#and again this is PAID WORK and the tech is provided for you

[syndullqs]

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 — 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉

summary — a mission unlocks memories in your brain you’d rather forget. tech helps, in his own way.

warnings — gn!reader, angst, fluff, mentions of childhood trauma, hunter’s a prick

note — i heard this sound on tiktok and it unlocked a memory i did NOT want unlocked lol so enjoy this self indulgent piece

𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐘. it’s funny how something as small as a child crying causes someone to fold in on themselves. you almost were shot because of it, and you definitely got an earful back on the marauder.

“what were you thinking? just standing there? you could’ve been killed!” hunter’s voice penetrated your clouded thoughts, scolding you for a poor job. he had a point; you were almost killed.

“but i wasn’t, hunter, so what’s the big deal?” you challenge, crossing your arms over your chest. what was next, was he going to question how you worked with the team? was he going to exclude you from future missions? you almost dared him.

“the big deal? y/n you nearly cost us the mission and you could have been killed,” he paused, taking a minute to think. though, given his next words, he should have taken more time to think, “i think you should sit out on the next mission,” his voice was still raised, breaths spilling from his mouth like he ran a marathon.

yet there it was.

exclusion.

“fine, it’s your call, you’re the sergeant,” your words were not short of being venomous, making hunter realize instantly what he just told you. you were a valuable asset to the batch, a sounding board, and he just told you to sit out.

there wasn’t a lot of places for you to go, so you sat in the co-pilot’s chair. you brought a knee up to your chest, resting your chin on it. the silence was comforting, but your mind still swam. hunter’s words, their words, the child crying…

“for the record, i don’t think you should sit out next mission,” tech was the first to speak, the softness and quietness of his voice illustrating just how unused to that he was. his words only earned a scoff from you.

“it was the child crying, no?” he guessed. tech noticed the shift in your demeanor when the child started crying to her mother, wondering why everyone left. you grew stiff, your eyes unfocused, and of course, you were nearly shot.

“what gave me away?” you asked him, still refusing to meet eyes with him. despite tech not being well-versed in comfort, he still knew how to read people. he could read them very well. interpreting those emotions was a different skill.

“the fact you were nearly shot, mainly,” he stated as-a-matter-of-factly, “but also the way your demeanor changed. your shoulders tightened, your eyes widened. not to mention your voice changed,” he went on to describe just how much your body changed. you didn’t think he paid that much attention to you.

“i didn’t think it was that obvious,” you shrugged, taking your chin off of your knee. you slid your eyes over to meet his, the softness of them underneath his goggles provided an odd place of comfort for you. he didn’t judge you, he was merely stating facts.

“it was,” he felt heat rise to his cheeks, a feeling he logically knew was because of his attraction to you. emotionally, he wouldn’t acknowledge it.

“at least to me,” tech added softly, attempting to make the situation better than what it was. your eyes widened again, unsure of how to feel about this. ever since you started working with the bad batch, talking about emotional experiences was hard with tech. so you didn’t. hearing him acknowledge your feelings and talk about his own shocked you. it shouldn’t have.

“when i was a kid, i was bullied a lot,” you started, pulling down the wall you’ve built up over the years, “their form of bullying was excluding me from things. i was invited to parties, but never talked to. i was never played with, and kids made fun of me for the stuff i liked,” you continued. you’ve never spoken to any of them about this. it was too sensitive. the fear of rejection and judgement was too strong.

silence followed, filling the space between you. tech didn’t know what to say, but he knew that this was sensitive information. he knew that it was hard for you to talk about, and so he didn’t want to say anything to potentially make things worse.

“hearing that little girl cry, asking her mother where everyone went, it just…i don’t know. it was under different circumstances but still,” you were failing to understand why the moment froze you. hunter was right, you could have been killed.

“it was a different circumstance, but,” tech started, his words coming out slowly as he processed them, “your fight or flight kicked in. it’s human nature whenever we come in contact with something that’s upset us or, dare i say, traumatized us,” his eyes searched yours, trying to read the expression on your face. tech knew what it was like to be ostracized for the things you’re good at. he was a defective clone, he knew almost exactly what you felt.

“when…when i was a cadet, still on kamino, i wasn’t treated very kindly by the regs simply for being different. the words they said, even some of the things they did, it was not kind of them,” tech’s words marinated in your mind for a moment. you found yourself completely facing him, engrossed in the man in front of you. you finally found someone to relate to, that knew what it was like to be excluded and bullied. for once, you could breathe.

“you didn’t deserve that,”

“neither did you,” he agreed, his warm, brown eyes cradling yours. he came to the same realization you did. he wasn’t as alone as he thought he was. as much as he wished neither of you went through what you did, it brought you two together, and he was grateful for that.

“we do need to work on your fight, flight, or freeze response,” he lightened the mood. you smiled and laid back in your chair.

“i know i know,” you smiled. you didn’t catch it, but tech smiled too.

here’s some tech! this was kind of self indulgent so i apologize for that, i still hope you enjoy though!

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday: Mike

Summary: A new intern is assigned to your department.

A/N: Mike is from Hellraiser: Hellworld. If you need an idea as to what his character is like, I highly recommend this gif set.

Warnings: Age gap (Reader is 10+years older than Mike). Power imbalance.

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Mike was brimming with excitement. His first internship, and it was paid! He's really looking forward to getting something on his resume that isn't family business stuff. When all your work is for your family's company, people tend to think it's strictly nepotism and not actual skill and work ethic. Sure, that is how he plans on climbing the corporate ladder to CIO, but you gotta have the skills so you can at least pretend you deserve the role.

The interview process wasn't as much of a breeze as he was expecting. His bosses, at least now they're his bosses, weren't as appreciative of his casual approach to the whole thing. It wasn't until he was able to show his technical skills that the interview started going well. It was a bit of painfully humbling experience that he doesn't want to go through again any time soon.

But now he's got the "job" and he's looking forward to those non-glamorous tasks Pine said they have saved for interns. To Mike it sounds like he can do a half-assed job while watching YouTube and no one will care because it's a crappy project to begin with.

Mr. Pine was in charge of distributing the interns around the company. While Mike was technically working IT, he'd be reporting to the person in charge of the overarching project. That's where you come in.

Jonathan introduced you to Mike and, though you easily picked up on the trust-fund-frat-kid vibes, you tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Pine and Syverson don't hire people who can't actually do the job so you'll give the kid a chance.

"Now, Mike, I believe Jonathan explained the basics of the job?"

"Yes, Ma'am. You're looking for an updated user interface for your employees? Making it more intuitive?"

"Correct," you smile. Maybe this won't be so bad after all. "Today we'll start you out with getting you comfortable and showing you the program we'd like you to update. Tomorrow there'll be a meeting so the employees can tell you what design updates would be helpful for them."

"A meeting?" Mike's eyes blink in confusion.

"Yes, because you cannot update the program to be more intuitive if you don't know how it's being used."

"Can't I just set up some prototypes and people can choose which they like best? I promise, they'll be happy with the results."

You cross your arms. There's that attitude I knew would show up. "Mike, you don't even know what we use that program for. How are you going to be able to figure out the most intuitive, optimal way for it to work?"

"I'm pretty smart," he cocks an eyebrow at you. "I've got some really good skills."

"Skill is not enough," you lecture. "You have to be able to actually deliver. My department needs an update that you will provide. And it will be based on their needs, not your perception of their needs. Understand?"

Mike scoffs but doesn't try to argue his case any further after seeing the look on your face. "You got it, Boss Lady," he sighs.

Next

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Tagging @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82 ; @peyton-warren @ronearoundblindly; @stellar-solar-flare

[missedmilemarkers]

Hi, again! MissedMileMarkers! Been a while since I've been on Tumblr again and I must say, I truly missed seeing your work after a long while of studying for my finals and preparation for Christmas. I hope you're having a great holiday this year too, as I would love to see what adventures you'd be going on. What movies do you enjoy? And what's your absolute favorite movie, if you ever have one? If not movies, then books perhaps?

Anyway, I never really dabbled in photography because I think I'm not really cut out for it because of my lack of knowledge on the subject, although it doesn't hurt to try! Here are some photos I took, from my hometown. (P.S, I'm not anywhere in the US, just needed to point that out hehe)

Hey eyeofcathulu,

Its been a while since I have seen you in my feed. There are a few Tumblr's that stick out to me due to name, content etc. Your name is one of my favorites and always stands out. So lets get started on your questions shall we? I truly missed seeing your work after a long while of studying for my finals and preparation for Christmas

I really hope that you do well on your finals. Finals can be a very stressful time. Stay motivated, focused and calm, With all of that you will the day. Even if you cant do any of those things preparation will also win the day. Best of luck!

I hope you're having a great holiday this year too,

So far the holiday season has been good. Thank you so very much for the well wishes.

I would love to see what adventures you'd be going on.

The most notable adventure was the snow back in November. We got a fair amount. They were calling for much more over the days after but the storm never materialized into anything of not. I have also started working a walking video project. The start of that project has been very tough. But like any good journey it wont be easy and I know it.

What movies do you enjoy? And what's your absolute favorite movie, if you ever have one? If not movies, then books perhaps?

There are a few things here to unpack so let get to it. So for the types of movies that I absolutely enjoy. Are movies with a psychological twist. Movies like "Secret Window", "Memento" (not sure if that is the right spelling). My absolute favorite movie is "4 rooms" I like how each room is directed by a different director. The final room is my favorite. When it comes to literature the last non technical book that I read was "The stainless Steel Rat". I re-read it about 6 months ago. I sadly do not read non technical material as much as I used to.

Anyway, I never really dabbled in photography because I think I'm not really cut out for it because of my lack of knowledge on the subject, although it doesn't hurt to try! Here are some photos I took, from my hometown.

More about me specific to tech. I bring this up because it goes into one of your other questions that was just outlined.

So the reason I spend most of my time reading technical material is because I come from Tech. I am a devops / infrastructure / security engineer by trade. I also develop in a few different languages.

