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mypoisonedvine · 4 years ago

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Can u pls write something like dark!reader x steve rogers high school AU , where R is rich spoil brat & she always had a crush on steve but she always bully him by calling him skinny and all and Then yrs later, time changes her family discarded her from will and she becomes poor and need job, got hired for PA by dark ceo!steve rogers who she bullied her all school lifee😈😈

okay this is a lot for a headcanon but I don’t have time to do a whole oneshot BUT I also really like it so we’re gonna just make a longass headcanon here we gooooo

warnings for heavy dub con, choking, slapping, degradation (by steve), bullying (by the reader), abortion mention, brief mention of/implied assault.

“heyo pipsqueak” you called out to get steve’s attention, laughing when he frowned. “looks like you grew a whole inch over summer, be sure to have your mom draw a line in pencil on the doorframe.”

he just rolled his eyes and got back to chatting with his friend. not friends, friend, cause he only had one: bucky, who snarled at you as well.

“pick on someone your own size, if you can find somebody with as big a head as you,” bucky shot back, making you scoff.

“you know, it’s a shame you hang out with this deformed freak, you could’ve been popular. you’ve got the looks for it.”

“I’d rather keep my brains, thanks,” bucky explained as you walked away with your posse of fellow popular kids.

you didn’t used to be so mean to steve. it was sort of a comedy of errors, really. you two had been friends in elementary school-- you, him, and bucky were the rambunctious trio up until middle school.

things change for boys and girls in middle school. guys just get along with each other and don’t think about it much. girls, though... girls need to be sharp. it’s eat or be eaten. and you wanted to eat.

you were lucky that you developed early. it meant that girls respected you and boys feared you-- not just for your attractive features but for the fact that you loomed a foot over most of them.

you started to take advantage of it. and by the time you realized you had feelings for your best friend steve, it was already too late-- he was at the bottom of the food chain and you were at the top.

you told your new girl friends that you wanted to take steve to the sadie hawkins. they laughed at you. for a moment, you felt what it was like to be outcast and you never wanted to feel it again. so, you told steve and bucky that you’d grown apart. and you were happy to just be former friends...

it was steve that started it. he called you out. he told you that you were nothing like who he used to know-- you had become vapid and cold and narcissistic.

“you’re so busy worrying about what other people think, you never take the time to think for yourself.” that was what he said. and it fucking hurt.

“saw you talking to your boyfriend steve the dweeb,” your friend tanya announced at lunch just a few minutes after that conversation. and you were angry, and hurt, and truly friendless despite being surrounded by other popular girls. so you said some things you could never take back.

“steve? as if. did you know he still sleeps with a security blanket? and he has his friend bucky fight for him every week cause if he took a punch he’d crumble to dust?”

and so, mortal enemies were formed. it only got worse in high school, as you fought to secure your title at the top while steve and bucky’s presence filled your heart with guilt and your gut with anger.

if only you’d known how quickly you could fall from your high horse.

it started when you dated tanya’s ex, brock. she was made so she spread a rumor that you would fuck any guy on the football team, even all of them at once.

apparently, a lot of people believed it since tanya had been your sidekick since 6th grade.

two football players believed it. and when you wouldn’t follow through on it, you got yourself a black eye.

that meant you missed school for a week because you couldn’t possibly show up looking like that. tanya told everyone it was because you got grounded and sent away to church camp after your parents caught you in bed with one of the neighbors. so now your reputation was ‘sleeps with football players and old men.’

only brock had been there for you.... but it turned out he had motives of his own. you had originally planned to wait until college, but brock was clearly wanting something in return for putting up with dating pariah #1... so you let him take your virginity.

the condom broke. when you dashed to the trash can to hurl in the middle of history class, you knew something was wrong. (and lost that many more social points in the process.)

brock dumped you the second he found out you were pregnant. didn’t even help you pay for the abortion. he got back together with tanya and told her the real reason for your ‘medical absence’. and that was the last straw for the former homecoming queen.

the humiliation drove you to some.... poor choices, for the next few years. you tried not to think about them now, but it was hard not to when their consequences were staring you right in the face: no money, no job, nearly homeless, and desperate.

over a hundred job applications later, only one had called you back and scheduled an interview. and you only needed one.

so there you were, waiting in the chilly lobby area while the receptionist typed away and chomped her gum, tapping your toes and glancing out the window occasionally.

you were surprised when you had been told your interview would be on the 51st floor. you sort of assumed it would just be some random manager interviewing you, not somebody important enough to have a waiting room like this, or a view like this.

when a man stepped out from the nearby hallway, your eyes went wide. he was tall, and handsome, and obviously muscular underneath the exquisite suit. you suddenly felt underdressed in your hand-me-down business clothes.

then he called your name. and you realized he was going to interview you.

you stood up and nodded. “you can follow me to my office,” he instructed with a smile, leading you down the hall to the corner office. you were in awe of the grandiosity of it all. you were dumbfounded when you saw CEO on the door.

“there must have been a mistake,” you explained as he shut the door behind you. “I... I’m just interviewing for an entry-level position.”

“no, there’s no mistake,” he shook his head, “I have you exactly where I want you. take a seat.”

he circled his desk and sat on the other side of it, resting his elbows on the desk and giving you an oddly smug smile. an awkward silence was finally broken when he realized, “you must not remember me.”

“I... have we met?”

“I don’t blame you, I look pretty different,” he shrugged. “I must’ve grown a whole inch this summer.”

you gave him a confused look before realization dawned on you, along with shame, and fear.

“oh... oh my god, Steve?!” you squawked. he just grinned. “you look... you look...”

“taller?”

sexy.

“you look great!” you said aloud instead.

“yeah,” he agreed, “wish I could say the same for you.”

you swallowed dryly. “so that’s what you want,” you sighed, “to get back at me. I understand. I deserve it...”

“I don’t want revenge,” he denied. “I’m just sorry to see you haven’t been... thriving, since high school. your job history--” he scanned your resume briefly-- “well, you don’t have one. have you been slumming it all this time?”

“without my parents’ money? yeah,” you admitted.

“surprised you applied here, instead of turning tricks on 5th and Columbus.”

your back straightened and your eyes went wide at that comment.

“I mean, you’re already dressed for it,” he smirked.

you stood up and crossed your arms. “if you’re just going to insult me, then I’ll leave now. I’m sorry for everything I did to you, steve,” you announced, voice shaky with oncoming tears.

“can you really afford to leave?” he pressed. “if you have a chance at a job?”

that, unfortunately, got your attention. “you... you might actually offer me something?”

“I will offer you something,” he corrected, “if you just sit down and listen.”

you relented, returning to your seat. you could stand a lot more insults if there was money on the line.

“to be honest, there’s no way I can hire you for the position you applied for,” he sighed. “you’re just underqualified. but I think I can create a position for you.”

you liked the sound of that. “what kind of position?”

“well, that’s tricky, seeing as you don’t have any skills,” he frowned, “except one. so that’s the one I plan on using.”

the look in his eyes made it all too clear what he was referring to, but as you shrunk into the leather chair he went ahead and clarified.

“I’ll pay you whatever salary you saw in the ad. but you won’t be doing data analysis or office management or anything like that. all you’ll be doing is spreading your legs for me whenever I fucking want.”

fear shot up your spine; his eyes were devouring you, pinning you to the chair, and you tried to process that. “I--”

“before you say anything,” he interrupted immediately, “let’s just be perfectly clear that this might be your only shot at a real job. what I’m offering has better pay than stripping, and better benefits than hooking. and unless you have any education or experience I don’t know about, you’re totally fucked.”

“seems like I’m fucked either way,” you mumbled, making him laugh.

“see, you’ve still got that sharp tongue,” he grinned. “can’t wait to put it to better use.”

maybe it was just desperation for cash. maybe it was because he was good-looking and you could do a lot worse. maybe it was because, on some level, you felt like you deserved his punishment after how horribly you’d treated him.

“I’ll do it,” you sighed. “when do I start?”

he stood up and reached across the desk to grab your neck, glaring at you. “right now.”

his free hand was already fumbling with his belt, the one on your throat guiding you downwards. “on your knees,” he instructed, and you slipped out of the chair and onto the floor.

he let go of your neck and you figured he was going to come to you, but instead he stood still and demanded: “crawl.”

debasing as it was, you crawled on your knees to his side of the desk, and he laughed at you bitterly. when you reached his feet and popped back up, you gasped at the sight of his hard cock right in front of your face. it was bigger than your face. and it was dripping precum.

“don’t get so bug-eyed, you can handle it,” he grinned. “if your mouth’s as big as I remember...”

you didn’t want to hear any more. you just wanted to get this over with, so you quickly took his head between your lips and started to suck. you were shocked when he slapped you, hard enough to knock his length from your mouth and to make you reach up and clutch your stinging cheek.

“fucking whore,” he grimaced, “did I say you could put it in your mouth? god, you’re so fucking desperate. just open your fucking mouth and I’ll show you what I want, okay?”

you nodded and stammered an apology, looking up at him with watery eyes and an open mouth. he swiped the latest drop of precum on your tongue before gliding his cock over it, grabbing your hair to keep you steady as he pushed himself to the back of your throat.

“fuck, that’s better,” he sighed. “so much better when you just do what you’re told. I remember how you used to be so cruel with this mouth. now you’re being so welcoming...”

you just sat there and let him use your mouth, trying not to gag when he hit your throat.

