#My Lead Gen. System

[khondoker]

Use AI to Create More Effective Email Campaigns

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, email campaigns remain a cornerstone of successful customer engagement. However, with the sheer volume of emails flooding inboxes, it’s crucial to find ways to stand out and make your messages more relevant and impactful. Enter the power of artificial intelligence (AI). In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore how to leverage AI to create email…

[nintooner]

By pure coincidence, I just so happened to check in on my copy of Y on X and Y's tenth anniversary 😭

Happy 10 years, X and Y 🎉🎉🎉

[calypsocolada]

how they kissed you for the first time... ft. soshiro, gen, & kafka

authors note: kaiju no. 8 is addictive. i bought the first manga then proceeded to buy the next nine. i'm obsessed with these three <3

cw: light violence

wc: 2.8k

click here for my masterlist

“Burning the midnight oil?” A familiar voice asked. You practically jumped out of your skin as you spun around in your wooden chair. Vice Captain Hoshina was comfortably leaning against the door to the library, eyes amusedly taking you in. 

“Vice Captain!” You gasped, holding a hand over your heart as you quickly gathered up your things. “I-- I apologize, sir.” Hoshina chuckled playfully, pushing off the door as he approached your table.

“No need to apologize, cadet. But you do know sleeping is a part of the job too.”

“I know. I’m just… not tired. Thought I would study a bit.” You responded as Hoshina snickered slightly. He ruffled your hair.

“This late? You’re a real overachiever aren’t you?” He teases as you fix your hair, blushing slightly.

“I just like to be prepared, that's all.” You huffed slightly as Hoshina leaned against the desk beside you, he looked down at you.

“You say you’re not tired but look moments away from falling asleep.” He points out.

“Well… maybe it is getting a little late.” 

Hoshina chuckled again, that same smug look on his face. He nodded, a small hint of concern in his expression. “Yeah, it is. And you should be in bed like everyone else. Besides-”

He stood up straight and pushed himself off the desk, crossing his arms and towering over you for a moment. He returned to his playful smirk and spoke. “-We have drills tomorrow and I can’t have you falling asleep during it, can I?”

No, sir.” You responded, turning and hiding the blush on your face. He chuckled softly and gave you a smug smirk, he was an observant person so of course he saw your blush before you could hide it. 

“Don’t act so embarrassed, I’m just looking out for you.” He chuckled again and that damn smirk grew slightly.

“I’m going, sir.” You answered quickly, loading yourself with books. Hoshina watched you amused until you dropped one. He caught it with ease, cocking his head.

“Do you really need all of these?” He asked as you pouted slightly. 

“I only have the hold on these books for two more days.” You said as he sighed softly, reaching and grabbing over half of what you were holding. 

“Lead the way.” He said as you nodded your head, walking out of the library and down the dark halls of the agency. Your room was a short walk and when you arrived you quickly unlocked the door and Hoshina followed you in, placing your books on your desk.

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s just us, you can call me Soshiro.” Hoshina said over his shoulder. You froze, staring at his back as he straightened, his eyes taking in your private quarters. You jumped when your door fell shut behind you and when you turned back Hoshina was looking at you. A smug and satisfied look on his devilishly handsome features. “Go on, I give you permission.” Your mouth goes dry, your lips parting but no sound comes out. He laughs then. He knew the effect he had on you, knew exactly the kind of attack he just dolled out on your nervous system. Hoshina, up to this point, had been nothing but mostly professional around you. The only thing unprofessional before was his constant joking but other than that he had been an angel. Kind of. But you on the other hand fell fast and hard. It was embarrassing and something you would try very hard to take to your grave. “Did I make you nervous?”

“What-- n-no. It’s just-- I’m tired, that's all.” You covered, albeit sloppily. Hoshina raised his head slightly, a brow quirking up.

“Well… I wouldn’t want to keep you from sleeping.” He says, there was a glimmer of something in his eyes as he walked towards you, you moved out of the way of the door and gave him a terse smile. He looked down at you. “You’re actually going to sleep, right? You won’t read those books once I leave?” He jests as you nod your head. 

“I’m going to sleep.” You affirm shakily. He was standing so close. You could move your hand a few inches and you’d be touching him. You could take one step and meet his lips with ease. You looked away quickly at that thought. Ashamed of where your mind could take you. 

“Good night.” He says softly, hand reaching for the door. You’re not entirely sure what came over you but he was so close. Just right there. And walked you back to your room, carrying your things, talked to you like that and you were so weak already for him. You kissed him. It was probably the quickest kiss known to man. You had just gently pressed your lips against his in a quick peck and pulled back faster than you’d ever pulled back. Your face was beat red.

“M-my apologies, sir.” You said, turning and moving away but he caught your wrist. 

“You call that a kiss, Cadet?” He asked and when your wide eyes met his he pulled you back to him and lowered his lips to yours.

-

Your breath caught in your throat as you stopped mid walk into the doorway of your boss’s office. To call it a disaster would be an understatement. For the past week you’d been on a much needed vacation. 

“Y/n?” A voice exclaimed, surprised to your right. You almost dropped your tray of tea. 

“Mr. Narumi, you startled me!” You gasped, turning.

“You’re back a day early?”

“Mr. Hasegawa asked me to.” You said, walking carefully over the discarded boxes of yamazon orders to place the tea on his desk. Gen’s jaw tightened.

“He did, did he?” He asks as you nod your head.

“Yes, sir. Would you like me to clean up your office a bit-”

“No. No, I will take care of it. You should be home, enjoying your last day of vacation.”

“It’s alright, sir,” You reach and grab a trash bag but Gen reaches out, hand gracing yours to grab it away from you. 

“I wanted,” He sighs. “I wanted to clean this place before you got back.” He mumbled, cheeks red in embarrassment. 

“I really don’t mind, Mr. Narumi, it’s my job to help you out.” You say and Gen shakes his head. 

“This is my mess, you can go home early.”

“I just got here, sir.”

“And I’m giving you the rest of the day off, as well as tomorrow. Both paid of course.” He says, crossing his arms. You stare at him for a moment, parting your lips but Gen just shakes his head. “Go on, enjoy it.” He says, turning to start cleaning up his own mess. 

“Alright, thank you sir.” You say, leaving the tray behind as you make your way towards the door, glancing back to see Gen dutifully shoving things into a trash bag. 

An hour later you knock on his door and when he opens the door you hold up take out from his favorite restaurant.

“Before you try and send me home I thought we could have lunch together.” You say and his eyes sharpen before he inevitably steps to the side and lets you in. His office is much cleaner and this time you walk with ease to his desk, he follows behind and grabs two drinks out of a fridge as you pull out the food. “It looks nice in here.”

“Can you pretend you didn’t see the mess this morning?” He asks as you smile.

“What mess?” You ask and watch his face relax as he grabs and drags his chair to sit beside you. 

“I… wanted you to come back unstressed from your vacation but Eiji just had to ruin that.” He says, taking a drink before popping open the container of his food.

“I’m not stressed.” You say, popping open your own container as you feel Gen’s eyes on you.

“Would you like the rest of the week off too? Paid of course.”

“No!” You laugh, shaking your head. “Seriously, sir, I feel fine. It was a good vacation, I feel rested and relaxed. Ready to work.” You say, taking a bite of your food. 

“Are you sure?” He asks as you finally meet his eyes, he looks so worried for you. You furrowed your brow.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, he looks back at his food. 

“You deserve better than to be my assistant.” He says and you pout slightly, tilting your head.

“What? I like being your assistant, sir.” You say as Gen sort of sighs, it was clear something heavy was weighing on him. You should’ve known he was acting strange from the first moment you talked with him.

“I don’t want you to be.” He finally says. You stare at him, shocked and slightly hurt. 

“Oh.” You say, the bite of food you were about to eat paused. “I… I apologize. Did I do something to upset you?” Gen’s eyes fly up to yours.

“What! N-no of course not, Y/n.” 

“I can speak with Mr. Hasegawa and have him transfer me to-”

“That’s not… I didn’t mean it like that.” Gen says, rubbing his forehead in a stressed sort of way.

“What way did you mean it, sir?” You ask. Gen looks down at his food, he then inhales deeply and turns towards you. You hadn’t noticed how close you two were sitting until right now. He was so close, his eyes soft on yours until they dipped low to your lips then snapped back up. Your stomach flipped at that little action. 

“I want… more.” He says and your lips part in surprise. 

“More?”

“More.” He affirms. “May I… kiss you?”

“Kiss?” You echo, eyes sort of wide. He reaches over and tucks your hair out of your face. 

“Yes. May I?” You can’t wipe the shocked expression off your face. Your lips barely form the word yes and he’s leaning in, hand sliding across your cheek to pull you to meet his lips impatiently. He wanted it and needed it.

-

You breathed heavily, staggering to the side, hand placed on debris to keep yourself standing. You were sure you were dead. The jaws of a kaiju opened up to swallow you whole but suddenly you were on the ground, dizzy and unaware of how you got there. But then you saw it. The infamous Kaiju no. 8. You watched as it killed the kaiju that had you in its clutches moments ago. You staggered back when the kaiju turned to face you, fear jolting through you as you fumbled over debris to get away. 

“Y/n! Be careful, you're injured!” The kaiju said as it ran over to you. You screamed, you didn’t know those things could talk! You scrambled to your feet, rushing and dizzily falling as you tried to get to the gun you’d dropped in your fight with the last kaiju. Strong hands gently grabbed you and when you turned you were face to face with kaiju no. 8. You screamed and threw a punch, connecting with its jaw but the creature just stared at you, seemingly hurt until its eyes connected with something behind you. “Oh… shit.” The creature grunted as you stared at it, shell shocked. It’s voice… somehow familiar. Your legs felt like jelly beneath you, the kaiju still had a tight hold on you as you glanced back. The creature was looking at its reflection? There was only so much strangeness you could take as your body practically shut down, the adrenaline that was fueling you moments ago drained out as your legs gave out and you fell backwards into the Kaiju’s arms. “Y/n! S-shit… we have to get you to the infirmary!” The kaiju expressed and in that moment, seconds before you lost consciousness one name left your lips.