How I got into photography in a more professional sense is I got fired from my job. I have never even been written up before in my life let alone fired. I released a new product for a company ontime and under budget. 2 days after the successful release they fired me with 0 warning or chance to improve. They just used me for a specific purpose and then paid it forward by terminating me. I know this is truth but this event still hurts me to this day. I also might add their severance was garbage. That happened earlier this year and I have been doing this ever since. I have applied to over 10,000 jobs (that is no exaggeration) and have been on around 20 interviews. I have received 0 job offers. That part of this journey has been really hard.

Still to this day as strange as this is going to sound. "I do not view myself as a photographer". What I mean by this is probably not what one would think. I am a provider of emotion. Pictures invoke an emotion that I can never understand onto the people that see them. I can think the invoked emotion will be X however it will be Y for the person, and even if I can understand emotion Y from my perspective I can never understand EXACTLY how the person actually experiences that.

Tech v.s. Photography. In my tech career I change peoples lives. It was due to my hard work, dedication and precision that won the war. Literally thousands of people depended on only me doing my job. If I took one misstep then everyone, all their loved ones, families etc would all have been without financial security. I love working in tech. I get the same type of satisfaction as I do with tech that I do with photography but in much different ways.

"I never really dabbled in photography because I think I'm not really cut out for it because of my lack of knowledge on the subject,"

Statements like this should always be treated as an indicator to follow a potential passion.

More about my view(s)

The world is a very amazing place. The world is also very cruel that is not fair. I personally feel that no one should contribute to the evil that lurks in the shadows. All I am trying to do is bring true genuine emotion to people for whatever purpose serves them.

So you saying that you are getting through finals. Again I wish you nothing but luck. When you get to the point in your life when you enter the world please do it with nothing more then joy and happiness in your heart.

Back to the photography specific to you. I highly encourage you to do it. Just because someone does not have "training or education" sometimes all you need is passion.

A big part of life is figuring out what you don't want to do.

I highly encourage you to follow any creative path you choose. There is no time like the present to do what you might love and what other people night love.

P.S.

I really liked the pictures. You captured your home in an amazing way. I really like how you captured the sun in a very unique way.

Thank you for sharing these with the world!

~ MissedMileMarkers

[merakiui]

thinking about androids again, but rather than the plot seen in android jade,,,, consider android floyd who is being developed by tech genius idia shroud with input and funding from business magnate azul ashengrotto.

(cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, obsession, vaguely implied non-con/dub-con, android floyd)

He's designed to be a companion for those who are lonely and in need of the company (whether physically or socially). You're just a tired, overworked university student, so it's mind-boggling to you when there's a sleek limousine parked just beyond campus property. Security guards are insisting you come with them because there's someone who'd like to meet you.

In the limo, you find yourself sitting across from Azul Ashengrotto himself. He doesn't bother with flowery introductions, instead cutting to the heart of the matter. You've been randomly selected to help with a very important phase of his and Idia's project. The general idea is to test how well the android interacts with a normal, ordinary person in a monitored setting.

You're very confused. You never signed up for any lottery, and you certainly aren't affiliated with anything of that sort. You're just trying to get through your degree, survive two part-times, and hopefully make enough to keep afloat for another month. Azul tells you this isn't an issue; you'll be generously compensated for your time and efforts. It's only three months; you'll be permitted to live your life as you normally would, only now you'll be accompanied by a highly intelligent android.

Despite hearing all of this, you hesitate when he reveals the lengthy contract. As you flip through it, analyzing each clause and category, Azul says something that piques your interest. "We don't expect you to house an android in your little apartment. Goodness, that's simply ludicrous. We'll provide your housing for these next three months. After all, we must be able to monitor your progress."

"Housing? What do you mean?"

He smiles at you. Backdropped by leather interior, the lights casting odd shadows on his face, he looks near-sinister. But he leans forward to press a ballpoint pen into your hands and the illusion vanishes. "I think you'll find it quite to your liking. If you've finished your classes for the day, why not visit the property with me? Then you may decide whether you wish to participate."

You're not worried about that part. What worries you the most, however, is the fact that he's right. You are finished with classes for the day and you have nothing planned. You took today off from work. Your schedule is perfectly free.

But of course the Azul Ashengrotto wouldn't know that, would he?

The house is a smart home, equipped with every necessity and appliance. Everything's controlled by a remote here. It's not very far from your university either, built on a hill that overlooks houses below. It feels a little isolating and smells very new and clean. Like that fabled new car smell, only it's a house. But everything is so unique to you. Its minimalistic design is oddly cozy, and you can't help but feel enchanted the deeper you venture through the two-story home. It's all so unreal!

Azul gives you the rundown, explains how the remote and each button works. You can lock doors, open and close windows, mess with the thermostat, turn the home security on and off, and even start the oven. You hold the power to this home in the palm of your hands. It's immensely fascinating.

By the end of the tour, you're shaking his hand and signing his contract, agreeing to three months of study. Not only are you provided this nice home, you'll also be paid per week. And the pay is far more than you were making with your two jobs.

The android has a long, tongue-tying serial number, so to make things easier he's named Floyd. They even gave him a surname in preparation for the twin android who is being designed to complement and mirror him. He certainly looks human when you meet him, but there's this uncanny nature to his presence that slightly unnerves you. He's too perfect. Skin too smooth. Eyes too bright. Hair too soft. He towers over you, having to bend down to walk through the doorframe, and every movement he makes is very mechanical and stiff.

Still, you smile at him and offer your hand. "Hi there. I'm (Name). Your...housemate, I guess."

He nods, peering down at your hand before lifting his own. "Floyd Leech. At your service."

You were expecting to feel coldness, so you startle when his hand fits into yours and it's warm. It feels so very real. So deceptively lifelike. You wonder if he can regulate his own internal temperatures. Just how advanced is he?

"Right... Um, I look forward to getting to know you!"

He nods again, releasing your hand after a perfectly timed handshake.

Azul had given you a special number should you need to reach him or Idia. All you needed to do was phone it if at any point you were to feel confused or unsafe. "But I don't think you'll utilize it," he told you when you stood in the lab, watching Idia Shroud flit around to do final maintenance checks to ensure Floyd was ready for his first trial run. His eyes were open the entire time, two mismatched lights centered on you. His stare was listless, but somehow you felt as if he was looking through to your very soul. "He's very safe. In fact, he's programmed to assess and react appropriately to dangers of all kinds. You'll be safe with him around."

And safe you are.

You've always been alone, so it's nice to have a roommate, even if he only speaks when spoken to. It's awkward for all of one week until you ease into his pattern. From various vantage points throughout the house, Idia and Azul watch through hidden cameras. You cook your meals for yourself and Floyd watches, assisting when you order him to. You leave for class and Floyd waits by the door for you to return, standing stock-still for hours.

You lounge in the sitting room and put on all kinds of films. Action. Comedy. Horror. Floyd's eyes never leave the screen. But sometimes he watches you more than he watches the movie, noting all of your reactions. He doesn't understand why you get so emotional over sappy romances. So you explain it simply: "It evokes emotions. We all have emotions, and these movies make us feel them. Happy. Sad. Angry. Upset. Things like that."

But Floyd doesn't feel. Even so, he listens and he nods along, filing your answers away for later dissection. It's interesting.

By the end of the first month, Floyd's adopted new habits. Ever since you told him he's free to do as he pleases, he's taken to cooking your meals for you, doing your laundry, preparing your bag for the day. He's surprisingly good at it. He does chores when you leave for classes or work. And for the first time in a while you're excited to return home, knowing he's there waiting.

Floyd adds new words and phrases to his ever-expanding vocabulary. You watch a lot of TV together and he starts to use some of what he hears in his own speech. He picks up informal language quickly, and it isn't long until he's using words like sup or dunno instead of the rigid how are you? and I am unsure he was previously programmed with.

The first sign of unrest comes when you realize Floyd's also connected to the smart home. At first you didn't think it was a bad thing. After all, with him controlling it you won't have to worry about getting up to grab the remote if you've already sat down. Floyd can do that for you. But then the remote goes missing, later turning up shattered. You ask Floyd what happened and he looks at you and says, "Why use this piece of junk when you've got me?"

"Still... What if you're not able to help? What if you're in sleep mode and I need to open a window or something?" you argue, cradling the splinters of remote like they're an injured baby bird.

"That won't happen," he replies smoothly, issuing you a soothing smile. "I'm always gonna be here for ya. Count on it."

And you do because, by the time the three months are nearing their end and Floyd's developed into quite the companion, more and more human than he's ever seemed, you find yourself stuck.

No, not stuck. That's not quite right. You're more so trapped.

Floyd locks the doors, shutters the windows, turns off the lights. You're cowering in the closet, the only place that feels just a little safe in this moment. You can't reach Azul or Idia either. He's shut the power off, the internet connection, everything. The smart home on the hilltop feels like a tiny island now, and Floyd's the shark always circling it, waiting for you to dip your feet into the depths.

"C'mon, Shrimpy," he calls out, and it's a nickname you were once so fond of because he thought of it himself. "I already told ya I ain't gonna hurt ya. So just come out and talk to me."

You have no idea where you went wrong. Was it too many horror films? Was it the fact that you started to rely so heavily on him for companionship, ignoring your human friends in favor of staying in with Floyd? Or was it because he was blocking their numbers that you never received any messages and automatically assumed they were cutting contact? He said he'd always be here for you, so why to this degree?

The closet doors are thrown open. Floyd drags you, kicking and screaming, out by the ankles. Every camera has gone dark on Azul and Idia's end. All but one. The one in the bedroom. Floyd stares directly at it when he lifts you up and lays you on the bed, gentle and sugary-sweet.

He smiles and waves before that screen blanks out, leaving you truly trapped with him.

And because it's all experimental, morbid curiosity trumping ethical morals, no one comes to rescue you.

Three months is more of an indefinite forever in this lonesome smart home.

[whomeidontknowthem]

The second part of tech's pov is actually here, this time including Murderbot being lovingly disassembled while conscious! (an experience that was definitely nothing but pleasant, don't worry about it)

It's officially a series now, I think there'll be five parts total? But don't trust my word, the process is mysterious and unpredictable.

