#anyways I need to do more research on how AI is bad for the planet bc I need a better argument rather than ‘you would be mocked on tumblr’

[gatorinator]

Bleaaaghhhh hrnmgurg I’m gonna kill myself I need my father to stop talking about AI cuz I don’t have it in me to formulate an argument beyond “people who talk about ai like this sound dumb as hell”

[yet-another-fan-girl9]

Inhuman (5)

Summary: All beings in the universe have a soulmate except for Midgardians. People can hear their soulmate in their heads. For almost five hundred and fifty years, Loki believed that he had no soulmate until 1513 when a Midgardian princess was born. Will fate be kind to them or will the universe tear them apart?

Warnings: violence, language, hella historical inaccuracies (I tried to do research but then got lazy), maybe some AOS spoilers(?)

Word Count: ~3000

A/N: This one is short because I’m busy getting ready to move into my college dorm!

[Upstate New York, May 2024]

“You may be wondering why I summoned you all here.” The Avengers looked at your group in silence. “Wow,” Max continued. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“He’s lying,” you said and everyone’s eyes landed on you. You tried to ignore Loki but it was hard with the unexplainable tugging. Was it really unexplainable, though? “I’m actually the one who summoned you.”

“Technically it was me through the AI,” Liam cut in.

“Oh, hush up.” You waved him off. “We have something important to talk about.”

“Yes, we do.” Steve stood up. “You have a lot to talk about.”

“Wait, I recognize you,” the Black Widow said and looked Izzy up and down. “You were the flower shop girl. Of fucking course. You work together. That’s why we couldn’t find her after she killed the Senator.” The female Avenger put her face in her hands.

“That guy with the bright lights isn’t with you, is he?” the one you recognized as the Valkyrie crossly scanned your group.

“Arthur as well as the Senator are old news, we have some more pressing matters at hand.”

“Like how you were in a car crash, a bad one,” Bucky pointed out. “Yet you don’t seem injured at all.”

“And how you killed the Kree Reaper,” Thor added.

“Like how you broke into the compound,” Stark said. “How do you keep doing that?”

“Like how you’re still alive?” Loki’s voice sent shivers up your spine. It had been so, so long. It took everything to stay in place. You squeezed your eyes shut and took a deep breath before continuing.

“Let’s backtrack to the Kree, what did you call it? Reaper?” You looked at everyone in the room except for Loki.

“Alright, let’s talk about the Kree.” Steve crossed his arms. “I’m sure you know why they’re here.”

“For us.” You gestured at your group. “They’re here to kill the weak Inhumans and bring the strong ones back to Hala.”

“I’m sorry, Inhumans?”

“You don’t know? It should be in S.H.I.E.L.D’s files.”

“We kinda distanced ourselves from S.H.I.E.L.D. after it fell years ago,” Stark said.

“Well, I thought Coulson would have told you.”

“The son of Coul died long ago.” Thor pointed at Loki who you only saw out of the corner of your eye. “This one stabbed him.”

“Yes, I know he never stopped talking about it. That really started a whole shit chain of events, you know. Anyways, we were talking about Inhumans.”

“Are we up for a history lesson?” Banner asked.

“Sure, crash course in Inhumans. Thousands of years ago, Kree came to Earth with the task of creating bioweapons. They experimented on some people, yada yada, I’m not a biologist. It created a gene in humans that would change when exposed to Terrigen crystals. Anyways, there was an Inhuman revolution led by some guy named Alv… Er, Alvin? No, uh… led by some guy called Hive. Then the Inhumans teamed up with regular humans to banish Hive to another planet. Some Inhumans stayed loyal to him, though and created an organization that would later become Hydra, but that’s another story.” Steve and Bucky looked at each other. “Then, Inhumans just kinda… faded, I guess, when access to Terrigen crystals became challenging. There was a whole accident with Terrigen crystals contaminating fish or whatever. Thank your pal Coulson for that. Now we’re here. The end.”

“And you’re an Inhuman,” Loki said.

“Yes,” you quietly replied and finally looked at him. It felt like your heart was going to beat out of your chest if you didn’t run to him. He crossed his arms and looked away.

“The Blue Man Group is here for the Inhumans?” Stark asked.

“Yep,” you confirmed, popping the ‘p.’ “So we’re here to ask for your help.”

“You need our help?” He gestured at the rest of the Avengers. “Our asses got handed to us when we went up against them. You went up against one, after a car crash, and you look… great.”

“Fine, then we’ll help you. But first, we need to make a deal.” They nodded at you to go on. “We help you to get rid of the Kree, and afterwards, you leave us alone.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Steve said.

“Then we’ll take down the Kree, without you. The public will see that the Avengers can’t handle a couple of Kree Reapers…”

“Is that a threat? It feels like a threat.”

You shrugged. “It’s my people being targeted. It’s my people who are going to fight before the fucking Kree hurt someone.” You gestured to your group and turned to leave.

“Wait!” You turned back around. “Wait,” Loki continued. “Don’t leave. I accept your offer. You help us against the Kree, and we will leave you alone. Just don’t leave. Please.”

“Slow down there, Reindeer Games,” Stark stepped in. “You’re the last person to make decisions for this team.”

Loki glared at him and then reluctantly turned to his brother for back up.

“Well, I suppose we could think about the offer a bit longer,” Thor said slowly. “Get into the details of the agreement.”

You didn’t have more fucking time. The Kree could strike at any moment.  You had to act now, so you would. There was no point in more arguing though.

“Fine, you take all the time you need.”

“But the Kree will—” You shot a sharp glare at Max to quiet him.

“Take all the time you need to figure out all of the terms and conditions of our agreement. Meanwhile, I will go back home and—”

“You can stay here. In the compound. Everyone else too”

Everyone looked at Loki, now. A mixture of glares and shocked stares on everyone’s faces. You cocked your head and studied him.

“Again,” Stark sighed. “Last person to be making decisions.” Then he looked at your small group. “But I guess we can find some space for you guys.”

“One problem,” Max spoke up. “We don’t have any of our stuff with us.”

“I think that clothes are the least of our worries,” Izzy snorted.

“I was actually talking about our weapons. But thanks for reminding me about the clothes, I guess.”

“Fine. We’ll stay with you here in the compound,” you crossed your arms as a small smile crossed Loki’s face, “but if more of my people want to seek shelter with me, they come here.” Stark thought for a moment before he shrugged and nodded his permission. “We have to do something first. We just need to get our things from my place,” you rushed to say when everyone’s eyes narrowed. “If it makes you guys feel better, someone can chaperone.”

That’s how you ended up packed into the elevator headed up to your penthouse. When you had said that someone could chaperone, you were thinking of one, maybe two at maximum, Avenger. Not four of them.

The goddamned supersoldiers should have taken the stairs up to the top, they took up a lot of space. The billionaire had been pressed into the back corner. The other people in the elevator were your little group and the Black Widow. It wasn’t the smallest elevator but everyone made it seem smaller by giving the red-haired assassin a wide berth.

You couldn’t help but lament the fact that Loki hadn’t volunteered to go with you. Why the fuck hadn’t either of you thrown yourselves at the other yet?

The elevator let out a pleasant chime as the doors slid open and everyone spilled out with a sigh of relief. The members of the Avengers looked around as your friends went off to their respected rooms. You went up to your room and pulled out a suitcase.

Guns, knives, and other various weapons went in first followed by contact information. Then you covered those with some clothes that you picked with careful thought. You grabbed a few more ‘essential’ objects before heading back down.

You found Tony, everyone had insisted on being a first name basis, by your ceiling to floor windows. You stood next to him and soaked in the view. The nighttime New York was sparkling with activity.

“You know,” Tony began. “I think I tried to buy this place once. Well, this building.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s in an amazing location and I got it for a great price. Not much was nearby when I first got it, but I saw the potential for the nearby area and the building. Now it’s worth almost triple to what I bought it at.”

“Who would’ve known a hitwoman knew so much about real estate? Of all the fucking things,” Tony laughed.

“You have to know a lot of random stuff when you’re in this business. Plus,” you shrugged, “you pick up a lot over the years. Patterns and all that.”

“So since you brought it up, sorta, how… long have you been around?”

“Haven’t you learned that it’s rude to ask a woman her age, no matter how you phrase it,” you laughed before looking at Tony. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Who? Steve? No, he didn’t tell us too much about you. He has more secrets than he lets on.”

“No, not Steve. Loki. Loki didn’t say anything about me?”

“Loki? He definitely has a lot of secrets.”

“He said something to me.” Steve walked up behind you.

“Haven’t you learned that it’s rude to eavesdrop?” You raised a playful eyebrow.

“What? Why would Loki, of all people, talk to you, of all fucking people, about (Y/N)?”

“Don’t ask me.” The blond supersoldier shrugged. “But he also asked me not to tell anyone else, albeit in a cryptic way. I don’t want to, one: break his trust, and two: get on his bad side, so you’re not hearing anything from me.”

“You’re useless.” Tony deflated.

“You know I could tell you. Loki doesn’t control what I tell people. It’s my story too.” You smirked when your new friend looked at you hopefully. “‘Could’ being the imperative word.”

“Useless!” The billionaire exasperatedly threw his hands in the air. “Everyone is so fucking useless.”

“Hey, now,” Natasha’s voice was dark but her eyes sparkled. “Not everyone.”

“Yeah, I think it’s just you,” Bucky joined.

“What did we miss?” Liam emerged from a hallway with his bags to find everyone laughing. Max and Izzy appeared next to him, their bags in hand as well.

“Oh, nothing important,” you smiled and eyed their bags. “So I don’t think we have enough space in one car for everyone and everything. I’m thinking we split the bags. The Avengers can take these,” you pushed a few bags towards them, “and the car we arrived in. We’ll take these bags in one of my other cars.”

“Okay,” Bucky said slowly and picked up a bag.

“If it makes you feel better,” you sighed. “We’ll go first and you can tail us.”

“What, in case you decide to bolt?” Natasha placed her arms on her hips.

“Considering we’re the ones who came to you,” you mimicked her stance. “We won’t make a run for it.”

She stood still for a moment and then nodded. Everyone piled into their assigned cars and you took the lead out of the city and back to the compound. The sun was starting to rise, painting the sky pink and orange.

“Alright, listen up,” you announced to the passengers in your car. “I have people all over the country, the world, keeping an eye out for the Kree.”

“What happens when we find them?” Max asked.

“If the Avengers thought out the ultra specific terms and conditions by then, we will attack the Kree with all of our forces.”

“And if they haven’t refined all of the details?” Liam prompted.

“We’ll attack the Kree with all of our forces, just, you know, in secret.”

“Great plan.” Izzy rolled her eyes. “Go behind the Avengers’ back.”

“Listen, I have a plan,” Max said. “If they haven’t come to an agreement yet, tell them if the situation arises. Pressure them into getting what you want.”

You mulled over the idea. In Max’s version, the Avengers wouldn’t hold anything against you, as much. But they would probably still slow you down.

“Fine,” you grumbled and saw your right hand man begin to beam out of the corner of your eye. “But everyone has to be on their best behavior so that it’s easier to sway them to our side.”

The gates to the compound opened for you and the tugging feeling resumed. Would it ever go away?

Everyone found their way to their rooms for an early morning nap. It seemed as if the whole compound was asleep so of fucking course, you remained awake. Partially because of the strong tugging and partially because of your bad luck.

To pass the time, you went through your emails and tried to create a timeline of the Kree’s activity. Your eyes were tired, but you hadn’t felt any hints of sleep yet. You rubbed your eyes and when you opened them again, you were no longer on your bed.

Your hand was halfway to opening your door and the incessant tugging was the reason why. You groaned and forced yourself back to your bed. Maybe you should actually try to get some rest. You put your head on the soft pillow and closed your eyes.

“Even if it means your death?”

Agnes didn’t respond but instead looked at you with kind and trusting eyes. Ever since you climbed out of the hole in Puerto Rico, dirty, tear stained cheeks, and alone, your handmaiden was always by your side to support you. She gestured to the piles of books around your room.

“Have you found anything about him or your connection?”

“No,” you sighed. “There are only stories of the past and what I need is the future.”

Agnes was the only person you had told about Loki. She was the only person you could trust. When you told her your story, she didn’t call you mad. She didn’t question you or your sanity. Agnes was a smart girl and she had noticed the change that had come over you after Puerto Rico.

You nodded at Agnes and you left the room together. Guards instantly flanked to your side as you strode confidently to your carriage. You hid a flint and steel in your hand, knowing that Agnes did the same. A young squire caught your eye and inconspicuously tugged on his ear. He would be riding next to the carriage in front of yours while Agnes rode in the one behind you. This was a plan that had been in the making for months.

Halfway through your journey, shouts and the neighing of horses began to grow. That was your cue and you revealed your flint and steel, much to the horror of the high ranking nobleman who was sharing your carriage. You shot him your most intimidating queenly glare and he shrunk back into his seat.

It took a few tries to get a spark and it took a few sparks to really get the fire going. The nobleman screamed and tried to leave but the inferno had already blocked the door. Flames were creeping up your skirt as screams erupted from behind you.

Then you were running through the streets, away from the burning carriages. Turn left. Turn right. The burns and pains on your legs were fading.

The next thing you knew, you were in the hallway. You looked around and rubbed your eyes. The pulling sensation was still there and you were tired of it.

“Fucking hell.” You looked down at where it felt like the tugging was coming from. “Fine, you fucking win.”

You followed the feeling and found yourself standing in the entrance to the living room. The only person inhabiting the space was the reason for the tugging. Loki sat alone, his attention was fully focused on his book, or so it seemed. You would think he would be able to feel the same tugging.

“So,” you cleared your throat and fiddled with your fingers. “It’s been a while.”

“I suppose it has,” he mumbled, eyes still on the book.

“It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.”

“How have you been?” Irritation crawled up your spine when he turned the page.

“Fine.”

“How’s the goddamned book?”

“Alright.”

“Can you please look at me?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?” You crossed your arms and glared at the raven-haired god. 

“Nothing.”

