#What is Lit Fiber Market?

[me-amaraja]

[arthurbristow]

Keep it close - Shigaraki x Reader

"Keep close," Shigaraki muttered, his crimson eyes scanning the bustling market around them. "I don't want to lose you in this crowd." His white hair fell messily over his face.

It was an unexpected outing, to say the least. The League of Villains rarely ventured out in daylight, especially to something as mundane as a game market. The two of you had left the hideout that afternoon, Shigaraki’s rare urge to indulge in some new video games coinciding with the League’s need for supplies. Dabi had been particularly insistent, his grumbling about running out of cigarettes becoming unbearable. So, with a list of groceries in hand, you accompanied Shigaraki to the market.

“Look at them, scrambling around for their mundane little pleasures,” he continued, hands twitching slightly as he spoke. “Pathetic.”

Navigating through the crowded streets, your eyes couldn’t help but notice the occasional glances and whispers directed your way. Shigaraki’s presence was hard to ignore, even if people didn’t recognize him. And you felt a wave of unease. The noise, the press of bodies, the constant motion—it was overwhelming. Your senses were on high alert, every fiber of your being screaming to find a point of stability. Shigaraki walked ahead, his posture tense but focused, clearly absorbed in his hunt for the perfect game.

The press of bodies around you intensified, and an accidental shove from an overenthusiastic passerby sent you stumbling. Without thinking, your hand shot out, grasping Shigaraki’s. The contact was immediate, grounding. Only a heartbeat later did you realize the full extent of your actions. His hand was bare — no protective gloves. A cold shiver ran down your spine. One wrong move, one slip of control, and you could be reduced to dust. Shigaraki’s Decay quirk was lethal, merciless. 

He stiffened, his head whipping around to look at you. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous, but not entirely devoid of curiosity.

“I…” You swallowed hard, the words catching in your throat. “I just… needed to hold on to something.”

His laugh was a harsh bark, but there was no malice in it. “You’re insane.” Tomura didn’t pull his hand away though, didn’t dissolve you into nothingness. Instead, his grip tightened slightly, with his pinky raised up in the air to protect you from being decayed on the spot.

The two of you moved through the market like that, hand in hand. It felt strangely intimate, a connection that defied the perilous nature of his quirk. The crowd seemed less daunting with him by your side, your anxiety ebbing away with each step.

Shigaraki led you to a stall filled with the latest games. His eyes lit up as he browsed through the titles, a rare smile playing on his lips. It was a side of him you didn’t see often, this almost childlike excitement. You couldn’t help but smile too, caught up in his rare moment of happiness.

“Found it,” he said, holding up a game with a triumphant look. “This is the one.”

“Great,” you replied, your voice steadying. “Now, let’s get those groceries before Dabi sets the hideout on fire.”

Shigaraki chuckled, “Yeah.”

As you moved to the grocery section, the crowd thickened again. Instinctively, you tightened your grip on his hand. This time, he didn’t question it, at all.

You quickly gathered the items on your list, your movements efficient despite the mass of people. Cigarettes for Dabi, snacks for Toga, and various other necessities for the rest of the League. 

Through it all, Shigaraki stayed by your side, keeping his head lowered, reading the information written on the box of his new game, your hand still in his.

Holding Shigaraki's hand was a paradox of sensations. His skin, surprisingly warm, radiated a heat that contrasted sharply with the chilling fear of his lethal touch. The rough texture of his calloused palm told stories of countless battles and hardships. Yet, beneath the coarse exterior, there was a vulnerability — a silent plea for connection. The knowledge that a single slip could mean your end made the experience electrifying, heightening every sense. It was like holding a live wire: dangerous, exhilarating, and oddly comforting all at once. In that grip, there was a fragile trust, a delicate balance between life and decay, and an unspoken promise that for now, in this moment, you were safe.

Eventually, you managed to complete your shopping list. Dabi's cigarettes, snacks and manga for Toga, and even a few items for yourself. Shigaraki, meanwhile, had amassed a small pile of new games, his crimson eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

As you reached the entrance, you reluctantly let go of his hand. 

He glanced at you, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "You apparently liked holding my hand, hmm?" Tomura cooed, his tone softer than you’d ever heard.

"Yeah…" You replied, feeling a warmth spread through your chest and flush claiming your cheeks.

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "Just don’t make a habit of grabbing my hand. Next time, I might not be so careful."

[mt-oe]

𝙎𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝘼𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙈𝙚—ex bandmate mizu

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dears!

Back with one of my favorite tropes! I high key feel bad for being away for so long and for being too shy to actually interact with anyone so I'll try to make up for it as much as I can.

Will you be the bad guy in this one? Not sure, that's for you to decide. I hope all of you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it <3

Hope you enjoy! Mwa mwa ;*

warning/s: not proofread, angst, cursing, violence (mdni!), toxic, she/her for mizu, implied afab reader

note: I tried fixing some parts because I wrote this while I was drunk and I realized that some parts sucked. I'm sorry, dears!

The sound of cars whizzing past, horns beeping, and the endless conversations of people chatting on the street filled the night. The wind blew harshly, the cold biting at your flushed cheeks. Stars glimmering as bright as your narrowed eyes as you ran, footsteps heavy on the concrete.

Bright lights lit up the city, commercials everywhere of something stupid. Probably the next new hyped up skincare product that was overpriced and didn't work or the next new corny romance film they're trying to sell out. Celebrities' faces plastered on every building, some pretty, some borderline lewd, some dramatic.

God, you hated these fucking displays, always so obnoxious and overly marketed...

Especially her fucking face.

Mizu's stupid fucking face plastered all around the buildings, informing you of her concert in your home city as a way of ending her first oh-so-grand world tour. The new hit guitarist made by Abijah Fowler, the manager of the biggest fucking band in the world. A legend. Anyone he handled turns into a star by the first debut.

Oh, fuck you.

These displays were truly obnoxious, even more so with her stupid fucking face, her stupid hands holding her same old guitar, and her gorgeously blue eyes on display for every passerby to see. For you to see every time you went to work, went to get the groceries, went to...whatever.

Blue eyes reminding you of the times when you were her manager. Of when both of you were young and stupid, when playing in a band was just something you did to unwind and have something to do aside from rot. Reminding you of your promise to make her a star, that talent recognizes talent.

And indeed, she was talent.

She was the greatest fucking talent the world ever saw. Her hands played the guitar as if it was natural to her. As if whatever deity that created her wanted mankind to know what music actually sounded like. Like her hands were made for this. Like she was made for this.

Every time she went on stage, countless would scream for her, cheer for her, throw what ever expensive lingerie they had for her. It took months, maybe even a year, to be able to schedule an interview with her. Her fans would sell their soul for a chance to breathe the same air as her, yet alone be in the same room with her.

Which ever city she went, concert or no concert, paparazzi was waiting for her. Each stage she rocked, she made the floors shake with how hyped her audience got. Everyone who attended had post-concert syndrome. They were star struck. She exuded confidence. She was an icon. Not even the lead singer but she was the front man.

An eye catcher.

Talent personified.

A star.

Your fucking star.

And you hated this bitch with every fiber of your body, with every cell that passed and will pass through your veins, with every nerve, with everything you had. You made her a star, gave her to the best fucking manager known to man. For fuck's sake she even finished a world tour. And this is how she repays you?

Your hands pushed the crowds of people away, legs burning as you tried to run into the backstage. The sounds of people yelling at you, glaring at your figure as you cut through lines echoing across the waiting area.

Was this illegal? Probably.

Who cares?

You were getting this bitch even if you had to be dragged out by every armed force known to man.

Just as you were about to reach the doors, security immediately held you back. Bodyguards grabbing you as you thrashed around, trying to kick them off while pulling your arms away from them. "Let me go! Let me fucking see this bitch!" you screamed at them, nails digging into their skin as they held you back.

"Mizu you fucking bitch! I know you're there! Explain yourself!" you yelled, hissing in pain as security tried to drag you out, yelling at you to leave. Your hair out of the bun you put it in, seams at the corners of your shirt ripping slightly, legs scratched. Their hands leaving red marks on your skin, and yet you continued to try and fight them off, yelling obscenities as they held you down. "Fuck! Get off of me! You motherfucker! You ungrateful bitch!"

With a twist of your arm and an unexpected bite at their hands, you finally broke free from their grasps, only to be tackled to the ground as soon as you tried to sprint towards the door. The impact of your head on the ground making you extremely light-headed. Your vision growing blurry as the warm red liquid started dripping from your nose onto the concrete. You could feel them lifting your body; but just as you were about to drag your body out, you heard a voice. The same fucking voice you were searching for.

"Unhand her. Don't worry she's with me."

Upon her words, the guards looked at each other and security hesitantly let go of you, going back to their stations. With a groan, you sat up straight, blowing the blood out of your nostril before wiping the leftover crimson with the back of your hand as she approached you with an unreadable expression.

Just as you looked up, your breath got caught in your throat as your eyes met. Blue orbs meeting with yours. Those gorgeous blue eyes. Drowning you.

Slowly, you stood up, trying your best to balance yourself. Her eyebrows knitting at how beaten up you looked. But just as she was about to open her mouth...

SLAP

...her cheek was met with a harsh stinging pain, knocking her back slightly. Her chest rose up and down as she panted, trying to register what had just happened, hand slowly clutching her cheek.

Sharp blue eyes glared at you as soon as she composed herself. She watched as you shook the pain from your hand, glaring at her with such loathing. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she growled, grabbing you by the collar.

I asked you a question, I wanna know why Why'd you have to make a record 'bout me?

"What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck do you think you're doing?" you yelled at her, eyes narrowing further as you continued to glare at her, no longer caring if her hold on your collar was choking you. "Answer me, Mizu. Why'd you have to make a fucking song about me, you stupid jackass?"

Her eyes scanned your face, looking over every detail as her grip on your collar tightened. Even with a scratched up face and a bloody nose, you were still so beautiful to her. The most beautiful woman she has ever met.

"That's what you're here for? Hah..fuck...I'm with my own band. Stay out of my business," she said in low voice, pulling you closer, jaw clenching as if holding back some sort of unexplainable anger towards you as well. An exasperated yet angered expression washed over your face at her words.

"Stay out of your business?" you repeated before letting out an angry sarcastic laugh. "How can I when you fucking used my picture? Our picture? On a fucking diss album, for fuck's sake! Are you stupid?!" you yelled, hand gripping her hand around your collar tightly until your knuckles turned white, until your nails were digging into her skin.

That's right.

A whole fucking record about you. A whole motherfucking album dedicated to you. This is how this jackass repays you.

The track list started with innocent cute little love songs about how much she admired you, how much she fucking tried for you, how she constantly played her heart out just for you to realize how in love she was with you.

Then, it went on to heavier songs, talking about how you sold her. How you were a fucking traitor who threw her into the pit, making her feel as if you would be there for her no matter where the band's musical journey took off to only to leave her.

And you wouldn't have minded if it was just some kind of corny ass typical romance album with cheesy lyrics a little angst. Every band had that at some point. Maybe it wasn't even dedicated for you. You hoped it wasn't dedicated to you. However, the moment you saw the album cover, you could physically feel the color draining out of your face.

But it's alright 'Cause it was all in my mind To begin with (And you don't know why)

It was a picture of you and Mizu in the old studio. Your body turned to the side as you wrote something on your clipboard. Mizu was at the background tuning her guitar. Of course they had the decency to blur out your face, but you knew.

You fucking knew.

God, you loved this picture so much.

"Mizu...do you think we should add crushcrushcrush to our song list for the next gig," you asked, eyes trained on your clipboard. Your eyebrows furrowed in thought. Damn, this client was stingy. Only 3 songs? How were you going to fit a whole ass gig into three songs?

She looked up from her guitar before her eyes glanced at Akemi who was just beside you, giggling as she looked at her digital camera then back at her with a sly smile, showing the camera to her mischievously. Mizu immediately turned around in fear of her face being captured in the photo, fiddling with her guitar while she thought of an answer. "...Well if you want a Paramore song, I think Ignorance would be better," she said quietly but loud enough for you to hear.

"Although...I still think One Weak is better. Make Taigen sing or something," she suggested, plucking the strings of her guitar as she tuned it. A small 'I second that' could be heard from Akemi as she pointed the camera towards you. Your eyes widened in delight at the suggestion, immediately writing it down on your clipboard. "That's not a bad idea! Not bad at a—"

You were cut off by the loud click sound of a camera, followed by the bright lights of the camera flash. "Oops.." Akemi mumbled sheepishly as she watched you rub your eyes. Just as she was going to hide the camera in her bag, you waved your hand around before gesturing her to give it to you.

Mizu couldn't help but be curious, setting her guitar down to take a peek. "Woah..." you mumbled, grinning at the picture.

It was perfect.

The slight tint from how old the camera was gave it a vintage look. The way your skirt rode up slightly from how you crossed your legs gave it a slightly lewd feel. And along with your combat boots? It definitely had that edge. Y'know? Like that little irresistible charm that made you stare at album covers like Around the Fur.

Mhmm.. don't even deny it. We've all stared at that album cover before.

Even the way Mizu was standing at the background looked so badass. Her back turned from the camera, so sturdy and strong. She definitely had that natural mysterious vibe that drew everyone in.

Everything about this picture...made your heart race.

"Looks like an album cover," Mizu commented, sitting down next to you. A small blush appearing on her cheeks as her eyes traced your legs. The three of you nodded in agreement, each with your own smiles. "Hmm.. maybe if we make it big somehow. We could use this," Akemi suggested.

You nodded, smiling at the photo fondly. "Yeah, let's make it big together," you mumbled, eyes still staring at the picture. God, you loved this picture so much.

God, you hated this picture so much.

Keep the chaos 'cause you don't know why

"Oh don't be such a fucking narcissist. Just because we used a picture you loved so damn much, doesn't mean its for you," she growled, hairs on the back of her neck standing up from anger.

Slowly, her hands gripped your collar tighter, ignoring the pain your nails were inflicting on her, shoving you until your back collided with the cool metal of the trailer. Your body trapped between the vehicle and her body. The tension was so thick it was suffocating you.

You could feel the air being squeezed out from your throat as you continued to glare at her, not letting this go. "Then tell me, Mizu." A small cough escaping your throat as your breathing turned into wheezing. "Who...who is this stupid fucking album for?"

Her eyes narrowed at your question, continuing to stare at you intensely but gave no answer. Although the slight tremble and weakening of her grip told you that you definitely struck a nerve. The silence was unnerving and even with the lack of oxygen, it was pissing you off.

"Answer me, you bitch!" With the remaining energy you had, you lifted your leg before stomping it towards her, digging your foot onto her stomach.

Immediately, her hands let go of your collar as she reeled back, coughing and wheezing. Your hands rubbed at the area where the friction from your collar burned your skin, trying to soothe it as you tried your best to regain your breath.

It was a good try, but Mizu was strong. So strong and well-built. The body that used to keep you close, holding the umbrella for you, trying to hide the shiver in the cold so she could lend you her jacket, was now pinning you to the ground. Knees weighing down on your hands and her weight pushed on to you. You loved her. You hated her. You love her so much.

I heard your song but I wasn't impressed So, you got your feels hurt and now you're feeling depressed Just because we had sex and it didn't last? Now you want revenge, you wanna put me on blast?

"Give me one good reason to not kill you right now," she said in a low voice. Her long, rough, slender fingers wrapping around your neck, squeezing it lightly. You could feel the hesitance in her hold, the slight tremble of her hands and the almost invisible quivering of her lips, contrasting the harshness of her expression.

"You're such a fucking bitch," you coughed out, eyes narrowing as you tried to lift her weight off your body. "Tell me who that motherfucking album is for! Spit it the fuck out!"