A feed alarm marking the end of ter shift blinked to the center of ter vision just as Ginson pried open the chest panel. Ter tool slipped, jamming into exposed synthetic muscle held to the side by the SecUnit’s one functional hand. Ginson turned off the reminder, rubbed ter eyes with the back of ter hand that hadn’t yet been covered in blood and fluids, and sighed. 

“Everything alright?” Minoa chimed in. Ginson could feel him working in the shared feed workspace, but he was keeping an eye on what te was doing. Which was, of course, not awkward and distracting at all.

“Yes, yes,” te sighed again, and brought the clock to the foreground of ter attention – it was an hour into ter usual rest period – and set a new timer, counting seconds to the morning. Te had a little less than eight hours to finish every diagnostic te could think of and compile the report, and even fewer if te actually wanted to get any sleep.

Which was why te picked up the tool, nudged the Unit’s hand into a more convenient position and pushed the chassis open manually instead of hooking up the specialized machinery and starting the full maintenance cycle that would require at least another half an hour and take the SecUnit offline. 

Blood dripped down from where the organics tore. The SecUnit helped ter maneuver its parts to provide access. Minoa whistled, feed activity slowing down, and peeked over ter shoulder. “That’s… fuck, they actually have, like, organs?”

“Language,” te warned distractedly (Minoa groaned), then answered, “Yes,” and leaned forward to get a better view. The diagnostics couldn’t tell where the damage was, and te hoped looking at it would make things obvious, but there were no visibly leaking parts, and the inorganic tissue was still in the way, even if this one was partially transparent, so te reached to move it aside – thankfully, it was made to resist impacts, not being cut through (if the most inner parts of a SecUnit are being cut, there’s likely nothing more to be done) – moved the tool carefully around the tubing, pulling the tissues away with the other hand, and–

“What’s this?” Minoa exclaimed. 

Ginson stilled ter fingers before te could accidentally cut something that should not be cut. “Nothing you need to look at,” te snapped and immediately regretted it. Judging by Minoa’s silence, it was entirely too harsh. That’s why Ginson hated working with people – te wasn’t good at it, especially when te was busy! Te put the tools aside and faced him.  “Sorry. I don’t mean to yell, it’s just… sorry.”

“No, no, sorry I interrupted,” Minoa laughed, and te shifted awkwardly. “It's late, and you have to work. Ugh,” he made an entirely exaggerated face of disgust. “Eleven pm at work is the exact time and place to be cranky.” 

That just reminded Ginson that te wasn't the only one staying after hours, and Minoa wasn't even paid for this. “If you want to call it a day–”

“Nuh-uh!” Minoa exclaimed and emphatically tapped his lips. “Nope, never, you're not getting rid of me so easily. You think I all but begged to be in your wonderful company just to give up like that?” 

Ginson sighed, but this time it came out exasperated. “Offering help isn't begging.”

“That's besides the point.” Minoa waved dismissively. “Also, where else do I get to poke around in one of these?”

And, to prove his point, he poked. His finger landed at the side of the mostly exposed lung, and he immediately flinched away, making a face. It startled a laugh out of Ginson. “Don't do that,” te had to warn. “These things are delicate on the inside, and cost a fortune. I need to prove it hasn't been damaged, not get it damaged.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Minoa grinned back. Ginson found some part of terself relaxing. “I'll limit my poking to data, then. Your magical fingers are definitely much better suited for this task.” 

Te waved him off, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

At seven hours thirty-eight minutes before the solicitor was due back at the office, Ginson had to accept that a purely visual inspection would lead ter nowhere, and ushered the SecUnit towards the table. It hesitated slightly, still holding its chest open with one hand, and Ginson put its severed arm aside, clearing the space.

At seven sixteen Ginson had gone through most of the circulatory system piece by piece, still finding no explanation for the lowered performance. It wasn’t surprising – the numbers weren’t significant enough to warrant so much effort in any other circumstances, but the manager had been clear: te was to investigate and list every smallest issue, and prove that (ignoring the mangled arm that happened during the assignment and could not be blamed on the company) no, there was no malfunction, so no, the company wouldn’t be paying for the mess. 

Ginson really hoped there wasn’t any malfunction, because if there was… best not to think of that.

At seven ten, Ginson was waiting for the liquid pump to pause the flow on one third of its pipes, so they could be rerouted to an external pump, when Minoa made a surprised sound. Te made sure the errors from the temporarily reduced blood flow cleared out, then asked, “Something interesting?”

“Uh, I guess?” Minoa’s attention was on the feed. “Dunno. I’m gonna– yeah, that, I’m gonna run it against the archives, but maybe?.. Give me a couple of minutes.”

At six forty-seven Ginson fiddled with the disconnected pump, still warm and dripping liquids. It looked perfectly good in ter fingers, but the diagnostics did return an improvement now that it was out of the picture, so, here. A meaningless problem solved. Te wiped the pump and ter hands and focused on the report and the list of other things that returned less than perfect status. Could the left knee joint being 1.7% too tight cause a SecUnit to misinterpret the order? No. Did anyone care about ter opinion or basic logic? Also no.

Stars, te was tired.

“So,” Minoa said and then paused for a good half a minute. Ginson looked at whatever he was working on in the feed – graphs and automatic reports by programs te wasn’t familiar with, structured in ways that didn’t feel intuitive. Minoa sent some of it to the display surface. “Got a minute?”

“I’m listening,” Ginson sighed. 

“Okay,” Minoa smiled and rubbed his hands together. “So, first of all, I wasn’t actually sure what I was looking for?” He looked apologetic. “I ran the code you sent, and the results were all very clear, and then I thought: surely I can do better than this! And you know I don’t really know how to interpret the logs, but it’s the exact kind of data I work with, so I ran some of my code just to see what’s up with that. And you know its performance is generally abnormal, right? Turns out, that’s not the only weird thing!”

That was interesting, Ginson told terself, and it was. Just, at any other hour, you know? Once te'd had a good long nap, then it would be interesting.

“I don’t have all the data from all the SecUnits,” Minoa continued, “but what I did have on hand has yielded fun discrepancies. This,” a graph appeared on the display surface, “is feed activity. This is what you’d see in new SecUnits, and some of the old ones here. This one would fit more with the first bunch, which is weird–”

“Individual differences,” Ginson interrupted. 

“Huh?”

“They are all different. I don’t suppose it shows up for you, but it’s critical in my work. Every Unit is a bit different. They perform differently. They approach things differently and in different ways.” Te shrugged. “Neural tissue. You really can’t get them acting the same, no matter how much structure and how many constraints you implement around their decision-making process.”

“...Right,” Minoa said. 

Ginson thought he looked disappointed, and felt another pang of guilt. Te fidgeted with the pump again, bits and pieces moving inside of it with every twist of ter fingers. “And other differences?” Te tried to sound enthusiastic or at least like te wasn’t dying for a soft pillow and some quiet.

“Right! Okay, there's quite a few to look at, but the most interesting one from those I could check is, I think, the cleaned up data for research on the governors and their effects. The primary focus was the cumulative damage to neural tissue and whether it was worth doing something about, but we tracked many metrics, and one of the things we tracked was hormonal response. The stress levels are higher in older SecUnits as a rule, but they fluctuate a lot, and, looking at the governor module’s influence, there’s always this spike right before it activates, and a long period of recovery afterwards, no matter which level the punishment was at.”

Ginson snorted. “So basically you’ve discovered that they have stress reactions to pain?”

Minoa blinked and looked at the SecUnit. Ginson did, too. It was still lying on the table, unmoving, tubes going out of the hole in its chest and to the external pump. It was still online. Suddenly, it made ter uncomfortable. 

“Well, yes. The thing is: this one doesn’t. Or, if it does, then less than other SecUnits. There’s little to no correlation between its governor module and stress responses. By that I don’t mean it doesn’t have stress responses, because it does, and they’re– there’s a lot of those. And I mean, a lot. If I were a MedSystem looking at a human, I’d give them anxiety meds.” He paused and blinked some more. “...Can constructs have anxiety?”

“The hormonal responses are calibrated for optimal performance,” Ginson dismissed. Te squinted at the graph, then closed ter eyes and accessed it in the feed instead. That, somehow, didn’t make it make more sense. “Individual differences,” te muttered. 

“I suppose,” Minoa sounded sceptical. “Do you know how long it’s been like this?”

“No idea. Logs aren’t kept in full for long.”

“So no logs pre-RaviHyral incident?”

That made Ginson pause. The SecUnit was a mess when te’d gotten ter hands on it first. Being infected with code that took control of its systems and forced it to kill indiscriminately – that was something out of a horror show, and none of them got out of it unaffected. Some were decommissioned as their performance reliability never returned to acceptable figures. Every other one had their memory thoroughly purged. 

Half of those showed repeated problems afterwards, which was how they ended up in ter basically personalized care. Ginson knew them, pulled them apart and put them back together with ter own hands, and hated seeing three more of them gone, never returning from other contracts. Te compiled reports of their state afterwards, and all looked like unfortunate accidents, and were unfortunate accidents. It still felt a bit like ter failure. Maybe they were still underperforming, some error stuck in the organic parts of their systems that Ginson couldn’t access, and the mistakes were the consequence of ter lack of ingenuity. 

But out of the ten Ganaka Pit SecUnits, there was one outlier. It hadn't been an outlier early on – In fact, it was one of the units struggling to return to baseline functionality – but then something happened and it shot beyond the baseline, enough to get Minoa's attention. It was great at its job, and Ginson never found out how it got there.

Te stared at the graph now, and wondered. It made ter feel deeply uncomfortable.

“Neural tissue can be unpredictable,” te repeated. “Especially after extreme adversarial circumstances. And it largely controls its own hormone release so it can self-regulate, and that’s what it did.”

Minoa didn’t look any less sceptical. “You made this sound like a very natural response that every Unit has,” he pointed out. “But then shouldn’t they have the same stress response to their governor module being activated? All the others do.” He gestured at the graphs.