“Kafka?” You breathed out completely dumbfounded.

When you woke up it was light, almost a blinding white. You blinked a few times, groggily yawning as you carefully sat up, your entire body ached as you gently stretched out your muscles.

“You’re awake!” A voice to your right exclaimed in a breathy whisper. You turned and there was Kafka, he dropped his coffee and dive bombed towards you, wrapping his arms around you in a tight bear hug. You grunted in surprise as he held you tightly, as if he was keeping you grounded from floating away and never being seen again. Your mind was still a bit foggy on things as you gently pushed Kafka back.

“How long was I out?”

“Days… at least two or three.” He answers, his face clearly worried. It was also clear he hadn’t slept, dark circles had formed beneath his eyes. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine… a bit sore.” You answered as he sat on the side of your hospital bed and sighed out in relief. 

“I was worried.” He said, forcing a small smile on his face. He was still worried as you winced slightly, pushing down your blanket and inspecting the bandage across your midsection. His eyes followed your movements and when you looked up at him he had this intensely worried look on his face. 

“I’m fine, Kafka.” You implored as his eyes snapped up to yours. He nodded his head and swallowed. 

“Do you… remember anything? Anything at all?” He asks. You blink a few times, pursing your lips.

“I remember you… being there? Did you save me?” You ask, trying hard to recall what exactly had happened. You retraced your steps as Kafka fumbled through his words.

“I--- yes-- I was… there… technically.” You remembered a kaiju swiping at you, you lost your gun in the scuffle. You recalled it grabbing you up and tossing you towards its open mouth but you never landed in there but rather on your feet on the concrete. You blinked a few times as things started to piece together. 

“I saw… kaiju no. 8.” You said and watched Kafka’s face go pale white. “It…” you trailed off when you remembered its voice, remembering it grab you as you passed out. Remember saying a name. “You…” Your eyes snapped to Kafka’s. He looked stricken, scared and caught all at once. “Kafka… you… you’re-”

“Yes.” Kafka breathes out quickly. Like he’d been dying to tell you. “Yes… that was me.. I’m-”

“A kaiju.” You finished his sentence unblinking. You swallowed as Kafka’s lip trembled and he gave you a curt nod of the head. He looked embarrassed and guilty. 

“I’m a monster… I wanted-- I wanted to wait until you woke up to- to turn myself in because I wanted… no I needed to know you were going to be okay. I needed to tell you that I-”

“Kafka,” You interrupted, shocked by this revelation. He looked at you with a pained expression. 

“I promise I’ll turn myself in I just need to tell you that-”

“No!” You jerked up, wincing in pain.

“C-careful!” Kafka admonished, you reached for him, barely grabbing his shirt.

“Don’t turn yourself in. I-- I don’t want you to.” You stuttered painfully. Kafka’s lips parted wordlessly. 

“What? I was sure you would want me to…”

“That’s the last thing I want.” You said, trying to wrap your head around this all. You tighten the hold on his shirt and look at him. “They would… kill you and turn you into a weapon, Kafka.” You say as Kafka looks down, nodding his head.

“I know that.”

“And you think I would want that for you?” You hissed as his eyes snap back up to yours, a shocked expression on his face.

“You… hate kaiju.”

“I don’t hate you. No matter what you are.” You said, yanking his shirt towards you as you wrapped him in a tight hug. “Don’t you dare turn yourself in.” You warned, he was stiff in your arms for only a few seconds before he completely melted, the fear and anxiety of you possibly hating him kept him up for days. He wrapped you in a hug and you felt him breathe out and relax, hands sliding across your back, gently gripping your shirt as he held onto you. You could tell then that he’d really expected a different outcome. He’d expected you to tell him to turn himself in. When you pulled back to say something his mouth pressed against yours, stopping your words and your thoughts. His arms were still around you as he kissed you tentatively.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

If you're running a business, you can either invest at being good at your business, or good at Google SEO. Choose the former and your customers will love you – but they won't be able to find you, thanks to the people who choose the latter. And if you're going to invest in top-notch SEO, why bother investing in quality at all?

For more than a decade, Google has promised that it would do something about "lead gens" – services that spoof Google into thinking that they are local businesses, pushing down legit firms on both regular search and Google Maps (these downranked businesses invested in quality, not SEO, remember). Search for a roofer, a plumber, an electrician, or a locksmith (especially a locksmith), and most or all of the results will be lead-gens. They'll take your call, pretend to be a local business, and then call up some half-qualified bozo to come out and charge you four times the going rate for substandard work:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html

Some of them just take your money and they "go back to the shop for a tool" and never return:

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/when-a-fake-business-used-a-real-st-louis-address-things-got-weird-32087998

Google has been promising to fix this since the late aughts, and to be fair, it's a little better. There was once a time when a map of Manhattan showed more locksmiths than taxis:

https://blumenthals.com/blog/2009/02/18/google-maps-proves-more-locksmiths-in-nyc-than-cabs/

But GMaps is trapped in the enshittification squeeze. On the one hand, the company wants to provide a good and reliable map. On the other hand, the company makes money selling "ads" that are actually payola, where a business can pay to get to the top of the listings or get displayed on the map itself. Zoom out of Google's map of central London and the highlighted landmarks are a hilarious mix of "organic" and paid listings: the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Barbican, the London Eye…and a random oral and maxillofacial clinic in the financial district:

https://twitter.com/dylanbeattie/status/1764711667663831455

Hell of a job "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," Big G. Doubtless the average Londoner finds the presence of this clinic super helpful in orienting themselves relative to the map on their phone screens, and it's a real service to tourists hoping to hit all the major landmarks.

It's not just Maps users who'd noticed the rampant enshittification. Even the original design team is so horrified they're moved to speak out about the moral injury they experience seeing the product they worked so hard on turned into a giant pile of shit:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Now, when it comes to locksmiths, I'm lucky. My neighborhood in Burbank includes the wonderful Golden State Lock and Safe, which has been in business since 1942:

https://www.goldenstatelock.com/

But you wouldn't know it from searching GMaps for a locksmith near me. That search turns up a long list of scams:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/locksmith/@34.1750451,-118.369948,14z/data=!3m1!4b1?entry=ttu

It also turns up plenty of Keyme machines – these are private-equity backed, self-serve key-cutting machines placed in grocery stores. Despite Keyme calling itself a "locksmith," it's just a badly secured, overcaptilized, enshittification-bound system for collecting and retaining shapefiles for the keys to millions of homes, cross-referenced with billing information that will make it easy for the eventual hackers to mass-produce keys for all those poor suckers' houses.

(Hilariously, Keyme claims to be an "AI" company):

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200114005194/en/KeyMe-Raises-35-Million-to-Further-Its-Mission-of-Building-the-Premier-Locksmith-Services-Company-in-the-Nation

But despite the fact that you can literally see the Golden State storefront from Google Streetview, Google Maps claims to have no knowledge of it. Instead, Streetview labels Golden State "Keyme" – and displays a preview showing a locksmith using a tool to break into a jeep (I'd dearly love to know how the gadget next to the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven will drive itself to your jeep and unlock the door for you when you lose your keys):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/KeyMe+Locksmiths/@34.1752624,-118.3487531,3a,75y,350.19h,90.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssHrtqjqvgFir3NBauMy13Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x80c2959cd65dbb1b:0x4b3744cf87492a71!2sBurbank+Blvd+%26+N+Hollywood+Way,+Burbank,+CA+91505!3b1!8m2!3d34.1750025!4d-118.3493484!16s%2Fg%2F11f37_3lq8!3m5!1s0x80c2951cedbf4d39:0xe8ff9fd5872e66e9!8m2!3d34.1755176!4d-118.349!16s%2Fg%2F11mw7nr4fx?entry=ttu

It's pretty clear to me what's going on here. Keyme has hired some SEO creeps and/or paid off Google, flooding the zone with listings for its machines. Meanwhile, Golden State, being merely good at locksmithing, has lost the SEO wars. Perhaps Golden State could shift some of its emphasis from being good at locksmithing in order to get better at SEO, but this is a race that will always be won by the firm that puts the most into SEO, which will always be the firm that puts the least into quality.

Whenever I write about this stuff, people inevitably ask me which search engine they should use, if not Google?

And there's the rub.

Google used predatory pricing and anticompetitive mergers to acquire a 90% search market-share. The company spends more than $26b/year buying default position in every place where you might possibly encounter a new search engine. This created the "kill zone" – the VC's term of art for businesses that no one will invest in, because Google makes sure that no one will ever find out it exists:

https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva-android

That's why the only serious competitor to Google is Bing, another Big Tech company (Bing is also the primary source of results on Duckduckgo, which is why DDG sometimes makes exceptions for Microsoft's privacy-invading tracking):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Controversies

Google tells us that the quid-pro-quo of search monopolization is search excellence. The hundreds of billions it makes every year through monopoly control gives it the resources it needs to fight spammers and maintain search result quality. Anyone who's paid attention recently knows that this is bullshit: Google search quality is in free-fall, across all its products:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think it has a problem. Rather than devoting all its available resources to fighting botshit, spam and scams, the company set $80 billion dollars alight last year with a stock buyback that was swiftly followed with 12,000 layoffs, followed by multiple subsequent rounds of layoffs:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

The scams that slip through Google's cracks are sometimes nefarious, but just as often they're decidedly amateurish, the kind of thing that Google could fix by throwing money at the problem, say, to validate that new ads for confirmed Google merchants come from the merchant's registered email addresses and go to the merchant's registered website:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Search is a capital intensive business, and there are real returns to scale, as the UK Competition and Market Authority's excellent 2020 study describes:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fe4957c8fa8f56aeff87c12/Appendix_I_-_search_quality_v.3_WEB_.pdf

But Google doesn't seem to think that its search needs that $80 billion to fight the spamwars. That's the thing about monopolists, they get complacent. As Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the AT&T operator" used to say, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company."