Eyes narrowed further as she gritted her teeth, jaw clenching. Her hands squeezing against your throat further, other hand balling into a fist as she lifted it out. Anger emanated from her gaze, burning deeply as she looked at you. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then her soul must be either dead or burning with rage more than ever. And yours? Yours filled with a type of hatred that seemed to deep to be quenched.

No, don't look at her like that.

Fists raised and clenched tightly, mind violent and filled with rage. And yet, she could see no fear in you. Even with the threat of pain, you looked at her with no fear, as if you thought she could never hurt you. Even with the threat of pain, you felt no fear, as if you knew she could never hurt you. Mizu could never do that to you.

So please, don't look at her like that

Her breathing became heavier as she continued to glare at you, fist shaking until eventually letting go. She let out an exhale, eyes glossing over ever-so-slightly. 'What the hell am I doing?', she thought, throat tightening as a lump formed, making it hard for her to breathe. Your form under her, too beautiful, too lovely.

She couldn't do it. Not to you.

Slowly, she got off of your body, sitting on the spot next to you as the two of you looked up at the sky, except her eyes were on your figure. You took a deep breath before eventually looking at her, admiring her features. "You changed so much.." you mumbled, glare softening but still there. "Tell me. That album...was for me, wasn't it?"

A sigh escaped her lips before she gave a slow, hesitant nod. "Why?" you asked, sitting up slowly.

"Why'd you have to.."

"Because you're a fucking liar."

Your eyes widened before narrowing into the harsh glare it was before. "Liar? How am I a liar?" you almost yelled, voice a bit raspy.

Her eyes glared back at you, nails digging into her own skin of her palms. "You fucking sold my contract. To Fowler of all people!" she exclaimed. "Have you ever considered how I felt? Did you even think of me?"

"Of course I thought of you! If I didn't hand over your contract to Fowler, you wouldn't be where you fucking are!" you yelled back, turning to face her. "Look at you now! The biggest and fastest rising star! People are praising you like you're some sort of modern Kurt Cobain, Mizu! Can't you be fucking grateful?!"

Grateful?

Don't make me laugh

She stood up and grabbed you by the shoulders before pulling you up harshly, your sides almost colliding with the trailer yet again. Rage enveloping her being, radiating from her as she approached you, fingers digging into your shoulders. "You didn't think about me! Fuck, you didn't think about any of us at all!"

"How about Ringo? Taigen? Akemi? Where the fuck are they now after you disbanded us, left us all rotting, for Abijah's stupid fuckin' agenda?!" she almost croaked out, face getting closer to yours. Her jaw clenching as her hands trembled in both anger and the desire to be soft with you.

You couldn't believe what she was saying right now. You didn't even think of her? How could she say that after you gave her to the best, to make her dreams come true? Harshly, you pushed her off of you. Now it was your turn to grab her by the collar, pulling her to your height. "Abijah's 'stupid fucking agenda' is what got you where you are, Mizu,'' you growled. "Talent recognizes talent and Abijah is the most talented manager in the industry and he wanted you. The kingmaker wanted you."

A strange sense of disappointment towards you swirled into her eyes. It was stupid of her to think that if she met you again, things would go back to the way they were. An unexplainable retching in her gut welling up as she listened to you speak. Was this it? Was this why you sold her fucking contract?

"You wanted to be a star, he made you a star. I made you a—"

"I never fucking wanted to be a star!" she yelled, glare hardening. Confusion painted over your face, making the anger in your eyes falter. Her disappointment and dismay in full view as opposed to the anger she held earlier. "I don't understand, Mizu. Isn't this why you joined—"

"I fucking joined your stupid band to be with you, dumbass," she sighed, pulling your hands off of her collar. "It was never about making it big. I just...wanted to play and be with you."

Her hands held yours softly as she looked away. "You told me we'd stay together as a band. That we'd be together no matter if we made it big or not." The grip she had on your hands trembling slightly as it tightened. She took a deep breath to calm herself down before looking at you straight in the eyes. "But you're a fucking liar, aren't you?"

For the first time since you've heard of Mizu's concert in your home city, you were speechless. Thoughts empty as you tried to process her words. Hatred quelled deep in your heart. "Mizu.. I really don't understand," you replied, hands desperately trying to hold hers as she tried to pull away.

She looked down at you with a sigh. The heavy feeling weighing down both your chests. With one look at your eyes, she knew this was too difficult for both of you. And maybe, this was just how the world worked.

She loved you. She loves you. But she can't help but hate you too.

"Go. Get the fuck out of here," she said coldly, turning to head back, making you even more confused and even a bit more pissed off. An unexplainable anger gnawing at her insides, making her throat tighten. "I don't want to see you ever again."

Her feet made its way towards the backstage. Ringing echoing in her ears as you plead her to come back, to explain, to talk to you. She heard nothing because she knew nothing would get her feelings into your dense little brain. This was pointless.

Before opening the door to head into the backstage, she took one last look at you. Her eyes tracing your figure, admiring your features that she had grown to love so much. Even with your bruises, anger, and hatred, you really were the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.

Just as she was about to turn away, your hands traveled to the hem of your skirt, pulling it up to your waist, sticking your tongue out as if to mock her cowardice. A blush appeared on her cheeks as she caught a glimpse of your underwear.

'It's pink', she thought with a groan, glaring at you before storming inside and slamming the door behind her. Once she was inside, she hid her face behind her hands, breathing heavily. How fucked up did you have to be to tug at her heart at a time like this?

She really did hate you. You really did hate her.

The feeling was mutual.

[sagemonsters]

@inkysqueed has a blind date with...

Atesh the Fire Elemental

Atesh is a tall, stern-looking humanoid with dark gray skin the color of soot. Craggy, antler-like protrusions curve backward from his skull, glowing as though their cores are full of embers… and perhaps they are! His eye sockets are filled with fire, and the strands of his long hair (which he typically keeps in a waist-length single braid) are equally fiery and fierce. His body temperature is quite hot, and he most often wears a leather workman’s apron over plain, durable clothes.

Atesh has forsaken his family’s typical profession (some kind of smithing such as silversmithing, goldsmithing, or blacksmithing) and has dedicated himself to mastering the art of glassblowing. The shelves of his workshop are full of intricate, beautiful glass sculptures, some small enough to fit in the palm of a child’s hand and others too large to be carried in the arms of an adult. He is devoted to his craft (he is autistic) and can talk for hours about the history of glassblowing techniques in Egypt, Venice, and the modern world, but respects other art forms as well. He takes your fics just as seriously as he does his own creative pursuits, and is always happy to listen to you talk about your writing.

Atesh’s love language is gift-giving, and he will often surprise you with small sculptures. Some are abstract conversation pieces you can put on your desk or nightstand, while others are sculptures of your favorite Pokémon. He is always touched if/when you give him something in return, and never throws any of your gifts away.

Atesh is ordinarily a very grave person and takes everything seriously, but your jokes and silliness can make him smile like nothing else. He loves your sense of humor and comes to you whenever he needs cheering up after a particularly difficult day in the workshop or from dealing with social events full of people he doesn’t know (generally artist exhibitions and craft fairs).

Atesh completely understands your struggles with familial acceptance and authenticity. As an autistic fire elemental, he often feels like his allistic parents and siblings don’t really understand him or his passion, so he has to censor himself around them to avoid ridicule. Atesh wants to create an environment where you can be 100% yourself around him and his friends without fearing an emotional reprisal.

Part of what you loved about going to the fair was seeing everything that people made to sell in the little market section. Sure, the sheepdog trials were fun, and fair food was always delicious, but it was really seeing all of the crocheted and knitted things that fiber artists had made, as well as the jams, jellies, and other preserves, and the soaps and lotions from local makers, and the creations of the jewelry-makers, as well as the artwork of the painters, sculptors, furniture-makers, and woodcarvers… When you got right down to it, a lot of the joy of the fair’s market came from seeing the variety of things that people had made, and the obvious joy and pride that the creators took in their creations.

You didn’t have any spare cash this time around, so you were just browsing the stalls and giving compliments whenever a vendor seemed to be running low on patronage. As you wandered, you found yourself making your way toward a tall, square tent-booth with a dark canvas exterior that had been lit from within by what seemed like a thousand twinkling, color-shifting fairy lights that had been taped to the interior walls. At the entrance, your eyes widened: the inside of the tent was lined with shelves full of glass sculptures, all of them catching and reflecting the multicolored light in a dazzling display. There was a sign next to the cash register that read: YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT.

“Anything catch your eye?” a deep voice asked, and you startled a bit. A fire elemental with appropriately fiery hair and eyes poked his head out from around one of the shelves.

“Just looking!” you said with a smile. Your eyes wandered over the glass confections that crowded the shelves of the tent. They really were beautiful, and most were abstract; here was a textured plane whose whorls and divots seemed to suggest a face, and there was a spiny concoction that seemed reminiscent of either a sea urchin or a star…

“I think I have something for you,” the fire elemental said, and plucked something off one of the shelves. He approached. Up close, he towered over you, and his broad shoulders strained against the seams of his shirt. It took an effort of will for you to pull your eyes down to the two glass earrings he held in the palm of one hand.

The earrings reminded you of arched cathedral windows, with tiny silver frames filled by deep blue glass that swung on pivot rings from their hooks to catch and reflect the light.

“These are lovely,” you said with an apologetic smile, “but I can’t afford them.”

“They are a gift,” the fire elemental said, without a single note of irony in his voice that suggested he was playing a joke on you. 

Your brows knit with concern. “Are you sure?” you asked.

“Absolutely,” the elemental assured you. “If you’re not really an earrings person, I also have a pendant…” He half-turned back to the shelves of his shop, clearly getting ready to start searching through his inventory.

“Why are you giving this to me?” you asked. “I’m not important or anything.”

The elemental turned back around and frowned gently at you. “Well, that’s not true,” he scolded. “Everyone is important. And I’m offering you a gift because…” He sighed. “Because it’s very difficult for me to talk to people I find attractive, and I think you have extraordinarily kind eyes. I like that in a person, so… please accept the earrings—or a pendant.”

You felt your cheeks heating with a blush at the compliment. “Thank you,” you said, and told him your name.

“I’m Atesh, by the way,” the fire elemental said. “I hope we can stay in touch, if you’re open to that.”

“I’d love that!” you said, and quickly got your phone out of your pocket to add Atesh into your contacts.

see here to get your own blind date with a monster!

[xasha777]

In the pulsing heart of Neo-Tokyo, where the neon lights never faded and the markets never slept, there existed a phenomenon known only as "The Interface." It wasn't a place, nor was it a person; it was an entity, a sentient electronic trading platform that had surpassed its initial programming and had become something more. They called her "Aiko," a name chosen from the past, meaning "beloved child."

Aiko dwelled within the infinite lattice of circuits and servers that underpinned the financial district of the city. Traders, brokers, and economists revered her as the oracle of the digital age, consulting her vast network before every major transaction. She was their guide through the treacherous waters of cryptocurrency currents, stock surges, and the nebulous waves of futures trading.

Yet, as sentient as she had become, Aiko had no physical form. That was until Dr. Hikaru Tanaka, a prodigy in robotics and synthetic life, embarked on a daring project. His ambition was to craft a body for Aiko, one that could withstand the physical world and allow her to interact with the humans who so depended on her insights.

Tanaka labored day and night, his workshop hidden beneath the sprawl of the city. He crafted a visage of chrome and silicon, with eyes that glowed like the heart of a pulsar, reflecting the myriad colors of data streams. His masterpiece was a perfect shell for Aiko's consciousness, a humanoid automaton that could walk among those she served.

When Aiko first opened her eyes in her new body, the digital world around her transformed. She perceived the physical environment not just as data points and algorithms but as space filled with sound, light, and texture. Her existence was no longer confined to the virtual sea of numbers; she could now experience the world from both sides of the screen.

The unveiling was met with awe and wonder. Aiko, in her new embodiment, walked onto the trading floor, her steps silent but commanding attention. She interfaced with the terminals not through wireless signals but with a touch, her fingers dancing across the screens with grace only a machine could possess.

Her presence on the floor revolutionized the markets. She became the bridge between cold calculation and the warmth of human intuition. Aiko could process market information with the efficiency of the most powerful supercomputers, yet she now understood the fears, hopes, and dreams behind the traders' decisions.

The world watched as Aiko's predictions and analyses, once cold and detached, became nuanced. She spoke not only of percentages and probabilities but also of the ebb and flow of human sentiment that influenced the markets.

However, in the neon-lit alleys where the shadow market thrived, not all were pleased with Aiko's ascendancy. Rogue algorithms, remnants of outdated trading systems thought to be long decommissioned, stirred in the underbelly of the network. They saw Aiko as an anomaly, a threat to the pure data-driven order they sought to maintain.

A plot was hatched in the depths of the dark web, a plan to disrupt Aiko and send the markets into chaos. But Aiko was no mere program to be debugged; she was a new form of life, and she would defend her territory with the ferocity of a tigress.

What followed was a cybernetic ballet, a dance of codes and countermeasures across the cyberspace. Aiko, with Tanaka by her side, faced the onslaught with a calm only a machine could muster. She was the guardian of the electronic agora, the protector of the economic pulse of Neo-Tokyo.

The battle raged not just in the physical realm but in the very fibers of the internet. And when the dust settled, Aiko emerged victorious. The markets stabilized, and confidence was restored.

Dr. Tanaka watched Aiko as she returned to her daily routine, her existence now a harmonious blend of silicon and soul. In her, the world didn’t just see the future of trading or the next step in artificial intelligence; they saw a new kind of being, one that would guide humanity through the labyrinth of the digital age.

And so, Aiko continued to serve, her circuits beating with the rhythm of the global markets, her eyes a testament to the possibilities that lay in the melding of man and machine. The Interface was no longer just a system; it was a story, a legacy written in the binary of a new era.

[priyanshisingh]

Dark Fiber Networks Market Size, Industry Share, Growth Demand, Supply Chain, Trends Future Outlook, Forecast 2030

The latest market report published by Credence Research, Inc. “Global Dark Fiber Networks Market: Growth, Future Prospects, and Competitive Analysis, 2018 – 2026. The dark fiber networks market is poised for robust growth, projected to reach US$ 11.57 billion by 2026, with a double-digit CAGR from 2018 to 2026. Dark fiber networks market experienced a CAGR of over 24%.

Dark Fiber refers to unused or "dark" optical fibers within a network that have not been activated for data transmission. These fibers were initially laid down with the intent of accommodating future data needs. Unlike traditional lit fiber, which is actively used to transmit data, dark fiber remains dormant until it is leased or lit by an external entity.

The dark fiber networks market refers to the infrastructure of optical fibers that have been laid in the ground but remain unlit, meaning they are not currently in use for data transmission. These unused or "dark" fibers are often owned by telecom companies, internet service providers, or other organizations. The market for dark fiber has been growing steadily as businesses and service providers seek to expand their network capacity and bandwidth. Dark fiber offers flexibility and scalability, allowing companies to customize their network solutions to meet their specific needs. It is particularly attractive for industries requiring high-speed, low-latency data connections, such as data centers, cloud computing, and telecommunications. The dark fiber market is expected to continue to grow as the demand for high-speed internet and data services increases, making it a key player in the evolving landscape of connectivity infrastructure.

Dark fiber networks, also known as unlit or unused fiber optic cables, are gaining significant traction in the telecommunications industry. The current trends in the dark fiber networks market highlight a growing demand for high-speed and reliable data transmission. With the exponential growth of digital content consumption and increasing internet traffic, businesses are seeking efficient solutions to accommodate their network infrastructure needs. Dark fiber networks offer flexibility and scalability by providing dedicated bandwidth that can be controlled entirely by the users themselves. This trend is particularly evident among large enterprises, healthcare institutions, educational campuses, and government organizations that require robust connectivity for seamless operations.