“Well, what other explanation is there?” Ginson asked and immediately regretted it. The discomfort turned into painful pulsing between ter ears. This day couldn’t be over soon enough. “Whatever,” te waved ter hand. “It doesn’t give us much. I’m going to run the proper diagnostics on the endocrine system, but it’s not like it could have forced it to jump into the blast radius against an order.” 

Except hormones affected decision making (that’s why they were there to begin with), and so, yes. This could in fact make it jump into the blast radius without paying attention to an order. If it didn’t have the appropriate fear of the governor module’s punishment protocol, it was the exact kind of thing that’d make it disobey. 

Ginson winced. The only worse result te could deliver was finding out it was a rogue that got caught in an explosion in an attempt to commit mass murder. Oh, ter supervisor would love that conclusion. 

The good thing about hormones was: they were in the blood, and that blood was already conveniently running through a machine capable of taking every test needed. By which Ginson didn’t just mean the SecUnit, though of course it could track its own levels, but the external pump could double as a diagnostic tool. That was just great, and a wonderful way to appear like a good diligent worker that took time to run double tests instead of enjoying ter rest – if a single supervisor would think to realize how much effort hooking it all up would have taken if Ginson hadn't already done that. 

Half of the Unit’s hormone levels were of course elevated. Te’d already talked about individual differences – this was exactly about that. This SecUnit didn’t like going through any tests or repairs. It’d found those stressful since Ganaka Pit, and usually Ginson tried to keep it offline for everything that didn’t require its participation. Te felt a bit bad for keeping it awake like that. Poor thing must have spent the whole time in fear, but, well – it’s not like te had much of a choice here. Te’d take ter time if te had any. 

The test was simple and automated, but took time. The hormones flushed away from its system, then flooded it again. The SecUnit twitched minutely when they plateaued at the highest concentration, and Ginson patted its hand briefly. “Sorry, it’s not going to be a pleasant test,” te muttered. 

Minoa gave ter a startled look that made ter cheeks warm up, but didn’t comment. 

The hormones slowly flushed again and as its results returned almost clear, Ginson dropped a modified governor module diagnostic in its feed. There was an immediate spike in adrenaline that the machines quantified, which was also great because here, proof that Minoa’s findings were a fluke and all of it worked beautifully. The systems connected to the governor, exchanged messages, orders (limited to those the Unit could perform without moving physically), received responses, all in a timely manner and with elevated stress. 

Then came the test of punishment procedures. The shocks were administered at regular intervals, with growing magnitude, the governor module registered every one as completed with not a single problem, except…

“There are no pain-related spikes,” Minoa pointed out. 

Ginson could see that. 

The test finished, and returned all clear. “The endocrine system is being tested, that must interfere with the regular hormone production,” te lied. Because it didn’t, and the first spike was a proof that te’d not messed something up in the settings. The SecUnit had a fully functional hormone production system that could deliver as much adrenaline as needed, and somehow, magically, it didn’t have the natural, innate-to-all-constructs (and humans and, te was sure, animals too) responses to pain. 

“Should we test for it separately?” Minoa offered and clapped his hands. “If that’s the reason it’s been performing better, we should look into it!”

Ginson cleared ter throat. “Minoa…” 

“Come on, call me Tom.”

“Uh,” Ginson blinked and for a whole second looked away from the SecUnit. “Right. Sorry, – could you get me some coffee?”

Minoa stared for a few seconds before smiling. “Sure! How much sugar?”

“Three.”

“On it, boss!” 

He left and closed the door behind himself, and Ginson lowered terself on a chair and slowly, articulately, allowed terself a singular thought: holy fucking shit. 

Okay, te could still be wrong. Te wasn’t dismissing the idea that it was all a fluke, and a natural difference, and there wasn’t a singular test that came out anything but clear, and, most importantly, the SecUnit hadn’t actually killed anyone it wasn’t supposed to. It did ignore an order. And it did show the complete lack of natural responses to pain–

Wait, was it pain generally or pain from the governor? Te had full access to the logs, and te knew the exact timestamp te needed – ter alarm had gone off at exactly eleven, – and, yes, there was the spike in response to the tool slipping and hurting it, and then it lowered its pain sensors even further. So it felt pain alright, and had all the natural and universal reactions associated with it. Except when it came to the pain delivered by its governor. 

So, returning to that thought: holy. fucking. shit. 

At six hours and two minutes, Ginson spent an entire minute staring at what had to be a rogue SecUnit, lying on ter table, chestplate to the side, hooked up to an external pump and currently riding another hormonal high. That made no sense. There was not a single universe in which it made sense for a fucking rogue SecUnit to allow Ginson to do any of this to it! To continue allowing this, for months! 

…Was this why it hated being tested so much? Was it scared of being found out?

At five fifty te was carefully connecting the tubing back to the SecUnit’s liquid pump as the door opened again. “The sugariest coffee I could find!” Minoa announced. He placed it on the table without being told to do so, and peeked at what Ginson was doing again, and drew out a disappointed, “Is this a no for additional testing then?” 

“Not tonight,”” Ginson replied. “There’s already a lot to do–”

“Awwww.”

“–and hunting for mysterious possible problems – that likely don’t even exist because all the diagnostics are clear – would not just be a waste of time, it would be- it would be utterly unproductive, is what it would!”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I was just curious–”

“Well, I’m not! If it works, don’t fix it! My job here is to make sure that it was working within normal operating parameters during the contract. And it was! There’s a whole fucking lawsuit–”

“Hey, language,” Minoa tried for a joke.

“–and who do you think would be blamed if it were to have malfunctioned? Do you think it’d be whoever demanded it stopped in the middle of saving the workers? There was no malfunctioning involved, just some stupid contradictory orders, and that’s it. That is it!”

Minoa was silent for a while after te’d finished. “Sorry. I was just curious, is all. We don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to, tonight or ever.”

“There’s no need to check that, because it’s nothing but bullshit,” Ginson said and made sure ter voice sounded confident. 

Minoa was silent again. Ginson stared at the SecUnit in front of ter and felt sick. It stared at the ceiling, never once meeting ter gaze. A regular, normal, obedient SecUnit that helped with its own disassembly because a tech had asked it to, who just happened to receive conflicting orders that one time. Te’d checked the logs, there were conflicting orders. It was just that simple.

“Okay,” Minoa said finally. “I’m sorry. Is there something else I can help you with?”

Ginson felt awful. He’d done nothing but try to help and cheer ter up, but it was just… not a good night for that. “No. It’s fine, I’ll finish here myself. There’s just a lot of tedious checks, you’ve already helped enough,” that sounded wrong. Te winced. “Sorry, I’m really grateful, just…”

“No-no, I get it,” Minoa assured. His voice sounded odd. “Well, I suppose it’s time to spare you from the fun of my company.” He laughed. “Hang out at some point later?”

“Sure,” Ginson agreed and turned toward him. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he echoed and left.

At five forty two Ginson suddenly had no distraction from wondering whether a rogue SecUnit would jump up and kill ter the moment its blood was safely running all inside its body. It hadn’t yet. But it really wasn’t convenient to murder someone while they were conducting your own repairs. 

Ginson spent a few minutes sipping ter coffee and mulling over that possibility, and every other possibility that bloomed in ter imagination, and then got to work. 

At one hour thirteen minutes te submitted a final report that said that yes, there were minor problems with the SecUnit’s systems. Its pump was performing 2.3% worse than standard. Its left knee joint was too tight. A patch of skin on its back had been regrown at some point with slight defects. But there was nothing more than that, and nothing that would have made it malfunction and do what it shouldn’t have, and definitely not a single tiniest thing that would make the company liable for the damages, and even less that would point to ter, good Tech Ginson, as not having conducted a thorough enough check of the SecUnit’s functionality. 

It was a great report, all in all, with the result of every diagnostic attached. And te didn’t even get murdered while writing it, so maybe it really was the truth.

[triysn]

No but rex ft. social situations

Rex that just tends to talk about downright horrifying shit because he’s doesn’t have a clue how abnormal it is

Some stuff is about his screwed up past like he’ll say oh yeah my parents used experimental tech on me as a child and gave me powers but don’t worry they did it to save my life OR yeah providence/holiday has 24/7 access to all my biometrics and can tell whenever I so much as sneeze

And people are just outraged (rightfully) and be like… sweetie, that’s- that’s a violation of basic privacy?? They’re not allowed to do that to a minor, much less someone who has no idea what the full ramifications of such an invasion is and has not been informed nor asked for consent to such a thing.

And rex is just like, what :)

And lord forbid rex casually drop his pre-Providence backstory like: yeah, my parents died when i was 10 and i just wandered around alone with amnesia, doing crime and being exploited by mafia bosses. Also whenever i got reaally stressed i exploded and lost all my memories again so

Noah: >8O

Rex: is that okay

Holiday takes the greatest joy in bullying white knight/providence into paying for rex’s weekly therapy sessions, because if anything’s owed, it’s monetary compensation for all the shit rex had to put up with

On a lighter note, there’s probably a lot of stuff rex just doesn’t know about because of his funky memory and noah not being able to fully socialise rex in every possible way

Like he doesn’t know about Disney or has never been to an amusement park (outside of work) and reintroducing him to everything could be a whole fic in itself.

Also let us remember that rex isn’t actually good with teenagers his own age??? The only person we’ve seen him spend time around is noah but when faced with multiple teenagers in a social setting without noah he’s a hot mess??

re: “Awkward teen situation” in hong Kong,

the asshole group based off of the men of action.

I don’t know. He’s so eager to please which is usually what makes the situation so hilarious. he’s like an adorable puppy who has no idea what he’s doing but he’s trying so hard?? The fact that he could probably wreck everyone he’s trying to make friends with makes it that much more surreal. Like. He just killed a guy yesterday, but then he's trying to play video games with you.

the code switch between trying-to-make-friends him and providence-agent him in Grounded is insane.