“look up at me,” he instructed, “yeah, that’s it. can’t have you forgetting who’s doing this to you, now can we?”

that went on for a bit longer until mascara-stained tears streaked your face, which he seemed rather proud of.

“damn, wouldn’t mind having you swallow my come right now,” he admitted, “but I have bigger plans. get up, bend over my desk.”

you coughed briefly when he pulled out, but did as you were told. he instantly yanked your skirt up over your ass and spanked you several times roughly, making you sob and whine.

“wanna see this ass all bruised up in the shape of my hand,” he explained. “so we can both remember how hard I fucked you.”

he tore your panties like they were paper, chuckling when he found you already wet.

“dripping already, just from choking on my cock? poor baby...”

you spread your legs slightly, though you were sure nothing was going to adequately prepare you for his size.

“you figured out how to use birth control since graduating, right?” he asked, and you nodded quickly. “good. cause I’m not using a condom,” he continued as he let his cock glide over your folds, groaning slightly, “and there’s no way in hell I’m pulling out.”

he pushed forward in one brutal stroke, making you cry out loudly. you really hoped these rooms were mostly soundproof.

“shit, you’re tight,” he hissed, already pulling back and thrusting back in. “clearly you recovered from your years of slutting it up in high school.”

“that-- that wasn’t true,” you defended.

“oh, just shut up,” he growled.

he fucked you fast and deep, his hips pushing yours into the edge of his desk with each thrust. his hands pinned you down at your shoulders, another reminder that you were entirely at his mercy.

“fuck, this is just what you needed... somebody to put you in your place. makes sense that it should be me, since you hated me so much.”

“I didn’t h-hate you,” you hiccuped.

“yeah, you wanted me, didn’t you?”

“always,” you admitted.

“wanted my fat fuckin’ cock to tear up your pussy? is that it?”

“yes,” you moaned, “yes, steve, wanted to be yours.”

“even when I was skinny and short?”

“even when you hated me,” you added.

he growled slightly and you felt your walls tighten around him suddenly. he chuckled, clearly aware that you were enjoying this.

“you want more, baby? want me to fuck you harder?”

“whatever you want,” you answered instead. “just use me however you want.”

he moaned and leaned down to cage your body in with his. “fuck, baby... you’re taking this better than I thought you would. such a good girl for me, huh? such a good little slut. want me to use you, baby? take all my anger out on you?”

“yes,” you whispered, sobbing when he began to fuck you more brutally than you thought possible. but it felt good. so good that your legs were shaking, so good that you felt even better when he tugged your hair.

“yeah, gonna come on my cock, aren’t you?”

you nodded and bit your lip.

“m’ close too,” he admitted, “you’re gonna be so full of my come, it’s gonna be dripping down your legs when you walk out of here...”

your orgasm made your body shake and your eyes roll back.

“fuck, I can feel you coming,” he groaned, “fuck, just like that-- fuck!”

you felt his warmth fill you as his cock flexed against your walls. you were busy trying to catch your breath when he slumped down on top of you and pushed the air from your lungs.

“damn... didn’t think I was gonna come that fast,” he sighed. “see what you do to me? fuck, I knew this was a good idea.”

sure, it felt good, but you were sure he was only going to get rougher and meaner the longer this went on. you couldn’t imagine how you were going to get out of here without somebody noticing your wrinkled clothes, messed-up hair and, as he’d pointed out himself, come all over your thighs.

“guess I’ll see you at 8am tomorrow, huh?” he chuckled, giving you an unexpected peck on the cheek. you couldn’t answer, though, interrupted by the phone on his desk ringing. “oh, sorry, gotta get this.”

he reached for the phone and picked it up, bringing to his ear all without pulling out of you or even lifting his body from on top of yours.

“bucky, hey,” steve grinned as he spoke into the phone, looking down at you and stroking your hair, “you’re not gonna believe who I ran into today...”

#dark!steve rogers x reader #ceo!steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers hc #dark!steve rogers smut #Anonymous

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years ago

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Machine learning's crumbling foundations

Technological debt is insidious, a kind of socio-infrastructural subprime crisis that’s unfolding around us in slow motion. Our digital infrastructure is built atop layers and layers and layers of code that’s insecure due to a combination of bad practices and bad frameworks.

Even people who write secure code import insecure libraries, or plug it into insecure authorization systems or databases. Like asbestos in the walls, this cruft has been fragmenting, drifting into our air a crumb at a time.

We ignored these, treating them as containable, little breaches and now the walls are rupturing and choking clouds of toxic waste are everywhere.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas

The infosec apocalypse was decades in the making. The machine learning apocalypse, on the other hand…

ML has serious, institutional problems, the kind of thing you’d expect in a nascent discipline, which you’d hope would be worked out before it went into wide deployment.

ML is rife with all forms of statistical malpractice — AND it’s being used for high-speed, high-stakes automated classification and decision-making, as if it was a proven science whose professional ethos had the sober gravitas you’d expect from, say, civil engineering.

Civil engineers spend a lot of time making sure the buildings and bridges they design don’t kill the people who use them. Machine learning?

Hundreds of ML teams built models to automate covid detection, and every single one was useless or worse.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/02/autoquack/#gigo

The ML models failed due to failure to observe basic statistical rigor. One common failure mode?

Treating data that was known to be of poor quality as if it was reliable because good data was not available.

Obtaining good data and/or cleaning up bad data is tedious, repetitive grunt-work. It’s unglamorous, time-consuming, and low-waged. Cleaning data is the equivalent of sterilizing surgical implements — vital, high-skilled, and invisible unless someone fails to do it.

It’s work performed by anonymous, low-waged adjuncts to the surgeon, who is the star of the show and who gets credit for the success of the operation.

The title of a Google Research team (Nithya Sambasivan et al) paper published in ACM CHI beautifully summarizes how this is playing out in ML: “Everyone wants to do the model work, not the data work: Data Cascades in High-Stakes AI,”

https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/0d556e45afc54afeb2eb6b51a9bc1827b9961ff4.pdf

The paper analyzes ML failures from a cross-section of high-stakes projects (health diagnostics, anti-poaching, etc) in East Africa, West Africa and India. They trace the failures of these projects to data-quality, and drill into the factors that caused the data problems.

The failures stem from a variety of causes. First, data-gathering and cleaning are low-waged, invisible, and thankless work. Front-line workers who produce the data — like medical professionals who have to do extra data-entry — are not compensated for extra work.

Often, no one even bothers to explain what the work is for. Some of the data-cleaning workers are atomized pieceworkers, such as those who work for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, who lack both the context in which the data was gathered and the context for how it will be used.

This data is passed to model-builders, who lack related domain expertise. The hastily labeled X-ray of a broken bone, annotated by an unregarded and overworked radiologist, is passed onto a data-scientist who knows nothing about broken bones and can’t assess the labels.

This is an age-old problem in automation, pre-dating computer science and even computers. The “scientific management” craze that started in the 1880s saw technicians observing skilled workers with stopwatches and clipboards, then restructuring the workers’ jobs by fiat.

Rather than engaging in the anthropological work that Clifford Geertz called “thick description,” the management “scientists” discarded workers’ qualitative experience, then treated their own assessments as quantitative and thus empirical.

http://hypergeertz.jku.at/GeertzTexts/Thick_Description.htm

How long a task takes is empirical, but what you call a “task” is subjective. Computer scientists take quantitative measurements, but decide what to measure on the basis of subjective judgment. This empiricism-washing sleight of hand is endemic to ML’s claims of neutrality.

In the early 2000s, there was a movement to produce tools and training that would let domain experts produce their own tools — rather than delivering “requirements” to a programmer, a bookstore clerk or nurse or librarian could just make their own tools using Visual Basic.

This was the radical humanist version of “learn to code” — a call to seize the means of computation and program, rather than being programmed. Over time, it was watered down, and today it lives on as a weak call for domain experts to be included in production.

The disdain for the qualitative expertise of domain experts who produce data is a well-understood guilty secret within ML circles, embodied in Frederick Jelinek’s ironic talk, “Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of the speech recognizer goes up.”

But a thick understanding of context is vital to improving data-quality. Take the American “voting wars,” where GOP-affiliated vendors are brought in to purge voting rolls of duplicate entries — people who are registered to vote in more than one place.

These tools have a 99% false-positive rate.

Ninety. Nine. Percent.

To understand how they go so terribly wrong, you need a thick understanding of the context in which the data they analyze is produced.

https://5harad.com/papers/1p1v.pdf

The core assumption of these tools is that two people with the same name and date of birth are probably the same person.

But guess what month people named “June” are likely to be born in? Guess what birthday is shared by many people named “Noel” or “Carol”?

Many states represent unknown birthdays as “January 1,” or “January 1, 1901.” If you find someone on a voter roll whose birthday is represented as 1/1, you have no idea what their birthday is, and they almost certainly don’t share a birthday with other 1/1s.

But false positives aren’t evenly distributed. Ethnic groups whose surnames were assigned in recent history for tax-collection purposes (Ashkenazi Jews, Han Chinese, Koreans, etc) have a relatively small pool of surnames and a slightly larger pool of first names.