That's why I'm so excited about the DOJ Antitrust Division monopolization case against Google. Trusting one company to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," was a failure:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-google-monopolizing-digital-advertising-technologies

I understand why people want to know which search engine they should use instead of Google, and I get why, "There aren't any good search engines" is such an unsatisfactory answer. I understand why each fresh round of printer-company fuckery prompts people to ask "which printer should I get?" and I understand why "There are only six major printer companies and they're all suffering from end-stage enshittification" isn't what anyone wants to hear.

We want to be able to vote with our wallets, because it's so much faster and more convenient than voting with our ballots. But the vote-with-your-wallet election is rigged for the people with the thickest wallets. Try as hard as you'd like, you just can't shop your way out of a monopoly – that's like trying to recycle your way out of the climate emergency. Systemic problems need systemic solutions – not individual ones.

That's why the new antitrust matters so much. The answer to monopolies is to break up companies, block and unwind mergers, ban deceptive and unfair conduct. "Caveat emptor" is the scammer's motto. You shouldn't have to be an expert on lead gen scams to hire a locksmith without getting ripped off.

There are good products and services out there. Earlier this year, we decided to install a (non-networked) programmable pushbutton lock. I asked Deviant Ollam – whom I know from Defcon's Lockpicking Village – for a recommendation and he suggested the Schlage FE595:

https://www.schlage.com/en/home/products/FE595PLYFFFFLA.html

I liked it so much I bought another one for my office door. Eric from Golden State Lock and Safe installed it while I wrote this blog-post. It's great. I recommend both of 'em – 10/10, would do business again.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#vapor-locksmith

Image: alicia rae (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kehole_Red.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

--

Budhiargomiko (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wasteland.jpg

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

[parageist]

MANY RAIN WORLD SPOILERS AHEAD

yknow, what really are these module things you see attached to iterators?

i always assumed they were steam vents and thus make the torrential rains you experience, as when its rain time, they start steaming. but as ive played through more campaigns and revisited old areas, ive noticed some strange things about them

like whats up with this one on the bottom? why is it cut in half like that?

and sometimes the lighting makes these circle things in the background look like theyre protruding, so I assumed they were just the same steam vent things but viewed face-on, yet in this image (and in a lot of others) the lighting suggests the opposite - they're indentations on the structure. perhaps the vent things can be retracted in/out of the base?

yet here in the outer expanse you can find them on train cars, and the lighting looks like they're protruding, which would either mean the train cars are extremely wide or theres an extreme amount of clearance between the rail and the walls of the tunnel.

and even if it was retracted into its shell, that would mean the shell itself is super wide to be able to house an object that long. also the retractable theory in general starts to fall flat when you never actually see them retract or extrude, which if they are steam vents, then shouldnt they pop out of their shells when its rain time? this makes me think the circles facing head-on arent the same vent modules we see. perhaps they're some sort of "socket" or attachment point for some other component? im not sure.

but anyway, back to the main point. what are these things?

well, an important peice of evidence completely changes everything.

YOU CAN FIND THEM (and the circle background thingies) *INSIDE* OF ITERATOR CANS

(they're in/on moon's can as well, so there doesn't seem to be a difference between gen 1 and gen 3 iterator designs in regards to these modules)

but anyway. why are there steam vents inside of their processors???

and you cant just deduce that they arent steam vents, cus they definitely are (as shown in this video)

but at the same time the ones inside their cans dont produce any steam. or at least, no steam that we can see.

but this leads me to a theory, once you keep in mind another major thing about iterators: they need a shit load of water to function, yet you never see any of the neuronflies, inspectors, or other organisms inside drink. so where the heck is all the water? (besides the lymphatic system)

this makes me think that the steam vents we see inside of iterator structures are indeed steam vents, but the amount of steam they produce is a lot less. i assume they are basically giant humidifiers, which would saturate the air with so much moisture that the neuronflies and what not wouldnt need to "drink" as they would just constantly be absorbing water from the air. the moist air could also improve electrical conductivity between neurons.

so yeah that's my theory! it is kind of uncomfortable to think about the inside of iterator cans being absolutely muggy and miserable from the extreme humidity, but it makes sense knowing that being inside an iterator is basically like being inside a giant living organism's body; of course it's gonna be wet and slimy in there. it would also explain how the water pumped through the lymphatic conduits gets distributed to all the neurons and other purposed organisms - instead of having a separate pipe connecting every little creature to the water supply, you just saturate the air with it so they can "wirelessly" get water!

[cutencaffeinated-blog]

I may be too old to be part of the campus protests going on now, but I have the utmost respect for these students and supporters.

The kids in their first years of college? They were born in 2004-6. They were kindergarten age when Sandy Hook happened. They were in junior high when covid hit. They are struggling to choose a path to education that doesn't put their own lives or entire vulnerable populations at risk.

I was born in 1990. The first instance of school violence I knew of was Columbine, and I was 9. The first instance of terrorism or threat to my "normal" was 9/11, and I was 11. My first indication that the US might not be the altruistic big brother of the world was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I was 13. The first time I realized that family financial situations can change unpredictably, was 2005 (parental medical issues, followed by 08 crash), and I was 15. My first experience being the victim of police brutality was in 2007, I was 17. The first currently-happening protests I knew of were Occupy Wall Street in 2011, I was 21. The first ongoing attempts at revolution I was aware of were Arab Spring in 2012, I was 22. I was in my 30s when I learned colleges support genocide and the military industrial complex. For the first three decades of my life, I was able to convince myself the system was working and progress was happening, at a snail's pace, but nonetheless.

These kids have NEVER existed in a world that felt safe, have never had a future that seemed secure, have never even lived the illusion of the American Dream. The kids who are trying to choose a college that doesn't support genocide were the first kindergartners to do active shooter drills, how do they choose which university to allow to point guns at them? These were the first kids to have to live through, and study the historical impact of Covid, and they saw that the economy is valued above all else. These kids lost their virginity or came out of the closet in a world that was getting safer only to have healthcare taken from them. The world has failed this generation so intensely, and I can only hope y'all hold society accountable.

I have a child now, a true Gen Alpha Honey badger, and I am so hopeful that gen z can lead the charge to making sure my child doesn't have to face these same choices. Go forth, we got your backs, I'm too old and disabled to be front lines anymore, but I'll show up with snacks and do the jail release runs. I'll babysit and cook for when y'all get back from your actions.

[cconfusedkat]

Nightmare In My Head

CatNap spent three years trying to cope with their trauma, ever since the day they died to their God, The Prototype. They've only gotten worse, unable to control their thoughts that lead them to accidentally emit red smoke from their system. DogDay was more than willing to always help them, but this was the first time CatNap had been knocked out for years, leaving him to worry about their friend even worse.

(Gen hope these all made sense HAHA theyre pretty rushed but i wanted a way to express my thoughts and what do i remember.... i like to draw... THEREFORE...

Tons of people have au's about catnap remembering or getting better so im not exactly that special for making another au with my take on interpreting characters differently after their traumas,,, hope this was a possibly silly read though apologies in advance my comic making skills sorta suck major bum 🙏)

Part Two

[x7mafiadetective7x]

analysis and excitement time!! tottmnt style! spoilers for the new trailer and me picking it apart 😋 ☆

i’m not exactly trying to figure everything out, even though i have theories and lots of analysis in my noggin about the who, why, what, when, and where (especially in regards to their location when seperated.)

i’m mostly just going to cover: what the turtles are going through, what’s going on with the krang/Cynthia Utrom/Bishop, and any easter eggs or potential characters we see.

let’s start off with Bishop! cuz oh my god, if they’re going to be the first opponent the turtles face, i can’t imagine the lead up to shredder.

im used to Bishop being a super climactic, build-up to the big bad thing that’s going to happen kinda character, so i’m kind of surprised to see them being used first. especially as an immediate villain!

the FIRST thing that catches my eye is the robot-cams on the turtles, presumably when they’re separated, and the big screen telling Bishop to ‘RETURN TO BASE’ — i have theories about their tie to Cynthia Utrom, but we know Bishop was a rebellious character against the utrom/krang throughout other gens so i don’t think it’s telling them to return to Utrom— unless they’ve freshly gone rogue to try to stop Cynthia’s plans (hence why they wanna get rid of mutants.)

the robots Bishop uses remind me heavily of ROTTMNT.. especially that one on the left! we see more being possibly made to the right, and that kind of clues me into it being a factory of sorts.

we also see them take over the city moments after their reveal!

the turtles look like they’re all back together and donned in robot parts. Raph is wearing a faux wrestler’s padding, Leo in some sort of samurai get-up, Donnie in a cyborg cosplay, and i’m not entirely sure what Mikey’s trying to look like, other than ‘i’m gonna beat your ass.’

this kind of reminds me of Shredder! maybe it’s just the metal, sharper weapons, and the way Raph’s holding his dual sai..

i don’t think we get enough turtles in armor at all. in 2012 we barely got to see their noir armor when fighting the shredder, and imo it was super hardcore!! so i’m happy to find that they’ve added this to TOTTMNT.

time to analyze what is happening to our fave terrapins!!

what we know: they’ve all been transported to different locations/dimensions, they’ve been separated, and know that they can find each other.

let’s start with mikey’s situation, since we’re introduced to it from the beginning of the trailer via voice-over.

my idea is that he’s been transported somewhere in the future, and he’s with some scientist that knows them all by name— and gimmick. he tried to recreate a mutant, and that’s why we see a Pigeon Pete look alike.

besides that, he rags on Mikey for not having a ‘thing’ like his brothers while following him around. (people r always underestimating him — even in-show.. cannot catch a break i swear) i’m not sure if this rando has a destination, but it looks like Mikey does!!

we also see Raph with the purple dragons, and a MOTORCYCLE!! i MISSED motorcycle Raph so bad.