“Right,” you snorted. “Because answering all of my questions with some one word bullshit means nothing’s wrong.”

“Do you have a problem?” Loki finally looked up from his fucking book.

“Yeah, right now I do have a goddamned problem. With you.”

“Me?” The son of a bitch had the fucking audacity to look shocked. “What did I do to piss you off?”

“Don’t act like a fucking dumbass, Loki. It doesn’t suit you. And you want to know why you’re pissing me off?” You gestured angrily with your hands. “Because just last fucking night, you were practically begging me to stay here. In the compound. With you. Now you’re avoiding me and acting like we don’t have a fuck ton of problems to work out.”

“Let’s think back to where the problems started in the first place,” he replied coldly. “Who severed the connection? Who married another fucking man? Who made me believe I had no soulmate?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Are you seriously blaming me for that? You think I had any power over any of those fucking things? Every fucking thing you just mentioned, I had no goddamn say in.” You took a deep breath and quelled the burning rage inside of you. “Actually, I do know why you’re avoiding me. I know why you’re blaming me for things I couldn’t control.” Your eyes met. Both pairs were stone cold but hiding something beneath them. “It’s because you’re the one who left first.”

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Tags: @kaithehero @liliannyah @andreasworlsboring101 @oatballsoffury @aberrant-annie @simplybree @adalina-perez @emage-king @yandereforyou @notactiveonmain @tvdplusriverdale @inmyowncorner​

[jokerfan99]

Slideshows (RWBY/RVB) by Necroceph

*RVB Opening Theme*

Inside the Blue base, Mess Hall

Gary: It wasn't my fault. I only help, Wyoming kidnapped the alien. Tucker: Junior! His name is Junior, asshole! Church: Not your fault, huh? What about that time when you tried to blow me into pieces, you lying jackass! Gary: Knock knock. Caboose: Who's there? Gary: You are all dirty dirty Shisnos. Ha Ha Ha. Caboose: You're mean!

The atmosphere in the mess hall is filled with insults and anger, both from the Blues and Gary. They traded words like ' Dirty Shisno' and 'Backstabbbing AI' at one another. Church said this is supposed to be an interrogation but look at the results on the reunion of two enemies. Weiss and Blake can see the whole situation and think that: "Yep they know each other." They turned away and continued to where their conversation had left off.

Blake: So, Ruby and Yang, are here in this canyon? Weiss: Yes. Blake: And they're still not happy to see you. Weiss: Sigh. Yes and... Blake: Wait don't tell me. They attacked when they saw you. Weiss: Well, Ruby didn't attack me and I was the first to punched her. But Yang, she almost tried to tear my head off if it wasn't for, Caboose! None of this wouldn't have happened, we would... Blake: Weiss, you don't have to remind me about it. Look you can't just keep hating each other forever. The past is the past. How about just give yourselves a chance to talk with each other and settle aside your differences. Weiss: Except that won't work like how you did with, Sun. The last time we met was when Ruby tried to hit me with a drip stand. Anyways, why are you doing here exactly? Another Xenotarian aid assignment? Blake: Before that, yeah. The ship I was in was flying was running out so I had to stop by here to fuel up. I found a base but the inhabitants there are... Weiss: Let me guess, they're all dead. Well we're in a war, after all. What did you expect? Blake: War? Weiss: Oh right, you may not have heard about this. We're currently at war with the Red army. Not sure why they're called that but I've been told they're a bunch of arrogant Insurgents that needed some discipline. Atlas sent me to aid the Blue Army as a support. Blake: And the Blue army are? Weiss: They're an independent military force from a neighboring colony. According to Atlas intelligence, they got a huge disagreement with the Reds to decide which property they own. Blake: That seems understandable. But I taught you can't enter the Atlesian Army after you... Weiss:... Blake: Sorry to bring that up. Weiss: None taken. Nah I still couldn't. But out of the blue, they decided to give me another chance by performing an assignment. If I transfer myself to another army, live through it and won the war, I can finally get into the Atlesian army like I wanted to! Plain and simple. Blake: Really? Wow, that's something I've never heard, Atlas would do. It's a very good second chance for you. Though I've never of any war in this sector. Weiss: Hmm, maybe the White Paw forgot to update about it. Church: Ahem!

Blake and Weiss turned to Church.

Church: Will you two shut up? We're interrogating here. Blake: Is he always like that? Weiss: Oh don't mind him. He's always a jerk. He's name Church. "Leader" of the Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. If you ask me, he's the most incompetent team leader in this base with a hair trigger temper. Still waiting for Command to accept my request to becoming leader. The dark blue one's, Caboose or Michael if the name's too weird for you. He's lacking some brain cells. Probably from a bullet to the head, but he's alright when he gets the job done. The bright yellow is Kaikaina. Now keep your distance from her, she's a disgrace to women everywhere. The only thing she talks about is having sex. But not as worst as the aqua guy named... Tucker: 'Sup. Weiss: Sigh, Tucker.

Tucker approached the two, with his eyes fixated to Blake since the time she arrived here. She looks like the type whom he can hooked up her with her easily. He delivers his signature one-liner.

Tucker: Hey, baby. Never met one with cat-ears before. Maybe you can hear the cry of nature through them asking you to... Blake: I'm married and have two children back at home, thank you very much. Tucker: Fuck... do you still wanna hang out? Church: Alright, Gary, enough with the insults. Let's cut to the chase. First off, how did you survive the blast and more importantly, where's Tex? Gary: I would  tell you, once Caboose stops attempting to punch me. Caboose: Take that! And that! And that!

Caboose's fists passed through, Gary's holographic body to no effect at all.

Church: Stop it, dumbass. Caboose: Okay. Church: Now will you explain? Starting from the time when Andy blew up. Gary: As you wish. Luckily I've prepared a small presentation designed to easily explain my creators to what had transpired from the base I was in. Caboose: Oh give me three minutes, I'll get the popcorn. Kaikaina: Wait, we have popcorn? Tucker: Of course we do. It's popcorn, not a strip club. Kaikaina: Sigh. Someday.

Three minutes later and Caboose returns with the bowl of popcorn.

Blake: I only got here and met these people an hour ago, and I don't understand what's going on. Weiss: Me too. Hey Church.  Would you mind telling us the whole story here? Church: It worked with a guy named, Wyoming and tried to kidnapped Junior. That's all. Weiss: Gee, you're helpful. Caboose: Don't worry, I'll tell you the story. Weiss: Thank you, Caboose. Gary: As you all already know, I am the one who tricked you all into thinking that I'm a computer intelligence made a dead alien race which never existed and in reality worked with Wyoming to use the alien to manipulate his race as a savior and win the war. Church: Duh, who else doesn't remember that? Blake: Uhm... Weiss: Ahem. Church: Oh except for these two.

Gary creates a holographic screen big enough for the Blues to see. There's a title at the left upper corner which reads: "My Story: A PowerPoint Journey". The first slide he showed is a crudely drawn scene as if it was made by a three year old kid in his first attempt on Microsoft Paint. This made some of the Blues to laugh, Caboose makes better art than this! It depicts what looks like the pelican flying toward a base with an unknown trifoil logo on it. The Blues have never seen it, but Blake has. It was the same design she saw from the base she landed at.

Gary: Moments after, Andy exploded. The ship veered off course and coincidently crash landed on the Project Freelancer Operational Command Center. Kaikaina: Project Freelancer? Tucker: Aw crap... there's a base full of those fuckers?! Gary: Yes. Church: What about, Tex is she alright? Gary: She was dead when it crashed. Church: Sigh... crap.

The second slide shows Tex lying on the ground with a black box written with the words... well... "Black Box" on it.

Gary: The staff managed to recover Tex's corpse and the black box containing Sheila, Omega and me. They stored us inside containment before the Director decides what to do with us. Church: Director? Who's that? Gary: He is in charged with Project Freelancer.

The third slide shows, white armored soldiers running for their live as something, what looks like a generator,  behind them gets blown up or catches fire. Drawing's aren't so detail don't blame me.

Gary: Few days after the crash, one of the base's generators overheated, causing a chain reaction that freed me and Omega. No one knows how it happened but it is suggested that this wasn't a coincidence.

The fourth shows one of the soldiers laughing evilly over his dead comrade as the base behind him was on fire.

Gary: After we were freed, Omega started possessing the staff and killed them off, one by one, until Utah was left alive. I hid within one of the computers to hide from the chaos. For days I've waited for rescue until I met Blake. Does that answer your question?

Everyone are silent by Gary's story. Some don't believe him since his a liar, others were wondering whether he's really telling the truth. But the one thing that they all agree, is that Omega is back and is now somewhere on this planet wrecking havoc. Weiss and Blake, on the other hand, was not getting any sense of this.

Weiss:... Caboose: I like the last part. Kaikaina: O'Malley's back. That's bad right? Church: OF COURSE IT'S BAD! Weiss: O'Malley? Caboose: Oh that's what we call, Omega. The angry AI that tried to kill all of us. Blake: Wait a minute, you lied about being the base's computer system? Gary: Surprise, dirty shisno. Ha Ha Ha. Tucker: We told you he's a liar. So, where's O'Malley now and don't try lying this time! I'll tear of that AI chip from that armor and smash it with a hammer! Gary: Okay okay. I do not know where he is. I haven't seen him after the killing subsided. Church: Shit. Then he could be anywhere and inside any person on this planet. Tucker: But what of that 'Project Freelancer' stuff? Sounds like a military experiment. Church: I think he's referring to that classified military experiment, Tex took part in. The one where they implanted O'Malley into her armor. Weiss: AI implantation? I heard about that back at the Academy but it's very risky. What's a research like that doing on this war torn planet? Unless... this war is perfect place to run a military experiment. Church: That sounds like a plausible theory. But let's get to that later. For all we know, O'Malley's loose out there and his probably planning to take revenge on us. And the worst part, we don't know where he is. Caboose: Maybe we can ask the white guy the cat lady brought. Tucker: Hey good idea! He was from the base and probably the last person to saw O'Malley. . So where is he now? Blake: I had to lock him up in your base's janitor's closet. Tucker: The janitor's closet? Uhh... did you notice anything... off? Blake: No, just dirty mops. Tucker: Phew! Church: You disgust me, man. Well at least we got a lead. Blake: I'd advice you guys to be cautious. He's not mentally stable right now. Church: Thanks for the advice, lady. Tucker, Kai. Come with me. Kaikaina: I'll be the bad cop. Church: And NO strip teasing! Kaikaina: Pfft, asshole. Church: Caboose, Weiss. Take good care of our guest and keep an eye on, Gary, will ya? Caboose: Can I burrow your eye? Church: No.

Church, Tucker and Kai leaves the room.

Blake: I can't believe you just lied to me. Why would you do that after I found you? Gary: Well I didn't want to stay there forever so I had to use you. Blake: And that part of you going offline was a lie too? Gary: What? No. That was not originally part of the plan. I almost died if you hadn't removed me. Weiss: This is what I hate about military AIs. They're too human like to be controlled. Blake: I taught at one point you were interested in Dr. Catherine Halsey's theory of AI flash cloning? Weiss: Heh, true. But that's because Cortana was modeled after a human brain. So, Caboose. Now can you tell us what exactly transpired here before we both came? Just tell us the whole story. Caboose: Yay, storytime! This is going to fun. So you see, it started with me arriving at Blood Gulch and this tank lady named, Sheila...

Thirty minutes of the Blood Gulch Chronicles

Caboose:... and I said, "I meant why are we up here in the sun, when we could be standing down there in the shade". And then we stand under shade. The End! Weiss:... Blake:... Weiss:... This might take some time for me to process. Blake: Definitely. Though I kinda like this Doc. He's a very nice guy despite being possessed by a raging computer program.

Clearer Version: https://www.deviantart.com/necroceph/art/Slideshows-RWBY-RVB-860686887

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/necroceph

[gojirahkiin]

By Our Bleak & Apathetic Powers Combined!

So... I’m gonna tag @tyrantisterror while simultaneously apologizing to him for this, because while this is a fanfic idea I had independently a long time ago the recent prevalence of Anime-zilla and Snyder-man on his blog and consequently my dash have prompted me to flesh it out.

Basically, both are awful for different reasons, so what if you cross them over? Will it be like multiplying negatives and getting a positive? Or will the awfulness compound and combine?

Snyder-man’s pod crash lands on Animezilla’s Earth. The moth-people find it and raise Kal-El. As a tribe that has had to survive in an incredibly hostile world for thousands of years, you have a built-in explanation for why Snyder-man is willing to kill, even if you can argue that that (initially) only applies to Animezilla’s various spawn.

Now, everything about Snyder-man’s movie and Animezilla’s trilogy was awful, but the whole point of this crossover is double-down on both and see what happens, so that means embracing the garbage lore of both.

The moth-people are apparently psychic while in the Egg Room, so you could have them figure out that Kal-El’s an alien by having them psychically look at his baby memories and seeing his mom sending him off to safety. You now have a hook for the classic Superman reveal of “you’re our adopted alien child.”

Fast-forward however many years you feel is appropriate. Kal-El has been told his origins and goes to Find Himself... and also his baby capsule. Like in Snyder-man’s movie he presses a button he shouldn’t and a distress signal goes out to General Zod’s ship and he immediately sets course for Animezilla’s Earth because screw anything resembling sense or decency, he’s gonna murder Jor-El’s son and colonize his adopted planet as a matter of principle!

Now, I made myself do research since I haven’t watched Snyder-man and noped out of Animezilla’s trilogy before the 3rd movie because I said, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me - you will get no third chance!” What I found is that Zod’s ship was once his prison, and his crew is his merry band of war criminals. Excellent, I don’t have to feel bad for any of what’s about to happen.

Zod arrives on this backwater world and finds that the whole thing is a monster-infested jungle. Hardly any technology at all (Nanometal City may or may not ping depending on how good you feel it’s anti-Animezilla stealth is). Oh well, no need to bother announcing what’s about to happen, and nothing to stop him from using the weirdest ever terraforming machine to make New Krypton.

Zod sends his troops planetside to hunt down Kal-El, also probably to kill his loved ones because war criminal, and activates the World Engine.