This is likewise true of the descendants of colonized and enslaved people, whose surnames were assigned to them for administrative purposes and see a high degree of overlap. When you see two voter rolls with a Juan Gomez born on Jan 1, you need to apply thick analysis.

Unless, of course, you don’t care about purging the people who are most likely to face structural impediments to voter registration (such as no local DMV office) and who are also likely to be racialized (for example, migrants whose names were changed at Ellis Island).

ML practitioners don’t merely use poor quality data when good quality data isn’t available — they also use the poor quality data to assess the resulting models. When you train an ML model, you hold back some of the training data for assessment purposes.

So maybe you start with 10,000 eye scans labeled for the presence of eye disease. You train your model with 9,000 scans and then ask the model to assess the remaining 1,000 scans to see whether it can make accurate classifications.

But if the data is no good, the assessment is also no good. As the paper’s authors put it, it’s important to “catch[] data errors using mechanisms specific to data validation, instead of using model performance as a proxy for data quality.”

ML practitioners studied for the paper — practitioners engaged in “high-stakes” model building reported that they had to gather their own data for their models through field partners, “a task which many admitted to being unprepared for.”

High-stakes ML work has inherited a host of sloppy practices from ad-tech, where ML saw its first boom. Ad-tech aims for “70–75% accuracy.”

That may be fine if you’re deciding whether to show someone an ad, but it’s a very different matter if you’re deciding whether someone needs treatment for an eye-disease that, untreated, will result in irreversible total blindness.

Even when models are useful at classifying input produced under present-day lab conditions, those conditions are subject to several kinds of “drift.”

For example, “hardware drift,” where models trained on images from pristine new cameras are asked to assess images produced by cameras from field clinics, where lenses are impossible to keep clean (see also “environmental drift” and “human drift”).

Bad data makes bad models. Bad models instruct people to make ineffective or harmful interventions. Those bad interventions produce more bad data, which is fed into more bad models — it’s a “data-cascade.”

GIGO — Garbage In, Garbage Out — was already a bedrock of statistical practice before the term was coined in 1957. Statistical analysis and inference cannot proceed from bad data.

Producing good data and validating data-sets are the kind of unsexy, undercompensated maintenance work that all infrastructure requires — and, as with other kinds of infrastructure, it is undervalued by journals, academic departments, funders, corporations and governments.

But all technological debts accrue punitive interest. The decision to operate on bad data because good data is in short supply isn’t like looking for your car-keys under the lamp-post — it’s like driving with untrustworthy brakes and a dirty windscreen.

Image: Seydelmann (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpg

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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deiitaelric · 4 years ago

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Imagine a 17yo quirkless Izuku walking down the street. He heard a skirmish nearby and dashed toward the source because he wanted to collect more notes. Okay.

Now imagine he hasn’t entered the UA because he’s quirkless. But hey, he’s studying to be able to help people with the data he’s collecting. His notes are helpful for understanding how people utilize their quirks. All the canonical events are put on hold for about two years. So. Hear me out. He’s still quirkless, and he still wants to be a hero. He still possessed that headstrong determination which made him charge towards danger if he can save someone. So.

In the battle, there were new figures he didn’t recognize. He was excited, but a flash of sorrow passed through his eyes when he understood that they’re UA students. The people who might have been his classmates, his partners. He shook his head, trying to focus and took notes as always. When the battle ended, he wanted to talk to them and ask some more questions about their quirks, but he decided to leave it for next time. Izuku was about to leave when one of the villains broke free. This guy nabbed one of the UA students and nobody else noticed. He ran toward them, trying to warn the others. The villain chickened out and dropped the unconcious student. Izuku sighed in relief, but then the villain ran toward him, preparing to attack. Izuku panicked a little. He was by no means weak, he had spent the last two years training, but compared to a quirk that was nowhere near enough. He knew it. But he had to do something. So Izuku stood straight, fists raised. Maybe he could fool the villain into thinking he had a quirk. The guy used his quirk and-

Hear me out. Hear. Me. Out.

A red haired boy seemingly appeared in front of him, protecting Izuku. The boy took the attack and fought the guy until he won. Other people restrained the villian and the redhead ran to Izuku, who had collapsed to the floor during the fight. He knelt beside Izuku, grabbing his shoulders. “Are you okay? Tell me you weren’t injured!”

Izuku looked at him, reading the worry on the redhead’s face. He was about to answer when he really saw him. He couldn’t help but notice beautiful red eyes and a handsome face surrounded by black fabric.

“Wow. Pretty” he blurted. As comprehension dawned on him his hands flew to his reddening face. “Oh my gosh, sorry!”

The boy smiled wide, cheeks flushing. “It’s okay. Are you hurt?”

“N-no, I’m fine” Izuku made a move to get up and the boy offered a hand. He took it shyly. “Thanks for protecting me”

“That’s my job!”

“Uh- Yeah, sure” Izuku said, looking down. He felt stupid and nervous. He sensed the boy moving and peered over at him. The redhead was collecting the items Midoriya had flung aside in panic.

“But I would do it anyway” The boy grinned, handing Izuku his discarded backpack.

“Wa- Ah. Thank you” He lowered his view and surveyed the contents of his backpack. “Oh” Izuku rifled through his bag, panic setting in again as he searched frantically for his notebook. It wasn’t there.

“Are you missing something?”

“Yes, m-my notebook”

They turned around, searching for the object. The redhead spotted it and seized the notebook. The pages had flipped open and he’d seen some drawings as he leaned over to pick it up. As he approached Izuku he fought his curiosity and held the book shut. “I-I saw the drawings while picking it up. Is this some kind of hero analysis?”

“Hm. Hai!”

“May I?” The boy asked, holding up said notebook.

“Oh, of course. I made some notes on you all earlier”

“Really? Did you take notes about me?”

“Kinda. I was farther back so I couldn’t see as much. What’s your quirk?” Izuku said, grabbing the notebook and flicking through, looking for a particular entry. The boy slammed his fist into his palm, resulting in an ominous crunch. Izuku noted how the texture of the redhead’s skin shifted, almost resembling stone.

“I can harden my body.”

“Wow. You’re amazing!” he excitedly extended a hand towards the redhead and the boy shifted a step back.

“Don’t-” His skin went back to normal.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to- I’m a fool, sorry!”

“No. It was for your safety, it might hurt you if you touch me in that state”

“Really?”

“Yeah”

“Do you… Do you mind if I write that down?” He asked, already searching his bag for a pen.

“I don’t mind. By the way, my name is Kirishima. Kirishima Eijirou”

“Oh, sorry, I never introduced myself! I’m Midoriya Izuku” Izuku offered his hand and the bo- Kirishima, Izuku corrected himself, took it, smiling. “Nice to meet you Kirishima”

“Nice to meet you, Midoriya” Eijirou removed his hand slowly, and Izuku looked away. Suddenly he remembered the notebook and started jotting down the information. Kirishima sidled to his side and looked down at the page. “Amazing! You found out all of this after watching only one battle? My hero name is Red Riot, by the way”

“Red Riot, so cool” He said, writing it across the top of the page. “And yeah, this is the first time I’ve seen you all in action, so I don’t have much”

“You have a real skill there. Does it have something to do with your quirk?”

“Ah. Hm. I, uh... I don’t… I don’t have a quirk”

“You don’t?” Kirishima gaped, surprised, and Izuku stared down at his shoes. He was used to people looking down on him. “I mean, are you insane? You just jumped in front of a bad guy without a quirk!”

“He took someone hostage and no one noticed! I had to do something!” He looked at Eijirou and saw those red eyes staring at him, but to his surprise he found no pity.

“Oh my god, you’re-” Izuku looked down again, anticipating the berating he normally recieved for such actions. He must have thought he was stupid, or weak. “You’re amazing. So manly. You would make a great hero!”

Izuku’s chest tightened. “I-hm”

“Oh. I-” Kirishima was cut off as someone called him. “Damn, I gotta go. Hmm. Would you- I mean, I- Would you like to hang out later? I can tell you more about my classmate’s quirks or something.”

“Wah-ah- Sure!”

“Great” Kirishima exclaimed, a broad grin spreading across his face. He grabbed his pen and scribbled his number phone in Izuku’s notebook. “Send me a message so I get your number too!”

“I-I will” Izuku promised, hugging the notebook to his chest and watching the boy walk away.

Thanks @neverknowsbestwhatcouldhavebeen for helping me with this

#kirideku #krdk #kirishima #deku #midoriya #izuku #midoriya izuku #kirishima eijirou #mha #bnh #bnha #mytext

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lastsonlost · 5 years ago

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BECAUSE THE CORONAVIRUS IS JUST HURTING FEMINIST AND ONLY FEMINISTS AND ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE...

..........

Enough already. When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.

Shakespeare spent most of his career in London, where the theaters were, while his family lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. During the plague of 1606, the playwright was lucky to be spared from the epidemic—his landlady died at the height of the outbreak—and his wife and two adult daughters stayed safely in the Warwickshire countryside. Newton, meanwhile, never married or had children. He saw out the Great Plague of 1665–6 on his family’s estate in the east of England, and spent most of his adult life as a fellow at Cambridge University, where his meals and housekeeping were provided by the college.

For those with caring responsibilities, an infectious-disease outbreak is unlikely to give them time to write King Lear or develop a theory of optics. A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s.

Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.