He is also shown in a barn with two other characters in a seperate trailer, but I have no idea who those guys could be.

Raph seems less concerned with finding each brother unlike Donnie.

Donnie opens up with a ‘I have to find my brothers, I have to save them!’ which is SUPER. cool TO ME. we got such little protective Donnie in other gens and i’m super excited to see his stress level rise in TOTTMNT.

it looks like he’s forced to un-hack what Bishop’s done to New York’s devices (unsure if this is all devices, or just all important systems like train stations and billboards/adverts.)

ALL while there’s robots after him. UGH. i can’t wait to write major angst about this kid.

unfortunately, for me at least, we see the least of Leonardo.

what we DO see of him is mostly combat, and quips. i’m super humored by the failed confidence which is a super different from most Leo’s!! (2012 Leo hero-quipping because he wants to be one, Rise Leo passing the charisma check 24/7, and 2003 Leo not really giving af as much so he just sounds dorky and cool whenever.) he looks like he’s fighting multiple robots in different areas, unlike Donnie who we only see in a train station, and Raph we see fighting multiple things (people and robots.)

i hope he gets to have as many badass moments as Donnie and Raph seem to have, because i’m afraid of him turning into ‘generic leader personality’ SO BAD. i dont think he will, but i’m not ready for him to be pushed aside during fights like how Mikey and Donnie was in 2012 at first, just so he can be the main star in relationship issues and stuff.. BUT i do think we will get a huge chunk of ‘i can’t do this without my brothers’ angst!!

we also get a glimpse of April and Leo interaction which i was the MOST scared of!! it looks like it takes place in a different episode than the Bishop one, along with the trailer where they’re all in halloween costumes (or party costumes???)

i cannot wait for this little party mix up. it’s super teenagery sounding and i always wanted more teenage, slice of life-ish (i don’t think we will ever get a filler without some slicing and dicing) episodes in tmnt!!

anyways. thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far! tottmnt seems a bit more childish than past gens but i’m sorta excited for it!! august 9th here we come ^_^

[premamelody]

i plan on redesigning these 3 a this point so imma just post these ones here

basically almost like a bunch of months ago i made a happy future au where drones, worker and disassembly pretty much live in a society (no way incredible) and lineage of most of the main become influential families or smth

if you're wondering no these 3 arent directly nuzi children they're just in that lineage that last name was kinda kept but changed to dooress bc someone down the line found doorman cringe idk

important detail about hybrids: in short, bodies are separate from the system. systems can mix wd and dd coding but bodies have to be created to appeal to hybrid systems which in this not too long from its creation society (about like uhhhhh 200 years did I settle on? thats like a bunch of gens. enough for 2nd gen nuzi line to not be there i think.) hasn't been made yet. oh yeah dds look different all of them do to separate from the solver.

vera is a dd dominant wd hybrid. her system was incompatible with a wd body but with her dd body she cannot access certain functions. she is leading the drone defense force one of those dooress aimed positions. she doesn't really express herself much,,,really because of family pressure as she's the eldest current generation child in the family so a lot of expectations. i remember having a plot point where she couldn't hang out with a wd she had a crush on bc his family wasn't rich enough.

rocky is a regular dd. on the doc it says he leads a weapon manufacturing unit but i guess the day i drew this i was on construction. mmmmmmmm we'll see. hes stressed ah but plays it off with :D and a charming attitude (please help him). likes to pick on older sister, vera and rocky i think play fought a lot. his #1 argument is "you're short" ofc jokingly. yes i named him after rocky, whose va is kovach, the va of n. funny reference.

then theres my favorite, mina. she's a sort of therapist or counselor for solver drones and manages records on Mother Heir's (explaining later) to ensure they're doing fine, especially the Cyn ones. she's kinda n but would not take hate for an answer. she doesn't appear to be hurt by much and sometimes has a sort of aggressive happiness. like uhh you scream at her and she'll scream back in revenge or smth. lil gremlin.

[sensei-venus]

Confession on og cobra!mean!hawk and miguel. thinking about them both overstimulating bimbo!reader for the first time. they’re just giving her orgasm after orgasm till shes crying and whining but it feels so good so shes still begging for more. 😩

Honestly both of the boys shearing and using a Bimbo!Reader sounds so fun and right up their ally. I haven't thought about the new gen cobra gang (when I think of the new gen cobra gang I think of S1 Miguel & Hawk, since they where really the only ones besides Aisha) Mean!Hawk & Mean! Miguel is definitely something I'm going to have to think about now.

-------------------------------------------------

Reader cums so many times that she’s lost count by the 6th one. Her body felt like it was in hyper drive and her whole system was flooded. Her insides felt like they where all goo and her pussy felt like it was vibrating. Her thighs felt like lead as the two boys bounced her around on their dicks.

Her poor pussy was stuffed with two fat cocks that wouldn't let up.

“My pussssyyyy please!!! I can't- I want- it's too much!!”

Hawk chuckled as he thrust harder into the girl on his lap. Her ass slapped against Miguel’s pelvis and thighs. It rang out and echoed around the room. Miguel moaned into her shoulder as he continued to suck marks across her plump skin. His fingers dug hard into her fatty thighs as he helped guide her down on his dick.

Both boys moved in sync as they moved inside her tight cunt. It was loud and wet as they let out their aggression. Using her pussy like their own personal fuck toy. Maybe they had feelings for the girl, maybe they didn't. But her fat pussy was always wet and ready for them whenever she was around.

“What can't handle our cocks? Still begging like a cock hungry slut!” Hawk says as he pinches her nipples. She whimpers as he fingers through the drool that has pooled there. Her mouth slightly open and her tongue poking out, spit ran down her chin and down the fat tits.

“Come on now, can't talk? Oh yes you just like begging for our cocks. Always coming by the dojo, just to “watch us”. We know you just want our fat dicks in this tight cunt.” Miguel mumbles into her ear. His head resting on her shoulder as he ruts into her.

Another hard orgasm rushes through her and she squirts against the two boys. Her eyes roll into the back of her head as she spasms around them. Her pussy clenching and spraying her juices all over them. Their mixed cum dripping down their shafts and spilling over their heavy balls.

Ready to give her another load.

[itmeansiris]

The Solar System Legacy Challenge: Found Gen 1 pt.67

Kiersten: Your phone is ringing again.

M:..

Kiersten: Please let me take you inside. It's freezing out here.

M:....

Kiersten: I know we haven't known each other that long, but you are my closest friend here and I care for you like a sister. So I’m going to be honest. I don't think Kason did whatever it is that Paris is trying to convince you of. And yes, I know he kept things from you.. but maybe he had a good reason. The love between you two is different.

M:......

Kiersten: I've never seen any man look at anyone the way that Kason looks at you. I'm not even sure he knows the female gender exist outside of you. You need to talk to him. You told me yourself, he's never done anything to make you distrust him.

Finally she breaks her silence.

M: No, he never has. I swear I'm not trying to be close minded here. I want to talk and give him a chance to tell me its not what it looks like, but...

Kiersten: It's her isn't it?

M: Why does she know the girl in that photo? Why would Kason spend time with anyone that would willingly associate with her.

Kiersten nods in understanding

Kiersten: This is why you need to talk to him. Only he can answer those questions for you, AND! when you do, don't let what Paris said cloud your judgement. She's a bitter and jealous women, Kason is your husband, your soulmate.

M: What if I don't like the answers I get? Then what?

Kiersten shakes her head, a genuine smile lit up her gorgeous face. She takes M by the hand helping her onto her feet. She wraps a reassuring arm around M’s waist, pulling her in close, both for comfort and warmth while leading her towards the exit.

Kiersten: Its going to be okay. Come on, we can call him when we get inside.

For the second time that evening Kiersten was M’s guide to safety. Sheltering her from the cold and attempting to shield her mind from the thoughts that threatened to consume her normally jovial friend.

The Gratz Backyard

Kason: Well, they aren't here.

Rufus: We could go inside. What's the harm?

Kason: Do you want to explain to a sleepover full of kids that we don't know where their mothers are?

Rufus: I'm sure that wouldn't please your mother-in-law either. You've made your point.

Kason could feel himself reaching a point of desperation. They'd been searching for M and Kiersten for almost 2 hours and no one but Paris had seen them leave. Neither were answering the phone and it was getting noticeably colder as the night dragged on.

Kason: Let's head to your place. The temperature is dropping I doubt they're hanging around outside.

Kason checked his phone for the millionth time. The ringer was on full volume but It hadn't made a sound all evening. He checked anyway, trying to stay positive as they hurry up the street hoping to find his heart.

The Walter’s house

Kiersten watched M from the kitchen. She'd been staring at her phone for 10 minutes before dropping her head onto the table. She was supposed to be texting Kason but had yet to muster up the courage.

Kiersten: I told you. I can just call Rufus and tell him we’re here. I'm sure they're together. Kason must be worried.

M: What do I say when I see him?