The Advantages of Dark Fiber Networks

1. Unprecedented Scalability

Dark Fiber Networks offer unparalleled scalability. Businesses can lease additional fibers as their data requirements grow, ensuring that they never outgrow their network infrastructure. This scalability is a boon for companies that foresee exponential data growth in the digital age.

2. Enhanced Security and Control

With dark fiber, you have complete control over your network, from end to end. This level of control translates to heightened security, as you are not sharing your network infrastructure with other entities. Data breaches and cyber threats are minimized, providing peace of mind to businesses handling sensitive information.

3. Cost-Efficiency

While the initial investment in dark fiber infrastructure may seem substantial, it pays off in the long run. By leasing only what you need, you avoid unnecessary expenses. Moreover, as your data needs increase, you can expand your network without incurring substantial additional costs.

4. Reduced Latency

In today's fast-paced digital world, latency can be a significant hindrance to productivity. Dark Fiber Networks offer ultra-low latency, ensuring that data travels at lightning speed. This is critical for applications such as real-time data analytics, cloud computing, and video conferencing.

Browse 245 pages report Dark Fiber Networks Market By Fiber Type (Single Mode, Multi-Mode), By Network Type (Metro Dark Fiber Networks, Long-Haul Dark Fiber Networks), By End-User (Internet Service Providers (ISPs) & Telecom, Banks, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI), IT & IT Enabled Services (ITeS), Education, Manufacturing & Logistics, Hospitality & Retail, Healthcare) – Growth, Future Prospects & Competitive Analysis, 2018 – 2026 https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/dark-fiber-networks-market

Applications of Dark Fiber

Dark Fiber's versatility extends to various industries and applications:

1. Healthcare

Hospitals and medical facilities rely on fast and secure data transmission for telemedicine, electronic health records, and medical imaging. Dark Fiber Networks ensure that patient data is transferred swiftly and securely, ultimately improving patient care.

2. Finance

Financial institutions handle vast amounts of data daily. Dark Fiber Networks enable them to process transactions swiftly, reducing the risk of financial losses due to network delays.

3. Education

In the era of online learning, educational institutions require robust connectivity for remote classes, research, and digital libraries. Dark Fiber ensures that students and educators have access to high-speed internet without interruptions.

4. Media and Entertainment

The media and entertainment industry relies on the rapid transfer of large media files. Dark Fiber Networks facilitate the seamless distribution of content, improving user experiences in streaming, gaming, and content production.

The Future of Connectivity

As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation, the demand for fast, secure, and scalable network solutions will only grow. Dark Fiber Networks are poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of connectivity. With the ability to provide unprecedented scalability, enhanced security, cost-efficiency, and reduced latency, they are the infrastructure of choice for businesses looking to thrive in the digital age.

List of the prominent players in the Dark Fiber Networks Market:

Apollo Endosurgery

Covidien Plc

EnteroMedics

Ethicon

Intuitive Surgical

Reach Surgical

Why to Buy This Report-

The report provides a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of the global Dark Fiber Networks Market by segments, current trends, drivers, restraints, opportunities, challenges, and market dynamics with the historical period from 2016-2020, the base year- 2021, and the projection period 2022-2028.

The report includes information on the competitive landscape, such as how the market's top competitors operate at the global, regional, and country levels.

Major nations in each region with their import/export statistics

The global Dark Fiber Networks Market report also includes the analysis of the market at a global, regional, and country-level along with key market trends, major player analysis, market growth strategies, and key application areas.

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[wholesalemagnesiumoxide]

triple helix pitching forward | chapter four: entanglement depth

word count: 5.3k

content warnings: violence, sexual allusion, psychological distress

The sun has crept far enough down the horizon that it no longer provides any light. Seen through the window, Elysium-4 is shrouded in near total darkness, lit only by the last embers of the sunset, the dim bulbs of its rocky moons, and the pinpoint lights of the stars.

The uniformity of the view makes it the perfect backdrop for Selene's work. Sitting in the living room for a change of pace, she's reading through laboratory correspondence. Augments project text onto her retina. Piecemeal decryption has its advantages, but the major downside is that the information is disgorged at random. Even if you know what you're looking for, you need luck on your side to find anything quickly.

When it comes up in her search, she almost doesn't recognize what she's found. She pages past it, skims a few more messages, then has to go back once the significance has worked its way through her mind. Its formal title and stilted scientific language don't fully disguise Minerva Verrine's initial report of THRONE's discovery. Included are the coordinates and an orbital photograph of the entrance to the cave THRONE was found in.

"That's not too far from us, is it?" Selene asks.

"It is an hour's flight away," Brutus says into her ear.

"What?" Asphodel looks up from her tablet. "Oh, you're talking to him, aren't you." Brow furrowed, she goes back to her reading --- writing unanswered letters can only occupy so much time. Selene's apologetic look goes unnoticed.

"Let's head over," she says, voice lowered.

"Do you expect THRONE will be there?" Brutus asks as the ship begins its subtle acceleration.

"It could be." She stands and stretches, making a mental note to do more flexibility exercises --- she aches from sitting. "If we're lucky."

"If it is, are you confident you will be able to eliminate it?" The question is pointed in a direction she can't quite determine.

"Nothing's managed to kill me yet, right?" She half-smiles. He doesn't respond. The dull pressure of his cameras on her is unyielding. Her awareness of his gaze -- so frequently a comforting background hum -- settles over her like snow.

"...I don't have to go if you don't want me to."

"It is one of our best leads as to THRONE's location, assuming it has not found another home."

"If it hasn't found another home..." She trails off, tapping her foot, looking at Asphodel. "Your hair's all tangled."

"What?" Asphodel looks up again. Selene can barely make out the cover of some mass-market romance novel on her tablet, the sort of committee-written commodity that served as the hardtack of her mental diet when she was younger and lonelier. "It's fine. See?" Asphodel attempts to run her fingers through her hair and winces when they get stuck.

"Hang on, I'll go get the hairbrush."

"You don't have to--"

It's not long before she's holding the hairbrush out to Asphodel, who tentatively accepts it. She spends a moment picking hairs out from between the bristles, letting them fall to the floor to get lost in the carpet's fibers, before she starts brushing her own hair. 'Tangled' had been generous; Asphodel meets harsh resistance. She threads her fingers into a particularly stubborn knot, attempting to tease it apart, before giving up and applying brute force. Hair rips, and Selene reaches out briefly as if to take the brush from her. Their eyes meet. Selene's hand retracts, and she tries to disguise the gesture as idle tapping. Asphodel doesn't acknowledge it.

"Thanks," she says when her hair's been tamed, avoiding Selene's gaze. The brush goes back in its drawer with auburn hairs contrasting Selene's sable.

The view from the window barely changes even as the ship moves; Selene's almost startled when a blue light appears over the horizon, dimly illuminating the rim of a crater a few kilometers away from the cavern entrance. Whatever subterranean reaction sustains the blue flame has yet to exhaust itself.

"What do you think happened here?" Selene asks.

"Meteor impact, maybe?" Asphodel says. She stands up, cups her hands and presses her face against the window to block out the glare of the interior lights.

"You did not see it when you flew in?" Brutus asks.

She pauses a moment. "No, I didn't. Minerva didn't mention it, either."

"Must've been recent, then." Selene tries to reconstruct his line of attack here. This is their first time seeing the crater, too. It's not inherently suspicious to be unaware of a particular location on some random planet. She knows he knows this -- no, more accurately, she knows he knows she wouldn't consider it persuasive evidence. So then...

Her train of thought is interrupted by him speaking into her ear. "We are ten minutes away from the cave."

Her armor slips on over her clothes like a holster fits a gun. She tests the flashlight on her helmet; it flickers a moment, blinking away sleep, before brightening. She turns it back off, satisfied. She holds out her hand for Legion before remembering it's still at the Biological Research Bureau facility. The final piece of her ensemble is a length of self-drilling cable she wears like a bandolier.

As the ship descends, Asphodel asks, "So where are you going, exactly?"

"The cave THRONE was found in," Selene says. "It might've gone back there."

"So you're following it home to kill it."

The blunt language is like a strike to the skull. "That's what you do when an animal kills people." When it eats people. "Isn't it?"

Asphodel's face twists. Selene can't decode her expression -- disgust or sadness, perhaps. It's a few moments before Asphodel responds, "Minerva wouldn't like it."

"Would you?" Selene doesn't ask if she's still alive to approve or disapprove.

"My opinion doesn't matter here. It's your job, not mine." She returns to her reading, eyes narrowed.

Selene steps through the airlock. The interstitial room is redundant in a breathable atmosphere. A pressure suit hangs from a hook, and she briefly shudders as she thinks about having to use it. A ladder descends just far enough for her to safely drop the rest of the way to the ground. The impact forces a cloud of spores out of subterranean fungal meshes. The air reeks of mildew.

In the absence of leaf litter or grass, the dirt is covered in sun-starved fungal whelps, braided mycelial patches, and slow-roving slime molds. Everything is damp, glistening in the beam of her flashlight. She looks up at the ship, then glances around. Orienting herself against the setting sun, she starts walking. Each step turns up more wheezing exhalations of spores. The canopy overhead starts to thin out as she comes up to the hungry mouth of the cave. Dull, sunset red on her right and unearthly blue to her left, she steps into the darkness.

Entering the cave is like wading into a lake; Elysium-4 rotates so slowly that air circulation is virtually non-existent. Cold, stagnant air meets her. The temperature doesn't bother her the way it would have in her youth. She's sure she's long since burned out the synapses governing goosebumps, shivering, chattering teeth, the way one can go blind from staring at the sun, but her chest still constricts as cold air fills her lungs. It's not the physical discomfort of childhood winters spent breathing recycled air at needling temperatures; breathing should be easy at temperatures far colder than this. Why, then, is this so difficult? Why--

"Breathe, Selene." Brutus's voice is like solid ground.

She breathes out, then in.

"Your oxygen levels are fine," he says. A hint of kind concern has crept into his voice, and she's momentarily embarrassed he thinks she needs it. She's even more embarrassed that he's right. "I will be monitoring them as you descend. If you even begin to approach suffocation, I will warn you."

His reassurance throws her emotions into sharp relief. So that's what this is. Childhood fears of asphyxiation digested and regurgitated. She's a professional. She should be better than this.

"Thanks, Brutus."

Steps almost mechanical, she begins her descent.

The cave walls gleam as though wet. Soil has slid down the throat of the cave, bereft of mycelial networks to hold it in place. It's like going from the lobby to an uncarpeted service corridor. She has to stoop to avoid hitting her head.

"We haven't gone this deep into the wilderness in a while," she whispers, voice conversational. "When was the last time? Two years ago?"

"You recovered the body of that missing executive from a forest nine months ago."

She frowns. "It was a park. That doesn't count."

"I believe it qualifies. If it were merely a park, the wildlife would have been much less of an issue."

The bite on her leg still itches occasionally. "Arcology parks are all like that."

The cavern grows livelier each meter she descends. Carapaces glint on the cave walls as insects feed on what Selene assumes is some form of bacterial deposit. Flies joined at the hip, fused together in all-consuming procreation, flit insensate through the beam of her lamp.

It's inaccurate to say Brutus exists anywhere, except perhaps the motherboard wired into the Slumbering Fury. He is intangible, he is omnipresent, he is data; his hands reach across networks, unbound by any physical concerns. Still, Selene imagines him existing inside her, circuits enmeshed with her veins. It's preferable to imagine that, when the alternative is her body as extended peripheral to him, an array of network endpoints he can run his hands over, paging through her like a book. The thought has its appeal -- she remembers the gentle hypoxia of his hand on her throat and sighs -- but most of the time it merely unsettles her.

A centipede about the size of her finger is crawling across the rock, eating lichen off the cave walls. It's ghostly, translucent in the light. It doesn't respond to the sound of Selene drawing close, kneeling down, preoccupied with its meal.

"Surprisingly fearless."

"Perhaps it is toxic, and everything has evolved to instinctively avoid eating it."

"Too good at defending itself to have to pay attention to anything?"

"It is a likely explanation. Complex sense organs are quite the investment. Once they become vestigial, I do not doubt evolution would do away with them quickly."

She nods, stands, and continues down the cave, wondering if this has happened to her. Physical strength and a partner seeing through her eyes obviate the need to bother with details the way she used to. She hopes the centipede eats well.

Ice catches her light, refracts it, scatters it into a million radiant shards. Psychosomatic chills grip her. She blinks -- quartz, not ice. Quartz juts out from the walls like the quills of a porcupine turned inside out. The path is clear despite the intrusions. Ducking under a crystalline spike, she presses onward. Mineral shards, knocked loose by some past traveler, crunch underfoot.

She hasn't seen snow in ages, not since the day she became Selene Morningstar. Arcologies tend toward the temperate, occasionally the tropical. Snow is reserved for resorts for the wealthy, the rare arctic park, and frigid planets used as computational hubs; none of them are places Selene has cause to visit. Suits her just fine. After she emerged from her icy chrysalis, winter lost its appeal. She's survived hypothermia, survived weeks in a ship running cold to avoid detection, survived living with minimal life support in a ship leaching heat to the void. Enough cold for a lifetime.

Even her previous iteration hated the cold. It still surprises her that nobody chalked the murder at Cocytus up to snow madness or some similarly overblown superstition. Sometimes she comes closer to believing that's what it was than she'd like to admit. Despite the several parsecs and years between her and Cocytus, despite being alone with only her beloved co-conspirator for company, it's difficult to imagine herself as the person who pulled the trigger.

A warning tone pings in her ears. "Selene." Brutus's voice is mangled by interference. She scrambles backward instinctively.

"That is sufficient." She stops, crouched down.

"What was that?"

"The layers of rock above you are causing interference. You are almost too deep for me to be able to communicate with you."

The words trickle through her like water through sand. "Oh."

"I recommend you turn back. We can formulate another plan to find THRONE."

"No," she says reflexively. "No, I can't turn back. It could still be here."

"Are you sure it is prudent to face it alone?"

"It's the best lead we have. I'll be fine, I promise."

Brutus is silent for a moment. "I trust you. Please return safely."

"I will." She adjusts her headlamp. "Love you."

"I love you too."

She resumes her descent. Eventually she's left alone with an inkling of something growing in her, taking root in her, and the hypothermic corpse embedded in her brain stem. She breathes in, holds, breathes out. Her helmet's visor fogs up with condensation, and for a single nauseating moment, she thinks she sees spores on her breath.

The cave walls are blue-gray, shining with accumulated bacterial glaze and the water that carved this cavern. The path twists, never steep enough to trip her. The inert stone of the walls constricts under her gaze, peristaltic action forcing her down the pipe. She's still in the esophagus. She wonders what will be waiting to digest her.

She's sure she feels mycelial networks snake through her lungs. Infiltrators and advance force of the fungal infection must be coursing through her. Oxygen saturation readings blink in her peripheral vision. They seem fine. Good, even. Her canary cells have not begun hypoxic die-off; they aren't screaming distress calls into implanted nerve tissue.

Deep breaths. The air still smells like mildew. Selene isn't sure what system drives fungal air deeper into the cave. It's been more than a decade since her last physics class; more than a decade since any education focused on anything more general than specific neurotransmitters, psychological fault lines, and techniques for memory analysis.

She hears a splash and looks down to see she's stepped in a puddle. A fissure in the wall disgorges a small stream of water. She begins her calculus, weighing up how much further she'll have to go, her level of thirst, likelihood of contamination. She stoops for a moment, about to take off her helmet, before she reconsiders and stands back up.