Purely as a physical illness, the coronavirus appears to affect women less severely. But in the past few days, the conversation about the pandemic has broadened: We are not just living through a public-health crisis, but an economic one. As much of normal life is suspended for three months or more, job losses are inevitable. At the same time, school closures and household isolation are moving the work of caring for children from the paid economy—nurseries, schools, babysitters—to the unpaid one. The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

Many stories of arrogance are related to this pandemic. Among the most exasperating is the West’s failure to learn from history: the Ebola crisis in three African countries in 2014; Zika in 2015–6; and recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and bird flu. Academics who studied these episodes found that they had deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality. “Everybody’s income was affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa,” Julia Smith, a health-policy researcher at Simon Fraser University, told The New York Times this month, but “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” The distorting effects of an epidemic can last for years, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global-health policy at the London School of Economics, told me. “We also saw declining rates of childhood vaccination [during Ebola].” Later, when these children contracted preventable diseases, their mothers had to take time off work.

At an individual level, the choices of many couples over the next few months will make perfect economic sense. What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce. “It’s not just about social norms of women performing care roles; it’s also about practicalities,” Wenham added. “Who is paid less? Who has the flexibility?”

According to the British government’s figures, 40 percent of employed women work part-time, compared with only 13 percent of men. In heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along. And this particular disruption could last months, rather than weeks. Some women’s lifetime earnings will never recover. With the schools closed, many fathers will undoubtedly step up, but that won’t be universal.

Despite the mass entry of women into the workforce during the 20th century, the phenomenon of the “second shift” still exists. Across the world, women—including those with jobs—do more housework and have less leisure time than their male partners. Even memes about panic-buying acknowledge that household tasks such as food shopping are primarily shouldered by women. “I’m not afraid of COVID-19 but what is scary, is the lack of common sense people have,” reads one of the most popular tweets about the coronavirus crisis. “I’m scared for people who actually need to go to the store & feed their fams but Susan and Karen stocked up for 30 years.” The joke only works because “Susan” and “Karen”—stand-in names for suburban moms—are understood to be responsible for household management, rather than, say, Mike and Steve.

Look around and you can see couples already making tough decisions on how to divide up this extra unpaid labor. When I called Wenham, she was self-isolating with two small children; she and her husband were alternating between two-hour shifts of child care and paid work. That is one solution; for others, the division will run along older lines. Dual-income couples might suddenly find themselves living like their grandparents, one homemaker and one breadwinner. “My spouse is a physician in the emergency dept, and is actively treating #coronavirus patients. We just made the difficult decision for him to isolate & move into our garage apartment for the foreseeable future as he continues to treat patients,” wrote the Emory University epidemiologist Rachel Patzer, who has a three-week-old baby and two young children. “As I attempt to home school my kids (alone) with a new baby who screams if she isn’t held, I am worried about the health of my spouse and my family.”

Single parents face even harder decisions: While schools are closed, how do they juggle earning and caring? No one should be nostalgic for the “1950s ideal” of Dad returning to a freshly baked dinner and freshly washed children, when so many families were excluded from it, even then. And in Britain today, a quarter of families are headed by a single parent, more than 90 percent of whom are women. Closed schools make their life even harder.

Other lessons from the Ebola epidemic were just as stark—and similar, if perhaps smaller, effects will be seen during this crisis in the developed world. School closures affected girls’ life chances, because many dropped out of education. (A rise in teenage-pregnancy rates exacerbated this trend.) Domestic and sexual violence rose. And more women died in childbirth because resources were diverted elsewhere. “There’s a distortion of health systems, everything goes towards the outbreak,” said Wenham, who traveled to west Africa as a researcher during the Ebola crisis. “Things that aren’t priorities get canceled. That can have an effect on maternal mortality, or access to contraception.” The United States already has appalling statistics in this area compared with other rich countries, and black women there are twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women.

For Wenham, the most striking statistic from Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst affected by Ebola, was that from 2013 to 2016, during the outbreak, more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself. But these deaths, like the unnoticed caring labor on which the modern economy runs, attract less attention than the immediate problems generated by an epidemic. These deaths are taken for granted. In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez notes that 29 million papers were published in more than 15,000 peer-reviewed titles around the time of the Zika and Ebola epidemics, but less than 1 percent explored the gendered impact of the outbreaks. Wenham has found no gender analysis of the coronavirus outbreak so far; she and two co-authors have stepped into the gap to research the issue.

The evidence we do have from the Ebola and Zika outbreaks should inform the current response. In both rich and poor countries, campaigners expect domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods. Stress, alcohol consumption, and financial difficulties are all considered triggers for violence in the home, and the quarantine measures being imposed around the world will increase all three. The British charity Women’s Aid said in a statement that it was “concerned that social distancing and self-isolation will be used as a tool of coercive and controlling behaviour by perpetrators, and will shut down routes to safety and support.”

Researchers, including those I spoke with, are frustrated that findings like this have not made it through to policy makers, who still adopt a gender-neutral approach to pandemics. They also worry that opportunities to collect high-quality data which will be useful for the future are being missed. For example, we have little information on how viruses similar to the coronavirus affect pregnant women—hence the conflicting advice during the current crisis—or, according to Susannah Hares, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, sufficient data to build a model for when schools should reopen.

We shouldn’t make that mistake again. Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks.

The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion.

Wenham supports emergency child-care provision, economic security for small-business owners, and a financial stimulus paid directly to families. But she isn’t hopeful, because her experience suggests that governments are too short-termist and reactive. “Everything that's happened has been predicted, right?” she told me. “As a collective academic group, we knew there would be an outbreak that came out of China, that shows you how globalization spreads disease, that’s going to paralyze financial systems, and there was no pot of money ready to go, no governance plan … We knew all this, and they didn't listen. So why would they listen to something about women?”

Remember this article the next time a politician brings up the draft again...

because I remember the last reaction.

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lgfreelancing · 4 years ago

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Virtual Assistants: Why You Should Hire Them Now

Today, business owners are searching for fresh and creative ways to increase their profit margins.

People in business who have been active in their projects excel at two skills:

When it comes to setting organizational targets, they use strategic analysis.

The company makes the best of the opportunities at its disposal to achieve long-term viability, and it is secure of the outcome.

As your company expands, you’re burdened continuously with so much work. You’ll be wondering, “How can I take care of that kind of burden on my own?”

When you take the time to consider this scenario thoroughly, you will know that you must find an alternate solution to using a full-time employee: Ask for assistance from an experienced virtual assistant to meet or surpass your standards.

The virtual assistant industries have soared in fame in recent years, but why hire a virtual assistant in the first place? What will they do for you and your company?

Who are Virtual Assistants?

Virtual assistants are self-employed experts from a remote location to offer various services to companies or entrepreneurs in the most literal way. They have virtual access to the data and resources they use to do their work, even though they aren’t in the workplace. Virtual assistants were traditionally self-employed people who worked on specific projects.

However, as the virtual assistant industry has evolved, they may be beneficial because they can work on a variety of critical activities, including:

• Customer support

• Administrative tasks

• Social media management and marketing

• Data entry and management

• Appointment setting and Calendar management

• Accounting and bookkeeping

Want to know the reason why you should hire a virtual assistant for your company?

Here’s why:

Minimized operational expenses

Most company owners and developers hire virtual assistants to reduce their overhead costs. You will get someone who will do the job for you if you use a virtual assistant instead of hiring a full-time employee. You have to pay them for work that is already complete, and they usually bill by the hour or by the job. Overhead expenses like theirs are not included in the price of wireless access, laptop, or any office-related costs when they operate remotely. Hiring simulated experts will also help you save money on training expenses. When you recruit a new employee, you’ll have to dedicate a large amount of time and money to prepare them for all aspects of their work. You won’t have to think about teaching virtual assistants since they only work on unique projects that they are already good at. They can begin right away!

Established Workforce Is Maximized

Regardless of how boring or uninteresting these duties may be, a company’s administrative and clerical tasks must be fulfilling. There is typically much effort involved in managing the company efficiently, which entails managing contracts with vendors, service companies, business partners, and customers and ensuring that all of the business’s workforce standards, compensation, and donations are regularly modified. As part of a team leader’s general duties, team members may need to plan activities and meetings, manage phone calls, and communicate with customers.

Because of this job’s time-consuming nature, office-based workers can devote considerable portions of their energy to non-skills-specific causes, such as administrative and clerical duties, which means the more challenging and skills-specific aspects of keeping the company afloat will suffer. It is more likely to be true for organizations with no capital or workforce.

Hiring virtual assistants also enables companies to rely on their key competencies. It allows companies to make the most of their resources and staff, is a cost-effective alternative to in-house clerical help. Providing company owners with the ability to delegate duties by not overloading their staff with undue obligations that meet their original work application requirements allows them to accomplish their everyday operations efficiently.

Minimizes Conflicts

Since the company doesn’t expect the virtual assistant to be physically present in the office workplace, they are not subject to office drama. They can therefore complete their assignments efficiently and without prejudice.

Employee conflict is unavoidable in every workplace. Employees vary in appearance, educational history, personal knowledge, and values, after all. Virtual assistants are effective in eliminating organizational stress and misunderstandings. Although simulated contact may confusing at times, it is less likely to result in intense debates among the workers concerned. In reality, since they are either paying for each production or the time they give to their boss, remote workers working in the same team are more focused on getting the job done and cooperating.