Every interaction between him and a normal person about life is just

Noah: it’s not normal for your parental figures to try and microchip you Rex, who is long accustomed to holiday trying to stick bits of metal into his bloodstream: wHAt

Rex: hey guys sorry I can’t hang out today white knight says I have to work Noah: it’s Sunday Rex: Yea Noah: you were working Monday thru Saturday for like more than 12 hours Rex: …yea Noah: that’s illegal. That’s a violation of labour laws. Rex: i’m 17

Noah: don’t you get vacation days? Paid leave? Sick days? Health insurance??? Rex: I don’t even get paid

throw in the celebrity trio and their parents are ready to adopt this traumatized child-soldier.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Section 12 in review of Dragon Age Veilguard

96 Hours in, 94 hours playtime..

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard (and other Dragon Age stuff, I'm a Lore fiend.)

Section 11 is here.

So, the whole Mourn watch section with the half Lich was very well written and put together. Had an interesting (if not difficult) puzzle and a poignant ending. Loved it.

Did the Treviso sequence where Illario gets his comeuppance. Even though it's a very stale plot idea, it was so very well written and executed (har har) that it's a shame they fired Lucanis's writer. (Mary Kirby wrote Lucanis.)

They probably should've kept her and let her write a lot more than that. The game would've been so much better. It might’ve actually approached good.

Instead of something that when my partner saw me loading it up he said 'wow, you look like you're about to be tortured'.

Rueful face. So much of this game has felt like torture that having two sections on the same day that were legitimately good is odd.

The ones with Taash in Rivain were fun or sad, depending. But still well written and put together.

Still seem to have more to do. Gonna play for a few more hours. It's rare and nice that it's actually curiosity I'm feeling while logging in tonight, vs. any of the gamut of yucky emotions this game has treated me to.

Oh! Before I forget and in the name of attempting to provide a fair review, I do really love the light puzzles and ancient elven tech stuff. That's been a great deal of fun.

There are good parts to this game, but they just don't make up for the shit.

...

A. Single. Meaningful. Glance. As an intimate scene? Fucking DAO had better than that! Are they serious? Is there more in the final sequence? Dear gods, if I'd paid for this game I'd be bloody furious. Incandescently, explosively furious.

Let's talk about consumer expectation. It's something anyone hoping to sell things has to be aware of.

In its, what, 14 year Dragon Age history? Bioware has set certain expectations with their market share. As I mentioned, DAO, while dated and with poor graphics, actually had something extremely suggestive for the intimate scenes. You had no doubt what the characters were doing. Same went for DA2. Not much actual nudity, but again, no bloody question about what was going on. In DAI, some was sweet, some was saucy, but it was even more clear what was happening.

So the expectation for a behind door scene that you got to see has been set. If there had always been fade to black meaningful stares for the intimate scenes, fine, whatever. But that has not been Bioware's history. And it certainly isn't their gaming market's expectation.

Expectation isn't as important in a standalone game. There's no weight of expectation like there is in series work. Unfortunately for everyone who bought this game, the expectation of so many years and so much material has been firmly set. And a long, searching, intense look doesn't cut it. Are all the Romances like that? I don't have the stomach to replay it that many times to find out.

I still have to finish the final sequence. So it's possible my utter disappointment will be fixed, but given the way Bioware has structured its games in the past, the Romance parts were finished before the final sequence.

My level of disappointment with this game has been high all along, but this is indeed the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae of this game.

Hah! And to think I'd actually hoped for an intimate scene between Solas and Inky! (Hysterical, breathless, cackling. OMFG.)

The problem with market expectation? And not meeting it? Is that you utterly lose the confidence and trust of the people who buy your stuff. And that means they're less likely to buy your stuff again. I certainly won't ever buy anything Bioware makes again. I'm out. I'll enjoy the previous games, but if I'm right about my predictions? Veilguard doesn't exist as part of my universe. I'll pretend it wasn’t ever made. Unless I decide to write a long fix-it fic. Because OMFG.

If, as an author, I shifted from rather explicit, panties-melting intimate scenes to closed door fade to black... I would be betraying my reader's expectations and losing their trust.

If this is it for the intimate scenes? Oh man. Bioware, you fucked up.

Pre-play pithy commentary

If you want to skip the snarky paragraph ^?

13th review here.

[torntrianglesleeves]

A compliment: I enjoy how authenticly/unapologetically you run your blog

•A story: Howw Byler fanfic saved the world. Yesterday, I learned I have to have a meeting with my director (because apparently my director has decided it is not worth it to back me and my decade+ career experience) and my CEO (who used to work at huge marine aquarium) to explain why RODI water is important for both marine and amphibian husbandry because my CEO has decided I do not need an RODI system to provide quality care for the collection I oversee. We are a small nonprofit company, and my section consists of me and one other keeper that takes care of over 50 animals (the majority of which are disabled rescues or geriatric) and an entire native plant outdoor courtyard with a 6,000gal planted pond + design our own educational programing to state standards + do outeaches and feildtrips (and we dont even have a say in the number we do; that is decided by the edu team) + act as our own registrars + conduct multiple daily formal shows and informal interactions + and do all the janitoral work for our display areas (instead of the contracted janitorial team that cleans literslly every other space). I am also paid probably the 6th lowest (my staff is probably paid 4th lowest until her raise kicks in a month from now bumping her right below me) in the entire company even though I run a collection, have a college degree in the animal field, and again over a decade of experience with ectotherms- the only people paid less than me are entry guest service staff (which are not in charge of an entire department nor have college degrees). And yet, I am still going to have to go waste my very limited time to beg our CEO to just let me spend $150 to get new ro membranes and a new float valve instead of just trashing my system completely. My entire budget to run my department (not including staff salaries) is $22,000. It only takes about $1400 every three years to run our rodi (outside of the water cost, which I guarantee is a negligible amount compared to the rest of the company). It will not break the bank to let us keep our rodi machine so that we can properly care for the animals and plants in our collection. Plus, I have now also been informed the entire saltwater aquarium we focused on moving to a new enclosure just two weeks ago so the old tank could be torn down (as the metal framework has rusted to nothing) will be become a fully planted and inhabitanted freshwater tank BB MAY 16TH! Becsuee our CEO "is invested". Which takes priority over my objections- that i only have one other staff who i have forced o to vacation because she is so burnt out so I am going to be working 14 days straight, the freshwater tank is being placed in a hall themed to MARINE LIFE, we have none of the resources required to run a planted tank community (even if we go low tech there is no guarantee the CEO will pick a compatible stock/the echibit hall lighting won't require a higher tech tank), and the rehab plan I was informed I would be following -designed without input from my team-doednt allow for a quarantine period! OH, AND THE REHAB BREAKDOWN IS TO BE DONE TUESDAY, when it is just me running the area. To say I was contemplating many, many mean things after receiving this knowledge is not an understatement. However, KISSINGPRACTICE updated "Sensory Perception" so I didn't blow anything up. And thus Byler fanfic saved the world.

•Why you follow me: scarlet, periwinkle, and chartruse

•A cute message: C:

•One thing you want to tell me: Eastern lubbers have different phenotypic expression based on population density- females become much smaller and shorter in length, making them harder to distinguish from males (so more male-on-male mating occurs) when too many grasshoppers are in one spot. (I fact dump about bugs when trying to connect with people).

•One thing you want to know about me: what is your favorite thing to do (outside of collecting butt pictures)?

🥺🥺

this is so sweet and in depth, thanks dude. I will always be my authentic self even if thats a right bastard haha.

FUCK CEOS. sounds clear to me this person isnt knowledgeable of your field and is just a business business type. how ironic they dont listen to you and then risk the ENTIRE POINT OF PEOPLE COMING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT. curious how much they make at this non profit 🤨

I’d love to know how i inspired you or changed how you thought about something!! is it ass related? i hope so hehe.

gay bugs woo!! your name makes even more sense now. what are the gayest bugs? will they also solve hunger crises or is that just grasshoppers and such?

oooo my fave thing to do…playing video games! and writing, but you know i write. im a big gamer and im back to playing elden ring and Bg3 (the latter is approaching the 1000hr mark 🤣😵‍💫)

[spidori]

Hey. Didn't Kurama kinda... Die?

It's a bit of an open question what dying entails for a creature consisting of consciousness imprinted on the life-energy that is chakra, but I'd say what he went through probably counts. I mean, he took the life-energy that he's literally made up of, smashed it into Naruto's life-energy hard enough to perform spirit-particle-physics, and used the new and exciting types of chakra this pseudo-quantum annihilation of their life-energy spat out to power some (admittedly pretty devastating) fisticuffs. It's literally called 'Baryon Mode,' as in it's named after a type of subatomic particle, like the type you would get smashing atoms together in particle accelerators in our world.

That must have produced some really interesting types of chakra, huh? Especially since the technique was still a bit rough, what with it being the first time Kurama was actually using the technique as opposed to just theorizing how it would work. It must have been like some of the first nuclear fission and fusion prototype experiments, where you don't know all the things you have to look out for yet so you just kinda wing it, but also use every safety protocol you can think of. Except they were pulling this out in the middle of a life-or-death fight so strike the safety protocols. That type of winging it must have produced some wild kinds of life-energy-particle byproducts, maybe even some life-energy-anti-particles...

Anyway, back from that tangent to what I was talking about. Kurama knowingly paid his own life- literally smashed the substance of his being into exotic high-energy spirit-particle soup, one piece of himself at a time, to provide fuel- sustaining total focus throughout the entirety of what must have been an extremely painful and emotional process through his absolute will to help protect his friend and their village. Something which he succeeded at in the moment, but did so knowing that other dangers would come for his friend and village, and that his job wasn't truly finished...

He's totally coming back as a ghost, isn't he?

Specifically, I bet the once beast of destruction would form as a protection spirit of all things, although he'd probably refuse to admit it.

So, please imagine, recently-formed ghost!Kurama, floating around the Zone while trying to get his bearings. He's used to working with/being composed of spiritual energy- and has been shown to have a pretty high-level understanding of spirit-energy quantum physics to even come up with Baryon Mode in the first place- so he probably gets the hang of it pretty quick. Maybe he decides he wants try to go back, see his partner again. Who's gonna stop him? You, floating eye-ball things? Hah! *Beast-bomb's repeatedly* He thinks the hell not!