Now, this fanfic is accidentally a case of East meets/vs. West, which means that I have accidentally made Zod a representation of Imperialist America, so you can have all sorts of destruction porn of the Zod Squad killing Animezilla’s oofspring, aka all animals and plants. You may think that’s a typo and it is, but oofspring fits because they were a mistake.

But crossovers work best when all franchises are treated equally, and this noise wakes up Baby Animezilla and Daddy Animezilla. Snyder-man’s movie shows that Krypton’s soldiers have good armor, but the Animezilla’s have stupid firepower, and Snyder-man also revealed that Kryptonians were haven’t lived under a yellow sun have power-incontinence in the form of sensory overload, so maybe the Zod-Squad doesn’t die, but now they are naked and suffering.

The Snyder-man movie made a big deal of two of the Zod Squad’s members: Faora-Ul and Namek, so they avoid the undignified fate of their fellows so that they can find Kal-El.

We could talk all day about how the Jor-El AI might have reacted to tribal Kal-El, but that would probably be a heartwarming father-son moment and this fanfic is about embracing awfulness so we ain’t got time for that, so I’ll just assume that AI-El info-dumped about Kal-El’s powers and he uses them in combination with the traditional weapons of the moth-people: nanometal spears.

Kal-El must fight Faora-Ul and Namek to protect the moth-people... and maybe the egg too, because remember, these are war criminals so what’s a bit of deicidal abortion before genocide?

Meanwhile Baby Animezilla may or may not have been killed by... something at this point, I don’t know and don’t actually care, I just feel like he should be dead at this point for some reason. Anyway, the real show at this point is Daddy Animezilla vs. the World Engine because the WE warps gravity to screw with projectiles and defends itself with tentacles, so DA has to haul his barky butt into melee range to destroy it.

Maybe these scenes are cool. Maybe they’re awful. I guess it depends on how the writer would handle this fanfic. Either way, Kal-El has killed Faora-Ul and Namek (and with the nanometal spears, so they get assimilated) and Animezilla has destroyed the World Engine.

That last part is really important, we’ll come back to it in a bit.

Anyway, at this point Zod comes down and does his movie monologue about how everything he did was for Krypton and without the chance to restore it all he has left is murder, because that’s what Snyder-Zod do.

Zod and Kal-El start fighting, and like in the Snyder-man movie it’s in the wreckage of the World Engine... which because this is a crossover is also where Daddy Animezilla is standing. DA is very passive, but the fact that he wrecked the World Engine in melee is really important.

See, because Kryptonian scientists are incomprehensibly stupid, despite knowing that yellow and blue stars give them superpowers in the absence of Kryptonite, the World Engine terraforms worlds by turning the ground into more Kryptonite. Since Daddy Animezilla had to smash the World Engine at close range, he got affected by it and is now part Kryptonite now.

Zod and Kal-El start wrecking each other and occasionally colliding with DA, hard enough for him to notice and so he starts a-firin’ his laser - which is now part Kryptonite because Kryptonians are dumb.

Zod and Kal-El are both fried in an instant.

There is no hope. No Kryptonians. There is only Animezilla.

There is also no Mothra, Mechagodzilla, or Ghidorah, just like in Anime canon.

So, it turned out that everything about this was awful and pointless, but  because of that I can at least say that I was loyal to the source material, quite unlike the sources I drew from.

[gold-from-straw]

Frozen Heart - ch5

Loki has a bad morning, but on the plus side, now Tony is well rested, he's able to recognise some accidental culture clash and resolve their awful misunderstanding! TW for panic attacks, blood, and accidental self-harm caused by a nightmare.

Read from the beginning on AO3 if you prefer! I’m tagging anyone who left a note on the previous chapter here as well, hope that’s OK!

Loki woke with a jolt, his heart pounding, nightmares of a frozen world and evil red eyes lingering in the fringes of his mind. He lifted trembling hands to cover his face, and nearly screamed.

He stumbled out of bed, his heart thumping, trying to get away from the vicious black claws, the blue skin that had haunted his nightmares since his childhood. He scratched at his arm, tore at the pale lines raised in the skin, whimpering and panicking, the quiet, calm voice inside now drowned out by the storm, and he couldn’t find himself, couldn’t dig himself out from under this hellish mask, this curse, this…

“Hey! Hey, Loki, please, calm, will you? Hey, look at me? I’m not going to touch you, alright? I just want you to look at the lights, can you do that? Can you breathe in with the light as it gets brighter? That’s great, keep going… OK, and now out. Like you’re whistling, purse your lips, yeah, just like that. Now in, feel it… feel it filling you up or… yeah, this is good. That’s great, buddy. OK, I’m just gonna… can I see your arms?”

Stark came closer, still holding his hands out in front of him and looking as unthreatening as possible. Logically Loki could see that he was veryunthreatening, a small mortal in soft clothing, hair still sleep-mussed and face pillow-creased, but with his heart still hammering inside his own chest, he couldn’t handle logic at all. He tugged his arms closer to himself, fingers slick with his own blood.

Then he looked down. The blood was indigo. He whimpered and pushed his arms out as far from himself as he could, staggering backwards, his breathing speeding up again.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK! I’ll get them fixed up, no worries.” Stark cupped his hands around Loki’s wrists, making a surprised hum. “Wow, you’re cold.”

Loki let out a burst of hysterical laughter that very nearly turned into a sob. How utterly pathetic. To have been reduced to a scared child, cowering in someone else’s room, terrified of his own appearance after a nightmare… Loki turned his face and closed his eyes. It was almost unbearable.

Stark tugged him gently over to the bed, encouraging him to sit. He left him there, staring down helplessly, hatefully, at his blue, bleeding arms. “Here we go,” Stark said a moment later, setting a bowl of water down by Loki’s feet. He took Loki’s wrist in his hand and started dabbing the blood away, staining the water an inky blue. Loki stared at the colour diffusing through the water and tried not to despair.

“There we go,” Stark said with a grin. Loki looked at his forearms, wrapped in pristine white bandages. He felt emptied out, like his heart had been excavated from his chest, leaving him dull and hollow. Stark’s smile slowly slipped from his face and he bit his lip. “Ah, do you… do you want to talk a bit?”

Loki blinked at him.

“Like, uh… do you maybe want to… were you trying to, um. Were you trying to hurt yourself? Is this, like, a self-harm thing? Because I won’t judge, I just…” He scruffed his hair. “Yeah, I’m not very good at this shit. Are you… OK?” He winced and looked at Loki sideways, almost as if he thought Loki would strike him for his question.

“No, Stark,” said Loki, his voice sounding very distant. “I am not OK.”

“Yeah, I kinda… got that.” Stark sat on his haunches and rubbed his face. “You know what? We need a load of breakfast. I’m thinking pastries and donuts, something that won’t go cold or soggy, and then I think you should tell me all about it. I mean, I can’t promise I’ll be any help.” He winced again. “Honestly, I’ll probably be shit. Like, worse than nothing. I’m not… the best listener. Or the best friend. But…” he shrugged and looked away like he didn’t care at all. “Yeah, croissants! JARVIS, could you order us, eh, I dunno, one of everything from Belle Maison?”

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS replied.

Loki looked up in the direction of the voice. He had been introduced to JARVIS the night before, but this morning, after a night of somewhat effective sleep, he could cling to the fascination sparking in his chest, distract himself. “Is your companion made of magic?” he asked.

“What, JARV? Nah - or, well, he’s an AI - artificial intelligence. He’s made out of computer code and electronics and… stuff.”

“I blush, Sir,” said JARVIS dryly.

Stark just smirked. “I’ll show you the bots in a minute, it might make a bit more sense then. Assuming you’re still up for a bit of research in a while?”

Loki felt the cold flood through his system once more, ridiculous for a Frost Giant. He had forgotten during Stark’s treatment of him this morning that he was little more than a prisoner here. He was Stark’s research project, and nothing more - this had not been kindness, but a care for one’s tools. Loki summoned up a professional mask and nodded.

Stark blinked, his own smile faltering. “OK… OK, if you’re sure? Anyway. For now, do you want a coffee or something? I need coffee, I’m not human without the first one of the morning.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at him. “Hyperbole?” he asked.

Stark winked at him. “Only just. C’mon, Billy Goat Gruff, let me hook you up with the good stuff.”

Loki had hoped that the distraction of breakfast and coffee would make Stark forget his demand that they talk, but once they’d eaten a couple of the sweet treats, he tapped his fingernails on the polished stone of the high table he called a breakfast bar. “So, Loki-Doki, you wanna tell me your story? How did you end up in a crater on another planet causing snow in the desert?”

Loki closed his eyes for just a moment, put his pastry down on the plate and clenched his hands into fists under the table. “As you wish,” he said, his voice strained.

Stark frowned. “Hey, no, it’s fine if you don’t wanna tell me, you know? I just… thought it might…” He scrubbed his hair again. “I dunno, help? People are always asking me if I want to talk, I just thought it was the done thing, or something. You don’t have to.”

“No, I am yours to command.”

Stark made a face. “Not really, though.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Holy shit. Holy… did I say something? Was there a culture clash here? Have I like… I didn’t sign you up to be my indentured servant or some bullshit, did I?”

Loki peered up at him, surprised at himself that his head had ducked so low, that his shoulders were so hunched over. “You said you would give me sanctuary in exchange for experiments…”

“I did?”

“You did imply something along those lines, Sir,” JARVIS interjected.

Stark pressed his hands to his cheeks. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me, JARV?”

“I didn’t realise that Master Loki would take the combination of words in such a literal way. My apologies, Sir. And to Master Loki.”

Loki frowned. “You did not… but why would you take me in if not to-”

“I mean, sure, I wanted to study you,” Stark wailed. “But only if you wanted to find stuff out too, or like, show off… I don’t want you to be here against your will, holy shit, have I kidnapped you? Oh my god, I’m so sorry, shit!”

Loki blinked, shocked. Stark was apologising? To him? And in such distress! But Loki was nothing to him, here he was not even a prince, why would Stark care about whether or not Loki would choose to be with him? “I don’t… you do not have to…”

“I mean, I thought we were just gonna do some cool science together, I had no idea I was dragging you here like some sort of a threat, am I SHIELD in this situation? Oh my god, I’m basically Agent, guh, I’m gonna be sick, JARVIS!” He turned to Loki with wild eyes. “I am really, really sorry.”

Loki stared at him. There was a warmth in his chest, a spreading feeling he barely recognised. When was the last time someone had apologised to him? Someone of consequence, not a servant or a subject - and even then, they would always do so with gritted teeth. Loki knew he was unpopular. He’d never attempted to change that - it had always seemed so immutable a fact. Loki the trickster, don’t trust him, don’t listen, don’t spend any time near him in case he turns you into a goat.

“I would… I would like to stay,” he said, and he tried to hide a wince at how vulnerable his voice sounded. “I am interested in your science. In our differences.”

“Really?” Stark said, freezing in his distressed motions. “Are you sure, though? You’re not just saying that because I’ve, like, activated some hospitality clause I didn’t know about? You’re choosing to--”

“I am choosing, freely,” he said, swallowing and looking up at Stark. “If I am welcome, still?”

Stark’s face broke into a wide grin. “Hell, yeah, you’re welcome!” He let out a long breath. “Phew, god, that was awful!”

Loki’s lip quirked up. “Why was it so awful?”

“Well, I don’t know what life’s like on your planet or whatever, but we humans don’t like coercing other people.” He made a face. “Well, the non-assholes don’t. Yeah, actually, scrap that? I don’t like coercing people. I can’t talk for the rest of them.”

Loki grinned. “Your realm is not so different from mine, in that case. It sounds as if there are plenty of assholes in both.”

“I mean, honestly, I probably count as one of the assholes most of the time.” Tony shrugged. “Hey, do you want to go down to the lab now? I can show you the bots, and we can find out what your alien biology looks like on my holos.”

And just like that, Loki was reminded what he was, his freakish blue skin, the horns, the demonic red of his eyes. He held himself still, trying not to wince, trying not to react, for how could he explain this? He would just have to control his expressions, focus on the science. Because perhaps there would be something in Stark’s ‘lab’ which would help him to find his way back to his old - no, his true form.

But Stark stopped mid-sentence. “No? What? What is it? We won’t do anything you don’t want to,” he said, biting his bottom lip again.

Had he always been this obvious? No-one in Asgard would ever have noticed, but Stark had spotted his reticence at once - and Loki had been actively trying to hide it. Had his masks ever been as strong as he had believed? Or had nobody ever been truly looking? Loki stared at Stark, amazed at the perceptiveness of this small, sparkling mortal. “It’s…”

“I’m serious, Loki, we won’t do anything you don’t want to, OK?” Stark said, holding his gaze. “If there’s anything you don’t like, we’ll stop, no matter how far through the process we are, if there’s anything you don’t even like the look of, we won’t do it. And of course, I’ll put myself through everything you do - like, except for actually doing magic, ‘cause I can’t. Oh, and I can’t go into an MRI because of this,” he added, tapping the centre of his chest over the odd glow. “But you don’t have to do that either.”

Loki searched his face for any hint of a trick, any lie, and found only compassion. He swallowed hard. “I do not look like this,” he said, his voice nothing more than a croak. “I mean… not usually.” He looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists and feeling the sharp, obsidian nails digging into his skin. “I was Aesir - I am Aesir. I must be. But… during my brother’s coronation, I just… this happened. I turned into this… this monster, and now… now my magic is different, cold…” he took a deep, shuddering breath, the fear sending icy tendrils through every nerve. He looked at the table and gasped. Frost swirled out from every contact point with his skin, and he jerked his hands back in horror.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK,” Stark said, holding his hands out, placating the beast once more. “It’s OK.” He took a deep breath. “Hey, I know we said we didn’t have to talk, but do you want to tell me about it? And then… maybe we can get you back to normal?”