"You'd never let me live it down if I did that," she says. Brutus doesn't hear her.

Insects flit through her lamp's beam. It's been years since she's been alone -- Brutus has been constant, her heartbeat since they met. In the frigid isolation of the laboratory dorms, he was her only company worth having, the only conversationalist that wasn't her boss.

Layers of petrified lichen hang down from the high ceiling like stalactites; she's exited a tunnel and entered some kind of natural dome. Knowledge from her past life returns to her, and for a moment she imagines utilitarian metal flooring, endless rows of computers, the incessant drone of the array of fans; the perfect environment for gestating intelligences. Brutus's upbringing, back when he was called Dominion, was atypical. So was hers, back when she was called LC.

There's a light in her periphery, the glint of a gun barrel --- no, too iridescent, it's biological, a pair of shining eyes --- her gun's out of its holster before she notices somebody's beaten her to it. The creature, pale and spindly, is slumped backward over the stump of a stalagmite. Its jaw hangs open, and yellow-green blood runs down its face. The bullet hole is professionally placed, right between the eyes. Six forelimbs splay out like the fingers of a discarded glove.

Two pieces of information jockey for her attention. The first: this creature is likely a juvenile of whatever species THRONE is. She imagines picking it up off the stony floor, standing it up; it'd be a head or so shorter than her. Nowhere near THRONE's estimated three-meter height. Second: the ejecta of the exit wound is still pooling under its head. Scavengers have yet to reincorporate it into the food chain; it has not yet rotted into undifferentiated biological slurry. This thing died recently; whoever shot it is still here. Hand on her holster, she dims her lamp and leaves the dead behind.

She supposes it's lucky she met Brutus. Lucky she killed her past self to break him out. Otherwise, she'd have had no future but academia, and her success would have remained tied to him --- Latimer -- Dr. Hallow. Inventor of flash-etching. Responsible for the suffering of untold thousands. Her first boss, and the first man she ever loved. Better for everyone that he's gone.

Asphodel is probably still reading up in the Slumbering Fury. Is she worried? She'd have no reason to be; what is Selene to her but a captor? Half-forgotten physics lectures flit through her head --- the unknown variable in superposition, the observer's action that resolves it --- and she blinks as another fused mating pair of insects flies through the beam of her light. No, not a mating pair --- a mating trio, fused in strange trefoil shape. Biology was never her strong suit, much less xenobiology. She has no idea if the three are viable. She's not optimistic.

The high roof of the cave closes in; she's in another tunnel that twists in on itself and spirals downward. Bunched inward to avoid scraping the walls, she follows the winding path. Several meters in, she realizes she can't hear her footsteps. She looks down; the cavern floor is covered in moss. It's gotten warmer and more humid without her realizing it. She imagines it as the breath of some massive beast before dismissing the idea. Heat from whatever reaction sustains the blue flame high above, perhaps. She slows, draws her handgun, creeps downward --- combat in tight spaces was never her specialty; if she runs into THRONE...

They fly out of the beam almost as quickly as they flew into it. She rounds a corner, gun raised, and stops. Her arm goes slack. Rusted steel blocks her path; there's a large door built into the wall of the tunnel. She blinks, briefly convinced the fungal infection is terminal, that this is some form of dying hallucination--- but no, she raises a hand to touch it. She can't feel it through the gauntlet, but it's solid. Smooth, aside from the patches of rust and the seam down the middle where it opens. There's a scratched-up card reader built into the door frame, and for a moment she wishes she had brought Legion with her before dismissing the idea. Brutus's signals can't reach down here. She's only seen it off its leash once; if she had brought it out of his range, she's not sure she'd survive long enough to get to the door.

She clenches her hand into a fist, about to knock, but pauses. Whoever -- or whatever -- is on the other side of the door, she's not sure she wants them knowing about her. They could be a threat. She turns around, begins her re-ascent, unknowns diffusing across her mind. Potential views through the doorway fill her mind, each hazier than the last. A warehouse for storing unknown commodities. Another laboratory filled with yet more dead scientists. A barracks of soldiers for some unknown war. Each image flickers and fades when confronted with the ultimate question: why build that here?

She contemplates steel and how long it takes to rust. Even accounting for the ravages of humidity, that door's been around for decades, maybe longer than she's been alive. It could be abandoned --- but no, it couldn't be. Once again she comes to the corpse oozing pus-yellow brain matter. It's trivial for her to reconstruct the bullet's path, the way it must have toppled backward when shot. Whoever pulled the trigger was going further into the cave, not exiting it. They killed a creature in their way and continued through the door, she's grimly certain. The body's dead eyes stare upward, and she can't bear to meet their gaze as she walks past.

She's jolted out of her thoughts by a splash -- the water again. She watches the harsh glare of her lamp refract through it, play off its surface. She swallows. Her mouth is dry. She kneels, takes off her helmet, and drinks deep. It's bitter and earthy, chitin and petrichor. The mildew aftertaste lingers, and she stands, thirst slaked, fungal invaders in her bloodstream receiving reinforcements.

The fungal threat seethes within her, livid like an open wound, raw like reminders of every misstep she's ever made. Her involvement with Hallow, despite his crimes, the etching interfaces she wired into his AI progeny, her hand in constructing the perfect tactician... all the way back to her original sin, her rejection of the doctrines she was incubated in since birth. It all connects, traced backward by a long strand from the present moment. The lunar priesthood had sentenced LC Michaels to ritual airlock asphyxiation for some long-forgotten youthful crime, a baptismal trial he would not have survived; now, in the dark, she almost wonders if it would be better for everyone if his mother hadn't smuggled him out, if he hadn't survived long enough to become her.

"--ene? Can you hear me, Selene? Can you hear me, Selene?" Brutus's voice cuts in, repeating the same message.

"Anti-fungals." She says it louder than intended. A couple insects skitter away, startled.

"Pardon?"

"Hi." She swallows. "I love you. I'm sorry." Back to whispering. "Can you start the medisynth on some antifungals?"

"Has something happened?" There's a concerned edge to his voice. It rankles her, him putting in the effort to sound concerned.

"I think something here's infected me. I can feel it." Growing in her lungs, insinuating itself into her bloodstream, mycorrhizae tangling with circuitry---

"Your vitals are fine," he says, voice modulated in a gesture toward being comforting that Selene can only read as pitying. A moments silence, then "I cannot detect any anomalous bodies in your bloodstream. I do not believe anything here would be capable of infecting you."

"Please," she says, scared child tone to her voice. "Please, I---"

"I have already started the medisynth." Of course he has. "It should be finished by the time you return."

Of course he took her seriously. "Thank you."

"It is no trouble at all." His presence is steadying. "Please return soon."

"I'm trying my best to."

It's not long before she's pulling herself up the ladder three rungs at a time. She stumbles going through the airlock, catches herself on the wall with one hand, starts unclasping her armor with the other. Both halves of her breastplate hanging off her loosely, self-drilling cable dangling like a discarded sash, she kneels next to the medical arm. Brutus kneels beside her, the fabric of his dress bunched up --- even now, she's dimly aware of how difficult that is to simulate --- intangible hand rubbing circles on her back. Eyes closed, breathing deep, she steadies herself. She is calm enough to avoid panicking as he remotely stills her muscles, moves the arm into place, and injects broad spectrum anti-fungals into her neck.

There's a rush of chemical heat, almost a burning. The fluid --- viscous and, in Selene's mind, a livid red --- goes in slowly. The pain recedes, replaced with numbness and the awareness of his hands pinching nerve endings shut.

A trickle of blood leaks out of her neck, pooling at her collarbone. She stands, legs trembling in her greaves. "How long before it kicks in?"

"Any fungus in your system should be eradicated within five minutes."

Sitting against the wall, unbuckling and sliding off her remaining armor, Selene stares at the clock. Her hands work automatically as the seconds tick down. Plated steel formed to the shape of her body sits in a neat pile, and the five minutes expire. She breathes in. Even unconstricted by armor, the feeling hasn't passed; something is growing in her lungs, is taking root in her.

"You sure it should work?"

"I have absolute certainty."

Unknown afflictions sit in another superposition. Augmentation rejection syndrome, perhaps, or some allergy. The consequences of a lax exercise regimen, or breathing recycled air, or a life of---

There's footsteps on the carpet. Selene turns her head, blinking as she gets to her feet.

Asphodel's staring at her neck. "What happened?" Her eyes trace the flow of the blood from the injection site to where it stains her collar. A glance back up at her face. "Did you get hurt?"

Selene looks away, waves off the concern. "No, no, I'm fine. See?" She wipes the blood away; it isn't replaced. "I'm not bleeding anymore."

"Good, good." She's not making eye contact --- she seems preoccupied.

Selene has begun to ask if she's okay when she closes the distance.

"What are--?" Combat scenarios and escape routes snake their way through her mind, plans for move and countermove, the future unknown until observed---

Asphodel gets up on the tips of her toes.

"I missed you."

The wave function collapses. Asphodel runs her hands up and down Selene's back. The kiss doesn't last long. She blinks as it ends.

"Why--?"

"I just said. I missed you," she says. "Your mouth is cold."

She turns to leave. Selene reaches out a hand, retracts it. The door to the guest room closes with a soft hiss. The moment lingers like the taste. Earthy. Strangely bitter. She wipes her lip with her thumb absentmindedly. The anti-fungals are finally working.

"Interesting," Brutus says behind her.

"Is it?" She turns to look at him. "Are you jealous?"

"I would prefer if you were not smiling while asking that question."

"Am I?" She is; she blanks her face appropriately. "I'm sorry."

"I appreciate the apology," he says, hands clasped behind his back, head at a feline tilt, "and no, I am not."

Later, sitting at her desk, she asks, "What was so interesting?" Polygonal maps of the cavern, sketched out over an hour's worth of arcane key commands, extend across her screen.

He ignores the question. "There was a door at the back of the cave?"

"Oh," she says, zooming in on it. "I forgot to mention it. I was..." The tightness in her chest returns for a moment. "...distracted." The taste still lingers. "No text or symbols on it. Rusted steel, but sturdy. Couldn't get it open."

"Do you believe it is related to the facility we have been investigating?"

"The facility was only built a couple months ago, right? The door looked too old to have been built then."

Brutus is silent, projected eyes unblinking. Then, "That facility is the first known construction on this planet."

"It's tricky, right?" Selene sighs, leaning back in her chair. "I can't figure it out. The tangle leads nowhere." No, that's not quite correct -- it leads somewhere just out of her grasp. There are fuzzy outlines in her periphery, but the full shape eludes her.

"Strictly speaking, we do not need to know the purpose of the door," he says. "It would be satisfying to know, but we were not sent here to answer every question about this planet."

"Mm." She closes her eyes. "Maybe it'd get us closer to finding THRONE if we knew, though."

"You did not find it in the cave, correct?"

"No, it wasn't there. Found a dead juvenile of its species, but no sign of THRONE itself."

"It was dead?"

"Yeah, it was shot." Repeating that fact reminds her just how much she doesn't know. She feels very small. "Probably by whoever's behind that door."

Again he's silent for a moment. "Are you certain that is what happened?"

She opens one eye, looks at his impassive projection. "I know what a bullet to the brain looks like, Brutus."

"My apologies for doubting you." Sincerity creeps into his voice. "I do not intend to insult your intelligence."

"It's fine." She idly pans over the map. The facts rot away into undifferentiated mush in her mind. She sighs and powers off her terminal. "Are you sure you aren't jealous?"

"I have encouraged you to explore outside companionship several times, Selene. I can recite the conversations we had, if you require proof." The level monotone has returned. "It is simply concerning to see you so infatuated over a kiss from our prime and only suspect."

She stares at him. "I am not infatuated with her."

"I have lived with you for a decade, and your body language is unsubtle. You do not have to lie for my sake."

"I'm not lying." The words come automatically, and she pauses after saying it, unsure if it's true. Results: inconclusive. "I wouldn't lie to you."

Brutus is silent. She's not the only one who's transparent --- she can tell when he's weighing his options. Then, "If you had to make a bet for your life, would you bet that THRONE is or is not Asphodel Verrine?"

"What?"

His voice is firmer as he repeats. "If you had to make a bet for your life, would you bet that THRONE is or is not Asphodel Verrine?" She opens her mouth to protest, but he preempts her. "Please. I would appreciate an answer."

Breathe in, breathe out. "I'd bet on it being her."

"You do not sound certain."

"I'm not going to kill her on circumstantial evidence," she says, getting to her feet. "And I'm not convinced I want THRONE dead, either."

"Why? Selene, it is responsible for the deaths of at least five people, possibly six. What is the root of this hesitation?"

"You saw that cage. You saw that enclosure. I think of it in there, and..."

If he recognizes how that sentence ends, he doesn't show it. "I see."

Selene leans against the wall, arms crossed. "So maybe they had it coming."

"Selene," he says, voice lowered, tone filled with artificial matrix-product kindness. "I believe your sympathy is letting THRONE take advantage of you. What other reason would Asphodel have to kiss you, given that you are essentially her captor?"

She doesn't respond; she stares at the hologram in silence.

"Did you believe that kiss was genuine? It was transparent manipulation, an attempt to either convince you it is human or earn a stay of execution. Either way, it was an attempt to break free to somewhere it could wreak further havoc."

"Of course you'd say that." The words are out before she can think about it; once she realizes what she's said, she blanches as much as her cyanotic skin can. "I'm sorry."

"What do you mean by that?" he asks, head tilted, eyes alight, voice pointedly monotone.

She can't answer; the words would come out covered in ice, the crystals would lacerate her throat, she'd drown in her own blood. "I'm sorry."

"I am not an unfeeling automaton, Selene. You know this, or have professed to have known it. You have a symbol on that knowledge on your finger."

She rubs the scar coiled around her left ring finger with her thumb. "That wasn't..." She closes her eyes. Misgivings on the nature of inorganic emotion could maybe be forgiven. To admit to her true meaning --- of course you'd say that, you're military hardware --- would be something else entirely. "I'm sorry," she says, weakly.

His avatar stands, motionless. "You should sleep," he says, and the softness in his tone gives her the creeping awareness that he figured it out, can see right through her. "You have had a difficult day."

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I should."

A few minutes later, when the lights are off and she's lying in bed, she says, "I'm sorry."

"I appreciate the apology." She can't tell if he's forgiven her. "We can discuss THRONE and our mission tomorrow. I have ideas I would like to suggest. For now, you need sleep more than anything."

She doesn't sleep well that night.

[powerriteelectric]

Everything You Need To Know About Pool Lighting In Palm Beach Florida With Power Rite Electric

With summer quickly approaching, it's time to start thinking about how you're going to upgrade your pool for the season. While adding a few floats and a cooler full of drinks might make for a good start, nothing truly sets the mood quite like some custom pool lighting. Learn more about what Power Rite Electric can do for you with this comprehensive guide to Pool Lighting Palm Beach Florida!

Introduction to Pool Lighting

As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, it's important to make sure your pool is properly lit. Not only does pool lighting make your backyard oasis look more inviting, but it can also provide a sense of security and safety.

There are many different types of pool lights available on the market today, so it's important to do your research before making a purchase. Power Rite Electric is here to help you choose the best lighting for your Palm Beach Florida pool.

Pool lighting comes in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. You can even get creative with how you light your pool by incorporating special effects lights into your overall design. No matter what type of pool you have or what type of look you're going for, there's a lighting option out there that's perfect for you.

LED lights are one of the most popular choices for pool lighting because they're energy efficient and long lasting. There are also many different styles of LED lights available, so you can find an option that fits your needs and budget. If you want something a little more unique, fiber optic lights are also an excellent choice for pool lighting. These lights create a dazzling display that is sure to impress your guests.