And, oh look! A conveniently open portal back to the world of the living! Just gonna walk right on through that, find the nearest ninja village, and get directions back to the Leaf to check in on his friend.

Except this place looks less like a ninja village and more like a lab. It's not like any of the labs he's seen on infiltrate-and-decommission missions with Naruto either. The tech is all wrong! Some of it is way too advanced, other tools and techniques which he knows are absolutely basic standards (like seals for example) are missing entirely, and everything is absolutely saturated with anti-chakra to the point where he almost can't feel the difference from the world literally made of the stuff he just left! Something is deeply off about this place, it's like a whole different world from the one he died in.

The child attacking him is a point of familiarity though.

Eh, he'll cut the kid some slack. They're obviously in the kid's village after all, judging by all the buildings around when he phases through the roof with the kid hot on his tails, and Kurama has learned to admire the kind of spunk that it takes to so immediately put oneself in between a threat and its target. He'll even do the kid the favor of trying not to do too much property damage while they fight, since it quickly becomes obvious the kid is set on trying to chase him down. Seems he'll have to rough the kid up a bit before he can go exploring...

Ok, maybe he'll actually have to exert himself a bit. The kid is at least as durable as a Hidden Stone shinobi...

Ok, maybe he's going to have to actually try. The kid is taking everything he can put out- at least while still avoiding doing 'major' property damage- without budging, and then hitting back just as hard. That last punch even managed to stun him for a mome- shit! Is that some kind of Sealing Device!?

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! He is NOT getting sealed in some random person to be used as a Sage-Damned BATTERY again! He's NOT! He's absolutely N- DAMN IT!

Now he's gonna be shoved into some new random kid who's been brainwashed to think it's his duty to shackle the beast. Both of them used as nothing more than weapons until the chakra he leaks like a sieve when he's trying to contain it- and flows in a deluge when he isn't- slowly melts the poor bastard's soul. And it won't stop until they either rip him out- and kill the ex-host in the process due to traumatic soul injury- or until the probably blameless child is left a withered husk. Either way, his reputation as nothing more than a dangerous but powerful weapon, suitable only to be pointed at another bunch of 'enemies' and forced to rampage, will only be further cemented. He can't do that to another kid any more! Or another village full of civilians! He CA-

???

He's back in the place from before? The one from before he went through the portal? Completely free?

The kid just? RELEASED him? Just like that?

This calls for some recon to figure out what the kid's deal is, sneaky ninja style instead of rampaging beast style. Don't look at him like that! He spent long enough with Naruto to see the value of sneakiness as an option (mostly because Naruto couldn't manage subtle if it would save his entire village and Kurama saw how many headaches that caused for his advisors). Not to mention, he IS a Nine-Tailed fox spirit. He's got the cunning to learn and adapt.

One-and-a-half extended recon sessions later, and Kurama comes to a realization™. This is a teenager, yes. One with way too much power in his deceptively young frame. One who will take one look at someone in trouble, ask "is anyone gonna' help out with that?" and then not wait for an answer before devoting their entire soul to saving the person no matter who they are. One who's taken the responsibility for protecting their entire village onto shoulders which seem far too small to carry such a burden at all, much less so effectively. He's even all tied up with Clones for sage's sake!

It's like looking at a younger Naruto in far too many ways for him to just dismiss.

Kurama can't believe he somehow stumbled into another one! He also can't admit to himself that he's already decided to take the boy under his wing and pass on all those lessons he picked up by watching Naruto successfully lead a village for over a decade. Not that never admitting it will stop him from doing so, he'll just insist that it's for purely selfish reasons the entire time. Yeah! He's just getting the kid to trust him so he can eventually pump him for information on who's in charge and who can help him get back to his home dimension for a visit.

That's totally all this is...

Totally...

@hdgnj @babbling-babull @evilminji @nerdpoe @lolottes @freedomanddisorder @resetium @stargazer-luna

[mayalaen]

VPNs aren't just for pirates and company data anymore

A friend complained to me that they couldn't access pr0n anymore because the government is now requiring ID to verify age where they are, and due to data leaks and privacy issues, didn't want to share their ID even though they're of legal age.

Shit like this doesn't work on the intended target. It only frustrates people who are aren't tech savvy while a lot of kids have already found their way around it because that's what kids do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I talk about VPNs (virtual private networks), non-tech savvy people's eyes glaze over 😂

It sounds like complicated, unknowable magic. It's not! And you don't even have to understand it to use it!

With the government and ISPs (internet service providers) invading privacy more and more and hackers breaking in and stealing user data from companies, VPNs are becoming necessary.

Some Things a VPN Does for You:

hides your data from others

can make your internet speeds faster if your ISP does speed throttling (purposely making your speed slower)

hides what you're doing from your ISP

keeps you safer from some malware, viruses, hackers, and trackers

allows you to access things that are either restricted in your area or not available in your area (such as content in other countries)

keeps you safer when you're out in public connected to wifi

Below is a basic infographic on how VPNs work. When you access the internet, a VPN encrypts your data - making it into a secret code that can't be read by anyone else including your ISP.

Tech companies, ISPs, etc. want you to think VPNs are complicated so that you won't use them.

When searching for a free VPN, please be aware that a lot of the free VPN services out there are malware or full of viruses and trackers.

Either do some research into which one to choose or use a paid VPN service. You can either pay monthly or yearly - the yearly is always cheaper in the long run.

Some of the Top Rated VPN Services:

ExpressVPN $7 - $13/month

NordVPN $3 - $13/month

Surfshark $2 - $14/month

PrivateInternetAccess $2 - $12/month

ProtonVPN (some sites block this one) $4 - $10/month

CyberGhost $2 - $13/month

I use ExpressVPN, so for the purposes of this post, I'm going to use screenshots from ExpressVPN.

Once you have an account, download the program from the website to your desktop/laptop or find the app on Android or iOS app stores.

Signing in requires a code that the VPN will email to you that unlocks all the features. Pay attention when the program installs because it'll ask you about preferences, and you can easily check yes on blocking pr0n when that's the reason you wanted a VPN in the first place 😂

When the program is open, you'll see this:

As you can see in the screenshot, not only do I have the program, but I have an ExpressVPN icon on my browser. The program installs this automatically, and when the program is running, the icon will have a green checkmark on it so you know it's working in your browser.

You'll notice I've recently connected using Japan. I did this so I could watch a series that isn't available outside of Japan.

The program automatically chooses a location near you, but if you want to access things that are restricted to you, make sure you click on the three dots to the right of the selected location (see screenshot below) and search for a state/country/place that your content will be available in.

Once your location is selected, click on the start/power button, and you'll get a popup notification from your computer that ExpressVPN is connected.

Go to the site you want to use and use it like you normally would.

Here's what it should look like when it's running correctly:

Keep in mind that if you leave a VPN running all the time (which is perfectly fine to do), search engines like Google will assume you live wherever ExpressVPN tells it you live, so searching for "stores near me" will give you results that aren't close to you.

When you're done using the VPN, just hit the power button again and it shuts off.

I use this on all my handheld devices, my desktop, and my laptop for business and personal reasons. I'm a pirate, and I've been using VPNs for a long time, yet none of the ISPs I've used have ever given me a warning about torrenting.

Good luck, and enjoy all the new things you can access!

BTW for anybody wondering, my desktop wallpaper is a map of the world's time zones. So pretty!! 😍

[fandomnerd9602]

Dating the Mistress of Illusion

Fem!Quentin Beck x Reader

Request by @konstantin609

Art found here

Her name is Queenie Beck. But in this little corner of the Spiderverse, she’s called Missterio.

You and her met through Stark Industries. You were wounded while helping her design the BARF drones. You were left confined to a wheelchair.

Tony personally paid for your hospital bills. Queenie was still angry over the whole incident.

It was you who convinced her to instead use the BARF tech to be a selfless hero. You still assist her from your wheelchair.

A lot of the game is making the illusions in real time for Queenie as you work together. You stop low level threats and bask in the glory of people cheering for the Missterio

Queenie dotes on you. Always trying to find some way to help you walk again. Honestly you’re just glad you get to spend time with her while the world thinks she’s out there saving the day.

She considers you her second in command and yet treats you like you’re the head honcho.

She kisses you often and with as much affection and passion as she can. You make the dinner and she provides the entertainment.

Queenie Beck in this corner of the Spiderverse is the heroine people didn’t know they needed and the woman you know you deserved.

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[octopuscityblues]

At The Talkies

EGGBERT: Hi! I'm Robar Eggbert of the Samarduk Tribune.

GRINKEL: And I'm Steen Grinkel of the Samarduk Sun.

EGGBERT: And you're watching "At the Talkies with Eggbert and Grinkel".

GRINKEL: Grinkel and Eggbert…

EGGBERT: In your dreams, Steen! Now we've got a lot to cover in today's episode, from stories of corporate espionage to cautionary tales of evil sofas and destructive monkeys.

GRINKEL: My esteemed colleague is referring to the three films we'll be dissecting today: "The Mole: Undercover Inside Ghost In A Bottle", "Dread Couch: The Sofa That Kills", and "Metamorphers vs. Giant Ape: The Motion Picture".

EGGBERT: Let's start with "The Mole". In this captivating documentary, gonzo journalist Jager S. MacTavish infiltrates the nefarious Ghost in a Bottle conglomerate to bring us a riveting account of the tech giant's day-to-day operations..

GRINKEL: This extremely biased documentary was funded by the radical Mothers Against GIAB International (MAGI), and boy does it show! When it's not too busy slandering a vital pillar of the global economy, it does provide a few interesting insights into the highly-anticipated Octopus City Blues project.

EGGBERT: Despite the corporation's heightened security and leak-prevention measures, Mr. MacTavish successfully managed to assemble a collage of super-secret artwork, providing a glimpse into never-before-seen areas and characters.

EGGBERT (CONT'D): Furthermore, various cryptic codewords and phrases were heard around the office, with employees working on enigmatic features such as "House of Wonders", "Cure for Baldness", "Beetle Fandom", and "Three-way Standoff". Who knows what any of it really means?