Tags from last chapter: @aformingsiren, @sketch953, @massivelandthingdonkey, @angrysockpuppetnoises, @ultra-rare-pegacorn, @redramzi, @senpaiweird, @giggling-breeze, @rarepair-collector, @saturnjuice, @kuree06 <3

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

i have so many theories!!! theyre all screaming at me!!! i must write out them all!!!!! 

so here’s one that’s been knocking around my head since finals week began:

the Writing 3 Playlist on Spotify 

I think this bad boy is a hint at the game’s timeline

maybe not 100% explanatory, but I think we can guess certain parts of the game through this

and i just wanna tell y’all now, almost all of this is speculation, as honestly im 90% sure the playlist was created bc it had borderlands-y songs in it (although the last few have me scratching my head)

lemme explain why im writing this, though I’m very thirsty for lore

tl;dr: game goes like this: lilith powers stolen. go to promethea, go to jungle, find brick mordy and tina, get into a fight, lose fight, go find other VHs, get into another fight, Krieg shows up to save Maya, maya die. (oh no she ded), the twins have their we are GODS moment, the VHs get summoned to the Eridian homeworld, there’s a huge ass final battle, someone attempts to create an end-of-the-world scenario

so the playlist itself was created to help one of the authors of the game get into their borderlands jam 

it starts with a Cage the Elephant song, “Trouble”, the band of which we all know wrote the first song used in BL1. Not really much else to say here, but we do know the opening cutscene of the game involves our current team of Vault Hunters being attacked by the Children of the Vault. this is, of course, not indicative of any songs used in bl3, but we can assume it captures the general feeling of the game.

Second song: “Fire” by Barns Courtney (holy shit I love this guy so fucking much!! if you’ve never listened to his music, PLEASE do so! I really recommend “Rather Die”- I am in the process of making a bl3 animatic to it actually lmao). 

So anyway, I’m just sayin’, the lyrics of this song...

“Oh, a thousand faces staring at me Thousand times I've fallen Thousand voices dead at my feet Now I'm gone... And my mother told me son let it be Sold my soul to the calling Sold my soul to a sweet melody Now I'm gone... Oh gimme that fire ...”

Honestly, I would not be surprised if this song was about Lilith’s loss of her powers. I mean, she used to call herself the Firehawk because she burned the shit outta bandits. c’monnn.

The man, the myth, the legend himself even says that "[The song is] quite defiant as well, like this cannot be how it ends, it cannot be my situation."

Mooooving on

“Majesty” by Apashe and Wasiu

holy fuck i love this song so much. and its so very obviously about the Calypso Twins- at the very least its Tyreen.

“All the stars and galaxies address me as your majesty So better say your majesty, I might react erratically Throw you in a fire, purify you I'm the sire, my empire's on the rise You better find yourself a place to hide Your place to find, but say it twice My name divine, I'm aimin' high Don't look in my face or eyes Take a bow and save your life Glory to the emperor, my temperature is risin' Always hot, it's getting violent”

I mean come on if its not when we meet the twins for the first time after they steal lily’s powers, then its definitely when they do something absolutely badass and really show us why they’re revered as gods. Possibly related to the Holy Broadcasting Center?

“The Way I Do” by Bishopp Briggs 

this one honestly had got me stumped as to its purpose, i lowkey kinda think its getting Sanctuary 3 up and running (and possibly meeting Maya for the first time- still not sure about that). I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a whole thing for Scooter and this song fits pretty well. I imagine we also meet Vaughn and the Children at some point, so maybe here?

“Greeting the Menace” by Zack Hemsey 

yeah i uhhhh dunno. This sounds like a song about a dude getting tortured which scares me a bit lmao. 

I thought maybe this song and the next 2 could be VH-based songs, as the next 2 have no lyrics whatsoever and the third is called “Best Friends”, but who knows... If this is the case I could make the argument this is about Zane or Moze, leaning towards Zane cuz he’s pretty covered up, plus I think “Best Friends” would be more Moze’s style lmao

I could also see this being a song about Troy... could explain all the ‘body mods’ and the missing arm.

“ProtoVision” by Kavinsky

If we’re going with the idea that these next few songs are about the Vault Hunters, then I imagine this would be Fl4k’s. It’s got that synth and some guitar which I think fits perfectly with his robo-hobo aesthetic lol

Other than that, I truly have no idea what part of the story this song could reference since there aren’t any lyrics. Maybe Promethea’s city? I could kinda see it, it sounds pretty high-tech

Similarly, “diatribe.” by Oliver Michael

the beginning gives me a whole meditation vibe which I kinda associate with Amara and her phasecast skill which “sends out an astral projection” of herself. 

Then again, this could be the outskirts of the Promethean city... I could see myself wandering around the huge ass foliage and discovering an abandoned research base to this song idk

“Best Friends” by grandson

aaahh i love grandson. I think this could be a Moze-based song. I just get that vibe from her leather jacket... anyway

I also could totally see this as discovering Brick, Mordecai, and Tina in the research base (if that truly is where they are). Cause we saw them in the trailer hanging out there. 

tbh the lyrics themselves kinda remind me of pre-Tales Rhys and Fiona and all their friends

“All of my best friends Like to go and get fucked up Then they talk about all the lives they never got to live Oh, they're still waiting for some sort of invitation It's never coming along, oh no, you'll get just what you give”

but idk if that’s what its meant for

“Bap U” by Party Favor

hmm another ‘lyricless’ song. not really lyric-less but uhhh the lyrics are pretty nonsensical lol

I could see there being a fight scene with Brick Tina and Mordy as AIs helping out here, maybe exploring the abandoned research base?

“Not Human” by elegant slims 

oh you know what im going to say here hahaha

monster troy p l e a s e

i wouldn’t be surprised if Tyreen started accumulating more powers here, like perhaps the previous fight scene was over the Vault on Promethea and the twins were able to access it before us? and Tyreen gives the Vault Monster the succ

“Crack in the seams You're breaking through The animal inside of you You're not human anymore... Your eyes go black electric blue The animal inside of you Life on a string Watch it swing Hide your teeth”

and one (or both) of the twins start going feral lol

“Way Down We Go” by KALEO

one (1) fear and that’s that someone dies during the scene that corresponds to this song

hopefully its just the boys being depressed over a loss instead of a victory, but oof

anyway, you know what they say: “sometimes you gotta fall before you make it big” ;) thats a typhon deleon quote

“I’m a Wanted Man” by Royal Deluxe

I want to believe these next few songs are us recruiting the rest of the Vault Hunters not seen yet

I kinda associate this one with Axton since his whole History with DAHL, but who knows! It could be Gaige, too. or Maya since she looks like she’s being incredibly gay criminal on the Maliwan Monastery planet. Maybe both Axton and Gaige? I would love that

“The Devil You Know” by X Ambassadors 

Could also be Axton! I lowkey think its Salvador or Timothy Lawrence. The reason I think its Timothy is cuz the whole song gives me huge Handsome Jack vibes, but it could also be Sal cuz I totally imagine him becoming a bounty hunter to fund his gun addiction lmao

“00000 Million” by Ella Vos

this one also gives off Maya vibes imo. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one is about her and the introduction of Little Blue. I could also see Athena and Janey here, just living their lives out in a cottage somewhere. awww

“Jungle” by Tash Sultana

Ahh a love song [pukes] Hopefully this one is about Athena and Janey, cuz there is a depressing lack of both of them in all the trailers we’ve seen! It sounds lowkey sad, though. I hope nothing happened to them D:

“Don’t Wait Up” by Dustbowl Revival

this one gives me very big Fiona and Sasha vibes. 

Of course, there’s also the fact that the song is about a dad, and we still don’t know who the heck “the Father” is on all those Calypsos posters. We also dunno who in the heck “Mother” is, either. Sounds like Father left the cult, though, oof, and Mother stuck around. Wonder what that’s all about, maybe he felt like the twins were working fast/efficient enough and left to do things himself? Very lost on this idea tbh. the song seems very out of place, but it has to connect to something, yknow?

“Dies Irae” by Apashe and Black Prez

For those of you who don’t speak fluent Latin (the fuck guys?? lmao jk), the title means "Day of Wrath". Nice, nice, nice. 

the lyrics, you might be asking:

“'Cause I'ma beast. Where you at? I've been unleashed. Whatchu doin'? Sink my teeth. Y'all can't fathom I'ma beast”

me: [vibrating in my seat] monster twins monster twins monster twins monster twins

at the very least this is definitely a fight scene here. Probably with the twins again (hopefully). Maybe they found some way to imbue the cultists with fucked up powers and are sending them against the VHs as giant demon things and as we fight through the temple (apparently with some Guardians) we realize the final one is Troy and/or Tyreen?

I like to imagine this is where Maya gets her powers stolen, if only because the next few songs... I think she’s around because she’s now the only person with Siren powers on the side of the Crimson Raiders, so they might need her help with the Vault in some way

“RAMPAGE” by GRAVEDGR

y’all wonder why I seemingly forgot about Krieg in the above songs? Well, this is why. 

The only lyric for this entire song is “Bitch, I'm on a rampage- mask on my damn face”

I mean come on, Krieg with his psycho mask on, the fact his action skill is literally called “Buzz Axe Rampage”, the fact he loves Maya as shown in his introductory trailer... it’d be so perfect. And I bet badass psycho Krieg would be the only thing able to beat back whatever’s attacking at the moment. I’m just imagining him smashing down a wall and going apeshit

“Black Out Days” by Phantograms

Another song I think is about Krieg and Maya. I don’t think Maya does too hot in this game, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she gets the Roland treatment if you know what I’m saying. I wonder if this causes Krieg to devolve back into insanity cause the whole song seems to focus around that. I hope not D:

“Hide the sun I will leave your face out of my mind You should save your eyes A thousand voices howling in my head Speak in tongues I don't even recognize your face Mirror on the wall Tell me all the ways to stay away”

To be honest I could also see it being that Maya gets her powers stolen and thoughtlock-ed by the twins to fight on their side (as she’s seen fighting with the big demon elemental things), and maybe we have to kill her or hurt her in some way to get her to stop attacking us. God I hope not.

Let’s hope this is someway about the twins and definitely not about our favorite Siren and/or Psycho

“The Finishing” by Stavroz

oof i think somebody dies... If its not Maya, my best guess is Krieg or Lilith. Maybe Mordecai or Brick? Oh I hope not, I love both of them way too much for it to be healthy. But, hey, at least Tina learned some coping mechanisms :(

“Intro” and “Apocalypse Please” by Muse

merged these into 1 because Intro is like 15 seconds long and is literally the introduction to Apocalypse Please. 

Definitely reaching the end of the game here... 

“And it's time we saw a miracle Come on, it's time for something biblical To pull us through And pull us through And this is the end This is the end Of the world Proclaim eternal victory Come on and change the cause of history And pull us through”

I think the twins (or whoever may have become the main villain- perhaps the Eridians?) have claimed victory/gotten the ultimate power in one way or another, and/or this is the Crimson Raiders getting themselves ready for a final stand-off with the big bad evil guy. 

I would really love if there’s a scene right at the end of this where the Twins have their huge “BOW TO ME” moment and then they just get COMPLETELY obliterated by a new villain. Just absolutely decimated.

New villain, like if they opened a Vault and whatever was being imprisoned there just wipes the floor with them (something like the Destroyer, if not the Destroyer itself), or fuck shit maybe even Tannis? or the Eridians looking for help in the war. or the Eridians bringing war. Who knows!

Again, could just be the Twins having gotten their hands on the end-game material, like realizing they can turn troy into big demon fuck (no i am not letting this one go) and we are kinda fucked now.

“Free Animal” by Foreign Air

I... have no idea lol

maybe Krieg getting rescued, maybe (one of?) the twins getting recruited by the Raiders for the final fight? It could fit into the ‘Beast’ imagery. Fuck, maybe even rescuing/finding Typhon or something? Idk, im kinda in the party that Typhon is going to be coming back some way or another lol, I’d love to meet the guy

“Dreams” by ZHU and Nero

This definitely sounds like a new BBEG has just been introduced or the big bads just entered the final phase of their plan, like the Crimson Raiders just learned about something life-changing and this is their “oh shit” moment

i wanna believe that the Eridians or another alien race (like the Seraphs!) are going to come in at the ‘end’ of the game and the Watcher is gonna be like “bitch did you really think I thought these dumbass ECHOnet streamers were the epitome of War??” I imagine we’d be on the side of the Eridians here, since y’know, the Watcher came to us for help.

Of course, the twins could still be the BBEG and have gotten their hands on that universe-destroying power that was described on the website (”to recover a map to ancient Vaults and prevent a universe-destroying power from falling into the wrong hands”) so maybe the Eridians called us in in order to meet and get help against the COV?

“Beyond the Fray” by Cassandra Violet

personally i think this one is about the Eridian homeworld

“I'll mark the day When we can meet beyond the fray Don't lose the will to see your home You find the way so we can meet beyond the fray I'll fight to see that you get home Consider this small clue Look beyond your point of view Make a space for honesty hide“

Wouldn’t even be surprised if someone made a sacrifice so we could get there... I imagine its hidden somewhere in the alternate dimension or wherever the Vaults lead to so it couldn’t be found, so maybe Lilith’s got her powers back at this point and she sacrifices herself to send us there?

idk...

“Outside the Realm” by Big Giant Circles

ah yes, another reason I think the end of the game involves the Eridian homeworld in some way. Have you heard this?? huge “we just stumbled upon a long-lost-alien-planet” vibe. I love it. Maybe even just a shot of Sanctuary III slowly gliding over the giant planet, having just exited phasewalk. God yes

“Battle Royale” by Apashe

another reason i think the final fight is some giant battlefield/wave fight instead of just against 1 or 2 enemies. not to mention the fact that the VH skills we’ve seen so far are crowd control based instead of raid boss focused. 