It offers a significant improvement in performance for businesses. Gleaming, tardiness, and habitual absenteeism are all automatically reduced while productivity is improved.

Scale your company processes quickly

Virtual assistants will also assist you with effectively scaling up your company activities. You can effortlessly handle increasing job demands without having to hurry the hiring process, and they encourage you to attract talent on a project-by-project basis efficiently. You can use virtual assistants to deal with massive scope increases instantly and only eventually employ full-time staff after things have cooled down.

Have customer support around the clock

The majority of companies have a large number of clients. However, dealing with global demands and time gaps can be difficult when the business and staff are only in one region. Since virtual assistants locate online, you can hire them from anywhere in the world to fit various time zones. This way, you and your colleagues will strike a healthy work-life balance while also serving consumers most of the time.

Allows for more critical analysis

You’ve opened up your time, which frees you up to spend more attention developing your company, and virtual assistants can manage your non-core duties. Rather than squandering time and money on day-to-day activities, you should use them to think creatively about the company’s long-term objectives. It enables you to set targets that can lead to increased results and long-term sustainability for your company.

A virtual assistant is always useful because these frameworks will help you optimize your everyday job tasks efficiently; they will open up resources to focus on crucial functions by doing everything from your phone calls to maintaining your social media pages. It’s also good for all sides since they are highly professional at what they do, requiring no attention. It is a win-win situation!

The thing to note about being competitive is that it’s never continuous. If companies don’t respond to new consumer needs and changes, they will be ineffective. In the near term, brand-new names will likely arise to threaten traditional companies in one direction or another.

And if it is possible to locate the right assistant who works remotely, finding a virtual assistant will help with a wide variety of company activities. Hiring a virtual assistant makes for more extensive and smaller opportunities for enterprises. Both of these advantages help organizations achieve greater heights of achievement.

Are you looking for a virtual assistant for your business? Lyza Grace Freelancing Services can conduct tasks on your behalf with outstanding performance. Feel free to contact me anytime you need assistance. I’ll be happy to assist you.

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darkmaga-returns · 8 days ago

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As of October 15, 2024, CDC has released more than half of the anticipated 7.8 million entries of V-safe free-text entries. ICAN’s analysis of the entries released so far reveals almost 12,000 reports of kidney pain, kidney stones, or kidney infections.

As many of you already know, V-safe was developed by CDC for individuals to report symptoms after COVID-19 vaccination. This month, we decided to look at V-safe reports of kidney issues.

We know from other vaccines that vaccination can negatively affect kidney function, causing harm far from the injection site. Sadly, it doesn’t occur to most people that an injection in their arm can harm a distant system of their body. But as ICAN has reported again and again, all body systems can be impacted by vaccination.

A 2024 study found a “strong causal relationship” between COVID-19 vaccination and kidney diseases such as acute interstitial nephritis (inflammation of kidneys) and podocytopathy (injury to special cells in the kidney). A 2022 study found a correlation between acute kidney injury (AKI) and COVID-19 vaccination and that “AKI following the COVID-19 vaccines led to poor prognosis, with 19.78% death in the Pfizer-BNT group, 17.78% in MODERNA, and 12.36% in JANSSEN.”

The V-safe app entries—most made in just the first few days and weeks following vaccination—reveal many reports of kidney pain, the abrupt development of kidney stones, and hospitalization for kidney infections. Here are a few examples:

“Infection of Kidneys and UTI. Blood in urine and kidney stone on left kidney.”

“I’m in the hospital right now Because I’m still peeing blood they think it’s kidney stones.”

“Kidney stone requiring emergency surgery, ureteral stent placement and subsequent removal; UTI.”

“Intermittent stabbing, pulsing pain around left kidney.”

“Severe flank pain (I think it’s a kidney stone) I’m in the ER”

“Diagnosis with new onset kidney stone”

“Severe kidney infection back pain fever”

Readers will not be surprised to learn CDC doesn’t recognize kidney issues as adverse events related to COVID-19 vaccination, despite CDC’s access to this same V-safe data in real time as the vaccines were rolled out. ICAN will continue to do CDC’s job for it and bring attention to these dangerous and sometimes life-threatening conditions.

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 4 years ago

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August 9, 2020

My weekly review of things I am doing and looking at. A long one this time; topics included disease risk in the food system, my research work patterns, ROI for energy R&D, Apocalypse Never, OpenCog, and housing and transportation in Hillsboro.

Disease Risk and the Food System

Last week I started looking at zoonotic diseases for Urban Cruise Ship, and this week I continued a bit more on disease risk. The current page is here.

Sans images, there is now material on foodborne illnesses, antibiotic resistance as it pertains to antibiotics in livestock, ecological risk from GM crops, and crop disease risk from monoculture. The section is far from done, but it is probably going to go on hold for a while. A few observations:

- Disease risk in general is a major issue, very much on our minds due to COVID-19. That’s a big can of worms. It would take an indeterminate amount of work to do the topic justice and require that I move well beyond the food system. So it’s one that I will have to take one bite at a time.

- There is an image under development that portrays foodborne illness risk in the US by type of food, but there is also a need to look at underlying causes, recognizing that food is a transmission vector and not necessarily the underlying cause.

- Antibiotic resistance looks like a scary topic. There is a report that antibiotic-resistant bacteria could kill 10 million people per year by 2050, which sounds scary, but I need more context on that number. Does this assume a business as usual trajectory where we don’t develop new antibiotics or develop alternative treatments for AMR bacteria, such as plasma medicine, and how much do such developments bend the curve?

- Ultimately I would like to be able to assess externalized monetary cost from antibiotics in livestock in terms of AMR bacteria. I don’t have this yet, but it should be possible.

- I half-assed the genetic risks, and I think justifiably so. I don’t see any evidence, aside from vague appeals to the precautionary principle, to support any significant ecological risks from GM crops. Partly to justify the half-assedness of my effort on the topic, I pointed to a Google Trends search indicating that the public is losing interest in the GMO issue.

A few years ago, I thought I was being bold and edgy by pointing to a lack of evidence of any health or environmental risks from GMOs per se. Now that seems like the safe position, and GMO opponents have (deservedly in my view) generally lost credibility in the way the anti-vax movement has.

- One of my associates is interested in systemic risks from crop monoculture, which prompted me to add that section. It appears that disease risk is the major such systemic risk. The issue of crop and animal disease (as opposed to human diseases for which the food system is a vector) is also a major topic deserving of more careful review and analysis. I would suspect that, from the viewpoint of disease, monoculture is not the most important issue, but it appears that way because monoculture was my entry point into the topic.

The Urban Cruise Ship Work Pattern

I figured now would be a decent time to open the hood and make a few comments about how I am going about the work. Recently the funder made some major additions and changes to the scope of work. This is good for me from a job security standpoint, but it means I need to do some major rethinking about how I go about the project, to insure that things get done at a high level of quality and in reasonable time.

We are ultimately trying to present the best data, analysis, and solutions available on the full range of environmental topics.

Such a grandiose vision requires that I innovate not just in how I think about particular issues, but in how I think about the big picture and how I work. We are setting into a comparison and monetization scheme to present data, a view that was driven by the funder but I have been convinced is best.

One thing I have learned is that knowledge across topics is synergistic. That means that is probably going to be more efficient to aim for a broad and shallow understanding of the environmental landscape, after which we go deeper on the things that require a deeper understanding. This is why I am moving on from the agriculture risk section despite having a superficial treatment of the subject; I intend to come back to it later when it can be better informed by material elsewhere on the site, and I also hope that I have done there will help inform the next sections of work.

This is a work style that suits me well. My mind is always jumping from one area to the next, and I like to draw connections and look at the big picture. This is very much a contrast from most of academic work, which requires a very deep analysis of a narrow topic. I ultimately lost interest in my narrow corner of mathematical research and was not able to make a successful jump to another area; hence (in part) I was not suited for the tenure track.

The obvious drawback is what one sees on the site now. It is obviously incomplete and a bit of a mess, and it will probably remain in such a state for the foreseeable future. It means I have to move fast, which increases the risk of making major mistakes. I fear we are operating at too high a level of abstraction and generality to make actionable policy recommendations.

Although not a high priority, I really wish I could integrate the graphic making process into the larger codebase. The current division of labor is such that I see no way to do so. I dislike having these “Image Under Development” messages and lacking the flexibility to easily modify images as the research proceeds or new data become available.

Return on Investment for R&D

I mentioned before some studies that the US Department of Energy has done on effectiveness of its research and development efforts. Having looked at them more closely, I found something a bit surprising.

I tried my best to harmonize the numbers reported to make a fair comparison. It’s not perfect, but the following seem to be the central estimates of the ROI for the program investment areas studied:

Combustion engines: 53

Building technologies: 42

Wind: 5.07

Geothermal: 4.865

Hybrid and electric vehicles: 3.63

Solar PV: 1.83

They all look like good investments, though building technologies (HVAC, water heating, appliances) and combustion engines clearly stand out as the best. I would have expected the opposite. Since the building and combustion areas are more incremental, there should be more incentive for the private sector to do the R&D and therefore a “crowding out” effect that would blunt the effectiveness of the public investment.