Her voice muffled by the table.

Kiersten: You tell him what you saw and then you ask your questions and listen.

She lifts her head from the table with notable effort. She was tired, cold and her stomach was tying its self into water knots. She’d already abandoned her cup of coffee and had completely ignored the plate of Spooky cookies Kiersten had laid out, more out of politeness than M’s willingness to consume anything since Paris’s little bombshell.

M: This feels so strange. Normally when I have a problem I talk to Kason.

Kiersten: It's easy to see you two love each other but so obvious that you’ve never hit a bump in the road. In your relationship I mean. I have a feeling yours will pass quickly.

M: Why?

Kiersten: Because, I know he didn't do it, and so do you. Your upset because your confused. For the first time he did something uncharacteristic but who's to say its a bad thing.

M refused to look Kiersten in the face even though her tone almost demanded her attention. She didn’t want her to see how she clung to those words like a lifeline.

M: I hope you’re right.

Just outside Kason and Rufus rush into the house. Once inside they hurry to their respective partners gathering and fussing over the women to be sure they were unharmed.

Kason: Thank the watcher! M are you okay? I've been trying to call you.

She nods to avoid making eye contact.

Rufus: Ya could have called me.

Kiersten: I'm sorry My love.

As Kiersten and Rufus embraced and whispered sweet comforts to each other Kason takes M by the hand and without a word leads her into the Walter’s backyard.

The air had a bite to it, as the breeze blew in from the coast. The only sound was the whispers of the wind and the constant swaying of multicolored leaves as they dried and fell to the ground with the faintest tap.

Kason: Mercury

M: who is she?

Her voice, barely above a whisper, carries in the empty yard.

Kason: Her name is Madison.

He waits, knowing she needed to be in control of this situation. He didn’t rush her, allowing her time to think her next question through.

M: And?

She finally responds, a hint of irritation coating her tone. 

Kason: And nothing M. I met Madison at the clinic the day of Comets appointment. She was there with her cat. She said hello and we talked for a while. That was it.

M: That was it?! Then why are there two pictures of you!

Kason was taken back. He couldn't recall a time he'd heard M truly raise her voice in anger. The furrow in her brow wasn't the same as when she was intensely focused, but he knew why. He wasn’t ignorant to what she was truly upset about, but he didn’t want her to ask because he didn’t have an answer yet.

Kason: After my meeting on Saturday, Madison was at the cafe with friends when I got there. She came over to say hi.

It wasn’t a total lie but it wasn’t the truth and it killed him to not tell her everything.

M: She's friends with Paris.

Kason: Mercury, I swear I had no idea she was friends with Paris.

Mercurys phone rings, its Takara. She ignores it.

M: But Paris..

Kason: M please, listen to me. I don't know what Paris said or what she tried to make this seem like but it isn't true. You know me Mercury I would never do anything to hurt you. Why would I? I’d be an idiot to trade you, or what we have for any woman.

He takes a step forward. She takes one back. That single step made her feel miles away instead of inches. She had never moved away from his embrace. It was a first and it hurt like hell.

M: The hardest part is in my heart I know I should trust you, I want to trust you but it hard to ignore the what’s right in my face Kason. If she’s just your friend, finding out about her like this feels wrong. I don't know what part Paris had to play in all this, but YOU lied to me. YOU kept her a secret, not Paris. You.

She walked past him and leaves. Taking with her everything he felt made him whole.

Previous Next

Beginning

[weyrwolfen]

Caveat Emptor: Chapter 3 - Suppressio Veri

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Commanders Fox, Thorn, Thire, and Stone, Quinlan Vos, Coruscant Guard

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm and suicidal thoughts, injuries, loss of autonomy

Previous chapters can be found here on Tumblr or here on Ao3

Fingers bit into CC-1010’s face, pulling him forward painfully to look directly into cruel, yellow eyes.

“Nala Se’s reports never mentioned anything about the implant degrading over time,” said a man’s voice, cold and dangerous, terrifyingly familiar.

The grip on CC-1010’s face tightened, fingers squeezing skin and muscle painfully against underlying bone. He did not move, did not protest, even though inside some part of him was screaming to fight, to run. To do anything instead of just stand there.

“What a pity,” the voice said, and the hand abruptly released CC-1010, then returned in a mocking parody of a fond pat on his cheek. “You’ve been my favorite tool, but don’t worry. When you’re all used up, I have three more just like you.”

“One of those had better be for me,” Fox said when he walked out of the shared commanders’ quarters, bucket tucked neatly under one arm, to find Thire waiting in ambush in the hallway with two thermal canteens in hand.

Thire snorted loudly enough for his external mics to engage, but he also, demonstrating commendable survival instincts, immediately held out one of the canteens and said, “They both are, I’ve already been awake for six hours.”

Perhaps there’d been a reason why Fox had promoted Thire after all. Even if he was often a complete pain in the shebs.

The barrack’s caf had a burnt, metallic aftertaste, but it was strong enough to wake the dead, which was exactly what Fox needed at that moment. He hadn’t slept particularly well, not that he ever did these days, and his oddly vivid nightmares had left him feeling particularly unsettled and distracted. Once he was awake and alert enough to get picky about his morning stimulants, he could always steal some better osik from one of the Senate breakrooms.

Once they reached the lifts, Fox was feeling mostly human enough to ask, “Sitrep?”

“The CSF is in a snit,” Thire said, pressing the button to call one of the lifts. “Apparently the Jedi confiscated several cultural artifacts from the Chancellor’s private rooms under SB 1468-28.”

The kriff? SB 1468-28 had to do with regulating imports and exports in Republic space. It had thousands of sections and subsections, covering everything from negotiating tariff rates to pages and pages of non-sentient species deemed too endangered to be legally traded. Not that Fox imagined that the Jedi would be risking setting off major political waves by publicly seizing something like a smuggled kanthra skin rug from the Chancellor of the Republic.

Former Chancellor of the Republic?

Kriff, it was going to be another karking long-shebs day with an unending chain of more of the same on the horizon. The caffeine couldn’t hit Fox’s system fast enough.

The lift finally arrived, and when Fox and Thire stepped inside, Thire hit the button for the hanger floor instead of the one which would have taken them to their offices. Straight back into the belly of the beast then.

“The CSF has determined that at some point after you left the Chancellor’s office, the door to his emergency turbolift was opened twice,” Thire said once the lift rattled to life.

Well, that explained why nobody had tried to arrest Fox yet. “Any leads on who?”

“No,” Thire answered, a little too quickly. Fox kept his suspicions to himself, but something cold coiled in the pit of his stomach. “It’s not even clear which side the door was accessed both times. Someone wiped the system with one of the Chancellor’s personal codes.”

Okay. That was slightly more unexpected. Fox had his own security access codes. He didn’t know the Chancellor’s, so CC-1010 shouldn’t either. Right?

Stop. Suspicions weren’t facts. He could suspect all he wanted; he didn’t know anything.

“The CSF is working the angle that the Chancellor himself opened the door, even though nobody has a working theory as to why,” Thire continued. “The Guard has been tasked with excluding other points of ingress from consideration.”

Of course. Of course, the CSF would try to ice the Guard out of the real investigation. Shabuire.

Except Thire knew the risks of this investigation getting out of the Guard’s hands as well as Fox did, but he wasn’t acting particularly concerned about being dismissed from the primary crime scene. And that had some significant implications.

Stop it. Stop speculating. Stop working the karking case.

Fox was compromised. His officers would tell him whatever was safe for him to know. He had to trust them on this, because there weren’t any guarantees that CC-1010 wouldn’t report everything that was done and said here back to kriff even knew who.

So Fox kept his questions behind his teeth and tried, with very limited success, to put them out of his mind as well.

The lift doors opened out onto the Guard’s hanger bay. Fox managed to not wince, but only just. There was something about the lighting in the space that always exacerbated his headaches. The pain tabs he’d downed before kitting up for the day weren’t quite doing their jobs, but Scav was firmly against upping the dose or changing the type of medication until it became absolutely unavoidable. Something about not wanting the Marshall Commander of the Guard to be wandering around the Senate, armed to the teeth while also tripping balls.

As if all of them didn’t already occasionally do their rounds, so strung out on stims that every light had rainbow-edged trails in their vision. It came with the long hours and the strill osik requests Senators often kicked their way, on top of their usual duties.

Thire passed by the larger gunships and troop transports, instead aiming for the smaller, two-man speeders. Picking the nearest one, he took the driver’s seat and fired up its engines, leaving Fox as the ride along. Probably wise.

“Where are we headed?” Fox finally asked, when the awkward silence in the speeder became unbearable. That at least seemed like a safe question to ask, seeing as he was about to find out anyway.

Thire’s bucket was unreadable, visor forward as he weaved through traffic, but he tapped his index finger against the steering yoke in obvious thought before saying, “We’re meeting up with Hound’s team. He thinks they’ve found something in the Chancellor’s emergency evacuation hanger.”

Okay.

Fox really wanted to ask for further information.

He did not.

He did, however, finish his first canteen of caf and start in on his second while Thire went through the extra security protocols of requesting and receiving permission to pass through the energy-shields that kept the general public well away from the Senate Dome’s extensive substructure. What little sense of humor the Senate Guards had previously exhibited had seemingly shriveled up and died in the midst of the current crisis. Thire had to repeat both of their designation numbers three times and submit their clearance codes twice before being granted entry.

The access portals were wide, dimly lit, and eerily empty. There should have been at least a few maintenance droids and work crews down here, monitoring the building’s infrastructure and performing minor repairs. The only sentients Fox saw as Thire guided their speeder through the twisting series of tunnels were his own men, patrolling the area on speeder bikes in teams of three. The Senate Guard must have shut everyone else out, including the small army of maintenance and support staff that kept the lights on and the water running for the entire Dome, because Fox sure as kriff hadn’t made that call.