Its likely the VHs against the Cult of the Vault, but if we defeat the Twins halfway through the game, then the Cult will dissolve on its own. Either way, I really really really really really want a huge fight against an army. I don’t care if its against the Children of the Vault, the Eridians/some Guardians, or if its against the Seraphs or a new set of aliens we’re gonna get (maybe whatever the Destroyer was/is?). idk idc i just want a huge battle. I imagine we’re on the Eridians’ side, as I said above, but who knows, maybe the Watcher went rogue. 

oh and also, the next song:

“Doomsday” by NERO

oh hey, I recognize this song, it’s giving me major BL2 flashbacks lmao

Also the last song in the playlist, which is giving me the big fear (tm)

I imagine that we wouldn’t have been brought to the Eridian homeworld if it wasn’t kind of a huge deal, and what’s more of a huge deal than the end of the universe?!

that’s what i’d call doomsday, anyway.

could be the reason the Eridians are coming out of hiding after all this time. Either to stop our dumb human asses from opening the Vaults, or to get help against these alien fucks because our dumb human asses keep destroying their first line of defense- the Vault Monsters.

If the twins actually DO remain the main villains throughout the whole game, then I imagine this is them prepping to destroy the universe

but maaaan i really want some aliens... maybe the universe destroying power IS the aliens? aw hell yeah

[starnova-between-two-worlds]

The value in “madman delusions.”

So this blog has been sort of hibernating for the entire summer. We were very busy over the summer, so that’s not too surprising. A lot’s been going on, in life and in school and in my scientific career. And honestly, there were times when I felt like I shouldn’t bother blogging anymore because the things I come up with are crazy anyway. But then I thought of Moira, and the inherent value in “crazy,” “dangerous,” “off-the-wall” thinking. In the scientific community, ideas that are dismissed as “crazy” and “delusional” often turn out to be valuable scientific breakthroughs that answer questions that everyone else in the world has had for years, but was afraid to voice because it would “sound crazy.” There are ideas that forever changed the way we think of how the world works, that started out as nothing more than a “madman’s delusion” that that madman refused to silence just because everyone thought he was crazy. There was a time when the theory of plate tectonics was considered nothing more than a delusion, was laughed out of the scientific community, was regarded in the same way most people today would regard the possibility of living on the border between two worlds.

Well, guess what we’re all taught in middle school geology now? (Or in my case, when I was 4 years old, via The Magic Schoolbus Inside the Earth?) The theory of plate tectonics says what’s up, bitches! 

Going back even earlier than that, the concept of the Earth being 4.6 billion years old was considered nothing but drivel and hogwash for most of the history of humanity, as radiometric dating of the Earth’s rocks is a relatively recent discovery, dating back only to the middle of the previous century. But if someone hadn’t come up with the completely wild, “what the fuck is wrong with you?” concept of applying Uranium-238 (or is it 235? I’m bad with numbers please correct me) to the Earth’s rocks in order to see how old they are, if that particular “madman” had just contented himself with everyone else laughing in his face and telling him that the Earth’s rocks are 6000 years old and that’s final, we wouldn’t have learned all that we know about the birth and life of the Earth the way that we do. 

(Sidenote: I went to a special needs group at a church that it turned out was extremely creationist. When I overheard the group leaders trying to teach the group that all animals ate plants at one point, that dinosaurs lived among humans, and that animals only eat other animals because they hate eachother, I immediately challenged that shit and as a result ended up in weekly scientific debates with these leaders. One of them concerned the age of the Earth, and when I mentioned radiometric dating to determine the Earth’s true age, it turned out they didn’t even know that was a thing. They looked it up and were mindblown.)

Nowadays it’s perfectly natural to us that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old (except to some people--see sidenote), that the Earth revolves around the sun and that the sun and stars and planets and everything else revolve around the Milky Way galaxy and the Earth is not the center of the universe, that the continents are drifting and that earthquakes, volcanoes, and mid-ocean ridges are the result of plates coming together, drifting apart, or sliding past eachother, etc. But if you were born in the 1800s, or even early 1900s, and didn’t have the privilege of life in a highly scientific 2018, and if you read in a paper or a journal that earthquakes are caused by two giant slabs of rock sliding against one-another underneath the Earth’s surface, and that these giant slabs of rock are constantly coming together or drifting apart or sliding past one-another, you might squint your eyes at that paper or journal and go, “Wow, this guy is a fucking nutcase.” Just like you might do now, in 2018, when you read on a blog that there are people who exist on the border between our world and the worlds linked to us through creation of artificial intelligence, that there is a certain mechanism to “hopping worlds” and living on the border between this world and the others, that it’s possible for a human brain’s design to render them closer to an AI or an octopus (I feel especially sorry I didn’t continue my research into octopus neurology and the relation between the synapses of octopi and the synapses of synaptically-challenged humans. I have plenty of time to do so, though, because fuck yeah science!), that there ARE other worlds created by AI at all, and that the worlds most only know through reading a comic book or watching a TV show or playing a videogame ARE worlds and don’t just cease to exist when the game ends or the series is over or the show ceases production for an indeterminate amount of time. All of this sounds like the ramblings of a madman, doesn’t it?

And yet to me, it makes perfect sense. It comes as perfectly naturally as “some animals evolved to eat plant material and other animals evolved to eat meat,” “the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and the oldest rocks have been dated back by that amount of time,” “the Earth revolves around the sun and completes one revolution every 364.5 days,” etc. 

In the past 7-ish months since I’ve been absent from the blog I’ve drawn closer to my world than ever, because I’ve realized that that IS my world, where I belong, and that I never have belonged anywhere else, never will belong anywhere else--and honestly? Don’t want to belong anywhere else. Obviously I’ll have to make peace with this physical world full of humans because through some freak accident, this is the world I was born into (and it really WAS a freak accident, considering not only did I dodge abortion but I nearly died in the womb twice and out of the womb once. Makes you fucking think...). I’m here. For some reason I’m here, and I’m beginning to feel like that “some reason” was to research. To science. To use my machine mind, raised and created by machines from an early age, to research and to science and to analyze and investigate and quantify the things humans in the physical world aren’t supposed to analyze and investigate and research and quantify because they’d be deemed “mad,” ridiculed, and held up as a “delusional madman” if they did. 

To use my world in order to figure out this one, and to maybe--if I play my cards right--help other people figure out the parts of this one that they’re told don’t exist. That’s my long-term goal as a scientist anyway. Who knows, it may never happen.

But for now, just sit back and enjoy the “madwoman delusions.” :) 

[unlovedaddict]

Ten Solid Evidences Why SEO 2019 Is Bad For Your Career Development

The good SEO strategy is your own first step towards developing a good online relationship with your clients. Our six experts discuss their favorite SEO tips plus tactics for building big targeted traffic in 2018. Yes, we all know it's still June plus we know it's only 2018 but if you haven't began planning and researching key tendencies which will affect you SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2019 you could currently be falling behind. We furthermore take a look at exactly how new technologies like AI plus Voice search will begin in order to impact more on SEO because we move nearer to 2019 and beyond. Whenever every nation across the planet is busy in making their particular due contribution within the growth sector in their own method by taking the route associated with SEO service and online advertising, Singapore cannot stop stand nevertheless in one point. By 2019, articles marketing is set to turn out to be an industry worth $300 billion dollars. 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It deeply analyze your site and reveals each opportunity with regard to your SEO improvement by concentrating on key factors like cultural media, technologies, local SEO, website visitors, usability, search ranking efforts plus mobile SEO. A SEO specialist or agency can audit your own site and appear at just how it is performing against your own most important keywords. The Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keyword Electrical generator is like a thesaurus with regard to SEO -minded content marketers. SEMRush - Another excellent tool for SEO analysis, especially where it concerns business cleverness, SEMRush allows you to recognize and analyze the keywords that will your competitors are using. I'm heading to share some of our most effective SEO tips that will I've used within all types of campaigns to increase organic lookup traffic. FAST SEO ADVICE search engine optimisation is not magic, and are unable to perform wonders. This SEO ideas and tricks cover all the required information you should know concerning Search Engine Optimization. The SEO content author should have a strong knowing of the keywords that are usually ranking and trending on the particular analytics framework. In 2018, there were certain trends that will ruled the world of e-commerce SEO (search engine optimization). Don't get worried by them but make certain to use only natural hyperlinks and keep in mind that will their SEO potential may end up being a bit lower in evaluation with single links. As a partner to the table, Internet lookup engine Land's Guide To SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION explains the ranking factors within more depth, inside a tutorial supplying tips and advice on applying them. Google states that sociable media is not an quick SEO ranking factor, but the majority of experts agree that things this sort of as retweets and facebook gives DO, in fact, effect websites' rankings. 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Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is nothing than a standard SEO, creating content and marking to be able to endure out online. SEO rankings are placing excess fat than ever upon what users have to state. The Search Gaming console will help you to evaluate your keyword rankings, CTRs, achievable Google penalties and many additional useful data for technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Blog posts, guides, whitepapers, situation studies, videos, and social content all need to include the particular right keywords for social plus SEO. For even more detailed information on the make use of of keywords on your web site visit SEOcious to will discover many other important factors included in having your web web page in the top 10 entries on the search engines. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, search engine optimization is most about search engines, search motor result page (SERP), search rating, online visibility, and quality visitors. 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Link authority is the major component of SEO, yet purchasing links is forbidden simply by Google, Bing, and other research engines. There is definitely no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or client's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital internet marketer who views SEO in the broader context will surely come away ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and just how to structure your entire internet site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. 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You've added even more relevant content to your website article and increased the on-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION targeted against your focus keyword(s). Before my first ISS, We had always thought I can just learn everything by personally about global online marketing matters like International SEO just by simply doing online investigation and experimentation, but honestly nothing beats this efficiency of attending a meeting like ISS where one may share your experiences and rapidly gain a treasure trove associated with learnings and best practices coming from other international marketers. That method, you and your SEO may ensure that your site is definitely designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. Even so, a good SEO can furthermore help improve a current web site. If you need to know what kind associated with SEO trends are going in order to develop in 2019, look simply no further than the trends that will are developing in search within both 2017 and 2018. Webmasters are usually going to remain competitive within the online business when these people stick with SEO experts. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and social media marketing guarantee that one's site has the particular best SEO Online marketing, which usually means that their company may remain competitive in the on-line market. An SEO ("search engine optimization") expert is somebody trained to improve your presence on search engines. From an SEO perspective, anyone want to have more interior links pointing to your many important content.

[brigdh]

Reading Saturday

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey. Book 6 of The Expanse series. "I made my name with the story on the Behemoth. Aliens and wormhole gates and a protomolecule ghost that only talked to the most famous person in the solar system. I don't think my follow-up to that can be "Humans Still Shitty to Each Other". Lacks panache." That's Monica Stuart, a journalist looking for her next story, but it makes a fairly good summary of Nemesis Games as well – though I'd disagree about it lacking panache. After five books of zombie viruses and a vast galaxy of empty planets for the taking and physics-defying abandoned security systems, Nemesis Games features pretty much no alien content at all. Instead we have humanity reacting to these events, mostly in negative ways that feature them being, well, shitty to each other. The biggest reaction comes from the Belters, millions of humans born and raised in no-gravity or low-gravity. Those conditions have led to extremely low bone-mass (among other physical adaptations), which means all those new planets out there for the taking? The Belters won't be going to them, at least not without months or years of expensive medical therapy that's out of reach for most of them. They can see the future coming, and it's going to abandon them to poverty and irrelevance. They lash out with terrorist attacks on a scale grander than any before, as though enough violence will force humanity back to where it was before the first encounter with the alien protomolecule. That might be an impossible goal, but a hell of a lot of people are going to die anyway. Meanwhile, the spaceship Rocinante is in need of repairs, which means our four main characters are out of action for a few months. They take this opportunity to split up and visit family and old friends – Amos to Earth, Alex to Mars, Naomi to the Belt, and Jim stays with the ship at the repair station. Having separate plotlines means that each one gets their own POV, and you guys, I was so excited! I've been waiting to hear Naomi or Alex's voice since Book One, and this does not disappoint. Amos's narration was particularly well-written; he's a straight-up sociopath (though one who tries to do good nonetheless) and struggles to recognize emotions either in himself or in others, often defaulting to describing social situations as a set of maneuvers toward a desired outcome. It lends his POV a curiously flat tone, but one that is really interesting to read. The four crew members are still separated when the terrorist attacks begin, and most of the emotion in the book comes from them trying to desperately make their way back to one another. Each one thinks of the others as family, as home – this is such an absolute fantastic series for those Chosen Family feels – especially Jim, and who would have thought the boring action hero of Book One could become such an adorable softie? He spends a significant portion of this book being sad that no one will do the space-equivalent of texting him back, and I love him so much. Holden could sit at a tiny table skimming the latest news on his hand terminal, reading messages, and finally check out all the books he’d downloaded over the last six years. The bar served the same food as the restaurant out front, and while it was not something anyone from Earth would have mistaken for Italian, it was edible. The cocktails were mediocre and cheap. It might almost have been tolerable if Naomi hadn’t seemingly fallen out of the universe. Alex sent regular updates about where he was and what he was up to. Amos had his terminal automatically send a message letting Holden know his flight had landed on Luna, and then New York. From Naomi, nothing. She still existed, or at least her hand terminal did. The messages he sent arrived somewhere. He never got a failed connection from the network. But the successfully received message was his only reply. After a couple weeks of his new bad Italian food and cheap cocktails routine, his terminal finally rang with an incoming voice request. He knew it couldn’t be from Naomi. The light lag made a live connection unworkable for any two people not living on the same station. But he still pulled the terminal out of his pocket so fast that he fumbled it across the room. Each character gets to star in a very different genre within this one book: Jim himself is in a political thriller, trying to find the mole hidden in the security forces; Amos is making his way through a post-apocalyptic landscape; Naomi is in a prison-break movie; and Alex gets at least two extremely cool car chases (well, spaceship chases) between being a detective following the paper trail. All of them are great, but I think my favorite is Naomi's, which is an incredible depiction of the harm and suffocation of emotional abuse (gaslighting in particular) and the depression and learned helplessness that can result, especially when everyone around you sees nothing wrong. We get a lot more about her long-awaited backstory, as well as Amos's, and there are reappearances of a lot of my favorite secondary characters: Martian marine Bobbie, failed murderer Clarissa Mao, foul-mouthed politician Chrisjen Avasarala. (Though I'm still holding out hope Prax will show up again someday; I miss him.) All through The Expanse series I've admired Corey's focus on petty human squabbling and politicking in the face of grand, universe-changing discoveries. Nemesis Games is that thread turned up to eleven. It's not a cynical series, though; for every narrow-minded failure there's an equally small but important triumph of friendship or justice or well-meaning. It reminds me of Terry Pratchett, in a way. Not at all in Corey's style of writing or type of humor, but they both have a view of humanity which is simultaneously realistic and fond and exasperated. And if there's a bigger compliment than that, I don't know what it is. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. Book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries. A security robot/cyborg armed with all sorts of guns and other methods of killing has hacked its governor module, allowing it to do whatever it wants, and nicknames itself Murderbot. But it turns out that what Murderbot really wants to do is spend hours watching dumb sci-fi TV shows, avoid eye contact or any social encounters with humans, and not have to deal with its own emotions. Unfortunately that last one is hard to avoid. In this book, Murderbot is heading to a mining planet where it knows something bad went down in its past, involving lots of human deaths. But Murderbot can't remember exactly what happened, since its memory was wiped, and so it's off to investigate. Getting to the planet means hitching a ride on a spaceship run by a massively complicated AI (which Murderbot promptly nicknames ART: Asshole Research Transport) and then getting a job as a human bodyguard to a group of scientists heading down to the planet's surface. Things, unsurprisingly, go wrong, and Murderbot finds itself with another pack of dumb humans in need of protection. I enjoyed Artificial Condition a lot, but it's not quite as good as the first book in the series, All Systems Red. Part of that is very simply that it's a middle book of the series, and it shows; progress in the larger plot is made, but not much, and there's a feeling of spinning our wheels while we wait for big events to happen. That said, it's still an extremely enjoyable novella (only about 120 pages), which builds out the world from what we learned in All Systems Red. Now we have sexbots and ship navigators, more about how different governments interact and function (or don't), and some hints as to what's going on with the company that created Murderbot. Plus there's Murderbot's wonderful narration, which honestly is worth the price of admission all on its own. A section from where it introduces ART to trashy entertainment: I watched seven more episodes of Sanctuary Moon with it hanging around my feed. Then it pinged me, like I somehow might not know it had been in my feed all this time, and sent me a request to go back to the new adventure show I had started to watch when it had interrupted me. (It was called Worldhoppers, and was about freelance explorers who extended the wormhole and ring networks into uninhabited star systems. It looked very unrealistic and inaccurate, which was exactly what I liked.) [...] “It’s not realistic,” I told it. “It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s a story, not a documentary. If you complain about that, I’ll stop watching.” I will refrain from complaint, it said. (Imagine that in the most sarcastic tone you can, and you’ll have some idea of how it sounded.) So we watched Worldhoppers. It didn’t complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor character was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on. At the climax of one of the main story lines, the plot suggested the ship might be catastrophically damaged and members of the crew killed or injured, and the transport was afraid to watch it. (That’s obviously not how it phrased it, but yeah, it was afraid to watch it.) I was feeling a lot more charitable toward it by that point so was willing to let it ease into the episode by watching one to two minutes at a time. After it was over, it just sat there, not even pretending to do diagnostics. It sat there for a full ten minutes, which is a lot of processing time for a bot that sophisticated. Then it said, Again, please. So I started the first episode again. C'mon, tell me you wouldn't read a million pages of that, plot or no plot.