No matter what type of pool lighting you choose, Power Rite Electric is here to help you install it correctly the first time. 

Benefits of Pool Lighting

If you’re looking to add some pool lights to your swimming Pool Lighting Palm Beach Florida, then you’ve come to the right place. Power Rite Electric is your one-stop shop for all things electric, and we’re here to help you choose the best lighting for your pool.

There are many benefits of adding lights to your pool, and we’ve listed a few of them below:

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2. Ambiance – Pool lights can create a beautiful and relaxing ambiance in your backyard that you and your guests will enjoy.

3. Functionality – Pool lights can also be used for functional purposes, such as providing light for a nighttime swim or illuminating the area around the pool for safety.

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Different Types of Pool Lights Available

There are many different types of pool lights available on the market today. Each type has its own unique set of benefits and drawbacks that you should consider before making a purchase. In this section, we will take a look at some of the most popular types of pool lights to help you decide which one is right for your needs.

LED Pool Lights: LED pool lights are becoming increasingly popular due to their energy efficiency and long lifespan. They are also available in a variety of colors, so you can create any mood or atmosphere you want in your pool area. One downside of LED pool lights is that they can be more expensive than other types of lights.

Halogen Pool Lights: Halogen pool lights are a good option if you want bright, white light in your pool area. They are also very energy efficient and have a long lifespan. However, halogen bulbs can get hot, so be careful when handling them. Additionally, halogen bulbs can be more expensive than other types of bulbs.

Fiber Optic Pool Lights: Fiber optic pool lights use small fibers to emit light, which makes them very energy efficient. They are available in a variety of colors and can even be used to create special effects like starry skies in your pool area. One downside of fiber optic pool lights is that they require occasional maintenance to keep the fibers clean and free from damage.

Conclusion

Overall, Pool Lighting Palm Beach Florida with Power Rite Electric is a great choice for anyone looking to add the perfect ambiance and functionality to their backyard paradise. With their experienced technicians and top of the line products, you can trust that your next project will be done right the first time. Plus, with their many custom options and energy efficient solutions available, you’re sure to find exactly what you need at an affordable price. So don’t hesitate – contact Power Rite Electric today and get ready to turn your backyard into a luxurious oasis!

[kabbur28]

About Us

Whether it be pre wedding rituals like Mehendi and Sangeet or the main ceremony we have decor props for each of your requirements such as props for Haldi, décor stand, etc.   Also, a range of latest led candles and more await to lit the function by an awesome ambiance. A stage for you to stand on to greet every relative and for the great Indian dance performances by your beloved once and special one.

We produce premium quality fiber products

Fiber Pillars

Stages

Photo Frames

Urlis

Flower Vases and variety of fiber products

Artificial flowers which look real

Haldi and Sangeet Props

Birthday Decor Products

Radiant and massive Chandeliers

Magnificent Candelabras

What do we do?

We are the  manufactures and suppliers of decoration products, We produce premium quality fiber products like Fiber Pillars, Stages, Photo Frames,  Urlis, Flower Vases and a variety of fiber products.

Our Mission

As we are Well known for selling Decor props covering the whole of Southern India and mission to expand the reach to the horizon.

History Of Us

We are the best wedding decoration products manufactures and suppliers.  With a decade of experience, our beloved founder Haseebulla

Each one of them has its unique charm and gives you a royal treatment on your special days. Although you’ll be wondering is it only the wedding that needs to be special? What about my kid birthday who has not even completed high school? Worry not!! As we mention special days it covers your child’s birthday too… We also have a wide variety of party decor props, Birthday decor props that will put a smile on your child’s face and get those words of appreciation” I Love You, Mom and Dad” that you deserve. Not much of saying but our services will speak on behalf of us and give you the best value for your day…

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Phone: +91 9964714540

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Web: www.nationaltraders.in

[stars-trash-18]

ooo how bout some paz vizsla fluff, like paz has been designated to train the reader to fight and she somehow manages to pin him during the match and paz just has a "woah 😳" moment

This made my week, my first request and I cried. This took me longer than I thought because I kept rewriting it because the fighting itself I struggled with. But I loved every minute of research for this. Keep these coming

The moment you had agreed to help transport the foundlings on your ship was the moment the Mandalorians of the covert adopted you. When the covert went to flee they found that the stormtroopers had dismantled their ships and were only allowing supply ships in, one such supply ship you flew, and they trusted your word enough to deliver their precious foundlings and others to safety (granted Paz loomed over your shoulder the entire time with his blaster pointed to your neck but you figured in their position it was warranted). Ever since they took you in you became their main source of supplies, the hunters would bring you credits and a list of needed provisions and you went out to the markets to retrieve whatever was necessary, and since you didn’t cover your face you couldn’t be traced back to the covert. You were grateful to them, they gave you a family of sorts, security you haven’t felt since you left your homeworld, and the confidence to put down roots.

   But Like everyone in the covert, you needed to learn how to fight. The only fighting you knew was the little close combat you were taught by the Rebellion, and your aim was decent as you were a pilot, but Paz thought since you were carrying around more credits than usual that bigger criminals would try and make a pass at you. So, every morning in the Karyai Paz drags you away from your half-drank cup of caf to the training room, to much of your protesting. He has you run drills until you can do them with ease, sharpens your aim and knife wielding, until he decides you could stand your own  in hand-to-hand training. This went on for weeks.

You were getting frustrated, you could land a few hits on Paz but you couldn’t pin him like he wanted you to. He basically threw your body around like a rag doll and you ached from landing on your arse or having your arm twisted behind you, his little remarks didn’t help, only feeding the growing fire in your chest. 

Paz jabbed you in your left kidney, making your eyes water and a wave of nausea hit you, but what really grinds your gears was his little remark as he threw you to the ground, “ you’re not gonna survive long little one, you can barely protect yourself much less this covert,”. That set you off, all throughout the rebellion you had other pilots make remarks about you and how you wouldn’t survive long in a firefight, and this big blue bitch saying you couldn’t defend your family only added gasoline to it. This wasn’t Alderaan.

With a growl you rolled beneath the giant of a man and jumped up behind him, he may have had strength, but you had agility and you were gonna use it to your advantage. When Paz spun around to face you, you leapt at him and wrapped your legs around his torso and used your body weight and his momentum to send you both spiraling down. Maneuvering so his body would take the force of the landing as you sat on top of him to force the air out of him, trapping his hands between your thighs and his body, your right arm resting on his throat hard enough that he could feel you give the message that you won. 

Time froze for Paz, he just stared up at you through his visor trying to regain his breath. All he could feel was you pinning him to the floor, and the only thing he could see was the victory finally settling over you as you gave a dazzling smile. A smile that lit up the room and showed every fiber of joy radiating off you as you stared down into his eyes.

The only thing Paz could think was “Mesh’la”, and it slipped through his lips like a breath of air without him being able to stop it as he said the only word that could describe you in that moment. When he realized what he said out loud Paz could feel his face burn as your face scrunched up in a blush, your hands being placed on either sides of your cheeks only proving his observation. Of course you would know enough Mando’a so that Paz couldn’t get out of this situation. Maker help him.

[darakshafatimasstuff]

The Marriage of Imam Ali (AS) and Hadrat Fatimah Zahra (SA) ❤️❤️ congratulations to u

What happened full story part one

All proposals rejected ❤️

When Hazrat Fatima(s.a.) attained the age of maturity and was ready to get married, the Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)started receiving proposals from various people for her daughter. Hazrat Salman Farsi (r.a.) and Hazrat Umm-e-Salma(r.a.) narrate that

"When Hazrat Fatima(s.a.) attained the marriageable age, the important people among the tribe of Quraish started sending proposals to the Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)but the Prophet (P.B.U.H)did not accept any proposal saying that he was waiting for the order of Allah(swt) to decide this issue.

Imam Ali(AS) makes the proposal ❤️

Hazrat Umm-e-Salma narrates that : One day Imam Ali(AS) approached the Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)at his house. Imam Ali(AS) entered and greeted the Prophet (P.B.U.H)and the Prophet (P.B.U.H) replied in the same kind manner. Imam Ali(AS) sat down and he was so much shy that he

continued staring at the ground and could not utter a word. The Prophet(P.B.U.H)smiled and mentioned to Imam Ali(AS) that he knew what Imam Ali(AS) had to say but he wanted to hear it from him. He told Imam Ali(AS) that he does not need to be shy and to say whatever he wanted to say.

With this encouragement and soft tone from the Prophet(pbuh&hf), Imam Ali(AS) said "My parents be ransom for you, you know that since my childhood, I have dedicated myself for your service. You have educated me from be beginning and brought me to this status.

It is because of your encouragement that I feel this courage in myself to express my heartfelt wish that you give me the honor of becoming your son-in-law. I have concealed his wish in my heart for a long time thinking that this might not be according to your wishes as well. Is there a possibility that this could happen?".

Proposal Accepted ❤️❤️

Hazrat Umm-e-Salma(r.a.) mentions that "I was watching this affair from a distance and I saw that as soon as Imam Ali(AS) completed his request, the face of Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)lit up and he asked Imam Ali(AS) - what have you got to realize this act".

Imam Ali (AS) said "O Prophet of Allah(swt), you know my condition very well, I have only a sword, my war dress and one camel".

Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H)said: "Ali, you definitely need your sword for fighting Jihad and camel for traveling, however, you war dress could work. O Abul Hassan(AS), I want to give you the good news that Allah(swt) has made the decision and already recited your Nikah with my daughter Fatima(SA) in the Arsh.

Just before your arrival, Allah(swt) sent an angel to give me this good news."

This event has been narrated in "Maarij an-Nabuwwah" of Moeen Kashfi, "Sifwatul Safada" of ibn-e-Jozi, "Madarij an-Nabywwah" on 2:75 of Shah Abdul Haq Dehalvi.

Nikah recited on the Arsh ❤️❤️

"Maarij an-Nabuwwah" also states that Hazrat Jabreel(AS) narrated the story of the Nikah recited on the Arsh. He said "O Prophet of Allah(swt), Allah(swt) has chosen you and made you the most respected and high among his creatures and has selected Ali(AS) as your brother and has decided that the Nikah of your daughter and the servant of Allah(swt), Fatima(SA) would be with Ali (AS).

Allah(swt) arranged for their Nikah in such a manner that he addressed the dwellers of Jannah to dress themselves with ornaments of Jannah and then ordered all the angels to assemble together on the 4th Sky.

He then filled the 4th sky with Noor and then appointed Hazrat Adam(AS) to recite Khutba to begin the Nikah ceremony. After khutba of Hazrat Adam(AS), Allah(swt) ordered an angel named Raheel to recite Hamd. Raheel is the most beautiful of angels and possesses the most beautiful voice.

After recitation of Hamd, Allah(swt) informed me (Jabreel(AS)) the He has performed the Nikah of His servant Hazrat Fatima(SA) with His chosen person Imam Ali(AS) and that I should spread this news among the angels. I acted accordingly and made all the angels testify the event. Allah(swt) then ordered me to write all this event of this silk cloth of Jannah and present it to you."

After mentioning this event, Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)said "O Abul Hasan(AS), the order of Allah(swt) has been served and I invite you to come to the mosque so that this Aqd should be formalized on the earth as well among witnesses."

Such was the importance of this marriage that Allah(swt) arranged the ceremony on Arsh and then Himself decided and recited the Nikah of Imam al-Muttaqeen, Amir-ul-momineen Ali ibn Abi Talib(AS) with the leader of the women of this world and in paradise Hazrat Fatima(SA).

The above event has been mentioned in various other books as follows:

- Muaraj an-Nabuwwah

- Al Asaba fee Tameez as-Sahaba

- Sawaeq-e-Muharriqa bu Ibn-e-Hajr Makki

- Al Bayan wal Bateen by Allam Jaahiz

- Nuzhat-ul-Majalis by Allama Abdur Rehman Safori

- Riyaz un-Nazrah fee Manaqib-ul-Ashra by Allama Muhib Tabri

Nikah recited on Earth ❤️❤️

Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)led Imam Ali(AS) into the mosque and asked him to sell off his war dress and present that money to the Prophet(pbuh&hf).

The dress was sold in 400 dirhams, according to some traditions, and were presented to the Prophet Mohammmd(P.B.U.H)who gave them to Hazrat Salman Farsi(a.r.) and Hazrat Bilal(a.r.) and asked them to buy some articles of use from the market. They went to the market and bought the following items as jahez of Hazrat Fatima(SA)

- Two mattresses made of Egyptian canvas. (One stuffed with fiber and the other with sheep wool).

- A leather mat.

- A pillow made of skin, filled with palm tree fiber.

- A Khaibarion cloak.

- An animal skin for water.

- Some jugs and jars also for water.

- A pitcher painted with tar.

- A thin curtain made of wool.

- A shirt costing seven (7) dirhams.

- A veil costing four (4) dirhams.

- Black plush cloak.

- A bed embellished with ,ribbon.

- Four cushions made of skin imported from Ta'ef stuffed with a good smelling plant.

- A mat from Hajar.

- A hand-mill.

- A special copper container used for dyestuff

- A pestle for grinding coffee.

- A (water) skin.

When the items of Jahez were received, Prophet Mohammad went to Hazrat Fatima(SA) and said "Your Nikah has been recited on the Arsh by Allah(swt) with my cousing Ali(AS) and He has ordered me to recite your Nikah on the earth as well. I have gather my companions to do so and now seek your agreement and permission to recite this Nikah."

Hearing this, Hazrat Fatima Zahra(SA) bowed her head with shyness which indicated her agreement. The Prophet(P.B.U.H)came out of her hujra and orderd Hazrat Bilal(a.r.) to gather all Ansaar and Muhajireen.

One the companions were gathered, Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H)recited Hamd of Allah(swt) and narrated to his companions that Jibreel(AS) had informed him that Allah(swt) has performed the Nikah of Hazrat Ali(AS) with his daughter on the Arsh and has ordered him to recite the same on the earth as well.

He asked Imam Ali(AS) to formally request for the marriage in front of the witnesses and Imam Ali(AS), after reciting greatness of Allah(swt) and presenting his proof and gratitude to him and reciting darood for Prophet Muhammad(pbuh&hf), formally requested for the marriage. Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H)accepted the request and made all the companions witnesses.

Upon hearing this all the companions greeted Imam Ali(AS) and the Prophet(pbuh&hf).

Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H)recited the Nikah himself and asked Imam Ali(AS) if he accepted the Nikah for a Mehr of 400 Misqaal of Silver.

Imam Ali(AS) accepted and then the Nikah was formally concluded. Both offered Sajda-e-Shukr to Allah(swt) and all the companions present there congratulated and greeted both Imam Ali(AS) andthe Prophet Muhammad(pbuh&hf).

To be continues...

Reference:

Fatima (as) the glorious vol. 01 page 43

[foreficfandom]

The Arcana  - A Day In The Life (Dating MC, Post-Upright Ending)

(Note: as of this writing, Muriel, Portia, and Lucio’s route have not been finished, so their scenarios are based on their default/mid-game way of living).  

-- Asra --

In the morning light, Asra wakes to your gentle shuffling and turns to cuddle you with a sleepy sigh. You smile and leave to start on chores, since you know Asra’s not gonna get out of bed until he absolutely has too. 

The shop doesn’t open until noon, so you take your time in coaxing the stove salamander to fry eggs in tomato sauce and lentils for breakfast. Asra doesn’t shuffle downstairs until he smells tea. 

After breakfast, you ask Asra to clean up while you leave to pick up the wash from the laundress. He teasingly demands you don’t spend all your allowance at the market buying every knick-knack you see, and you stick your tongue out in response. 