That was going to cause problems down the line, from compromised utilities to Senators who could and would take any inconvenience as a personal slight.

Thire rounded a final corner and slowed to a hovering stop where a full squad of Coruscant Guards had set up a watch along one stretch of walkway lining the massive panels that made up the tunnels’ heavily-armored walls. A security request popped up on the speeder’s main terminal, and Thire entered his own codes in response.

The Guardsmen shifted to either side of one of the heavy wall panels, making room for one huge plate to rotate up towards the ceiling on artfully concealed magnetic hinges, revealing a set of heavy blast doors.

Once the doors lensed open, one of the troopers, Facet from the trooper’s unusually ornate rerebraces, waved them forward.

Thire guided the speeder through a series of similar blast doors, waiting in each of the connected room for the previous set to close and the next to open. They were kill boxes with concealed defenses mounted in the walls around them, but their exact specifications had been above even Fox’s high clearance level. Being at the mercy of an unknown, deadly automated system made the hair down the back of his neck prickle in instinctive unease.

And yet, he still somehow knew that the fourth room would be the last in the series.

Bright lights glinted off ornamental metals and red-paneled walls. The architecture of the hanger broadly matched the public-facing portions of the Chancellor’s office, all curving walls and gently ramping, carpeted walkways. It was large too, excessively so, given it only held a trio of sleek, custom speeders.

Fox screwed the cap back onto his second, half-empty canteen of caf and set it in the speeder’s center console. Then he fished his helmet out of the floorboards and pulled it on while Thire maneuvered the speeder over to a corner of the space where two guard transports were already docked.

The magnetics inside Fox’s helmet hissed as they engaged, and his HUD flickered to life. His light settings were lower than standard, his one sop to the headache which was still lingering behind his eyes. Once his HUD finished scrolling through its own internal system checks, he sent out a ping using his command overrides and received back answering data from the armor of any trooper in the immediate area.

Fox’s system picked up Facet and his men on guard outside the hanger’s concealed entrance and a few other scattered troopers patrolling the tunnels above and below his current position. Most of the signals came from Hound and his team, as expected.

Hound had brought two full squads to perform this investigation. Fox pulled up a three-dimensional rendering of the space and nodded slightly to himself in approval. The room’s exits, including all air-intake and ventilation shafts, were adequately covered, and the remaining troopers were canvassing the space in orderly, meticulous detail. Hound’s systems reported the presence of three massifs as well, but Fox only spotted two of them. Perhaps the other was with the four troopers who were beyond the hanger’s ornate double doors, no doubt checking out the emergency turbolift from this end of the system.

Hound himself was waiting next to his team’s transports, Grizzer alert and watchful at his side.

Thire made for the ARF trooper’s position and settled the speeder down with practiced ease. The doors of the passenger compartment swung upwards like especially ungainly avian wings.

When Fox stepped out of the vehicle, Grizzer barked a rumbling, chuffing sort of sound the massifs were trained to make whenever they spotted a target. Hound shared a brief look with Thire, obvious and weighted even through their visors, and then palmed a treat out of one of the pouches on his belt. He handed it to the massif, whose entire hindquarters wagged excitedly at the reward.

Fox certainly had some thoughts on that, but again, he kept them to himself.

“Sirs,” Hound said, giving Grizzer the hand signal to sit, which she did with an open-mouthed, razor-toothed grin. The ARF then snapped off a sharp salute, which Fox immediately waved away.

“You wanted to show me something?” he asked, trying to get this farce moving along.

“This way,” Hound said without any further preamble.

While one of the speeders berthed in the hanger was emblazoned with the Republic cog and the other ornate signs and trappings of office, the other two were aggressively plain. They both looked expensive, and a particularly knowledgeable observer would notice the armored panels and shield generators artfully worked into their designs. But neither would be immediately pegged as belonging to any specific one of the millions of wealthy sentients who were on planet at any given time. A few troopers were clustered around the speeder with the badges of office emblazoned on its side panels, scanning the interiors and taking holoimages. Hound guided them towards the second speeder, a dark gray model whose doors and trunk were already open.

Fox’s footsteps faltered, a wave of dread and expectation washing over him. Expectation of what, he couldn’t have said. The open trunk turned out to be completely empty.

“This speeder has been washed down with enzymatic cleaners and then an aggressive sanitizing agent very recently,” Hound said, gesturing vaguely towards the entire vehicle. “The navigation record and access logs were wiped with the same code used on the Chancellor’s turbolift.”

“Have you alerted the CSF?” Fox asked, looking down into the empty trunk. He kept expecting to see… something. He wasn’t sure what.

“Not yet, sir,” Hound said, and Fox looked up at the awkward hesitation in the ARF’s voice. “We were waiting for you to sign off on it.”

They should have notified the senior CSF agent assigned to the case immediately upon finding something this suspicious. The explanation for that breach of protocol occurred to Fox abruptly, and it was both unwelcome and nauseating.

His men were covering for him.

If I’m here when the CSF agents arrive, my biomarkers will be recorded for exclusion from any subsequent evidence logging.

Fox took one deep, steadying breath, forcing himself to remain outwardly calm even as his stomach churned.

“Comm them,” he said, and his voice sounded far steadier than he felt.

Hound nodded, glanced at Thire again, and then stepped back, fingers tapping over the controls on his vambrace.

On any other investigation, Fox would have taken a walk around the hanger, checking in with the rest of his troopers and taking their reports. This time, though, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to know what they were finding, or worse, what they’d been working to actively destroy. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t. He suspected, but that was different.

He knew. He’d been here before, many times.

Not trusting himself to look anywhere else, Fox turned his attention back down to the speeder’s empty trunk. The bare, overlarge space was strange, in comparison to all of the other civilian speeders he’d ever seen. Even their own transports had some kind of traction matting in the back, hard to clean, but good for keeping equipment from sliding around in transit.

…Really, it seemed designed for easy cleanup: smooth surfaces and curved edges, with no corners or textures where a drop of blood or a stray hair could hide.

That was why CC-1010 had been ordered to use this speeder, instead of the less customized model. The first time he’d been activated, his orders had been very specific. Which speeder he should use, which tunnels to avoid, where to dispose of the bodies, and how to clean up his tracks, both literal and digital. And then to forget until he was activated once again. The memories resurfaced for his second mission, and his third, and after a while the specifics just became part of his standard operating procedure, only noteworthy if some facet of them needed to be altered.

CC-1010 had always followed his orders to the letter. Even when those orders didn’t make any sense. Even when they stood in direct opposition to the public statements made by his Master. Even when they directly violated Republic laws governing the ethical treatment of enemy combatants and civilian noncombatants.

Even when CC-1010 was entirely certain that what his Master had said was not what he had intended.

Good soldiers followed orders, and CC-1010 was an excellent soldier.

All of his trainers had said so. He’d been the best, especially in his close quarters combat and stealth modules. And hadn’t his Master deserved the best?

He had. He had deserved someone like CC-1010, who would carry out his words to the letter, meticulously destroy any evidence, and then forget the details.

He had deserved CC-1010…

“Fox?”

…His mission was complete though. He had followed his SOP and reported back to his office. He had set the memory aside, until the next time.

Except now he was remembering, and no one had activated him.

He should remember that, shouldn’t he? He always had before…

“Fox?” Thire asked again, sounding concerned.

…That was CC-4477. His concern was noted, but not necessary. CC-1010 had completed his mission. This was just an aberration. All he needed to do now was forget…

“CC-1010?” Thire asked carefully. Except that was wrong too, wasn’t it? They never used their designation numbers amongst themselves. Only when…

…Forget…

“CC-1010, what do you require to complete your mission?” Thire asked, following the prescribed script. Only someone very close to him would have noticed the tension humming under his voice.

Fox heard it. Fox held onto it.

…Forg–

Fox sucked in a gasping lungful of air. Memories trickled through his grasp, falling away like grains of sand, but some of them stuck this time.

A few, and none he ever wanted.

He’d killed people. He was pretty certain he’d killed a lot of people, civilians, and he couldn’t even remember any names, or faces, or why.

Karking Sith-damned hells, his head hurt.

Fox bent double, struggling to remove his helmet. He needed to breathe. He couldn’t…

“Kriff, no,” Thire said, catching him before Fox could fully collapse onto the floor. “We can’t do this here,” he whispered desperately. “Just breathe slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Can you do that with me?”

Fox wasn’t about to risk nodding, but he could follow orders. He was good at that, right?

The strangled noise he made could have been described as a laugh, but it had only the most passing familiarity with anything resembling humor.

“Fox, I’m serious. The CSF shabuire are going to be here any second. I need you to get your osik together and breathe with me.”

Fox shut his eyes and breathed.

“I need to get to Scav,” he finally said, when he was able to straighten back up without feeling like his entire head was going to crack open and leak his brains out all over the hanger bay floor.

His nose wasn’t bleeding. That was surprising.

“You need to stand your shebs right here until the CSF agents sign you out,” Thire said, getting one hand up under Fox’s elbow to take up at least some of his weight. Thire gestured to someone off to the left, Fox didn’t think it was wise to turn his head at that moment to see who.

Hound came into his direct line of sight. “They’re taking the lift down,” he said grimly. “There’s a general coming with them.”

“Who?” Thire asked, before Fox could swallow down the taste of bile enough to do the same.

“They didn’t say.”

“Fox, are you going to be able to do this?” Thire asked, quiet enough to not carry beyond the three of them.

“Not like I have much of a choice,” Fox said, pulling himself out of Thire’s grip. His vision blurred for a moment, but it was worth it to get his helmet back on. The tinted visor and plastoid plate made it so much easier to hide any number of sins.