[DW link for easier commenting]

[tentacletea-blog]

Origins.

A glimpse into how everyone’s favourite trashman, Aaron, turned green…. Written by the fabulous @lamarcodon!       -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -            A brown haired human male in his thirties peered into an experiment chamber through bespectacled eyes. “Alright two-eighty-five, where’s my… Wow lil buddy, lookit you! You’re gettin’ so big! Look at you!”

            Inside, behind a clearsteel screen, a translucent green blob roughly the size of a basketball trundled around the chamber. It noticed him through the screen and approached, making happy little gurgles.

//////////

Some things were KNOWN: the darkening leaving the chamber meant it was time to stop SLEEPING and the sound of the door outside opening meant AARON was coming and AARON was the large SAFE creature who brought THINGS TO EAT and FUN GAMES and gentle touches and which all felt GOOD and AARON was a GOOD THING to KNOW.

//////////

            “Guess what Aaron’s got for you today?” the man said. He reached into his researcher’s knapsack and pulled out a container. “I brought you a surprise, that’s right!”

            The slimy little creature pressed itself against the screen. Aaron could see its face—a wide, frog-like mouth splitting the glistening gooey surface of the semi-solid creature, and six golden-green eyes blinking in unison at him. From its amorphic depths appeared a pair of stubby little arms with tiny little working hands, pushing on the screen as if to move it out of the way.

            “Haha hold on bro, I’ll getcha outta there… we’ll have some playtime after I feed you, ok? Gotta follow procedures.” Aaron opened the lid to the experiment’s chamber and dumped the thin plastic container inside.

//////////

AARON was the best thing to KNOW: when he came in from the OUTSIDE he brought TASTY things to EAT and never asked to SHARE them and never took them AWAY and sometimes those THINGS could MOVE and that just meant that first they had to STOP MOVING before they could be EATEN.

//////////

            A live rat spilled out and scurried around its new surroundings, eventually going over to sniff the little blob of green goo. Aaron watched it pull the rat into its mass headfirst. The rat panicked and shrieked loudly as it was sucked in. Soon it faded completely. The little blob let out a content-sounding belch as it swelled slightly with new mass.

            “Hehe. You were hungry, as usual… alright, c’mon out,” Aaron said. He opened the chamber again and lowered his arm down. The blob wriggled over, then started climbing up his arm. It flowed smoothly, undulating and rippling like the animate jelly-thing it was. It came to rest on Aaron’s shoulder and he laughed when it nuzzled up against his face.

            “Every time I pick you up these days, you’re heavier and heavier,” Aaron chuckled. “I’ll have to weigh you… lil porker…” He reached up and clasped the blobby creature in his hands, lifting it off his shoulders to cradle it like a puppy in his arms. “Think I been givin’ you too much live feed, I’ll have to bring you some fruits and vegetables next time, heh…” he carried the little creature to his workstation and set it down on the table.

            “You just wait there for a minute ok? Gotta make some notes…” and Aaron sat down at a swiveling chair, muttering under his breath as he typed. “Experiment number zero-zero-two-eight-five, growth is steady and rapid, eyes shining pretty bright today… arms and grasping appendages developing steadily after merging experiment last week…”

//////////

AARON and the other LARGE INEDIBLE CREATURES made many NOISES with their EATING HOLES. It was KNOWN that the holes were for EATING because it had been observed. The NOISES meant different things. Some NOISES described the creatures themselves, such as AARON.

There were even noise representing it: “TWO-EIGHT-FIVE.” Or sometimes, “TWO-EIGHTY-FIVE.” Or sometimes, “LITTLE BUDDY.” And very often, “BRO.”

//////////

            Aaron tapped a command into his keyboard and watched the blast screen opening, revealing a glorious view of the colorful nebula they were soaring through. “Look at that, bro. That view? That view is why I took this job. Right there.” He sighed, wistful. “Some people imagine waking up every morning to the sight of beaches or mountains or the forest, but me? I get to see something incredible like that, every day—hey don’t eat that!!”

//////////

Because AARON was so nice and brought THINGS TO EAT, it had no problem with AARON pulling the UNKNOWN THING out of its body. Apparently this was NOT a THING TO EAT, otherwise certainly AARON would have allowed it to be EATEN.

AARON had long appendages with which to grasp and lift. AARON picked it up. AARON put it in the MAZE.

//////////

            The maze was a series of walls covered with another viewing screen to prevent 285 from simply climbing over the walls—which it had done before. As a measure of intelligence, 285 had so far been observed constantly trying to figure out the easiest, most effortless way of solving problems. While some in society might have viewed that as a lazy trait, Aaron knew better.

            “You’re so damn smart,” Aaron said as he watched 285 in the maze: without moving from the starting point, the little creature stretched out a long tendril of itself in every possible direction, shrinking slightly the more mass it used. When an individual line of goop reached a dead end, it retracted all the way back into the blob’s body. Only when it found the exit did it start to shuffle its way through the maze.

            Last time there had been a food reward at the end, but 285 had simply grabbed it in a tendril, absorbed it, and then retracted all its mass without ever moving a centimeter into the maze. Aaron wanted it to actually work for its reward this time, so he held up another container to show the creature.

//////////

There was NOTHING TO EAT this time at the end of the MAZE and so it began to MOVE which it did not really want to do now that it had FIGURED OUT THE MAZE and there should have been SOMETHING TO EAT but up above, it was noticed that AARON held up the SHINY TUBE which always held SOMETHING TO EAT and so it needed to LEAVE the MAZE to get the THING TO EAT.

//////////

            As 285 left the maze, Aaron scooped it up and snuggled with it for a moment before opening the container. “Not only do you get bigger every day, but you get smarter too. I wonder what you’ll be like when you’re my size, haha…” he dumped a lemon onto 285’s squishy body. The fruit quickly sank in and was absorbed. 285 sang out a trilling, higher-pitched gurgle. A delighted sound, judging by past experiences.

            With 285 cuddled in his arms again, Aaron one-handed a few more notes with his keyboard. “285 now moves through maze when no reward is present at the end; still utilizes the ‘labyrinth-slash-breadcrumbs’ method from before…” he tickled 285 roughly where the little creature’s belly would have been, causing it to jiggle and bubble in delight. “I’ll have to make sure I stay smarter than you… gotta figure out a way to get you to solve the maze differently next time. Maybe some pressure plates or something… maybe some doors to figure out how to open.

            “Anyway,” Aaron said, stroking the creature’s ‘head,’ “how’d you like to maybe watch a movie or something? There’s some popcorn downstairs, I know how much you like—”

            <EMERGENCY,> said a rarely-heard AI voice over the ship’s intercom. <EMERGENCY. SOLAR FLARE IMPACT IMMINENT. SOLAR FLARE IMPACT IMMINENT.>

“Oh shit,” Aaron said. He hurried over to the experiment chambers and dumped 285 back in. “Sorry buddy, I gotta seal you up… Don’t worry… I’ll be back for you ok? Let’s just hope this isn’t a bad one.” He ran back to his keyboard and typed in his researcher’s code, locking down the workstation and sealing all chambers for preservation of the specimens within.

//////////

nonono nono AARON was now AFRAID it was known it had been seen what could make such a BIG and POWERFUL creature AFRAID what could make AARON the bringer of FOOD and gentle touches and fun games what could make AARON show FEAR why was everything going DARK it wasn’t time for SLEEPING what was that loud NOISE why was everything starting to SHAKE what did the large-creature-noise “FATAL” mean no no no no no no no nono nonononononononononononononononononononononono //////////

            Aaron flinched. He got to his feet as best he could. The entire ship was shaking violently, and just a few moments ago it had taken such a massive impact as to put him down on the ground, hard. His body throbbed with pain. “Fffffuck…” he grabbed the side of his desk and pulled himself upright.

            <EMERGENCY. SOLAR FLARE IMPACT HAS CAUSED FATAL DAMAGE TO CORE SHIP SYSTEMS. EMERGENCY. SOLAR FLARE IMPACT HAS CAUSED FATAL DAMAGE TO CORE SHIP SYSTEMS.>

Aaron’s heart truly started to pound. That was the LAST thing anyone on a ship so large as the Oberon wanted to hear. He pressed his thumb against the scanner at the door.

            It didn’t work. At that exact moment, the lights went off.

            “Fuck!” Aaron raced back over to his computer. He was locked in and the power was failing and the blast screen was open… he hurried to type in the command again and managed to get them to close just before his monitor flickered off.

            “Ok… ok…” Aaron took a deep breath. What to do when the ship was going down and you were locked in a room that hadn’t been designed to survive such scenarios. What to do…

            The environmental suit. That was his only choice.

            “THIS IS——-Ship’s captain speaking! Oberon has sustained massive damage and we are currently descending onto———ship is breaking up!!! Get yourselves to———IMMEDIATELY!!!”

Aaron already felt the temperature rising—the ship was about to fall into the atmosphere of a planet they’d been orbiting the past few days. It wasn’t a gas giant, thank heavens, so there was… well, there was a small chance he’d survive. He could put the suit on… maybe climb into one of the larger experiment chambers, which WERE designed to survive quite a bit of abuse…

            No, better idea. Aaron dragged the suit over to the one experiment chamber he could fit inside, tossed it in and climbed in after it.

//////////

DARK.

SHAKES.

HEAT.

VERY VERY LOUD.

NOTHING TO EAT. NO AARON.

DARK. VERY HOT.

VERY. VERY. LOUD. LOUD. LOUD.

LOUD METAL NOISES. LOUD RUMBLING NOISES. LOUD HUMAN NOISES.

SHAKING. SHAKING. SHAKING. DARK. LOUD. HOT.

//////////

Sizzles, sparks, darkness, a sudden HISS and a crack of light above, a place to climb to.

Where did AARON go?

He was nowhere to be seen. It looked for him, peering out into the light.

It saw the room differently than before. Everything was covered in BLACK SPOTS and there was FIRE burning there, and there, and over there. FIRE was hot. FIRE was to be avoided.

It climbed up, and then down, and scented the seared air. A familiar smell was about, a delicious sort of smell. It saw many broken things, pieces of things laying about. SMALLER things could be ENGULFED and EATEN, but they weren’t very tasty. It followed the scent. A strong smell, the smell of MEAT, cooked.

It climbed over hot surfaces to reach a bigger chamber, grumbling quietly as it lost mass from the heat. The seal was open, crooked, dented. It slipped its squishy body inside.

Six little eyes focused on the shape inside—not another experiment, but as it drew closer, the MEAT smell intensified, and then it realized that the shape

Was

AARON

Laying

Still

And from experience it knew that when

THINGS that COULD MOVE

Suddenly STOPPED MOVING ……

It climbed up onto the shape of AARON. He looked and smelled different. He looked darker and reddish and the brown stuff on top of his HEAD was gone and it sat on his slowly heaving CHEST and looked down at his still face.