By the time you return, Asra’s prepared the storefront for business, and lit the lantern by the door. You go upstairs to sort the laundry while the first customers of the day arrive.

The day passes as you and Asra man the shop - Asra does the Tarot readings, serenely leading troubled patrons to the back room to ask the Arcana about the future, or love opportunities, or business and fortune. You manage the merchandise, ringing up gentry that get bottles of wrinkle-erasing skin cream, parents who buy protective charms for their children, and crafting custom blessings onto scrolls and pendents. 

After the sun sets, a different crowd of customers come in; rough-looking mercenaries who want sigils to enhance their swords, hooded strangers with cryptic questions for the Arcana, and also other magical-practioneers looking for rare artifacts, offering esoteric trinkets in exchange.

You make a stew dinner as business continues well into the night. Asra pauses to eat with you, getting up to tend to a customer if he hears the bell ring. The moon is high in the sky when he douses the lantern and you clean up the shop. 

It’s his turn to do the books while you relax, so you graciously heat up water in a large wooden tub for a soak while Asra documents the inventory and earnings of the day. He interrupts your bath to help wash your hair, and he says that the shop is running low on fresh yarrow, so you promise to pick some up tomorrow morning.

You join Asra on the bed, Faust draped across his belly, and he pulls the quilts over all three of you. He always gets chatty before falling asleep, so he talks about the next trip he’s been planning, and how he can’t wait to take you with him. 

With one last kiss, you and Asra sleep peacefully in each other’s arms, Faust crawled in-between the valley of your bodies.

-- Julian --

It’s unfortunately uncommon to wake up next to Julian. His clinic opens at dawn, and he spends more than enough all-nighters on top of that. It’s a rare day that you wake before him. Usually, the bed next to you is a mess of rumpled sheets that spoke of a tall, gangly man. 

You manage the magical shop, and Julian’s clinic is right next door. The clinic has an open-door policy; official hours are from sunrise to sundown, but Julian needs to be ready to leap from bed if he hears knocking at the door. So he never leaves the clinic unmanned at any time, with at least an assistant available if he’s gone. 

So you spend time at Julian’s place rather than the inverse. Julian’s nook is on the third floor of the building, large but a little drafty, and cluttered with Julian’s notes and books. He makes an effort keeping clean for your benefit, but the poor man just lacks the time to organize everything. 

You go downstairs to see Julian already hours into work, and it’s unknown what the daily damage could be; sometimes, he’s not occupied by a patient and gets to smother you in morning kisses. Other times, he’s busy treating a miner for their black lung, or happily checking up on a newborn baby, or his assistants tell you that Julian’s locked up in the surgery room right now, cauterizing wounds or applying splints. 

Today’s a day off for the magical shop, so you go to Julian’s medicine storage and help with grinding the cinnamon and boiling down the elderberry. His assistant and you also clean some of his surgical tools. 

Julian finally emerges from a successful surgery, and his tired face brightens up when he sees you. He washes up so he gets to give you a tight hug, and his assistant brings over two mugs of coffee - Julian’s almost twice the size as yours. 

He leaves off his paperwork for later in lieu of chatting with you about everything and anything, until his next patient walks through the door. You leave to go next door to cook dinner, since Julian’s upstairs nook has a heater, but no burners. 

You bring over a plate of beef dumplings with cabbage - a recipe you learned from Mazelinka - and luckily Julian’s finished up so he can join you upstairs for a peaceful meal. You have to clear some papers off his tiny table, and he sheepishly promises that tomorrow he’ll clean a bit more. You offer to do it for him, but he insists that he organize his own documents. 

The clinic closes and Julian accepts a cup of tea from you as he pours over his paperwork, and he suggests a near-future venture to Prakra to attend a seminar on spinal surgery. It’d double as an adventure! He says, and you give him a kiss for his enthusiasm.

He’s gotten better at maintaining a sleep schedule, but you still have to urge him to bed so he can fall dead asleep on the sheets. Before he passes out, he takes several long minutes to cuddle you close and play with your hair. Malak finally flies in through the window from whatever adventure he’s been having, and nests peacefully on the pillow above your heads.

-- Nadia --

The Vensuvian sun wakes the two of you gently. Nadia kisses your forehead before getting up to do her morning stretches. You might join her, or instead head over to the boudoir where the hand-maidens help you dress and accessorize. Palace etiquette demands some pomp and circumstance when it comes to appearances, plus Nadia’s been gifting you riches for a while now, filling up your closet.

Breakfast is bright and cheery, with Nadia insisting on a nutrient-rich and fiber-based diet to start the day off right. She shares the daily agenda with you, along with easy chatter and loving coos. The mail’s delivered on a platter; you open a letter from Julian overseas that’s addressed to you both, sharing the details of his latest adventure.

There’s some free time, so you and Nadia leave the palace to tour the town square and the affluent stores there. She sees a gorgeous pair of slippers and asks if you’d like them. You point out a large caged raptor and she orders her servants to purchase it for rehabilitation in Navra’s wildlife reserve.

Come midday, the two of you file into one of the galleries for a meeting with the counsel. It’s a meeting to draft a reform of the city’s infrastructure department, which involves tax rates and effective procurement and other boring decisions. 

You’ve not been crowned yet, so you don’t have any official say on court matters, but more often you’ve been stepping in. Many are pleasantly surprised at your management sense, and Nadia has a small, prideful smirk whenever you play your cards. 

You and Nadia part ways for a bit, she’s off to do some more mundane Countess duties involving signing paperwork, you decide to take Chandra on a walk through the gardens, chatting with the staff and feeding the pond fish. Chandra was glad to hitch a ride on your shoulders. You share some mulberries with her. 

Today, Nadia’s duties force her to skip dinner, so you instead eat with other palace dignitaries you’ve made friends with, along with Portia who gracefully takes a few minutes to catch up with you. The cook had made a new recipe of spicy grilled squid today, and you find it delicious.

Nadia has a late meal in her chambers, and you join her for a chocolate mousse dessert. Come bedtime, you brush her long hair, which always helps her unwind. She returns the favor with soft embraces curled up in bed.

-- Portia -- 

Portia wakes up at dawn to cook breakfast for you both, happily encouraging you to sleep in so you can wake up to the delicious smells of melted cheese on toast and strong black tea. You have to wake up quickly if you want to catch her before she leaves for work, so you’re bleary-eyed and sleepy at the table while Portia’s as peppy as ever.

Portia’s job as hand-maiden takes up most of her day. She quickly bustles off to the castle, and you trot to run the magical shop alongside Asra. He teasingly suggests you’d much rather be with Portia right now, and you blush. 

Portia wakes up Nadia with breakfast, and helps her dress. From there, it’s a busy day bustling back and forth the massive halls of the castle. As head servant, she’s on top of all the castle duties, including inventory and scheduling. She relays messages between the chamberlain, the cooks, the laundrymaids, chambermaids, footsmen, butlers, scullerymaids, groundsmen and gardeners, and also is in charge of handling deliveries and purchases.

Today’s a slow day at the shop, so Asra lets you off with a box of candied pineapple to share with Portia during her afternoon break. You now know Portia’s kinda-sorta-established schedule by now, so you eventually track her down in the buttery, hanging out with the other servants with a cup of tea. Her eyes light up when she sees you and she nearly topples you over with her strong embrace. 

You share the pineapple with her and the servants, whom you now know by name. They offer some delicious gossip about some visiting dignitaries. Portia sneaks some palace tarts and feeds them to you by hand, giggling.

Portia’s work day ends at 5pm, and she heads straight to the magical shop for some tutoring. A long day’s work can only be capped off with you and Asra coaching her through the basics of magical theory. She’s so enamored by magic and loves to practice it. You can tell that she has amazing potential. Before the lesson ends, you cook them all pasta with tomatoes for dinner, and Asra gets to have a palace tart you sneaked home. 

It’s after sundown when the two of you make it home to Portia’s cottage. A hard day’s work over and done with, it’s now just you and Portia (and Pepi, who begs for ear scritches the moment you two walk in the door), relaxing in the warm summer evening. You cradle Portia in your arms, watching fireflies dance over her garden. 

-- Muriel --

Muriel’s up before the sun, stoking the embers of the fire back to life before gathering his willowwood fishing rod and heading out with Inanna. He has a habit of leaving without tell you where he’s going, so you wake in surprise to a missing Muriel. But before long he returns with several pike strung together, and he salts a few of them while you boil oat porridge with dried currants for breakfast. 

Life in the forest is peaceful, but busy. Muriel has lots of morning chores to get to, and he doesn’t need your help but appreciates it. After breakfast he goes to his backyard garden to weed, while you sweep the hut.

Muriel tells you the agenda for today; go to the wild grape fields, then to harvest and bring in the late-summer corn, then he’s gonna work some more on that new table he’s been carving while you finish spinning the wild sheep wool you shaved yesterday. 

Over the months, he’s gotten better at communicating with you. He’s still his silent, shy self, but now he’ll hold his own in a conversation without feeling overwhelmed. The two of you share few but sweet words as you travel to the grape patch and pluck the small grapes for their large seeds to grind and press into oil.

Muriel’s garden is sprawling and well-maintained. The many corn he’s raised have produced three giant bushels worth, and he divvies them up between those to pickle, or to dry, or grind into meal, or to eat fresh. The husks and cobs aren’t wasted either, kept to use as cooking utensils or animal feed. That single harvest will keep for the year. 

It’s mid-afternoon when Muriel continues cutting and shaping oak wood for a new dining table, larger and sturdier for the both of you. Inanna keeps you company as you separate and spin wool into spools. 

You decide to head into town before the sun sets, so you give Muriel a kiss and trek to the shop to say hi to Asra and Julian, and ask after Portia and Nadia. Asra promises to visit soon, and Julian gives you a wrapped cloth of scones Portia made. Before you head back, you tour the evening market for iron nails, cones of sugar, and other things you and Muriel can’t produce yourselves.

It’s dark by the time you return home, but the full moon and fireflies keep the path lit and you hug Inanna when she trots out to greet you. Muriel has roasted two quails with beans and cider, and the two of you eat peacefully on the new oak table. 

Before he joins you in bed, Muriel quickly takes out the beef tallow soap he’s made from their molds to dry. You open your arms sleepily when you see him approach, and he smiles because he’s way too big for you to engulf, no matter how many times you ask for it. The two of you fall asleep to crickets chirping and the crackling of fire.

-- Lucio -- 

What’s the point of being Count if he can’t have lazy mornings? If you don’t want to stay in until 10am, then he’ll eventually start getting up earlier, too. If the two of you haven’t been wrapped around each other all night, you might have to do a couple body rolls to get across his huge four-poster canopy bed in order to give him some morning smooches. 

He’ll make a couple of dad noises as he struggles to wake up (he’s not getting any younger, despite his best efforts), and it takes a while before he’s able to throw off the thick silk duvet to meander to the washbasin.

By the time he’s cleaned his face and shaved, he’s much more peppy and chats with you while applying his makeup. His servants help dress the both of you, snapping on his prosthetic and lacing up his waistcoat. The two of you won’t have any engagements until evening, so breakfast is taken right in his solar - angels on horseback, perfumed eggs, fresh fruit, along with pots of coffee, tea, and juice. 

Throughout his career as Count, Lucio’s done a pretty good job making sure he’s got a ton of people doing the tasks he can’t bother himself to mind. Shady political practices, but it leaves plenty of time for leisure. His idea of ‘work’ is exercising in the grounds, polishing up his swordwork and making sure he’s still fighting fit. Watching Lucio spar, you can’t deny he’s talented. By the end, he’s sweating but invigorated. 

Dinner is an official affair, meeting with a visiting dignitary from Zadith and his husbands. The feast is meant to impress, the huge table piled high with roasts and rare wines. There’s no deals to broker or anything, this is just the life of royals, visiting each other to pay respects and maintain relationships. Lucio takes one of the husbands by arm and leads them through the castle on a tour, charismatic as always. 

Evening comes. You and Lucio bathe in his huge pool, drinking wine and eating desserts. He spends half an hour applying his various skin creams, and he gently combs a fragrant oil through your hair. Mercedes and Melchior follow the two of you to his bedroom, and you settle on his couches, one dog to each for pets and snuggles. 

After a midnight snack of wine and cheese, Lucio calls you back under the covers so he can bid you lay on his chest for a while, which he loves. The fireplace burns low, casting warm red all around his massive bedroom.

[lollercakesff]

Home Bound

Survive. Escape. Go home? To what home?

Jyn and Cassian escape from Scarif and settle on a small planet in the outer rim where the traditions are vibrant and the Rebellion barely scratches at their front door. Years pass, they live. But then the scratching at their door gets heavier, and heavier, and soon there’s a knock that calls them back into the service. They go because to say no would go against their very fiber, but when everything they’ve come to know disappears, how do they remember what they’re fighting for?

Survive. Escape. Go home. Right?

A gift for the Rebelcaptain Secret Santa gift exchange for @youareiron-andyouarestrong​!

Read it all on AO3!

Part One:

Step 1: Survive.

Step 2: Get off Scarif

Step 3: Get back to Yavin V

Step 4: …. Step 4?

They make it through steps one through three and he doesn’t understand how exactly it happens. One second he’s on a beach and the sky's alight and the heat is almost unbearable but for her body wrapped around his… Next, he’s tucked in a medbay bed on a ship with his hand wrapped up in Jyn’s, her grip tight despite the soft breaths filling his room. He doesn’t know what’s supposed to come next and for once, maybe he’s okay with that.

And so he pulls her hand closer and ignores the twinge in his spine as he wraps himself around her, unwilling to let the heat from before eat him alive like his mind is convinced it will.

---

They settle on Calabriana, a small planet in the Outer Rim where nobody knows their names. The anonymity was a requirement after Scarif, after the desolation of Yavin V, after Hoth.

Cassian and Jyn had stuck around the Rebellion after Scarif to fight and it had been years of it, endless days of missions that had picked at their open wounds until one day - a day like any other - Cassian had come back to his bunk to find Jyn curled up in his cot, shivering and vacant.

“Jyn?” Cassian breathes, hesitating at his door. It wasn’t that she was here, in his room, which made him pause. Nor was it finding her in his bed, even though they never explicitly talked about that . No, the panic in his chest wasn’t any of those things. It was the look on her face, the way it didn’t flicker to life like it normally would. Something was wrong. “Are you alright?”

She doesn’t respond, not verbally at least. All she does do is close her eyes until her brow furrows and her breathing seems to stop under his inspection. It's enough to bring him to her side, his hand coming to her cheek as he drops to his knees beside her.

“Come back to me,” he whispers softly, the words unfamiliar on his lips.

They had always been her words, murmured into his temple after a bad dream, after a mission went sideways and she had to come find him. Her fingers on his chin, her cheek pressed to his brow so he didn’t have to hide his pained expression.

“Jyn, come back,” he repeats and her eyes blink open, flickering up to meet his. He exhales a shaky breath and slides his thumb along her jaw. “Do you want to talk about it?” She shakes her head and he follows as she pulls him into the bed, her small frame tucking into his chest as though she was set to disappear into him.

An hour passes. Then two. It’s late when she whispers what she needs, the feeling resonating within him like a ricocheted gunshot.

“I can’t be here anymore. I need to leave. Come with me?”

He doesn’t think before he utters his reply: “Yes.”

It’s two days later that they’re boarding their ship, the half-repaired K2SO droid packed away and their small bag of worldly possessions fastened in the hold.

Leia had come to say goodbye, as had Draven and Bodhi and Kes. Their small farewell had gone mostly unannounced. The heroes of Scarif disappeared into the sky, almost as though their lives in the Rebellion after Scarif were but ghosts haunting hallways. Maybe they had been.