Part of this could be an artifact of the study methodology. Since the time horizon for the lower return technologies is longer, they simply haven’t captured the full benefit. The solar PV study was done in 2010, and I would expect a higher return to be found if it was redone today. There could also be an attribution problem, in that with developing more novel technologies, it is harder to attribute gains to a particular R&D investment, therefore depressing the observed ROI.

I want to propose some solutions on R&D efforts for synfuels and industry, so these studies might provide guidance as to what kind of investments can be expected to work best. Maybe this is a sign that I should be thinking more about short term gains.

Apocalypse Never

Apocalypse Never is a new book by Michael Shellenberger castigating the harmful effects of what he sees as environmental alarmism. I haven’t read it, but I have read enough of Shellenberger’s work and discussion around it to make some relevant observations.

Not too surprisingly, the reaction from the environmental community seems to be mostly negative. This article from Snopes captures fairly well what academic climate/environmental researchers think. Despite being from Snopes, the character of the article isn’t a “debunking” so much as a critical analysis. There is much disagreement about semantics (e.g. are we really in the Sixth Mass Extinction?) rather than factual disputes. Though I have a few of those too.

Since I hope one day to have major public exposure for Urban Cruise Ship, the discussion is a helpful case study in how to present material and what kind of reception I should expect.

Since I am critical of several aspects of environmentalism--particularly degrowth and related elements--I expect some negative reaction. To blunt the effect of criticism, I think I need do to a better job of operating on the following principles:

- Focus on principles and avoid ad hominem attacks, including against abstractions such as fields and movements.

- Make every effort to insure facts presented are accurate.

- Find the right level of nuance. Too little nuance can be inaccurate. Too much nuance can water down a message to the point of meaninglessness.

Though most of the discussion I saw was pretty even-handed, there is some gatekeeping that goes on in the climate community. The bogeyman of the “climate denier” looms large and triggers a kind of circle-the-wagons mentality when the field is criticized, whether justly or unjustly. Lacking formal credentials or institutional backing, I am going to be vulnerable to gatekeeping and probably can’t do anything about it.

OpenCog

Having listened to Ben Goertzel on Lex Fridman’s podcast a while back, I got around this week to looking over OpenCog, which is Goertzel’s open source project to create artificial general intelligence.

There is a ton of material here that will take a long time to work through, especially considering that I am doing it only as a side project. Just reviewing the set of AI principles being brought to bear in the project, though, buoyed my spirits and excited me about the field in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I am already thinking about some work I can do. Contributing to OpenCog is beyond my capabilities at present, but I have some related design ideas that have been sitting on the shelf for a long time and are time to give another look at.

I have no idea if this effort toward AGI will work. But I would guess that it is more likely to work than an approach rooted exclusively in deep learning, such as the GPT approach, which suffers from intractable diseconomies of scale. In particular, I think that a semantic encoding of knowledge is a necessary component of any AGI stack. There are people with far more expertise who disagree.

Housing and Transportation in Hillsboro

I’ve dialed back my political activities a bit lately, but there were some items at the Hillsboro (Oregon) City Council this week worth commenting on.

City staff presented on efforts to implement HB 2001, a piece of state legislation that mandates most cities allow for middle housing (du-, tri-, quad-plexes, cottage housing, small apartments) in residential areas. Without naming names, my read on the council and mayor is that among the seven, two are generally pro-housing, two are generally anti-housing, one is squishy, and two I don’t have a good read on. I have written to them to indicate my desire that we take advantage of the opportunity provided by HB 2001 for an expansive approach to opening up housing opportunities in Hillsboro.

We also had a presentation on the Get Moving package, which is the transportation package that Metro has now referred to the ballot in November. City staff seemed to be negative. The presenter asserted that Hillsboro gets a disproportionately low ROI (about 0.56) for the project and that Metro was unduly influenced by Portland-based anti-vehicle activists to reject road expansion capacity that Hillsboro needs. One council member expressed her concern (which I agree with) that the financial burden falls entirely on large employers, which will be particularly harmful in Hillsboro and I think is bad tax policy in general. On the positive side, the package includes some badly needed safety upgrades to TV Highway, which is the most dangerous highway in the state per-mile for both pedestrians and motorists. There is also money for a study of a downtown Portland MAX tunnel, which I think will be very important for the region. Ultimately, despite the extensive public engagement theatre, it is a pre-COVID package, based on economic and transportation demand assumptions that may no longer be reasonable.

I haven’t yet decided how I will vote on the package, but I am leaning toward a No right now.

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jakathine · 5 years ago

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2020 is already off to a great start concerning my job! :)

My boss/contractor contacted me today to talk about my responsibilities and payment.

Both are changing.

For my responsibilities I’ll be still primarily Administrative with mingling with Marketing (with the statistics and reporting side, which takes the Admin know-how I have with Excel spreadsheets and the websites we’re working in). I’ll still do data entry when not doing analysis

As for my payment, I am a flexible part time earner aka self-employed contractee to my boss so I set my own hour range per week. Usually I give it my agreed part-time of 15-25, with about 18-20 hr per week being the norm, so I rightfully earn the monies per hour. ‘Cause unlike a regular hired employee, my wages are directly from my efforts. Currently, this wage is paid at $20/hr and as of next month (Jan) to be immediately applied to when I get paid (in mid-Feb) it’ll go up to$25/hr.

Also, I’ve been cordially invited to go to the annual retreat which I had not been previously extended invitation to before due to my newness. IDK yet if I’ll do that cause it’s literally on the other side of the US, but we’ll see.

#personal

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bettsfic · 5 years ago

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feel free to ignore this if you're too busy atm but i seem to remember you did psych for undergrad and i finished mine last year and i feel unqualified when i look at job applications? i feel im lying to potential employers all the time like SURE I CAN DO THAT but all i have is a psych degree and an unrelated internship that i never had to apply for and i was wondering if you have any advice on how to approach hunting for an entry level job with this kind of background based on your experience?

first of all, degree aside, when you’re looking for a job, you need to be selling yourself, even if you twist the truth. anything you can’t do, you can google. anything you suck at, it doesn’t matter, they’ve already hired you, no going back now. unless you have some kind of high-stakes gig where people’s lives are on the line, you don’t have to be good at your job, you just have to show up. and if there’s one thing a degree in psych teaches you how to do, it’s show up.

when securing a job, it’s important not to think “in what way can i be good for this job?” but “in what way will this job be good for me?” be selfish. if you go into an office job thinking “i’m not qualified for this” you’re going to get trampled over. people will see your insecurity and your youth your desire to be good and helpful and leverage it to their gain. in an interview, approach it outright as “here’s why this job is a good fit for me” and explain how it works nto your existing skillset.

which brings me to the degree stuff.

first of all, any bachelors degree will give you certain experience. i’ll give you the things i use on my resume, but you can also come up with stuff on your own by asking yourself, what’s changed? college is a place that blasts you with information for 4+ years. it expands your worldview exponentially. so who were you going into college and who are you now? in what ways have you grown? make a list just for your own purposes and there you go, that’s the skillset college has afforded you.

which brings me to my first point: critical/analytical thinking. a college degree teaches you how to think. it’s the entire function of humanities/social science undergraduate degrees. critical thinking is when you can take new knowledge, and rather than reject it, you apply it. find where it belongs in your greater understanding of life the universe and everything, and slot it in. boom. now you see the world differently. now you can take that small piece of knowledge and extract bigger meaning from it. you can take what you learn from place A, which may have nothing to do with anything, and apply it to place B.

in any job, this is extremely important. it means that you won’t just take the pile of work handed to you, you won’t sit at a conference table listening passively. it means you’ll ask good questions, make connections, and see the bigger picture of the work you’re doing. you’ll problem-solve and make processes more efficient (although this once bit me in the ass really badly and i got demoted. in the interview process, you want to make it look like you’re an angel ascending into their workplace, ready to fix all their shitty old broken processes with your bright young promising mind).

a bachelors degree also gives you time management skills and shows that you are internally motivated. no matter how compulsory your degree felt, at the end of the day, you chose to go to college. you didn’t have to, but you did it anyway. you pursued a subject that was interesting to you for the sake of your own betterment and education. that says good things about you. it says that you have higher priorities than just bringing home a paycheck. and because you dedicated four years of your life to this study completely of your own volition, and graduated no less, it also shows that you’re capable of managing your own time without being babysat or micromanaged. you took all your due dates and exams and you showed up on time and prepared. in most entry level jobs, the ability to show up on time and prepared is 99% of what they are looking for.

so, now for psych-specific skills:

the most helpful skill i got from the psych part of my degree was the ability to build experiments (this would be your research methods class maybe). on a big picture, this is problem solving but it’s also project management and successful implementation. to build an experiment is to take a hypothesis -- to ask a big question of the world -- and develop a way to test that hypothesis -- to find an answer to it. working backwards to achieve a desired result is one of the most challenging things about psychology. in an entry level job, you’ll have to do it all the time. someone might hand you something to do, and you go “i don’t know how to do this” and they say “figure it out.” you have a desired result, a task, and you have to work backwards -- research, find solutions, implement solutions -- in order to do the job you’re assigned.

along with problem solving is research and data analysis. this is something you’ve probably done nonstop for the past 4 years. you go out and find answers to your questions, you use your critical thinking skills to better understand the big picture, you implement what you’ve learned, and you articulate it back out. along with this is effective written communication. if you have ever written a research paper, you are ten steps ahead of any baby boomer you’ll ever meet.

think also about the work of statistics -- you take numbers. numbers! and you read them as words. you build an experiment and you analyze the results and you make conclusions from those results. ultimately, a psych degree teaches you how to make knowledge from questions. how fucking cool is that? these are skills that are applicable anywhere. these are skills you have inside you now that you just carry around all the time. you basically bleed the scientific method.

you can ask a huge, all-consuming questions about humanity (which is in itself a skill -- to question, to be inquisitive, to perceive anything deeply enough to wonder about it) and you go out, research, experiment, collect findings, and find answers. you have the skillset to further our understanding of human nature. you make knowledge!! from nothing!! why wouldn’t an entry level job want someone who can do that? who can see the bigger picture of any situation or environment, inspect its problems, ask it hard questions, break it apart, and make it better? who can manage their time wisely and utilize their resources and communicate easily and effectively in any medium? your degree makes you a hard working, problem solving, critical thinking machine.

so go out and tell your potential future employers all the ways their company can suit your skills.