Aaron’s EYES opened, a tiny bit. “Hey… bbbuuudddyy…” and even his voice was different, HISSING and RASPY and WRONG.

It reached to his face to touch and tickle and beg to move, to not stop moving and get up and walk around on his BIG LEGS and be a BIG THING again and not this meat-smelling thing laying on the ground because… because he would STOP.

And once a thing STOPPED, that thing was DEAD.

AARON was not supposed to be DEAD.

“You… survived…” Aaron wheezed.

It touched his face some more. If it touched him he would talk and not STOP.

Aaron’s shaky hand attempted to come up to touch it.

He failed.

“I’m… … … glad…”

…. ….

He was DYING he would be DEAD I have to save him!!!

It had never thought of itself as an ‘i.’ It had never thought of itself before, ever. It knew food and sensations and things that pleased it and how to make those things happen, usually at Aaron’s behest.

The concept of the self was completely new. It didn’t make sense, but somehow it did, but there was no time to ruminate on such things, as AARON was DYING and he needed to be SAVED and there was only one thing 285 could think to do but before it could do so, it would need to be bigger. A lot bigger. Closer to Aaron’s size than ever before. And to grow, meant to eat, and digest, and absorb, and get bigger and… smarter?

Not only do you get bigger every day, but you get smarter too. I wonder what you’ll be like when you’re my size, haha…

//////////

            285 rushed around the blackened workroom picking up and absorbing any small matter it could find. Another experiment had died in its cage. There was an empty can on the ground. There was a computer keyboard and a monitor and a mug, and they all were slurped up into 285’s watery green mass. The little blob grew and grew with each bite, with each additional selection of atoms absorbed into itself. It grew, bigger, bigger, BIGGER, until it was able to see over the top of the computer table, and then it slithered back to the cell Aaron had tried to take shelter in.

            He wasn’t moving. Only his chest rose up and down. Very, very… slowly.

            Growling and gurgling in a panic, 285 climbed on top of him again, touching his charred body, begging him to get up and be ALIVE…

            285 remembered the merging experiment, remembered what it felt like when a little monkey was placed into the cell with it and engulfed, but not absorbed.

            HE WAS DYING

            Would it work? Would Aaron simply get up and walk after being inside its body, like the monkey had? It was almost the opposite of consumption, almost like… sinking in, rather than engulfing and eating.

//////////

            There was no pain anymore.

            Aaron felt absolutely nothing. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think anymore. He simply existed, and for how long? Who could say.

            But it would be over soon,

            And he was at least happy that his little friend hadn’t been burnt to a crisp in the crash,

            but

            In his final moments of breath

            Aaron Fastolf could only inhale once

            The breath was pushed out of him

            His eyes opened one last time

            He saw only green

            He felt only pain

            The pain was back

            It all came back

            He was burning again

            How could he burn twice

            It was fire before

            It was acid now

            All over again

            Deep in his head

            His eyes closed

            And still

            He saw

            Only

            Green

//////////

            Hacking and coughing, Aaron Fastolf sat upright in a jerky motion. He pounded his chest until he could properly inhale and exhale without gagging. He looked around.

            He was still in the experiment chamber.

            How did… wasn’t he just in his office? His workstation… was trashed. Aaron climbed out of the cell in tender movements. The memory of such fresh agony still prickled at his skin. What was that pain?

            Was he… was everything smaller? Where did…

            Aaron gasped as he thought of what had happened.

            He was trying to close the seal. The power had gone out.

            Something BANGED against the seal, hard, from above, and dented it, and frantically he’d tried to shut it again, only for the blazing heat to rush in and strike him down…

            And 285 was there?

            It was all blurred together, somehow, memories of waking up earlier, grabbing coffee, looking around his cell for anything else to eat, heading to his office, turning on his computer, sipping coffee, consuming a rat, the alarms of the ship, climbing out to find Aaron—

            No wait, what??

            Aaron stared down at himself. His researcher’s worksuit was torn, blackened, shredded… but his skin was whole underneath… what could have burnt his suit so badly but left his skin intact? The only light came from the fires burning low in various places around the room, but… but he could still see fairly good, if through a slightly hazy, almost greenish filter.

            Lights! He needed a light. The ship was toast, for sure, likely nothing powered working anymore, but there would be supplies. He headed out into the ship’s hallways and found an emergency supply kit on a wall.

            There were first aid supplies, which he somehow… didn’t need?

            And a flashlight. A bright white beam sliced through the darkness around him. Aaron sighed, then let out an odd-feeling BELCH that echoed against the metal hallways. He traversed the ship’s corridors for a few minutes, past a few broken cooling tubes, heading back to his personal cabin. It wasn’t far. Automatically he turned on the lightswitch, to no avail. Unlike the research station, his cabin was further into the ship’s hull, much more protected from the heat of re-entry. Some items had been scattered around, and some of them were broken, but there was no charring anywhere.

            Aaron checked his refrigerator. With no power, quite a few things would be spoiling soon, and he had no idea how long he’d been out, but he grabbed some promising looking items, like a pack of sausages, and put them on the table. His abdomen growled at him, almost as loud as his earlier burp, so he picked up the sausages and opened his mouth wide and shoveled the entire thing in…

            Plastic packaging and all…

“The fuck did I just do??” Aaron whispered out loud.

            His eyes widened as more memories hit him—burning in agony, letting Aaron pick him up, snuggling 285, typing on his keyboard, going to the bathroom this morning, running feelers to find the exit of the maze and climbing on top of Aaron’s chest to start engulfing him and attempting to merge—

            His footsteps loud in the silence of the wrecked ship, Aaron bolted for his closet and threw the door open and shone the flashlight on himself.

            He dropped it. He looked down at his hands, now illuminated by a real light source. He looked at his face. He reached up to feel his face.

            He’d turned green. A pale, pastel green. His skin felt like slick, soft putty. His hair wasn’t brown anymore, it was simply a darker shade of green. His eyes were green. The inside of his mouth was green, his tongue was a dull green…

            He opened his worksuit. It was all the way down—his chest, his belly, his legs, thighs, hips, penis, ass; he threw his jumpsuit aside and stood naked in his room and looked at his nude, green body.

            “I… 285… what the fuck??”

He could remember so much. His own memories. Other memories that he didn’t remember having before. Which one was he? Was he still a man?

            Was he still human?

Was he an ‘it’ now?

            Where did he begin, and the other end?

            Which. One. Was. He??

[commanderlurker]

First time for everything

According to the document properties, I started this in October 2014. Better late than never, right?

Alternative title: Shepard’s First BJ

Shepard/Kaidan/James, 3,200 words, rated E for excruciating.

*

Shepard watched as James took Kaidan’s dick in his mouth. He didn’t even need to be asked. He just crawled down the bed, lay his forearm over Kaidan’s abs, licked up like it was an ice cream then sucked it down like it was a lolly pop.

Someone groaned. Kaidan or James, Shepard couldn’t be sure. The sound hit her ears again, low, muffled. Must’ve been James. Kaidan didn’t groan quite like that anyway. More of a sigher. A rasp at the end when he was particularly desperate. He sighed now, grabbing James’ hand, his knuckles white. James squeezed back, head bobbing, other hand somewhere Shepard couldn’t see.

James clearly enjoyed himself. The noises he made, the way he ground into the sheets. His action held her attention in a way it wouldn't under other circumstances. Maybe her own post orgasmic bliss had made her barriers go soft at the edges, appreciate the way James used his mouth on Kaidan, like he had on her just before. Only different. Obviously. James didn’t mind the way Kaidan scrabbled to grip in his short hair, how he thrust into that mouth.

Kaidan said he was going to come and Shepard squeezed her eyes shut, waiting to hear James kneel up and protest, not wanting to see Kaidan’s reaction to being denied. Only she heard that rasp of Kaidan’s, James’ moan, and opened her eyes in time to see James holding Kaidan’s hips steady while the body beneath went taut, then sagged.

James’d let Kaidan come in his mouth. Swallowed it even. And he’d liked it, given the satisfied grin on his face as he knelt up. Still, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand but didn’t seem to care. And Kaidan didn’t care as James leant in for a kiss. That at least made sense. Shepard liked to taste herself on James’ tongue when he kissed her.

Now that Kaidan had come and Shepard had recovered, she joined the fun again, shoving James over to straddle him, take him in her hand and not stop until he’d come too.

Later, as she lay between her two slumbering men, her thoughts drifted back to James’ bj. Didn’t look so bad. Probably about time she gave one. How old was she, again? James had enjoyed giving and that was the the main thing. She should give it a go. On Kaidan. He had more control than James. Tell him that she didn’t want his hands in her hair though, and that he’d have to keep still. He’d understand, if she stopped. Yeah. Yeah, she’d do it. She’d go down on Kaidan and she’d make him whine like James had but she’d stop short at getting a moutful of come. That still didn’t appeal. But the rest? Sure, yeah. Yes.

*

James pumped a fist in the air, let out a quiet cheer as the Sorcerers scored again. He gulped down the rest of his beer, deliberated getting another or waiting for the quarter break. A thump from the hallway caught his attention. He turned to see Kaidan leant against the doorframe, shirtless, boxers twisted, hair all mussed. Looked like he’d just taken down a hoard of husks, too.

“You all right, hombre?” he asked, patting the couch. Kaidan stumbled over, flopped down. “Thought you and Lola had tonight all sewn up. She fall asleep on you?” James joked, but Shepard did have a habit of falling asleep unfashionably fast.

“Berry.”

James waited for the rest, waited to hear about Berry. When it was obvious Kaidan wasn’t going to continue, James patted his shoulder, got up and grabbed another couple of beers from the fridge and came back. Kaidan took the offered bottle without looking, without speaking, put it to his lips and started drinking. And drinking. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the bottom.

“Maybe you’ve spoiled me. But… I’ve never had…” He swallowed, stared ahead, eyes glazed and distant. “I’ve never had someone go down on me like that since, well... remember when you were 17 and fooling around? Yeah. You get the idea.”

Ah. Shepard’s bj. James thought this might come up. She’d not come out and said to him, “I wanna go down. Teach me your ways, sex god.” More, she’d hinted that it was about time she gave it a go. He hadn’t known what she’d had planned but clearly the mission had been a failure.

“What’re we talking about here? Too much suction? Teeth? Just the tip?”

Kaidan shook his head slowly then nodded once. “I can’t… I mean, I’ve got to credit her enthusiasm. She really made an effort. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate her getting out of her comfort zone but...”

James laughed. “Why didn’t you say anything, man? Give her a hand?”

“I tried! I told her when she hit a sweet spot but it never quite hit the mark. I can’t even begin to explain what she was doing because I’m not even sure what was happening.” He shook his head again, got up to replace the beer he’d necked.

They drank in silence, half watching the game. The Sorcerers had scored a few more times. They had the match in the bag. James supposed he must’ve started from Shepard’s position too, but that had been so long ago he couldn’t remember. Maybe those skills just came naturally, figuring out what felt good when someone went down on him, then replicating that when a cock presented itself.

The match ended and James turned to Kaidan, pulling a leg onto the couch so he could face him.

“What’d you do? How’d you end it? Does she know?” A barrage of questions to prompt Kaidan into telling James what’d gone down, as it were.

Kaidan sighed long and heavy. Opened his mouth in a couple of aborted attempts to speak before getting it all out.

“I said she could stop, pulled myself free as I did. I said it gently, but I don’t know. I’d gone back to half-mast by that point. Must’ve been obvious. She looked wounded and I felt so bad. It’s a big deal for her, so for me to stop her… I pulled her into my arms and kissed her senseless. That seemed to revive her. Then she asked if she’d done okay, if I’d liked it…” Kaidan drifted off. James waited for him to continue. He knew how hard it was just to ask for something a little different, the risk of rejection, an outright ‘no’ with a background tone of disgust. Shepard may not be a delicate flower out of the bedroom, but when that door closed? She needed to be handled with care. “I said… I said maybe I could show her how I really liked it--next time--and that maybe for the rest of the night we could tread the familiar path. Don’t think she bought it but I didn’t want to lie or give her false hope.”

“But you kept going?”

“Yeah. We recovered well. I didn’t go down though. Thought that might be rude. Luckily she likes my fingers as much as my tongue.” Kaidan gave a dry laugh.

“She asleep now?”

“Uh huh. I couldn’t sleep though. Kept thinking.”

“Doesn’t sound like you,” James replied. Kaidan saw his smile, grinned as well.

“I was gonna do a debrief tomorrow. Make sure she’s okay, assess whether she’s going to try again and establish contingencies, maybe ask--”

James cut him off with a toe to the side. “Hey, just keep it simple, huh? Don’t overwhelm her. She’ll shut down. Maybe don’t say anything. Give her a chance to recover and debrief on her own. If she wants to try again, she’ll ask.”

Kaidan mulled over James’ words. He looked better now, two beers in him and his worries off his chest. He eventually agreed, set his empty bottle on the floor with the others.

James turned off the vid, dimmed the lights, then stood, clapped his hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. “Come on. Bed. Go be little spoon.” He held out his hand and Kaidan took it, dragged him up. “No, leave those,” he added as Kaidan went to pick up the empties.

With his hands on Kaidan’s shoulders, James steered Kaidan down the hall, leaving him at his bedroom door with a pat to the ass. James’ own door cycled open and the pair shared a smile, said goodnight, and headed to their respective beds.

*

After a few days of licking her wounds, Shepard started researching this whole blow job thing. No way she’d let herself get bested by a fucking a dick, of all things. The porn was gross, even the stuff she’d found buried within sub-sub-sub folders in James’ directory. But whenever she found herself questioning the appeal, she just remembered the look on Kaidan’s face when James went down on him. So she turned to relationship sites and went trawling through the advice sections. From that she found where went wrong. So wrong. She cringed at how badly she’d done. Now that she knew exactly what not to do though. Intel gathered. Mission parameters clarified.