Thire gave him a dubious look, which Fox did not dignify with a response.

There was a trick to marching that made it possible to walk in a straight line with minimal jostling. Kriffing convenient piece of intel to have, if you were overly tired, or drunk, or strung out on stims, or about to have to report to a kriffing Jedi while your brains felt like they were being rendered down into nutripaste. You just had to look straight ahead, keep your knees a little bent, and roll your weight from your heel, along the outer edge of your foot, to the ball. Easy. They’d done it enough on Kamino, exhausted, beat to osik by one trainer or another, and running on nothing but a heady blend of pride and fear.

Fox made it into formation just in time to see the doors swing open. He didn’t stumble once. He didn’t even puke into his shiny, new filters. Mags would be so pleased.

The CSF agents were dressed out in full protective gear this time, white coveralls with full facemasks and hoods, like they were expecting some kind of hazmat exposure. Fox couldn’t see their faces, but he’d spent essentially his entire life reading the body language of armored sentients. Every single one of them looked tense, and a few were angry.

The General wasn’t wearing a single piece of protective clothing, just a set of dark, sleeveless robes and knee-high boots. No foot coverings, no mask, no gloves, and if his expression and bearing were to be believed, no cares in the galaxy.

Kriff, it was the same Jedi from before, the one who’d brought the clearance flimsiwork to General Windu. Fox had asked Thorn to sic some of their slicers on the man, but all they’d been able to glean from the Temple’s public-facing servers was a name: Quinlan Vos.

Great. Just great. Because dealing with a General and a Jedi wasn’t enough, without adding ‘probable covert ops agent’ into the mix.

Fox breathed and did not allow his knees to buckle.

The General spotted them immediately, and made his way down the tastefully lit, carpeted stairs with a bounce in his step. “Commanders,” he said with a grin that struck Fox at utterly false.

Fox saluted. Given the creak of armor he heard behind him, Thire and Hound had done the same. “General Vos,” he said, and his voice didn’t falter in the slightest.

Vos waved one hand casually, dismissing the salute. “I’m not a general,” he said airily. “Never was assigned a battalion, something about not being able to keep my own life in order, much less the lives of several thousand troopers.” Aching, dizzy, and nauseous, and Fox still picked up on the fact that almost everything the man had just said was a flagrant lie. “You can call me Quinlan.”

Like hells.

“General Vos–” Fox tried again, but was immediately interrupted.

“How about just Vos?” the Jedi said, extending a bare hand in a common natborn greeting.

It would be rude to not take it – Fox had learned that within hours of arriving on Coruscant – but something still made him hesitate.

Kriff his head hurt.

“Master Vos,” Fox compromised, taking the man’s hand and not his wrist, like he might have with one of his brothers.

Something in the Jedi’s expression flickered, dimming the welcoming grin he’d been wearing like a mask.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, grip tightening momentarily around Fox’s gauntlet.

Because of course, a Jedi would sense something wrong with him. Of kriffing course.

Well, he couldn’t exactly say that he was perfectly fine. That would draw even more suspicion. “A training accident,” Fox said blandly, matching the Jedi lie for smoothly delivered lie. “Nothing a rest shift won’t cure.”

Vos’s eyes narrowed speculatively, and he said, “Uh huh,” in a very dubious tone of voice. “Well, I was told you fine gentlemen found something interesting. Care to fill me in?”

Fox gestured smoothly to his left, managing not to jostle himself too much, and said, “My sergeant and his men made the discovery, so please allow me to defer to him, for this briefing.”

“Defer away,” Vos said, dialing back up the charm. “What name would you prefer I call you, trooper?”

“Hound, sir,” the ARF trooper finally replied very stiffly.

“Hound, right.” The Jedi then hunkered down and extended a hand again, this time to Grizzer. “And who’s this sweet girl?”

Karking hells, like that wasn’t the fastest way to get Hound to warm up to him. This Vos kriffer was slick, and Fox was not happy about that kind of expert manipulation being directed towards his men.

“She bites,” Fox said in warning.

“No, she doesn’t,” Hound immediately corrected, sounding offended. “Not unless I ask her to.”

Kriffing Sith-damned hells, Hound. Fox wanted to grab the sergeant by the spaulders and shake him.

Instead, he let Thire steer him away from the conversation.

“Hound has this,” Thire said quietly, over a private comm line.

“He’d better,” Fox grumbled.

He was cleared rapidly, by the CSF agent who had been tasked with collecting prints and biological samples from all of the troopers present in the hanger. All of his data were already on file, from his previous visit to the Chancellor’s office. Thire managed to find an out of the way corner to sit and recover, while the rest of their men were cleared.

He was almost back down to baseline when General Vos managed to find him.

“Sit,” the Jedi said, when Fox started to rise to salute. “You look like shit.”

“I assure you, I am more than capable of performing my duty,” Fox said, every instinct screaming to conceal the extent of his debilitation.

“Sit anyway, this won’t take more than a second,” the Jedi said, dropping down casually on the padded bench next to Fox. “I’m just curious about something.”

“I will endeavor to assist you in any way I can,” Fox lied again, casually enough to sound earnest.

The General arched one eyebrow, but did not comment about whatever suspicions he had. Instead he leaned back and rested his hands on his thighs. They were gloved again, but not with the blue, sterile ones the CSF agents had been handing out. They were black leather, and Fox abruptly remembered the incident in the Chancellor’s office with the mystery item concealed in the desk.

Something about needing bare hands, to make his Force osik work correctly.

Fox went suddenly cold with fear.

“As I said, I haven’t ever been assigned a battalion,” Vos finally said as if nothing were amiss. “So I don’t have much experience working with clones. So, I don’t know if this question might be…,” he paused, obviously considering his next words carefully. “Culturally sensitive,” he finally said.

Fox’s heart was pounding in his chest, but the pain in his head had settled back down to a dull roar. Manageable enough that he could keep his full wits about him at least. “It is our duty and our honor to serve the Republic and the Jedi,” Fox said, reciting the correct response with an ease borne of long practice. “I would be happy to answer any question you have, even those of a personal nature.”

Something about his reply made the General pause, and Fox couldn’t help but curse to himself in the safety of his own head. This was exactly the kind of scrutiny he’d been trying to avoid with General Windu. Would he be able to feel it if the Jedi started digging around in his mind?

Would Fox know it was happening at all?

“Alright,” Vos finally said with a slow nod. “With the customizations, I would assume that your armor is important to all of you. Personally.”

“Yes, sir,” Fox replied, because it was hardly something that could be easily denied, but he also didn’t elaborate on the subject. That would be too dangerous. While the Guard personalized their gear less than some of the other battalions, they all still added flourishes here and there. Little reminders that they were still people, still individuals, beneath the strict protocols and the rigid formality the Senate demanded of its possessions.

But instead of hammering at this minimal departure from regulations as other natborns had done before him, General Vos just asked, “Would a clone trooper ever loan someone else his set of armor?”

That caught Fox a little flat footed. Yes, a clone might gift a single piece of plate, and no, Fox was not about to explain the cultural traditions regarding such an exchange. But an entire set of armor? That was easy enough to answer. “No,” he said firmly.

Whatever reply Vos had been expecting, that obviously hadn’t been it. “No?” he repeated, but it must not have been a serious question, because he didn’t wait for a response before saying, “Interesting.”

Thire, appeared around the landing gear of the Guard transport, slowing awkwardly when he spotted exactly who was speaking with Fox.

“Commander,” Vos said, turning to address Thire with another warm, fake smile. “What can we do for you?”

Thire stiffened, but his voice was smooth and professional when he answered, “The CSF has taken down everyone’s biometrics. They are asking us to clear out of the hanger.”

“Typical,” General Vos said with enough honest sarcasm that Fox had to choke back a sardonic snort of agreement. The Jedi rose to his feet and dusted his hands absently on his thighs. “Commanders, it’s been a pleasure,” he finally said, smiling at them both in turn. “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

Like hells.

The machine hummed loudly, and lights flashed on the other side of Fox’s closed eyelids. Pumped full of Scav’s latest cocktail of meds, neither the sound nor the lights were actively painful. But being inside of a medical scanner always made Fox feel uncomfortable. Trapped. It was easier to just close his eyes and try to not think about it.

Finally, the machine whirred to a stop, and the thinly padded gurney Fox was lying on slid out of the scanner.

He opened his eyes to find Scav scowling down at him.

“Something’s definitely wrong,” his CMO said, sounding personally offended by the whole situation.

“Anything more specific than that?” Fox asked dryly. It wasn’t like Scav to be this vague about medical diagnoses.

“No, our scanners are too osik’la to get an accurate reading on whatever’s going on in there,” Scav said, taking hold of Fox’s opposing arm and helping him sit up.

‘In your kriffed up, defective brain,’ Scav meant, even if he didn’t say it out loud.

Maybe they should have sent him back to Kamino, to let the longnecks pick him apart.

Maybe he should have eaten a blaster bolt and saved his brothers all of this trouble.

Except…

I have three more just like you.

It hadn’t been a dream, just like whatever had happened in the Chancellor’s hanger hadn’t been a hallucination.

And Scav hadn’t even batted an eye when Fox had laid out all of his suspicions in the medic’s small office.

“I’m working on it,” Scav finally said.

Fox eyed his armor, which was stacked against the far wall of the exam room. He had osik he needed to be doing. The Senate was in an uproar. Mas Amedda might hold to the exact same political beliefs as Chancellor Palpatine, but he had far less charm and far fewer allies who owed him personal favors. Apparently he’d said the wrong thing to the wrong mid-Rim Senator during the morning’s open floor debate on an upcoming resource allocation bill, and suddenly everyone was remembering that none of them had actually voted for him to fill the political position he currently held.