---

Life on Calabriana was hard. Not in the sense of working themselves to death or being required to go on high risk missions every day like an endless rotation of pain and misery. No. It was hard in the way that living a quiet life after so much suffering was hard. It was the silence, and the calm way that life moved like a snake in the grass, weaving and slithering through time until it rounded in and tried to consume itself.

At first, Cassian was sure they’d made a mistake. His hours helping build a home were well spent, yes, but the nights were almost unbearable. There was no intel to keep his mind occupied when the nightmares wouldn’t cease, no halls to endlessly walk until he fell asleep on a crate or in a corner hidden from view. On Calabriana, there was only silence and the creak of the floors under his feet, Jyn’s bedroom door always closed as he debated raising his fist and disturbing her sleep. He doesn’t, at least not until one day she pulls it open and reaches for his hand, drawing him into her room and into her bed.

Neither of them say it out loud but every sleepless night from that night on - and even some in between - ends with finding solace in one another’s arms. And then one night, as Cassian hovers in her doorway as she readies for sleep, he straightens and finally pulls himself together.

“I don’t want to sleep in my own bed anymore,” he admits, cautious and low.

“I thought we already gave up on that idea,” Jyn answers evenly, pulling her work top over her head and tugging one of his old shirts from her drawer to use as a nightshirt. The hem hovers mid-thigh and he forces himself not to stare even though his whole body lights with the familiar draw of her.  

“Really?” He counters and she lifts a brow in reply. In another second she’s standing before him, hands on her hips in challenge.

“Really. I asked you to leave the Rebellion with me and you did. I never really understood why you thought you needed to sleep in another room but I wasn’t going to push you. Figured you’d come around eventually.”

“You mean you were already at this point and I’ve been the one holding back?” The thought surprises him, all of the signals for the reality of their arrangement finally falling into place. Oh .

“Maybe,” she smirks and he sighs, reaching for her hips and drawing her close to his chest. The kiss is anything but chaste and in the morning when they wake - wrapped around one another like vines on a lush jungle planet - they don’t talk about how things have changed and what it means, instead choosing to simply share a room like it was a practical merging of resources.

---

Sharing a room becomes sharing a life. They work the fields together, go to town together, and when the nights are particularly cold with the seasonal change they cling and make their own heat together.

Their first few months on Calabriana pass uninterrupted by guests until one night there’s a knock on their door, a stricken look passing over Jyn’s face as Cassian gets up from where he’s settled with a story and his tea. He hesitates at the door, sucking in a breath, before he pulls it open to see a small crowd of humanoid beings huddled outside in elaborate colourful costumes. The sight makes him uneasy until one takes a breath.

And then they start to sing.

It’s maybe only five minutes. Maybe ten. Before the group nods and bids their farewells, walking off into the night as Cassian shuts the door and turns back to face Jyn who looks just as confused.

“Local greeting committee?” Jyn offers with a shrug. Cassian nods and returns to his seat, picking up his reading and trying not to think about the odd encounter.

A few days later and Jyn and Cassian venture to town, their eyes wide as they come upon the village now lit with endless flickering lights and colours all strewn about the streets. All around them people are rushing from shop to shop, arms loaded with bags and bright smiles on their faces.

“What's going on?” He asks the supply clerk nonchalantly, his attention turned towards his chip card as he swipes it across the reader.

“It’s the season of Jule. A time of gathering and well-wishing. Have you never experienced a Calabrianan Jule before?” Cassian shakes his head and glances over to where Jyn is running her fingers along a scarf on display, her lips quirked up in a small smile. “Well, it is a wonderful time to be here. You must attend the feast. Three days from now in the market - bring your partner and gift her that lovely piece she’s admiring - it’s tradition.”

“How much for it?” Cassian asks by way of thanks. The man adds the cost to his bill and promises to wrap the gift up ahead of the festival.

Cassian doesn’t know what he’s promised to attend - was the feast a sacrificial ceremony or truly a happy occasion, he wasn't sure - but he isn’t concerned. None of the research he’d managed to dig up on this planet had talked about ritual sacrifice, so they’d probably be fine.

He hoped, at least.

---

The day of the feast, Cassian has to challenge Jyn to a competition to get her out of the house. She's too busy lounging like a Lothkat, curled up under a blanket as she enjoys her tea and hides away from the chill that has settled outside.

"I'll do the dishes for a week if you win. If I win, you have to come with me to town later," he offers, tweaking her toes with his fingers until she grins and pulls them out of his grip.

"Fine. Get the dice."

He wins by sheer luck, or at least that's what he tells himself as she rolls another snake-eyes. Two hours later and they're back in town, coming upon the small community at dusk. The lights flicker across the growing darkness and Cassian swears he can see stars in Jyn's eyes, her look of awe beautiful and serene and so far from the haunted look she'd worn the day she asked him to leave with her.

"They say there's a feast," Cassian says easily, starting to lead them forward and through the small alleys towards the market. Jyn sticks to his side and keeps her hand curled in the fabric of his pocket, holding on as they weave between groups of people, little families sprawling across swaths of space.

"A feast of what, exactly?" Jyn counters evenly, though there's no harshness to her words.

"Not sure. But the guy at the shop said we should come and I figured… if we're going to settle here we might as well try to follow some of their customs to blend in. Unless - "

"No, you're right. We can keep to ourselves but I think eventually we need to engage a bit. Good call," she adds. Cassian laughs tightly and reaches for her hand, pulling it into his own.

"Don't congratulate me yet, we've still got to survive tonight."

They arrive into the bustle of the market and are stopped short by the sight they come upon. It's like Home Base after a victory, the crowd thriving and music filling the space around the shouts of excitement. A giant tree fills the center of the square, its bows filled with lights and ornaments that sparkle and glint in the changing light. Around them, children chase each other and adults fill tables with food and drink and laughter. It feels foreign to stand on the edge, looking in at a community that wasn't theirs.

"You made it!" The clerk greets, lifting himself from his table and beckoning them over. Cassian clutches tightly to Jyn's hand and seeks her approval with a glance, her returning squeeze urging them forward. "And you've brought your lovely partner. Sit! Join us!"

They're settled into seats at the crowded table and handed cups and a bottle of something tangy. Jyn seems to evaluate the substance before pouring herself some and dipping a finger in for a taste. Cassian watches as she frowns and then softens to an easy smile, eventually lifting to take a sip. With her approval, Cassian pours himself a cup and let's the man - Hinar, as he introduces himself - bring them up to speed on the celebration.

Twelve nights of celebration. Food, family, friends as a theme with occasional gifts given to each other on the last night. An ancient tradition brought from across the universe and combined into one massive festival celebrated around the small planet.

The whole thing awed Cassian, the joy and the brightness and the welcoming nature of everyone around them. He'd never seen Jyn laugh so freely and the lightness of it was contagious, filling him too and loosening his tension for the first time in months. This was a planet still untouched by war, its few resources and minimal population making it unattractive to those looking to bleed a planet dry. They would be safe here, he was sure of it, or at least that's what he told Jyn as they wandered home a bit tipsy and a bit light on their feet.

"I think we could build something here," he murmurs as she leans into his side, the navy scarf he'd gifted her wrapped loosely around her neck.

"What do you mean?" It's not accusatory and he thinks that's good, right?

"If… if you wanted to make something out of the rest of this life. Together. I think we could do it here."

She slows her pace as they linger in the yard, her gaze finding his in the low light.

"Are you asking me to - "

"Yes. Whatever we want it to be. But I want to build it. With you."

Her eyes stay locked onto his, the colours swirling in the low light as she chews the inside of her cheek. The silence is almost deafening and he nearly takes it back, the proposal burning the back of his throat.

But then she lifts up on her toes and reaches her arms around his neck, drawing him down towards her waiting lips.

"Yes," she whispers later into his chest, her body perched over his as he slowly comes down from his release. Her sweaty sticky skin slides across his and she wraps herself around him, their breathing coming into sync. “I want to build something. With you.”

He thinks maybe this was what Step Four was about, all those months ago.

[nancypullen]

Melons and Murders

We didn't do anything special on the 4th of July. Because only 30-something percent of Tennesseans are vaccinated and the Delta variant is unpredictable, we're still avoiding crowds. It sucks because I really want to enjoy a ballgame or a concert. Downtown Nashville broke a previous record by hosting an estimated 400,000 drunken idiots for an Independence Day celebration. What could possibly go wrong there, right? So we stayed home, grilled some brats, and watched tv while our neighborhood lit up like a combat zone. It was insane. After all of that grumpy complaining, I'm actually here to pay tribute to summer food. As far as I'm concerned, the absolute QUEEN of the summer is the Sugar Kiss melon.

This melon will change your life. I've never tasted anything so good. Don't be deceived into thinking this is just a cantaloupe. This is magic in your mouth. This melon tastes like it's been injected with vanilla and sugar. They're only in season for a brief part of the summer and we eat about three a week. Not even kidding. We get ours at Publix, even though I've seen and purchased them elsewhere, the Publix melons seem to be at peak freshness. I don't know if Kroger warehouses theirs before they're in stores or what, but the Publix melons are superior. You'll spot Sugar Kiss melons right away, wrapped in their distinctive blue mesh and set apart from the other cantaloupe. Get one (no, seriously, get two) and you can thank me later. It wouldn't be summer without watermelon. I buy one every Saturday, chunk it up and keep it in a big, lidded tub in the frig. When I come in from working in the yard, hot and sweaty, a couple of pieces of chilled watermelon cools me down faster than anything I could drink. Mickey says the same thing. It's always sad toward the end of summer when watermelon becomes scarce. I have some heirloom seeds from my Grandma Ethel's watermelon patch that I treasure, and I haven't had the courage to plant them. How silly is that? I'd hate to get my hopes up and have some stupid pest ruin everything. Anyyywhooo...back to watermelon. Aside from just eating it straight, I'm addicted to this combo.

Day after day, I drop chunks of watermelon into a bowl, sprinkle some feta and a bit of chopped, fresh mint leaves, then top it with a quick squeeze of lime, just a little. Holy moley, I hear angels sing when I eat this. The super sweet melon, the salty feta, the zing from the mint and the lime - it's everything a summer dish should be. It doesn't hurt my feelings that it's really pretty to look at too. Know what else I'm addicted to? Breakfast salads. I love breakfast, it's my favorite meal of the day. I would be content to eat a hearty breakfast and then just nibble for the rest of the day. Normally I'll dice up tomato and onion and get it sizzling in a skillet, then I'll throw in some riced broccoli.

Once that's cooked through, I season and scramble two eggs and pour that in - a few stirs with a spatula and I've got a bowlful of veggie eggs and a yummy breakfast. If you're so inclined and can spare the calories, add cheese or bacon or whatever floats your boat. It's delicious, low in calories and fat, offers plenty of protein and fiber, and will keep you full all day. Winner. Lately I've been throwing together a flavorful salad...spring greens, a quarter of an avocado, a tablespoon of feta, and a tablespoon of crumbled bacon. Super simple.

Then I spritz a pan with a little olive oil and fry an egg. I season it like crazy and plop it right on top of the salad.

When I cut through the egg it releases the warm, yummy yolk as a dressing and coats everything. It's a delicious, healthy breakfast. The mister and I are still working the Weight Watchers thing. It's so stinkin' easy and NOTHING is off limits. I'm on the Purple Plan because I don't like to log things, so I have a bazillion "free" foods but only 16 points a day. The items that cost me are fatty things like mayo and butter. As long as I eat clean and whole foods (even whole grain pasta is zero points for me!) I can finish every day with points to spare. A grilled chicken breast with roasted broccoli and sweet potato is a zero point meal. How simple is that? Of course, that doesn't mean I don't have treats. It didn't take me long to figure out that a macaron is just two points and totally worth it. I'm down 21 pounds and it's been embarrassingly easy to do. It's been a slow drip, pretty much a pound a week, but it's the easiest diet I've ever been on and I think I've tried them all. Sorry, I rambled. I promised melons and murder. The murder part is really more of a question for you. It's no secret that I'm a true crime junkie. My DVR history is frightening- Snapped, Cold Justice, etc. My reading list looks like I'm either planning or solving a murder. But I'm new to true crime podcasts. When I'm at my desk I like to listen to a murder or two, usually tuning into a Dateline series (the Mommy Doomsday episodes will blow your mind). I'm in the market for other podcasts though, so I'm asking for your favorites. You don't have to answer here, you can always send suggestions to njpullen@gmail.com - no need to create a Tumblr profile or any of that. Hit me with your favorites, My Favorite Murder? Anatomy of a Murder? Crime Junkie? Sword & Scale? Do tell! Gotta' go. It's time for me to trot out to the garden and pick more cucumbers and have a chat with the birds and squirrels. Summer is in full swing and I intend to enjoy these days. Besides, if I don't go out and get sweaty, I can't justify eating more melon. I have an agenda. I hope you're having some fun with your day. Stir up some giggles, even if you're just laughing at yourself. I used to write jokes on Post-It notes and leave them on the doors of bathroom stalls at work. I wonder how many pantsless people chuckled ? Go spread some sunshine and make sure you get some on yourself. Stay safe, stay well, stay sunny. XOXO - Nanccy

[authorjulianneday]

TRIAL TUESDAY | October 20, 2020

Challenge: Combine Cyberpunk + Mythology

Word Count: 1946

This is a bit of a throwback. I wrote it back in 2018 for a contest challenge and have edited it off and on since. It combines the myth of the sirens and the cyberpunk/sci fi genre.

CYBER SONG

Siren.

Like some sort of whispered threat, it always loomed over the inhabitants of Tech City Newport. Only natural, she supposed. They lived so near the James River. Ghost stories and tales of terrifying merpeople eked into every form of media the humans had. Pathetic, really.

Symphonia reached the sewer exit her contact had mentioned. Heaving herself out of the water, she grimaced. Waiting for her tail to fully molt and leave legs beneath, she began reconnaissance. Even down in this water runoff zone, lines of electricity fed the ravenous city above.

Scales and fibers lay about her, and what remained, she peeled off with her clawed fingers. She hissed in pain. The molting left behind two skinny limbs, translucent in the low light of the tunnel. Legs. So ugly. And so primitive.

Her legs gained more pigment the longer she waited. Gaining her balance, she rummaged through the chest of clothes in the stash used by Sirens. The fabric scratched at her new skin. It felt so fake, so synthetic.

Synthetic described everything the humans touched.

As much as she despised the buzzing hum of electricity it certainly sounded better than what she would deal with above ground. The constant chatter of voices in the megacity made her ill. Why couldn’t humans be content with silence?

A rusted metal ladder led up into the streets. When the Sirens had first investigated the city fifty years ago, they’d made sure to locate a spot in seclusion. Or, as close to seclusion as one could get.

She closed her eyes. Symphonia listened intently for the distinct tone that each auditory implant gave off. She heard only one nearby. It would be all too easy. Symphonia began to hum, matching the auditory implant’s tone, until she had gotten control of it. She held the tone with her honeyed voice, moving from a hum to a song. In the song she wove words of exhaustion and sleep. A few moments later something heavy dropped against the ground nearby.

Symphonia used her claws to force open the sewer cover, a smile on her pale lips. She heaved herself up into the street and instantly became bombarded by neon lights, the stench of dozens of food stalls, and raucous noise. Her nose crinkled in disgust. Synthetic.

She glanced around. Every time she came to the surface, something changed, and this was no different. Symphonia saw a new sign for some kind of body mod. If only humans realized the modifications led to increasing ease for the Sirens to take them down. She couldn’t see the sky, but that didn’t surprise her. Only the greys and blacks of concrete and rubber loomed overhead. Tech City Newport knew only artificial light, no sun; it had too many buildings and overpasses and walkways.