GRINKEL: Our supposed "journalist" also interviewed artist Niko Tunson, the newest addition to the team. Niko contributed a number of exquisite animations, helping to enrich the simulation's virtual world and bring its colorful cast of characters to life.

EGGBERT: I personally liked "The Mole". On one hand, it's largely a cornball exercise in sentimental manipulation—particularly all the scenes involving the baby spiderbot. At the same time, it effectively illustrates the evil lurking at the heart of a heartless zaibatsu, and serves as a scathing indictment of a history of delays and flimsy excuses.

GRINKEL: Boy, are we apart on this one, Robar! The feature I watched was nothing more than an obvious piece of MAGI propaganda, and I'm positively shocked that someone as educated as you would fall for it.

GRINKEL (CONT'D): I admit that Octopus City Blues is taking forever to complete, but you simply can't rush art. The good folks at GiaB have gotten so much done this year—they even updated the demo again last week. All you have to do is read their previous updates to better understand the delays. In particular, there's the recurring difficulty in planning around the fluctuating personal circumstances of everyone involved.

And did you even catch the leaked trailer shown after the credits, by the way? It was originally unveiled at the Six One Indie business event. The trailer's director is none other than Bitmapkid, the visionary auteur behind last year's most controversial independent film: "Are Videogames Art?" The fact that they're actively promoting their simulation should dispel any doubts you might harbor.

EGGBERT: Oh, don't give me that trite art balderdash. The only thing that matters is the finished product. People have been waiting for years, and some of them even paid money for it. What's wrong? By the rude and annoying off-screen noises you're making I take it that you disagree…

GRINKEL: It's just that Ghost in a Bottle never stopped pursuing their dreams, and that's why we should never stop believing in them. They definitely made countless mistakes, but every ghost starts out as an errant human. And if someone out there is still not satisfied, the customer relations team is always happy to answer their questions or offer refunds if needed.

Honestly, Robar, all of this makes me wonder whether you're being a contrarian for kicks, or if you simply got up on the wrong side of the bed today. Your take is the typical kind of blasé, sophisticated, cynical review we've come to expect from snobbish critics who can't place themselves in the shoes of real artists.

EGGBERT: Am I supposed to sit here and listen to insults from the same "critic" who gave two thumbs up to obnoxious snooze fests like "Carnotaurus" and "Battlestar Trooper"?

GRINKEL: And do I need to remind you that you're the only major critic who actually liked "One and a Half Pig"? And how about the time you lambasted the critically acclaimed "Silence of the Clams"?

EGGBERT: Oh please, Steen! Did GiaB pay you to be their mouthpiece? Is that what this is all about? I knew things were rough with the divorce and everything, but if all you needed was some extra money…

GRINKEL: Why would you say such a thing, Robar? You really should be ashamed of yourself!

EGGBERT: I'm not the one engaged in all the self-congratulatory bootlicking and outright dismissal of completely valid consumer concerns. My point still stands: when is Octopus City Blues actually coming out?

GRINKEL: I don't have an answer to your question. Next year, maybe? Some time in the next 6 months? They did promise to give a "more serious" update before the end of the year, whatever that means…

EGGBERT: Of course it's next year! It's always next year! But fine… I'll believe it when I finally see it.

GRINKEL: We've wasted enough time on this frivolous discussion. Moving on, let's talk about the complex symbolism in "Dread Couch: The Sofa That Kills", and what it says about humanity's place in a cold, lonely universe.

[lolitakirstein]

Hey Neighbor Pt 8

A/N Sorry this is long with a lot of dialogue don't even know if it's good ugh

{previous}

cw: mentions of weapons wc: 1.5k

Toji

“A phone call in advance would’ve been nice,” Toji says, allowing his visitor to enter. 

“Couldn’t wait,” the man states, his hands clutching the briefcase behind his back. “This just came in and requires extraordinary expertise and precision.”

The two men walk to the kitchen, both taking seats opposite one another. Though in the intimate setting of his house, Toji knew he was here for business. “I take it you don’t want a drink.”

The man chuckles, “Perhaps once this is completed.” He sets the briefcase on the table and enters the 3-number key. “I would however like to see my godson. Where is—”

“SHIU!” Megumi rushes in excitedly. 

“Ah, there’s my boy,” Shiu bellows in equal excitement. The stoicism and business facade immediately fade.  He picks the child up with a grunt and sets him on his lap. “You are getting big, pup.”

Megumi giggles at the nickname. “I’m not a pup, I’m a wolf.” He mimics a wolf’s howl. 

Shiu pats his head, “Ah, the mighty wolf. Mostly prone to travel in large groups.” He glances up at Toji. “Though some are known to stray from the pack.”

Toji glares, aware of the obvious dig. 

“We’re not alone. We got you, Shiu,” Megumi’s comment breaks the tension. “And we got y/n,” he lowers his voice and leans into Shiu, “That's dad's girlfriend.”

“I see,” Shiu again stares at Toji, this time with a look of both confusion and annoyance. 

Toji responds with an eye roll. “Megs, go to your room for a bit. Gramps and I have some business things to do.”

“I am not gramps!” Shiu quickly blurts back, which sends Megumi into a fit of giggles. Toji, however, isn’t up to joke. He gives Megumi the look that quickly tells the child that this isn’t playtime. 

Once Toji hears the door to Megumi’s room shut, he takes a deep breath. “So, what are we looking at here.”

Shiu opens the briefcase, presenting Toji with a thick manila folder. “The usual. But the window of opportunity we have—”

“Me.” Toji corrects.

“You have is very small. Meaning—”

“I have one shot.” Toji finishes in a bored tone. “What else is new.”

“This target has been of interest for some time. Most who have gone after him are usually shot within a 500-foot radius.”

“So you need a sniper?”

“I did say we needed precision.”

“What’s his deal?” Toji asks, flipping through the folder. Pictures from CCTV footage and shakey smartphones paint a very broad image of the target—tall, slender build, blonde. 

“Big name in tech, took over after his father died. The other son is scorned, but you know we don’t go into too much detail, nor do we ask. They hire us and we do our job”

“I do the job,” Toji corrects, again. 

“And you do it well.”

“How long will I be gone?” Toji continues flipping through the files, pocketing the provided fake passport and plane ticket. 

“3 weeks, we want you to have ample time to scout the area. Where he goes and when. There can’t be any mistakes.”

“And my son?” Toji looks up from the papers. 

“Of course, he will be staying with me. You may be on the outskirts of our society, but we still wish to protect our own while they are working. Our in-house nanny is superb at her job, both as a sitter and protection. I provided you with her credentials as well.” he gestures to the pages. 

“That’s a long time away” Toji remarks. “How much is this man paying?”

“Though he’s not as wealthy as his older brother, his father left him a good chunk of money in his will—”

“How much,” Toji was getting impatient. 

“$500,000. And to show his confidence in you and apologies for the short notice,”  Shiu turns the briefcase around to Toji. “He made a downpayment.”

Indeed, the briefcase was lined with stacks of crisp 100s. Toji swallowed. He can’t remember the last time a client had paid a portion upfront. Collateral maybe, but never cash. 

“$300,000. Thats—”

“60%. That’s suspicious. Are you sure this isn’t a setup? Are you sure these aren’t fake or marked?” Toji gently runs a finger over the bills, feeling for the telltale sign that it's fake. 

“We had eyes on the bank.” Shiu answers, confidently. “So are you in?”

“Mind if I check,” Toji asks, still not convinced.

Shiu gestures to the money, “Be my guest. Though I’m rather insulted you would think I would fall for a scam.”

Ignoring him,  Toji walks to the hallway closet. The small space housed various coats and toys of Megumi’s. He pushes aside the clothes. The wall at the back of the closet would appear normal to anyone else–basic wood paneling. Toji traces his finger along one slat of the wood, finding the slight give and pressing it. 

 A small portion of the wall retracts, revealing a safe locked by a keycode. After entering the key code, the thick metal door opens. Inside are various passports, stacks of cash, guns, and accessories. He pushes aside the knives sheathed in sleek leather. Once finding the detector, he returns to the kitchen. 

Toji turns on the LED, aiming the purple light at the briefcase. The bills show up clean. “Nothing,” Toji grumbles.

“I told you,” Shiu crosses his legs. 

“Doesn’t mean the ones underneath aren’t or the one in between” Toji continues to scan the stacks, all turning up clean. After his meticulous searching, Toji turns off the light. “I’ll put it through the counter, check every single one–”

“You’ve always been thorough,” Shiu jokes, standing and straightening his suit jacket. “So are you in?”

Toji mulls it over. Finally, after a few moments, he complies, “Yeah, I’m in.”

“Great the car to pick Megumi up will arrive the night before. Flight information and itinerary are all there.” Shiu strides to the door, opens it, and stands on the front porch. His eyes are on y/n’s house. “Is she aware yet?”

“No, not yet,” Toji joins him on the porch.

Shiu widened his eyes. “What is causing the delay.”

“I” 'm trying to leave this way of life, why would I want to bring an innocent woman into it, regardless of contracts.” 

“She is rather…fawn-like. But I think with proper training she could be a great addition to carry on her family name,” Shiu takes a long drag, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Or perhaps the two of you could produce—.”

“Megumi can carry my name just fine in a life that doesn’t consist of looking behind his back.” Toji retorted, narrowing his eyes.

“Of course. Megumi is an exceptional child. Regardless if his mother wasn’t of our kind, and remember, I fought for you harder than anyone to be able to live outside of this society. Luckily, the higher-ups thought you to be such a precious asset the thought of losing your…services is why you now live so comfortably on the periphery.” 

“Comfortably,” Toji tsks, “worrying about my son every second; how I’m going to be able to know he’s safe once he starts attending public school.”

“You could easily come back which would guarantee his safety at our school.” Shiu bargains. 

“I told you. I’m done with that life. Megumi will get a choice in what he wants to do with his life. He deserves it and so does she,” Toji jerks his head gesturing to y/n’s house. 

“She seems very…present in your life, already. Even Megumi seems to think so.” 