#advice #Anonymous

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stressedasalways · 6 years ago

Text

Not Like The Movies (4/8)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 4K

Story Summary: Today was just a bad day. The simple mission had gone south. What started as an easy data extraction ended with you clutching your side trying not to bleed out. And who should come to your rescue but the reclusive Avenger himself.

Story Warning(s): swearing, mentions of blood. All the Fluff

A/N - As always thanks for all the support

AO3 Link

Tumblr Links: Masterlist Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

You. Hated. PT.

And by default you hated Emma. You hated her cheery face, you hated her happy voice and you really really hated how she kept making you do things that made you want to cry.

“I don’t care that you hate me or my cheery voice, and your tears only fuel me.” she laughed.

“Shit, I didn’t realize I said that out loud.” you huffed.

Day 1 of physical therapy was horrible. Emma needed to get your baselines on everything so she knew what needed to improve. She wouldn't take for your word for it that you already knew the answer was everything.

Now she was just helping you stretch it out, pushing you to your limit while being mindful of your injury.

Bucky had sent a message in the morning that he was being called to prep for a mission. Although slightly disappointed you weren’t really all that surprised. You knew Bucky was truthful in both his excuse and his promise to try and make it when he could. It was probably for the best he missed this one as you felt like the entire 2 hours were just you grimacing.

You made a quick stopover at the common kitchen to grab a quick snack before heading back to your room. You couldn't help if your steps slowed just a little as your passed by the Avengers elevator. But of course as expected, nothing happened.

Once you got the stink of PT and tears off you in the shower you finally got ready to head back into work for an hour or two. Black pants, button up shirt, hair in a tight bun, glasses on, and the miraculously conformable boots you managed to find that were still deemed work appropriate.

When you made it to your area you saw your desk was covered in post it notes welcoming you back.

“Thanks guys!” you said to the room, while settling in and getting ready to catch up.

Thankfully your email wasn’t the disaster it could be. You had access while you were off so you managed to stay on top of it while forwarding projects to co-workers.

“Agent L/N.” your boss Agent Peele said as he made his way over to your desk.

“Sir.”

“Glad to see you back, I know your just easing in, but can we steal you for a mission brief?” he handed over his tablet to you.

You did a quick scan, “Looks pretty standard, don’t need any feet on the ground. We could do it with a small team here. Maybe two just to be safe with me available to be called.”

“Excellent. The briefings in 10 in conference room C if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Absolutely sir.”

You stood up doing a quick scan of the room, “Mendez, Lee” The two agents heads popped up from behind their screens. “We have a mission, big briefing in 10, walk with me while I get you up to speed.

Okay, looks like the team is checking out a possible old Hydra base somewhere in Bulgaria. Wheels up for the away team at 1800. They should be there by 2300. Once this meetings over you guys are off the clock. Go home, nap, eat do what you need to do. Honestly I doubt we are going to be needed. The last time they hit a base with these parameters there was no data to be mined. But in case they do, you guys need to be here and ready to help them. I’ll be on call and will stop by when they are wheels down to make sure everything is good.”

“Feels like you never left.” Mendez joked as you all walked quickly to the conference room.

The room was large with a long conference table in the centre. It had about 15 chairs around it, and then behind on the wall there were a line of chairs. You and your team sat there.

Within a few minutes the room was bursting with people. The usual faces. Maria Hill came and sat at the head of the table, busily flicking her tablet as the large screens around the room came to life.

Sam, Wanda and Bucky then walked in. Guess this was the mission he was working on. You saw him sweep the room quickly and his eyes did a slight double take when he saw you. You adjusted your glasses and tried to not smirk as you went back to focusing on the new data that Hill had begun to push to all the tablets.

He sat with his back to you, and you wondered if the asshole had done it on purpose. Now he didn’t have to see you at all, but you were stuck with his head in your view at all times.

These briefings were usually pretty boring. Especially when your team was working from on compound. Every team had their mission heads as well as whoever else would be helping with them. So comms had a team, the Avengers were ops, Maria was in charge and she also represented any other agents that may be joining as backup. There was the analysis team who went over the lay of the land, possible issues that could affect the mission etc.

Sam did the speaking for the Avengers. Sometimes Wanda would comment, but as usual Bucky was quiet.

Your team was one of the last to speak, just as everyone knew you were only there for a slim possibility.

“Agent L/N, glad to have you back.” Maria drew the attention to you.

“Thank you Agent Hill, glad to be back.” you stood up quickly activating your tablet to push your reports to everyone. “Tech is only here as pure backup. If we were to base this mission on the ones similar in the past, I can almost guarantee our team won’t be called up. But, we are ready if needed. Agent Mendez and Agent Lee with be working with the comms team and ready to go once the team is on the ground. They will be available until wheels up or until the ops team says they are not needed. I’ll be with them at wheels down and will be available for the mission duration if needed.”

Bucky didn’t even turn around when you spoke. Chicken shit.

Soon the meeting was over and everyone was beginning to clear out. You turned to Mendez and Lee. “I want you guys in mission control at 2200, I will stop by closer to landing.” They both nodded and made their way out.

The room cleared surprisingly quickly, none of them even taking notice that you and Bucky were pretending to be reading things on your tablets.

“You wear glasses? You really are a nerd aren’t you?” You heard him snicker.

“Hey now! I have to wear them cause I stare at computer screens all day.” you said as you looked up, he had finally swiveled his chair around so he could face you.

“You look...different.” he struggled, but you could tell it was more shock than anything else.

“Well sweats and jeans and t-shirts are fine and dandy for everyday life, but this,” you sweep a hand up and down yourself, “Is how a boring respectable agent of shield dresses.”

“You could never be boring.”

You noticed he made no effort to get up from his seat, even alone this was too public for his liking.

“Will I see you before you leave?”

He sighed, “Probably not, I need to load up the quinjet.”

“You stay safe out there, no getting shot, that's my shtick.” You got up and grabbed his hand as you walked away, giving it a slight squeeze as you continued to walk out of the room.

You spent another hour at your desk, finding yourself diving deeper into the paperwork for the mission. You were being ridiculous, you knew this. He was the freaking winter soldier. He would be fine. This mission was a glorified dummy check. In reality the chances of them finding anything, ANYTHING, was so slim to none. But when it came to Hydra no chances could be taken, so all of these apparent dead ends were always given their full sweep.

You gave Agent Peele a nod as you left the office for the day. Hoping to get some rest yourself before you needed to check in with your team later tonight. God, you wished you could get rid of the stupid nervous butterflies in your stomach.

These missions were done almost weekly. Prior to you being off you ran about 5 of them a month. The Avengers were not going to leave a stone unturned, and you got used to them being just another tedious job that equaled more paperwork than anything of interest.

But that was before. The last mission, was also supposed to be like that. You weren’t even originally supposed to be on the ground. It started the same way as today's, a fully on compound mission for you and your team.

**************Before “That Mission”**************

2 hours before wheels up new intel was received and suddenly you were being called in by Agent Peele and Maria Hill. Now, that wasn’t actually all that odd. New intel was not unheard of, and sometimes when time was short it was easier to just send more bodies than delay the mission to reconfigure all the mission parameters.

You were good at your job. Damn good. Which was why when these situations came up it was pretty common for you to be called to join the away team. You loved going on missions. Well, at least the kind of missions you and your team were called to.

The danger was always remarkably slim, you were always second entry, and you always felt like a freaking badass. You got to put on a tac suit and be with the full ops team as they got ready. You would never admit it, but that was the coolest way to see the Avengers. Usually only a few would be on the type of missions you were lucky enough to go on, but there was something so cool to walk into the hanger and see them fully suited up. It was how they were supposed to be seen, in full hero mode. Not in the way you usually saw them, stuck in briefings and working on reports, eyes squinting at computer screens.

That mission was more the same. The original briefing had been standard. You actually couldn’t even remember Bucky in the room. I mean, clearly he was, he was part of that mission. But, he just wasn’t something you were focusing on. In fact, you clearly remember keeping your eye on Romanoff and Barton as they were always whispering back and forth and snickering. Their relationship was a huge source of gossip around the compound and you always found yourself drawn to semi eavesdropping on them when you got the chance.

Funny how that was. Bucky was in that room, probably right beside one of them, and your brain had totally just disregarded his presence. Not knowing that 12 hours later he would be saving your life, and changing it completely.

