful as the goddamn Juicero, the difference is the marketing on a lot of them is successful.

An over engineered lock on your front door isn't going to stop burglars. No lock ever will. The point of locking your things isn't to make them secure, it's to make the effort of breaking in not really worth it. That smart lock, however, might lock YOU out of your house, as already has happened to one dude from the USA if I'm not mistaken.

We've seen tech bros trying to sell people "phygital" stuff that is just augmented reality DLC powered entirely by marketing. It's not useful and does nothing, the only purpose of it being a vector to suck money out of people who are susceptible to advertising tricks. That's the same thing that drove NFTs, by the way. People being told they were inadequate for not owning a pointless product and deciding to buy it based on the optics and the zeitgeist instead of any practical function. And don't get me wrong, the people buying these things aren't necessarily the problem. I think we as a society have been conditioned to see marketing and conspicuous consumption as such an integral part of life that we have trouble even recognizing we're participating in these toxic behaviors and industries.

I think therein lies the problem. Tech isn't meant to be useful to people. It's meant to be desirable by people and useful to money. This problem manifests itself in many ways, from the theft machines we see in the AI industry, to massive amounts of toxic byproducts released by functional-yet-obsolete e-waste, to the mountain of human suffering that content moderators in big platforms have to endure just so we get pretty cat pictures on our dashboards.

I'm sure this sounds overly pessimistic but I don't think tech can come back from the capitalist event horizon that it has probably already crossed. I think eventually the quality of services and goods on the internet is going to be so bad that it'll not even be worth having it around.

While I have you, STORE YOUR THINGS LOCALLY. Don't trust cloud servers and platforms to keep your things safe for you. If you cannot hold the hard drive containing your videos and images and art and files IN YOUR HAND, it's not safe. Keep at least two separate drives with more than one copy of everything you care about each. Take it from someone who's been on the internet since 2006 and has never lost one byte of data to system formats and hard drive crashes.

[kadoodles-on-ao3]

Hey there!! Happy New Year! :)

Lately I've been feeling...

like shit

the past few weeks to be quite honest aha, but I'm still gonna keep trying!!! If nothing else, I've been trying to distract myself by delving back into the depths of my constantly growing Xenoblade Voice Line Project TM :)

(If you're curious, currently I am working on simultaneously 1. reviewing each and every voice line for all the bosses as well as 2. cataloging the order each of their lines are stored in their respective data beCAUSE the og ripper, bless their heart 1. missed a few files among some bosses in addition to accidentally overlooking Yaldabaoth and Face Nemesis* entirely, and 2. their program's naming convention ended up making the filenames, sorted alphabetically, sort into an entirely different order than they're actually stored in the data and I mayyyy have taken said order as gospel [because if you told naive past me I'd be digging into the game's Image file myself in the future and end up double-checking the ripper's work I'd... probably believe you honestly lmao] which means I have to reorganize the entirety of the Unused Boss Line tables as well as rewrite most if not all of my guesses for what I think said lines might have been meant for since I based both the tables and my hypotheses on said incorrect order.

I also made a reference excel sheet listing what characters all the kyp files and the brres-es and brsar-s within are for, which I finished data-entry-ing a while back and am now making it look nice as well as actually readable. Oh and I'm gonna rip all the NPC's little talking-to-them-in-the-overworld "Hello"-s and "Yes?"-s and upload them to the Sounds Resource along with everything else that got left out too :) Which speaking of!

*I actually ripped and uploaded these two's audio files back in July but they still haven't been posted yet haha. Not complaining in any way at all of course, there's so much for that team to sift through on there and it's all volunteer work and so extremely impressive how much they get done already! Just very interesting to see just how long it's been since I last worked on this dang thing, it feels like it was only a few months ago that I contacted an old TCRF member to help me figure out how to dig through the guts of this game I adore. And now it's 2024 already! Crazy...)

[justcallmedust]

Things in the past 2 weeks that have seemed shady, and probably are:

On the morning of 8/23/23 he pulled out of the driveway for work at 6:28am, and prior to that he sat in the driveway texting for about 3 minutes. Then at 6:45 he texted me reminding me that it was garbage day... a whole 17 minutes later. It takes less than a minute to get to the stop sign where he would have texted me that after seeing everyones garbage cans on the road. He prevously has claimed it takes him 35-40 minutes to get to work, so when he texted me I thought it was odd and assumed he was at work already. Now I know for a fact his drive to work is about 20 minutes both ways no matter which way he takes because I've driven it and timed it. So I ask him, at 6:48am "you're at work already?" So he texts me back at 7:24am claiming he had just got to work then. ??? That is a whole 36 minutes later. On a good day with normal traffic he could have driven to work twice in that time. He would have me believe it took him almost an hour to get to work. and he had the nerve to ask me if I understood the concept of time.. seriously. So I ask him "where did you stop?" and he didnt answer, he proceeded to fight with me over what time he left the house and sent me a screen shot of his text reminding me of the garbage and trying to claim that was when he left. THEN he decides to throw in that he stopped for a bagel by work.. um ok.. I dropped it because he was way too invested in gaslighting me. But that same day he didnt come home on time and when I texted wondering if he was ok he claimed he told me he'd be stopping somewhere to finish some spackling at a side job. I remembered that differently and the following day he had to stop after work to do the same thing.

On 8/29/23 I found that 2 condoms were missing, he claimed to have no idea how that could have happened. I still have not found them and he rolls his eyes if I bring it up.

Then on 8/31/23 he used up all the data from our phone plan. I had previously got 3 notices over the last week or so alerting me to data being gobbled up. When questioned he 'had no idea' how his phone was using data since he 'barely even uses it'. When I looked it up in the usage log, it showed he used more than 90% of our data for this billing period and most of it was web and social app usage. He did not want to talk about it, blamed work emails.. which, no thats not even possible. I wanted to look at the phone and make sure all the settings were correct and he did not let me.

I also have not yet hooked the phone up to my computer to recover all the deleted texts.

Also, this was the night I was taking our youngest son to freshman orientation and I was going to be taking the girls too but they decided to stay home. He allegedly was going back to that side job again to finish it.. The girls were playing xbox in the living room and said that he came back right after I left. He came in through the front door thinking no one was home and started rummaging through stuff in the bedroom then grabbed the air compressor from the mud room and left. They said he was surprised they were there and seemed really angry.

On sunday 9/3/23 he was getting texts early in the day from Tommy, allegedly inviting him to a bbq.. wtf? no, what the actual fuck? Husband says he wants him to do work in their house.. How is this guy even wanting to talk to him? This entire situation is still SHADY AS FUCK. No fucking way he's gonna go work in that house with that cunt muffin there. But he probably will, and he'll just lie to me about it.

Lastly, yesterday he lied about where he was going. Claiming boredom and just needing to take a ride.. didn't even know which store he was going to. When he came back he backpeddled saying he said exactly where he was going and claimed he didn't want to tell me he was going to buy chewing tobacco. So lying to me is still a choice for him.

This is not just a trust issue for me. This is actual shady shit. I know I'm not crazy. I need to keep reminding myself that he is continuing to deliberately lie to me. I have no evidence that he stopped talking to her.