Toji rolls his eyes, “She’s been here a few times, that’s it. She watched Megumi one day and—”

“You put her in charge of watching Megumi? Very trusting of you.” Shiu interrupts, his cigarette dangling from his lips. 

“It was a few hours,” Toji said. “And he needs some female interactions every once in a while. I can’t play the role of mother very well.”

“Already considering her for a mother figure,” Shiu continues, smiling wryly. 

“Are we done here?” Toji turns back to the door, wanting to end the conversation. 

Shiu knows when to quit, at least, because he tips his head goodbye and lopes down the stairs, heading for his black sedan. 

He turns halfway before getting into the passenger side door that is being held open by a man in a similar suit though 30lbs worth of muscle heavier. “I do suggest you make her aware of your agreement with her grandmother. You know how our dear Mrs. Ruth hated a procrastinator.”

Toji doesn’t respond, instead, crossing his arms and waiting for the car to drive Shiu away. 

“And do not underestimate how powerful the two of you could be together. A child from two strong lines would be world-renowned.”

Again, Toji didn’t respond. He watches the driver return to the driver's seat and drive off down the road. Once sure he was indeed gone for good, Toji reenters his house. 

He doesn’t know how to broach the subject of his agreement with y/n. But 2 things were for damn sure. 

She would get a choice, unlike him. 

There was no fucking way any child of his, either the one he has now or any in the future, would be ever handed over to the people he was trying to leave behind.

[starberry-cupcake]

To add to the pile of questionable tumblr behavior as of late, and as a psa at large:

I searched a mental health related tag last week and I got immediately a message from a bot called Koko. It intended to put me through to "people who are interested in mental health topics". In this tumblr message format, they didn't immediately facilitate hotlines, specific mental health care services or professional help, just "people".

I didn't respond to it. It's a bot. I didn't block it because I was interested to see where it would lead, but I didn't talk back. In the following days, it kept sending me messages, trying to get me to use their service.

Among the messages, they told me how it works, not that I had asked:

So, it sounds like a recipe for disaster in the making to me. My personal mental health information being passed through random tumblr users and getting a reply from someone who, not only isn't a professional or part of any sort of mental health care group I could get informed about, but they also will provide unsupervised answers to topics of great importance to someone who was looking into related tags.

But, tumblr user thewindandthewolves seems to endorse it, so let's check them out and see what they have to say.

Well. I'm posting the responses in chronological order, but I guess the raving review from a tumblr user was actually a kid who didn't give them consent to use their words as endorsement. Great look.

Today, I got a new message. Again, unprompted.

Second review person has apparently deleted their blog, so no background information on that one. If that's you, let us know.

I decided to look at their blog and read people's comments on their posts. The tumblr userbase came through with the receipts and linked this very detailed article about not only the bot and its founder but the sketchy study it uses as a foundation:

Here's an important quote from this article regarding the study in which Koko is founded as a clear notion of what consent means to them:

Morris [Koko's founder] declined to say whether he thought the subjects had meaningfully consented to the study. He told Motherboard that his goal was to establish a new best practice, where he would be able to transparently show his results to social media platforms. However, when asked if he felt that the experiment was transparent to the participants involved, he said he’d needed more time to think about it. 

It's not a tough one to respond to, Morris.

I suggest you to please read the whole article but the way in which these people perform verbal gymnastics to try to justify the lack of consent from people involved is alarming.

About Tumblr's involvement, the article didn't get comments from them on it:

Stony Brook's IRB [Institutional Review Board] and multiple people tasked with overseeing the IRB did not respond to multiple emails from Motherboard about the study or the process. Facebook, Discord, and Tumblr responded to Motherboard’s initial emails but did not provide comment. Telegram did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment. 

The article also read the fine print of the Terms of Service, the only thing they provide as any type of consent to users, and the previous situation of using tumblr user posts without them knowing is illuminated further:

The current dynamic between Koko and its users more closely parallels the relationship between most tech companies and their users than that between a mental health provider and patient. Its Terms of Service, for instance, state that, “You grant Koko a fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, transferable and fully sublicensable right (including any moral rights) and license to use, license, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, publicly perform, publicly display, and otherwise fully exploit Your Content.” 

As an editor, that sounds more like a US release agreement form for intellectual property, which should not be used as any form of mediation for personal data. It also alarms me to no end that the "Content" in question, in the example we have was, according to OP, a post they had made on their own blog about Kokobot and not a response or quote provided to Kokobot itself which, in tow, signifies that the data collected could come from anywhere and not only what you actively provide them. But what do I know.

I did more digging by myself and found even more articles denouncing the behavior of this bot and company, this being another interesting one:

This one included the following thing about the peer-counseling aspect of it and the use of AI to craft the supposed "people" responses:

During the AI experiment—which applied to about 30,000 messages, according to Morris—volunteers providing assistance to others had the option to use a response automatically generated by OpenAI's GPT-3 large language model instead of writing one themselves (GPT-3 is the technology behind the recently popular ChatGPT chatbot).

Apparently, Koko has been around for a while, with articles discussing it as far as, at least, 2017. Still, I had never before received unprompted, unwanted, invasive messages from it on tumblr until now.

If you post or search tags related to mental health, it's very likely that you'll get this bot in your messages or you already have. There are many layers of breach of ethics in this situation, in my opinion, each one worse than the last one.

Before using it or sharing any information at all (with any bot ever), I'd advice you to look into it beforehand. I know we are the "trust no bots" website and the fake ladybots have taught us well on how to spot them and protect ourselves, but this one in particular seems very dangerous to me.

I can't talk about whether or not this has helped anybody, I'm not coming anywhere near it, but the sole concept of this sounds like a bad idea. The advice provided doesn't seem to come from selected professionals the platform is endorsing legally but by random people (and/or AI) who are not only not trained for it, they aren't being compensated for work made for a program, which is probably making good money out of all the social media platforms it's working with. It also allows them to not be responsible for the advice given, to some extent.

Even if people with mental health concerns can discuss things between them in very productive and helpful ways, there isn't genuinely transparent communication if it's anonymously mediated by a company and there isn't a proper professional care that can accompany them from someone who is trained to facilitate it. You can talk to a friend without having to provide data to a company that could identify you since, according to the first article:

There is, further, no easy way to wall the collection of such data off from actual subjects, as anonymized datasets can often still be traced back to specific individuals. (A 2019 study found that 99.98 percent of Americans could be correctly re-identified in any dataset using 15 demographic attributes.) This is why privacy experts have been vocal about the exploitation of data privacy and the unreliability of an anonymous dataset. 

I'm not here to tell anyone what to do or not to do but I'm here to share this because I know that I would appreciate the information if someone else had come across it instead. Make decisions with all the information you can get.

Throwing a wild idea for the hellsite but maybe staff and ceo should be a little less occupied in persecuting trans folk and more into reading the fine print of the unethical companies they're signing with, who are exploiting their userbase's mental health, especially that of literal children whose quotes are being used to endorse their business without any legal consent, aside from a terribly worded TOS. But what do I know.

[kariachi]

Can't find the post, but a while back I threw out the concept for an AU where Argit ends up on Earth and teaming up with Kevin as smols. Here's a little something to go with it.

The only thing more Plumber business than aliens on Earth is aliens making money off revealing themselves on Earth.

~~

Joel was not paid enough for his work. The normal shit that came with being a Plumber- mostly just law enforcement but secret really- was all fine, but this…

Could these kids have not waited another month or two before busting open the masquerade like a pinata?

Centuries the Plumbers had managed to keep the existence of aliens confined to conspiracy theory, with the aid of the Secret Scientists now that the population on Earth was growing, and a pair of children had managed to ruin it all in less than a week. The entire planet had the news now that there was an alien on Earth, flesh and blood and on live television. Beeman was losing his mind, the higher-ups were losing their minds, and Joel-

Joel was one of the few remaining active Plumbers on the planet. One of the very few in the United States. They had a job to prevent things like this, both unauthorized alien presence and the premature introduction of humanity to alien existence. In the end, he’d pulled the short straw of getting in touch with the kids, getting the Erinaen causing all this trouble safely into custody. Billings had asked about the procedure for dealing with somebody who turned the masquerade into so much confetti, but Joel himself was more concerned about potential threats to the little thing. Let the older, wiser people worry about what was to be done with them, his job was just to get them to a secure location.

He managed to track them to a hotel room provided by some talk show, slipping passed the front desk and up the stairs. All was quiet behind the door when he reached it, and he took a moment to double check it was the right one. Seemed unnatural for a pair of children that didn’t seem to have any proper adult oversight. But he had the right place and so turned on his translator before knocking.

“Who is it?” The voice came from just on the other side of the door, from the human half of the pair and already wary. Fantastic.

“Agent Tennyson,” he answered, then realized that might give the wrong idea, “with the Plumbers.”

There was less of a scuffle and more of a skitter behind the door. Joel left it for a few moments, but when no response came he pressed his ear against it. They were talking, he could hear them, but low enough he couldn’t make it out through the wood. The Erinaen was doing most of it, thankfully. They would be able to explain the situation, especially now there was a translator involved- he’d seen a few of those videos, no way did the pair have one between them- and with any luck he could have the little thing in the nearest base and be back to wedding planning in no time. With a small sigh, he straightened back out and waited.

And waited.

Waited.

He pressed his ear to the door again.

Silence.

With a sinking feeling, Joel knocked again to no response. Of-fucking-course.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“I just need to talk to you.”

Nope.

With another, harsher sigh Joel turned his face to the ceiling, resisting the urge to stamp his foot. There went the easy way, just his fucking luck. Getting the door open wasn’t difficult, not when you had access to the tech he did and your homeworld was so far behind the curve. He was careful as he entered though, the human didn’t worry him but Erinaens were supposedly venomous. Not that there was anything to worry about, when he looked around to find nothing. No one. Just a clearly-used hotel room and an empty bag of chips.

He checked the bathroom. Under the beds. But the pair may as well have vanished into thin air. Shaking his head, fists clenching and unclenching, Joel snatched a pillow off the nearest bed to groan into.

This job was going to be an absolute bitch.