The fighting hadn’t even slowed down when the acting Chancellor attempted to call for a brief recess for midmeal. Last Fox heard, aides had started bringing catered meals right out to the Senate pods so their delegates could keep screaming at one another, which was putting a massive strain on the security checkpoints that were trying to scan every box for explosives and toxins.

Stone was keeping a lid on things, but he needed all of the support he could get. Assuming Fox could keep his osik together long enough to actually be of some use.

“Scav?” Fox said as he slid off of the gurney. When his CMO looked up from his ‘pad to glare at him, Fox went ahead and tempted the gods, little and great, by saying, “Work faster.”

AN: If anyone else wants me to tag them as this gets updated, please just let me know. @tazmbc1

[shimmeringembers]

Star Stringed Web

My iterator OC! I finally made a design I like.

Star Stringed Web is an old gen 1 iterator. She’s not the first one ever, but she’s definitely not new— I’d say she was built a bit before Moon. Web served two purposes, finding the Triple Affirmative and also mass producing parts for other iterators. Her can takes up most of the space within her retaining wall, leaving little room for ground structures. There’s a larger than average amount of railways leading in/out of her superstructure to deliver parts to far off projects.

Web’s local group consists of two other iterators (not currently named or designed) that were built loooong after her. She appreciates their company, but also wishes the two of them would stop flooding her inbox with game invites and photos of every creature they see through their overseers.

Web is aware of the growing slugcat colony making their home on her grounds. She’s fine with them being there, as they don’t cause structural damage like the scavengers do, but would rather the colony keep out of her main systems.

Web somewhat tolerates the little beast crawling through her can. No matter what she does, Lightbulb won’t leave. She could zap them to death, but she considers that needlessly cruel. She counts herself lucky that she’d been build with the machinery necessary to craft more neuron flies, as the Little Prion seems to favor eating those.

[my-pjo-stuff]

gen question, what are your opinions on each of the Olympians (you don't have to but plz separate for each god cause I'm really interested

Lmao dw, although I should warn you many of my opinions are the same or very similar on them, so I shortened parts and left others out (elaboration at the end) ZEUS - Tyrannt king who's no better than Kronos in terms of personality who deserves to be overthrown. HERA - Cruel woman who yes, is hurt and props mistreated by Zeus and his actions, but still takes her anger out on innocent people. Also deserves to be overthrown

HADES - Upholding and unjust system who may somewhat be okay to Nico, but still is a shitty parent. He litteraly wanted to force Nico to become the Hero of the Great Prophecy for his own gain despite believing the hero would die. Deserves to be overthrown, and have CPS called on him. POSEIDON - A "nice" dictator is still a dictator y'all. Uses and treats mortal life just as carelessly as everyone else. Him being a good father to Percy does not make him a good guy or someone who is a good ruler. I mean just look at his r*pe bodycount plz DEMETER - Negelctful parent who uses her children as much as canon fodder as everyone else. Helps to uphold an unjust system that uses and abuses literal children and their mortal parents while activley benefiting from it.

APHRODITE - Negelctful parent who also uses and abuses her children. Just because she talked to Piper and helped her dad doesn't make her a good person or mother. The main reason for that is that she does not give that same level of attention and care to the rest of her children- picking favorites is not suddenly "okay" or "cool" just because your favorite character happens to be the favorite child.

ATHENA - Negelectful parent who uses her kids as cannon fodder. And not only that but she's also exceptionally irresponsible considering how she just dumps kids on completely unprepared parents and leaves not helping any further. Ontop of that she's also incredibly prideful and assumes she has some right to meddle with her kids' lives. 90% of the gods deserve to be overthrown but she also deserves a kick in the balls from Annabeth ontop. ARTEMIS - I made multiple posts about how creepy she is already. Borderline creep in her way of specifically going after younger girls. Also not yet sure she ain't leading a borderline cult with the Hunters of Artemis. Also the way she is about men violates so many human rights. Joining her Hunters would be a living nightmare for me, knowing she'd be my patron goddess if I lived in PJO makes me glad she's fictional. Helps to uphold and profits from a system literally killing kids. APOLLO - Helps to uphold a system that's literally killing kids and benefits from it. He uses demigod lives as cannon fodder too. Him "loving" his partners and children does not change the fact that he just leaves/abandons both of them if the kid doesn't happen to be a favorite of his. Jury's still out on him post-TOA and redemtion. If he actively does something against the system to help the demigods or atleast attempts to do we're god. If he doesn't he's even worse than the rest bc now he doesn't even have the "he didn't know any better" excuse. ARES - OG reason I wish Luke won unironically. Tyrant, jerk, probably abusive and misogynistic????? Also the typical case of using his kids as cannon fodder. Neglectful parent 101. HEPHAESTUS - IDK if he talked and helped Leo and said he "watches all his children". He did not help any other of his kids like that, no good father EVER employs even a SMIGE of favoritism. You can watch your kids all you want, if you continue to ignore them, use them as cannon fodder, and actively benefit from the system killing them that makes you a weird stalker at best. But most certainly not a good father OR person. HERMES - I have never seen someone fumble the bag so hard like??? Honestly he deserve a TROPHY for being able to mess up so incredibily much with Luke and May 💀 At this point you can really only describe the guy as inept. He for real just left his innocent newborn son with a woman he KNEW was insane completely alone for no reason??? AND THEN BLAMED LUKE FOR LEAVING HIS MOM/NOT LIKING HER????? Listen idk if he "couldn't have interfered without making it worse" and if it was against some ancient law. Poseidon interferes with Percy a BUNCH even when he was under a prophecy for multiple of his quests and everything turned out fine. Hermes loved Luke, unfortunately he just had a room-temperature IQ. He is also a neglectful parent who uses his kids as cannon fodder- he couldn't care less about any other child of his not named "Luke Castellan". Favoritism still ain't cool my man DIONYSUS - May genuinly care about his kids and all, but he still basically trains up a demigod child army and uses them as cannon fodder. Helps to uphold the system. Litteraly shoves his job at camp off to the kids while being a straight up asshole- no wonder did so many kids turn when HE was their one and only example for a god. EXTRA INFO

I think that "helps to uphold an unjust system" and "actively benifits from a system that uses kids as cannon fodder with no regards for them" honestly applies to EVERY god with exception of Hestia and the minor gods who joined the TA. They are also all dictators to some degree- remember everybody: A NICE DICTATOR IS STILL A DICTATOR. IF THEY WERE A GOOD PERSON THEY WOULDN'T BE A DICTATOR! I hate the gods for real. Although personally in terms of hate everyone get's an equal amount, but Artemis creeps me out the MOST. (Can I get a restraining order against a goddess?)

[pspkisser]

⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

[goldensunset]

as with any thing i’m obsessed with i often daydream about what i personally would do if i got the chance to remake pla and make any changes i wanted

some things include:

•better graphics of course and like just bigger areas obv

•*gestures to both of volo’s designs* Something ahout those! lol

•also i’d remove his evil laughter at the celestica ruins lol. don’t give it away boy!!!!!! or at least turn it into a simple, moderately off putting chuckle

•make a Bad Ending cutscene for if you lose to volo. or at the very least a cut to black and a concerning sound effect of some sort and a game over

•otherwise i really can’t think of how i’d top his fight lol it was soooo good

•i would. change his dialogue right beforehand to make it a little more natural and logical. maybe even have him intimidatingly approach you as if he were trying to grab the plates from you until your lead pokémon jumps out to protect you. ik it would never happen like that in this series but like please it would be so good

•this is a big one- i’d make it so you really aren’t allowed to access any base camps in the wilds during the red sky exile sequence. giving you access to most things you had in jubilife anyway, plus you being allowed underneath the banner of the galaxy team, kinda cheapened it. me personally i will always choose not to use those during that part and only do things at cogita’s place. it would be suuuuper cool if like the guys at the camps like threatened you if you tried to approach!

•i think all wild pokémon should’ve taken on an aggressive nature during the red sky part. or more alphas. or like in my fantasy if you make one of them angry you start getting Chased all the way across the map, baby!!! like you’ve got a horde going after you! like it’s actively terrifying. either that or everyone gets a timid disposition because Nature is being Abnormal and they’re scared. k but like imagine the strange lightning suddenly coming down around you at random and striking random pokémon around you and they go insane. you never know when it’s gonna happen. watch out for that level 3 bidoof man!!!

•would’ve made the frenzied nobles a lil more Frenzied outside their battles. i’d love to be just wandering around the map and see them in the distance, visibly aggressively stomping around, and oh no is that thing coming this way? oh it better not be— like i want that thang to be Violent

•i know voice acting is never going to happen bc of being able to name your character etc and i get it but also like they could do it persona style right??? change the spoken dialogue ever so slightly from the text to be more generic and just use pronouns and such. listen we deserve to hear volo go insane

•find a way to fit the distortion world into the plot. no listen i don’t care how but just do it

•also make the stone portal a whole cave system like in the original gen 4! we deserve a dramatic ascent up the mountain. with!!! the mount coronet theme playing the whole time!!!!!

•i would’ve liked to battle volo more often throughout the story! but in a casual way such as not to build up suspicion for him or anything

•just uhhh. have the overworld music play more often and get interrupted by less stuff lol. also if at all possible do it sv style and have different battle tracks for each area that don’t break the immersion. no but like i know they’ve gotta be loyal to the sinnoh wild encounter theme ik…

might think of more later. but like this is what the inside of my brain looks like. no hate to the game as it is of course the entire reason i have so many thoughts like this is because i love it way too much. these are my fantasies