“Agent L/N some new intel has been uncovered. I won’t exaggerate. It’s old as fuck and probably completely inaccurate but we can’t risk it.” Maria quickly said.

You nodded.

“If any of their servers are still there, which we all agree is slim, it appears they may be locked by a very similar firewall to the one you brokedown in Latvia.” Peele said.

“So we want you on the ground with a team ready to go. How many people will you need?” Maria asked, you could see she was already thinking ten steps from this and ready for this conversation to be done.

“It’s a pretty large base, lets try for me and 5 others? Just to cover the ground quickly. Last time we had a mission with a viable server the ops team didn’t even see it. My team is better at spotting them, and I don’t want to be wandering the halls for hours if I can help it.”

“Agreed. Get your team together and get ready. I’ll update ops and comms.” And just like that Maria Hill and Peele were gone.

You walked briskly to your department. It was later in the afternoon and a few people had already gone home for the day. “Mendez, Lee,Davis…” you called for the agents you had done ground missions with before. Everyone else was new blood. Well no time like the present to get their feet wet. “Hamilton and Sharpe, come with me now.”

You pulled them into the small meeting room and starting pushing the new intel to their tablets. “Okay, change in plan. We are no longer on compound for today’s mission. This intel is probably shit, we are probably going for nothing other than to get some steps on our fitbits, but we are going. This place is huge so it's going to be the six of us to cover more ground.” You nodded to the senior agents so they could be dismissed. None of you were planning on going on mission, so what should have been an evening with time to nap and relax before needing to be on comms was now under 100 minutes away from being on a quinjet.

“I know this is your guys first time going on mission so I’ll walk you through it. Let’s go to get you guys in gear and get your comms signed out.” You could see the excited nervousness on their faces. “You’ll have plenty of time to read up on everything on the plane so don’t worry about that. The ops team goes in first and does the full sweep. It's usually a good hour after landing before we are allowed to enter. Just because we know there will be nothing there doesn't mean we don’t do this right. Me and the others will likely go in solo to cover more ground. But since it's your guys first time I want you partnered together. You find anything you call me immediately. Nothing is done without me. Got it?”

“Yes Ma’am” - “Yes Agent”

They both said at the same time as you started to walk out, motioning for them to follow. So much for going to bed early tonight. Hopefully you could grab some caffeine before you got on the jet.

The energy was always high for the second entry team on a mission. It was something new and exciting so the area of the quinjet where we all sat was usually buzzing. You wanted nothing more than to get some sleep, but always felt you couldn’t, especially when leading the team. The ops guys always seemed to be able to do whatever they want. If they wanted to eat, sleep, listen to music, zone out, it was all deemed acceptable. Whatever helped get them into the zone before the mission.

You looked down at your watch. The ops team had been in there for about 30 minutes. You should be getting your clearance to go in, in maybe 30 more? If it takes an hour to sweep this building you could be in the air in 90 minutes. Going home was always more quiet and more acceptable for people to break off and sleep. Come on Y/N. Two more hours and you can be blissfully asleep.

If only….

************ Present Day *******************

You found you couldn’t sit still back in your apartment. You hadn’t bothered to change out of your work clothes even though you had plenty of time until you needed to make your appearance in mission control.

Your tablet beeped. Wheels were up, mission was a go. Still you just sat. Waiting.

You headed to mission control at 2230. Mendez and Lee were already there, plugged in with comms and ready to go.

You looked at all the screens, everything was still on track. On the other side of the room you could hear people talking to the team, but there was too much chatter to make anything out. So you sat in your chair and tried your best to keep your professional face on.

2 hours later and it was clear there was nothing there.

“L/N” Mendez pulled you out of your thoughts. “Well, you were right, it’s nothing, I’m sure we are going to get the all clear to pack up soon. Why don’t you take off.”

You looked at your watch, it was late, and normally you would have never stayed this long. You could think of no reason to stay, and you knew you’d be updated by your tablet anyway. You gave a quick nod to them as well as a few other agents who caught your eye as you got up.

You lay in your bed just staring at the ceiling. Finally a beep of your tablet called to you. Wheels were up, the team was compound bound. Finally your stomach stopped doing flips and you could let sleep take over.

The next morning even though you were utterly exhausted, you got into your gym clothes and made your way down. Today you weren’t working with Emma directly, but she had a workout routine she wanted you to keep up with. You stepped on the treadmill and turned your volume way up, music was the only way to make this semi bearable.

After a few songs you were pulled from your head by the feeling of your earbud being ripped from your ear.

“Hey, what the hell?” you looked back and was shocked to see the smirk of Bucky beside you.

“I did try to get your attention, you were ignoring me.”

“To be fair I was ignoring the world. I’m surprised you're awake, when did you even get back?”

“A few hours ago, but I slept on the quinjet. Don’t worry I’m good. So today is cardio? How much time did Emma want?”

“An hour, I’m almost done.” you lied.

He leaned over to read your display. “You’ve only been on here for 10 minutes! I’m your gym buddy, I’m supposed to motivate you remember.”

It was then you heard the distinctive sounds of Rogers using his special punching bag. Which then caused you to finally really look at Bucky, he was in shorts and a t-shirt. His hands already taped up to do some hits.

“You’re here to workout?” you said with a smile.

“Well, it was what you bargained for was it not?” and he gave you a delectable grin. “Me and Steve will be a few hours, but you don’t leave this machine until it says 60 minutes. I’ll meet you for a late lunch?”

You nodded, wondering how obnoxious it would be for you to change to a machine with a better view.

You made your way to the Avengers elevator, waiting for Bucky to come down to get you. But when the doors opened there was no one in the elevator.

“Oh my god….” you whispered as you walked inside, all at once the doors closed and you were playfully tackle-hugged by Bucky as he placed a kiss against your cheek.

“You will not give up the dream of F.R.I.D.A.Y letting you up will you?”

“I’m telling you, she gets me.”

When you arrived to the common room you made your way to one of the island chairs outside the kitchen. It immediately gave Bucky pause.

“You okay? You’re not running over to your true love?” his head nodding towards Stark’s drink machine.

“Sorry.” you sighed absently scratching your head. “Been a bit off today.”

He came up behind you and pulled your back tight into his chest. His chin resting on the top of your head.

“This helps.” you whispered.

“Yeah?” You pulled away and turned so you were facing him before pulling yourself back into his chest.

“Yeah.”

He let you stay like that for a long while as his fingers swirled on your back. “It was because it was your first day back yesterday? The mission?”

“I guess.” He pulled you two apart, grabbing your hands and taking you towards his suite. You followed without question as he lead you to his room. He pulled the pillows up against the headboard quickly and motioned for you to sit and get comfy. You gave him a look but he was soon leaving the room.

His bed did look mighty comfortable, so you sat down and pulled yourself flush to the pillows in his makeshift couch.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y can I access my netflix from here?” you asked the AI

The TV turned on and the Parks and Rec episode you had fallen asleep to a few days to ago came up on the screen.

A few minutes later Bucky returned, he was balancing a tray with quite a few drinks on it, as well as a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. His other hand held a bag and you could see the label of cookies just peeking out.

“I know you love to press the buttons, but given the circumstances I figured you would allow me.” He placed the drinks on the bedside table beside you, he had made a few of the drinks you had said were your favourites so far. He then went back to the other side of the bed - his side now - and got comfy beside you, arranging the cookies and other snacks he had brought as well as placing the ice cream between you, with two spoons.

“How did I get so lucky?” you asked him.

‘Because you got shot?” he tried to banter with your usual tone, almost as a test. But it was clear he already knew.

“Yeah….I did.” you sighed, no humour in your voice.

“Talk to me.”

“It was just...nothing...but everything you know?” He nodded encouraging you to continue to talk. “I wasn’t in my office for a whole 40 minutes before I’m being pulled into leading a team in a mission meeting. And I kicked its ass, but I was on autopilot. And then you were there, and you were going, and even though I knew it was an easy mission suddenly I was second guessing it. And the last mission I could go off of….” you trailed off.

“Is when you got shot.” he finished for you. A fact.

“It just all came flooding back, nothing significant, but suddenly it was there. I thought that mission was going to be just like the 17 others like that I had done. Walk through, walk out, call it a night. But instead I got complacent. I lost sight of what we were actually doing, where we were. I almost paid for that. It could have been so much worse.” You wiped a few tears away quickly.

He wrapped his arm around you pulling you in close. “Don’t blame yourself. You are allowed and expected to feel this way. Honestly I’m surprised it took you this long.”

You looked to him with surprise.

“Dealing with our mortality is a very unfortunate part of this job, and as absolutely fun as it was to joke and flirt about it. We both know what happened to you was really fucking scary. We are allowed to try and make light of it, cause hell doll what else are we supposed to do. But don’t feel ashamed for a second when you need to let the real emotions through.”

Your curled into him, allowing his body and smell to make you feel safe. You stayed like that for a while before realizing your leg was really cold. You pulled away seeing the ice cream between your bodies.

“I think we killed the ice cream.” you laughed.

“Well now it's just a milkshake.”

PART 5

Tags: @waaaaaaitwhat @i-think-i-am-adorable @quierdoofthestars @moli1497 @ohhhotstan @dani11708 @emabookcookie @fairislesheets @bucky-to-my-barnes @waves-and-sunflowers

#Bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fluff #my writing

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