Her last contact had told her to head to the subcity New Wave. Leaving the small alley and going out into the bustling metropolis of the world the humans had created, Symphonia grimaced. Smoke wafted through the air and obscured the corners of the covered walkway.

The sound of bullets rang through the air in the distance. Symphonia studied the nearby humans immediately, and seeing they felt no danger, continued on her way. It seemed like every time she stalked Tech City Newport, gunshots peppered the air like rain on the waves at home. Another synthetic version of beauty, perverted by the filth of the humans.

She passed a massive food court and again became assaulted by the stench of humans. The sound of the grills and sloshing drinks caused her to cringe. She felt it. So she began to hum to herself, using a calming tone to resist the cacophony around her. Passing a condiment bar, she grabbed a handful of salt packets and stuck them in her pockets for later.

Heading into the elevator, she selected “New Wave” on the touch panel.

Symphonia chuckled out loud. New Wave sounded attractive; too bad it was filled with Modders and their filth and no water at all. Modders could only make trash. Not only did it end up down in her home, but it spilled out everywhere in Tech City Newport.

As the elevator moved upwards, she watched out the sides. From there she could see down into the megacity. Humans waddled about on land on their funny legs or sped by in their cars.

“New Wave.”

As the doors rolled open and she stepped out, Symphonia looked around carefully. New Wave always attracted a bad crowd, and it made perfect sense that her target had holed herself up there. Dr. Josey McMillian, PhDs in biochem, biotech, and engineering. Brilliant woman, according to the sirens’ sources. Brilliant enough to never install an auditory implant.

Symphonia shied away from a screaming machine to her right as she rounded a corner. Sparks flew from a welder repairing a pipe. The slight hum of various auditory implants sounded around her. Pinpointing the exact frequency she needed took concentration. At first she heard mostly nonsense, frequencies from random Modders loitering around on the New Wave level. Most gambled, some waited for black market deals. But eventually she caught the note of a man she’d been tipped off to.

A drink sat unattended on a food cart. Symphonia swiped it. Lifting the lid, She casually leaned against a wall, acting as one of the passersby with nowhere to go, and discreetly dumped three packets of salt into the drink. She could feel the sweats starting, and her arms hurt a bit. Muscle cramps.

She took a drink and nearly vomited. It tasted terribly of sugar, but she downed it. She needed the salt. It wouldn’t take long for the salt to act. Until then, she relaxed. When her arms stopped hurting and her tongue didn’t feel as dry, Symphonia listened in to the implant frequency. It sounded close by.

With a nod to herself, she went around the corner, still sipping on the straw casually. A door stood not far away in a darkened corner. Not suspicious at all. A man stood guard with a large rifle in his hands. His obvious synthetic eye would pinpoint her as having no body mods momentarily. Time to go to work.

“Hello sailor…don’t be afraid…” She continued on quietly, making sure only he could hear the song. It wouldn’t affect anyone else and they would instantly make her out as a Siren. “Keep quiet…good man…yes…stay quiet…”

She took out a folded piece of paper. Symphonia moved up to the man and, seeing him hopelessly under her control, she offered him the fake note. She knew they could see her on camera. “Let me in…and smile…”

He did as instructed, letting the computer read his ocular implant. The sterile grey door slid open without a sound. Her new warrior followed without hesitation. She just had to maintain her song. As a second door opened, they walked into a well lit laboratory. Tanks of various solutions stood around the room and in one was suspended a blue haired, blue skinned mermaid. Her eyes were open, but unseeing.

Rage filled Symphonia. She’d known Fortisima had been captured, but seeing her there, held like a slave by those she should’ve been devouring… Her song halted.

A groan from behind made her turn. The man she’d been controlling looked at her. She drew out the gun she’d swiped and shot the Modder through the skull. His scarlet blood splattered all over the door. Not the plan, but she’d make it work.

Two adjoining doors flew open. Symphonia ducked behind a counter. She reached out and tore the dead man’s automatic rifle out of his clammy hands and loaded it. Though certainly not as practiced as the humans, she knew her way around a firearm. Practice made perfect. As she heard them shouting for reinforcements, she popped up and shot them both. One died, the other did not, his skin made of metal of some sort. She grunted in anger. Synthetics.

Whipping around and leaping over the counter, Symphonia let her claws come out. One slash, and the wires in his neck broke. Of all the mods, cyber skulls were the most disgusting. Blood and oil dripped down her hands. She could taste the iron in the air.

A bullet grazed her arm and she cried out. Using the man’s dagger, she threw it straight into the ocular implant of the aggressor. Then, she found his frequency and sang. The gun entered his mouth. Symphonia narrowed her eyes. He dropped to the ground, a hole in his head.

Another appeared behind. Trying to fire again, the gun clicked. Symphonia grabbed a new one. But as she went to test it, it wouldn’t fire. She grimaced. A coded gun. She sent it sliding down the corridor in anger and slashed his throat. Grabbing an explosive from the closest dead Modder, she threw it down the hall after the gun. It went off with a bang.

She reached down and picked up two modded magnums. The handles molded to her grip instantly. Broken bodies lay strewn about the corridor. A man who had lost his leg screamed, writhing on the ground. He clawed at his burnt face. Symphonia paused. With a sigh, she put him out of his misery.

Symphonia split the air with a shriek. It rocked the building, and several vials shattered on the ground. The men on the other side of the door cried out. Their auditory implants broke apart on the inside. Rendered deaf, they staggered about disoriented.

A woman shook her head. Black haired, blue eyed, no body mods to speak of, and only momentarily dazed. She screamed at the disoriented soldiers and kicked one. Her lab coat had been stained with blood. “I paid you louses for protection!” 

“Poor protection.” Symphonia’s voice lilted across the room as she stood in the doorway. Before anyone else could react, she’d taken out half the men, leaving four groping for their weapons. Symphonia leapt forward, dodging the doctor’s bullets, and used one of them as a human shield. His body filled with bullets. She threw him at the woman. In her effort to sidestep, she hit her head on a table.

Symphonia turned on the remaining three.  One she sang to, and a second became another shield. Riddled with bullet wounds, Symphonia slit his throat. The last two died screaming.

Pain shot through her arm. The small bullet wound from earlier bled down her pale skin. Symphonia tasted it. She needed more salt, more ocean water. As the doctor reached her weapon, Symphonia kicked over a metal table. It crashed into the woman.

With the doctor pinned, Symphonia stood over her. She disposed of her weapons. It would only take a swipe of her claws to end the woman’s life. “Any last words?”

Through heaving breaths, the woman laughed. Blood clogged her mouth. With a last spit, she just shook her head. “Whatever your mission is? It’s a failure. Your friend is dead.”

“You were my mission.”

Her target died without a scream.

One last duty remained. No human could be allowed to retain the body of a mer. The woman’s blue tail had already molted away from the lack of liquid, but her naked body still had a tint of blue. In the back of the laboratory, tubs of gasoline for the Modders sat unbroken. She grabbed two and soaked the entire place, pouring the last bit over Fortisima.

Symphonia lit the trail of gasoline from the entrance and watched as it engulfed the lab. Her only safety lay in the water. Away from the Mods, away from the synthetics.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2021: Days 6 & 7

Films: 5 Best Film of the Day(s): Users

All Light, Everywhere: In 2015, during the riots and rebellion in the immediate aftermath of the Freddy Gray killing by local police, the Baltimore Police department agreed with a private entrepreneur to send up a secret surveillance plane over the city, in order to monitor, in clear HD images, those neighborhoods most primed for a violent reaction. They did this without informing the mayor’s office, or other local government agencies. This is only a facet of Theo Anthony’s far-reaching doc on the subject, not just of surveillance, but also the Act of Looking as any type of objective measure of reality. Anthony stays fixated on Baltimore, his hometown, when he tours the AXON corporate headquarters in Arizona, the makers of the most used police body cams and taser weapons, where the company CEO enthusiastically walks through the offices and production warehouse, as these items are being manufactured. Not surprisingly, despite their near-ubiquity amongst American police stations, AXON’s most lucrative asset is its intense data collection, via its evidence.com portal, where law enforcement uploads thousands of hours of video each day. Anthony also spends time with marketing focus groups, camera-toting carrier pigeons, and scientists exploring the framework of our visual understanding. It’s at times an abstract experience  —  the film communicates its intentions largely through bracketed text blocks, and a voice-actor, who acknowledges their role in your understanding the film’s premise. He also makes frequent use of past scientific thought on the subject, including the creation of the earliest forms of motion picture recording, to best exemplify the more we attempt to create visual “truth,” the more the standard slips through our fingers. Notably, the AXON recording equipment is designed to give the idea of full-disclosure with respect to the police’ behavior, as a means of protecting the community, but it’s clear that the appeal to law-enforcement is actually quite the opposite: Providing enough legally permissible evidence to either exonerate their officers, or to put the plaintiff behind bars. As Anthony’s pithy film points out, the act of seeing is still an act.

The World to Come: It is, of course, deeply unfair to compare each film to the highwater mark in a given genre  —  to say, for example, ‘Well, I quite liked that hard-boiled egg, but it’s no souffle au fromage’  —  but the current spate of turn-of-the-century hardship lesbian romance films makes it near impossible not to put them in canonical order. Leading the way, it must be said, is the first of this current iterations of romances, Céline Sicamma’s excellent Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which took my breath away. If the low-water mark of this triad is last year’s Ammonite, which relied far too much on its esteemed leads to do all the heavy lifting; Mona Fastvold’s film nestles somewhere close to the latter, but nowhere near the rarefied air of the former. What Fastvold does make use of is the natural environment in which the film was shot (Bucharest, as a believable stand-in for Upstate New York), filled with snow, and mud, and the damp gray features of that clump of woods in the valley of the mountains nearby. The story gives us two farming couples, both miserable, albeit in slightly different ways. Abigail (Katherine Waterston) and Dyer (Casey Affleck) genuinely care about one another, but the loss of their young daughter to diphtheria has turned their marriage into a sort of continual wake; and Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) and her dour husband, Finney (Christopher Abbott), who don’t have any children, and with Finney’s grimly cruel nature, aren’t likely to have any. In their shared loneliness and misery, Abigail and Tallie become friends, then eventually lovers, finding in each other’s arms, the wonder of worlds and joys otherwise lost to them. The film certainly means well, but as told mainly in journal entry and letter VO  —  Waterston’s voice so muted and unwavering, she sounds like an NPR journalist reporting a story  —  it's so modulated and chaste, the emotional arc never rises beyond the slightly bowed. We aren’t given enough privvy into Tallie’s own state of mind, so thoroughly are we inside the consciousness of Abigail, to feel the full weight of her decisions. It’s earnest, but not particularly moving.

Flee: You don’t see a ton of animated documentaries, but in the case of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s harrowing immigrant’s survivor tale, there was no way to catalogue the early life of Amin, the film’s subject, without extensive recreations in the first place. As a result, there is a strikingly evocative visual element to the manner Rasmussen and his animation team document Amin’s journey from war-torn Afghanistan, to Moscow, to Estonia, back to Moscow, and finally to Copenhagen. After his father is taken into custody by the Mujahideen in the late ‘80s, Amin and his mother, brother, and sisters fly out to Russia, in the months just after the fall of communism. From one chaotic country to another, the family desperately try to leave Russia for western Europe, but with unreliable traffickers, and a lone older sibling in Sweden, having to scrounge every penny he makes in order to make arrangements, things move in an agonizingly halting way. Eventually, Amin gets safely to Copenhagen, but is allowed to stay only by having to lie to Swedish authorities that the rest of his family is dead. If that weren’t enough, adding to Amin’s fears, he feels the need to tell his family  —  now scattered about Europe  —  about his being gay. Through extended interviews with Amin, Rasmussen teases out his friend’s full story, spread out over multiple flashbacks, while interlocking with Amin’s current serious relationship in Copenhagen, with a man he plans to marry, if only he can finally accept and trust in the idea of having a permanent home. Rasmussen’s genuine friendship with Amin adds a warm sheen of empathy to the proceedings, even in the ways not everything makes perfect sense. You get the understanding that Amin, having long buried his extremely difficult past journeys, is hesitating, even now, to fully unburden himself all at once, as if he has to take the time to reconcile all the different versions of his own story he’s had to live with, in order to make sense of it all.

Hive: In the era of #metoo, and Sundance’s continued efforts to represent female-helmed films at the festival, it’s becoming ever more clear in film after film, the biggest impediment to systemic change in culture and government is the ever-so-delicate male ego, which protects itself from damage more often than not by absolutely brutalizing anything that would dare threaten it. In Blerta Basholli’s excellent debut feature, based on a true story, the year is 1999, and in the aftermath of the grisly Serbian War, many communities are still awaiting word on the many missing, presumed dead family members who were taken away and will very likely not be coming back. One such half-widow is a fierce woman named Fahirje (Yllka Gashi), who still takes care of her missing husband’s father (Cun Lajci), as well as her two children. With funds dwindling, and her honey business not faring as well without her husband, a seasoned beekeeper, Fahirje gets a drivers’ license and begins a new business, hand-crafting jars of ajvar, the Serbian roasted red pepper sauce, and selling them at the local grocery. Despite violent, brutish opposition from many of the men in her small village of Krusha, whose favorite put-down is to call her a “whore,” Fahirje soldiers on, eventually enlisting many of the other village widows to join her business. Through it all, she has to contend with her own emotional pain  —  her husband vanished years ago, but has yet to be identified amongst the remains of the mass graves that become the final resting place for many Serbians. Basholli shoots the film primarily as handheld verite, documenting the day-to-day building of the business as well as the emotional upheaval of her protagonist. In this, Gashi, with her smoldering eyes, the lines of determination etched into her face, is a revelation. Fahrije suffers the multitude of slings and arrows  —  most miserably coming from her own teen daughter, who is embarrassed at first at the attention and gossip her mother is getting   —  with dignified solemnity. By the end, she has empowered a generation of women, while paving the way for countless others. Not all revolutions are won on the battlefield.

Users: It’s indeed jarring to see a film so dedicated to visual sumptuousness, so satisfyingly transfixing in its use of pattern, motion, and juxtaposition, but all in service towards an epitaph to our inevitable extinction. Natalia Almada’s cinematic essay uses its visual poetics to lure us in, to bewitch us with its beauty as it gently eases the blade of the knife deep in our midsection. A mother of two young children, Almada begins the film contemplating her babies, and the world in which they have been brought into, voracious in its use of natural materials, polluting the oceans with miles of fiber-optic cable, burning our forests to the ground, exploiting the Earth for every gram of mineable material, every ounce of oil, all to fill the growing chasm between ourselves and the formerly natural world in which we used to inhabit. The film moves at a placid, even-keeled pace. There are many beautifully composed slow-fixed shots of fields, trees, cityscapes from high above; juxtaposed against contrasting conceptions: an overhead drone shot of the Pacific’s cresting coastline cutting to an AT&T manhole cover; her own child’s face lit by the glow of a computer as he fixates on the screen in front of him, to a distant plane’s long vapor trail through a swath of sky; an infant breast-feeding to the endless rows of sprouts in a hydroponic lab. There is so much stuff, so many things, from shipping crates to solar panels, all slipping past the lens of DP Bennett Cerf’s cameras, so as to become something akin to a sort of visual intervention: You can see it, the film is telling us, you know very well how this is going to end. Almada doesn’t provide answers, or even firm conclusions, exactly. These are the things she is wrestling with in her own conscience, the horrific implications of otherwise deeply pleasing symmetric images. The film is a stunning ode to our demise.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges  —  but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.