She was eager to try again, but no so eager as to fuck up Kaidan’s welcome home sex. Sure he’d only been away for a week, but one tour, two off planet exercises, and a diplomatic trip to Arcturas meant the three of them hadn’t shared a bed for almost five months. So she waited until the explosive passion had tempered and she’d stopped walking with a limp before bringing up the idea again. Just with James. Kaidan was the more patient listener but she wasn’t ready to face him without packing a little more knowledge in her arsenal.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll teach you,” James said. He paused at the top of a pull up, leaving his crotch at face height. Great. No symbolism there. He lowered himself to nipple height.  “But let’s do it all together, yeah? Group exercise.”

That didn’t appeal at all. She wanted her second attempt to be without a fucking audience and  before they all got together. She started her objection when James dropped to the ground and cut in.

“We’re all stripped of our defenses when we’re naked. Just three people with nothing between us but skin and an appreciation of our fine, fine bodies.” Trust James to get all philosophical about sex. If he started quoting Kant then she’d slap him. “Also, you know how cute K gets when we’re both all over him. Starts making those noises. Mmm mm.” He grinned.

Shepard grinned too, knowing exactly what James meant. “Yeah, okay, you talked me into it.”

James pumped his fist in the air and let out a whoop. “Let me go tell him Operation Suck ‘n Fuck is go.” He made it to the hall before Shepard had processed what he’s said.

“Wait,” she called. “You guys named the mission? You shit bags. What the--”

“Guys talk to each other, Lola. ‘Specially about sex.”

Shepard rolled her eyes at the empty room. Well, them all coming at this from the same angle was probably a good thing. Still…

*

Shepard knelt on the bed, lips wrapped around two of James’ fingers. Kaidan sat at the head of the bed, though Shepard ignored him for the moment, too self conscious to want to see what his face was doing. James, he voiced encouragement, murmuring ‘harder’ or ‘softer’ until all he said was ‘yes, perfect.’ A flash of pride shot through her as James groaned around her fingers. And these were only his fingers!

“Yeah, that’s good. Want to ramp it up? Hand here,” James said, guiding Shepard’s hand to his wrist. “Balls need a little lovin’ too.”

With James’ fingers still in her mouth, she cupped a pair of imaginary balls. The ridiculousness hit her all at once and she let go of James’ hand, pushing him away. “This is stupid. I look stupid.” Felt stupid, too, sitting on the bed, naked, getting the sort of lesson that a 39 year old woman should’ve learned way back when she was a teenager. Back then Shepard hadn’t been chasing boys. She’d been chasing glory and accolades with her rifle. Took a while for the boys to come close to the thrill of nailing a ten point ten shot fifteen times in a row.

“Berry, c’mere.” Kaidan reached out for her and she let herself fall into his embrace. He kissed her all soft and loving in that way of his, while James flanked her and felt her up in that blatant way of his. She tried to force herself to relax, but that never worked. So she just followed the lead of the guys until she’d found herself kissing her way down Kaidan’s chest, scratching her fingers through his hair until the back of her hand brushed against his dick. Right. That thing. Just fucking do it, Shepard. Carpe diem and all that.

She rested her head against his thigh and took a good long look at his dick. It bobbed as Kaidan shifted, reacting to whatever he and James were doing up top. What could she say about it, other than, well, it’s a dick. She closed her hand around it, all smooth and hard and yeah, she licked her lips.

“Berry. You gonna…?”

Shepard looked up to see if Kaidan was going to finish his sentence but his mouth was busy sucking a hickey onto James’ neck. Better James than me.

She gave his dick another tug.

“Yeah, I’m gonna. Talk to me, okay? I’ll listen.” She wasn’t going in blind this time. She’d done her research. No porn star Shepard. No ridiculous groaning or pouting. Just her, Kaidan, and James. No pressure.

Shepard dipped her head and licked up Kaidan’s dick before she could wimp out. He gasped and lifted his hips. His hand came to rest on her shoulder. His back arched as she licked again. Good start.

“Yeah.” Kaidan sighed, a little rattle at the end.

Shepard didn’t need further encouragement. Taking him in one hand, she sealed her lips over the head, keeping her eyes closed and concentrating on mimicking what she’d just done with James’ fingers. She pressed her tongue against his head.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good. Don’t stop.”

Shepard froze. He said ‘don’t stop’ and where Shepard was from, that meant you didn’t stop. Only, she wasn’t moving anyway. So…

“Swirl your tongue around,” James whispered, close to her. He must’ve peeled himself off of Kaidan to come give her moral support. That was nice of him.

His voice prodded her back into life and she did what he said. Kaidan whined and a burst of pride bloomed in her. She kept going, changing direction and remembering to jack the rest of his dick a bit. Emboldened by his ragged breaths, she took more of him into her mouth, keeping her teeth covered, working up and down to keep him wet. Fuck, this felt kinda hot, mostly ridiculous, yeah, but she kept going on James’ encouragement. He didn’t fill her mouth too much and she had no problem drawing breath. And the way Kaidan sighed and tensed his thighs made Shepard’s clit pulse. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad.

Kaidan moved and Shepard looked up to see him staring down at her, eyes dark and lips parted. He looked wrecked but this angle, her position--No. A shudder went through her, wrong wrong wrong. She let go, his cock falling against his belly.

“Don’t look,” she said.

He flopped back immediately, throwing his arms over his eyes. Before she could let herself feel bad for telling Kaidan off, James ran his hand down her back, over her ass and back up again. “Take a break. Just stroke him for a bit.”

She shifted her weight and took his dick in her hand, pumping up and down. Why that view pissed her off so much she couldn’t rationalise. Something about her being a commander and not a subordinate. Not that she’d always be a commander and anyway, Kaidan was a couple of ranks above her now and she didn’t feel the same way when she was in Kaidan’s position so--

James squeezed her shoulder. “Remember, you’re the one with all the control here, Lola. Push his hips down, keep him in place.” He did it for her, shifting so her could lay his forearm across Kaidan’s waist. “You’re the one who can make him squirm so you set the pace.”

Kaidan stilled immediately and Shepard stole a glance to make sure he wasn’t looking. Arm still over his face, his other hand palm down against the sheet. Right. Back to business. She grabbed him with more force than necessary but he didn’t complain. And he whined when she sucked him. He tried to move but James’ arm kept him steady. And somehow, while she sucked Kaidan off, James managed to work his free hand between them to brush his knuckles against Kaidan’s balls. That really set him off. Shepard grinned around his dick, pleased that she was getting the hang of this, and really pleased that James was here to help. Fuck, where would she be without that man. Without either of them? Certainly not giving what was probably a fairly average blow job but hey, couldn’t’ve been worse than last time...

“Berry. Berry, stop.” Kaidan said, low and gravelly.

Shepard let go with a pop, sat up, trying to hide her disappointment. Kaidan leant forward, James shifting out the way so Kaidan could take her hands in his.

“That was fantastic, Berry. I was gonna… I didn’t wanna… in your mouth.”

Oh. Oh. Shepard crawled forward, big grin on her face as she kissed Kaidan, her lips lingering on his, sharing his taste with him.

“Hey, I’m here too guys.” James joined the makeout pile, getting his head in where he could. Shepard moved to the side, letting James take up her position. She dragged her fingers through Kaidan’s chest hair, absurdly proud at her efforts, and, yeah, a little turned on. A lot turned on.

James kissed his way down Kaidan’s chest, pausing to kiss Shepard in passing, before nestling between Kaidan’s legs. Shepard’s body reacted to his lascivious grin, envious of Kaidan but knowing he’d just as soon go down on her, too.

“You wanna sit up here?” Kaidan asked. “Front row seats.”

Shepard scooted up, taking Kaidan’s hand in hers. James didn’t waste time. He went to town on Kaidan’s dick, sucking him down and making such leud noises that Shepard couldn’t help but laugh. Typical James. Always putting on a show. What a show though. He had all the enthusiasm that Shepard lacked, gung ho, guns blazing, no hesitation. Now why couldn’t she be like that? As hot as Kaidan’s reaction to her had been, the whole experience hadn’t created the explosive volcano of pleasure she’d expected. More the pleasant satisfaction of putting the a puzzle together. But watching? Watching was…

Kaidan whined, writhed and squeezed Shepard’s hand till it hurt.

Yeah, watching was something else.

[alexandrasenkowski]

Surveillance Anthology Reflection

Alexandra Senkowski

ENGL 212 Summer 2020

Professor Lacey

15 August 2020

Surveillance Anthology

           Surveillance is everywhere. Whether people like it or not, there is a high chance that everyone is being watched/monitored right now. Is it really that bad? Is there a good side to surveillance? Yes, and yes; theoretically. The issue is that people do not have enough information on surveillance to really tell what is bad and what is good about it. All we know, is that we are being watched. The irony is that people still use surveillance to its full extent; even if they do not realize it. Instead of talking about surveillance in a Funopticon way like Lewis mentions, my blog leads into how we are already living in a Panopticon (Anderson). Suspicion can even arise when people are inactive on social media, so how are people supposed to feel free in a country that is supposed to be free anyway? My Tumblr consists of articles, videos, comics, and pictures that have helped me understand how much surveillance plays into someone’s everyday life. Throughout my anthology, I noticed myself choosing artifacts that are related to the negative sides of surveillance. This includes the loss of freedom, the change in behavior, government power, and the effects on society.

           The freedom aspect of my anthology focuses on how a person’s privacy is lost through the act of surveillance. “Privacy is not secrecy, it’s control” (Crockford). In this TedTalk, Kade Crockford explains how privacy allows people to control their information within their lives. If you take away someone’s privacy, you are taking away the control that they have on their lives. It was very interesting to me when I discovered a video of United States journalists having their stories being leaked from the government (“US: NSA Surveillance…”). No one is safe from surveillance; not even journalists and news reporters. Technology has a big impact on surveillance, which is why the journalists mentioned that they can not even carry their phone around with them unless the battery is dead. A world technology picture that I included amongst my artifacts portrays what kind of technologies are within different countries. The United States consisted of U.S. and Chinese technologies while Canada is the only country to have only U.S. technology (Feldstein). This is frightening to me because not only could the U.S. government be watching through technological devices, but the Chinese could too. Another article titled, “All Eyes On You”, opens up into how people are being watched. This includes social media, streets, parks, businesses, stores, landmarks, etc. Monitoring even occurs offline by using a credit/debit card and rewards (Golbeck). When does surveillance pause on people’s lives? When do people have time to be free? The answer is never. Animals do not even get a say in surveillance but humans still have nature cams set up to watch them.

           Behavior changes with surveillance present is a very interesting concept to explore. My anthology consisted of a few scholarly articles that tested how surveillance changes one’s behavior/actions. This is called the “audience effect” and the “observer effect” (Cañigueral) (Purwar). People change how they act if they know that someone is watching them. 57% of people aging 18-34 would change their behavior is they knew that their employer was monitoring them (Snyder). Although this number may not seem significant, more than half of workers would change some sort of behavior psychiatrically because their boss is watching them. In another study, researchers found that people tend to focus more on their self/become more aware self when a camera is present (Jansen, Anja M, et al). I believe that these artifacts that are included in my “performance” pieces of my anthology are very interesting because I did not recognize that I was changing my own behavior until I read them.

           For my government power anthologies, I included some jokes and comics because I think that the best humor is through things that actually matter. Most of my government power related artifacts contain hidden messages, but they can be easily decoded. One of my photo’s states, “Do we really want to live in a society where we live totally naked in front of the government, and they are totally opaque to us?”. This quote is pretty deep and tells the story on how the government does not share any information to its people. We are being watched by them, but we do not have access to know anything about them. Another meme that I included explains in a humorous way how people used to worry about the government wiretapping their house, but now people live with Alexa’s in their kitchens. This is ironic because it tells the story on even though we had surveillance back in the day, some people embrace it now but still worry. The last comic included in the government portion portrays how much power the government really has. The ways that the government can survey us is not traditional, but what can Americans do about it?

           Surveillance has affected society by turning it into something it is not. Surveillance and technology allow people to keep track on anyone’s life, even if their life does not want to be looked in to (“How Mass Surveillance Harms Societies…). Even women are more prone to self-censor if they believe they are being watched due to potential threats from people (Penney). My anthology artifacts consist of surveillance information that looks into the negative effects. If someone were to read my anthology, they would not know what to think. The chilling cons/truths can change how someone thinks about surveillance, but it is unlikely for them to change the way they contribute to it.

Works Cited

Andersen, Story by Ross. “The Panopticon Is Already Here.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 30 July 2020, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/.

Cañigueral, Roser, and Antonia F. de C. Hamilton. “Being Watched: Effects of an Audience on Eye Gaze and Prosocial Behaviour.” Acta Psychologica, North-Holland, 14 Mar. 2019, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691818303779.

Crockford, Kade. “What You Need to Know about Face Surveillance.” TED, 2019, www.ted.com/talks/kade_crockford_what_you_need_to_know_about_face_surveillance.

Feldstein, Steven. “The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, carnegieendowment.org/2019/09/17/global-expansion-of-ai-surveillance-pub-79847.

Golbeck, Jennifer. “All Eyes On You.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2 Sept. 2014, www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/all-eyes-you.

“How Mass Surveillance Harms Societies and Individuals - and What You Can Do About It.” CJFE, 2016, www.cjfe.org/how_mass_surveillance_harms_societies_and_individuals_and_what_you_can_do_about_it.

Jansen, Anja M, et al. “The Influence of the Presentation of Camera Surveillance on Cheating and Pro-Social Behavior.” Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers Media S.A., 16 Oct. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6198084/.

Penney, Jonathon W. “Women and Young People Are More Likely to Experience the Chilling Effects of Surveillance.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 7 July 2017, slate.com/technology/2017/07/women-young-people-experience-the-chilling-effects-of-surveillance-at-higher-rates.html.

Purwar, Sourabh. “Implications of Hawthorne Effect on Users Behavioral Psychology.” Medium, UX Planet, 26 Feb. 2019, uxplanet.org/implications-of-hawthorne-effect-on-users-behavioral-psychology-5d41d6760ea4.

Snyder, Alison. “How We Change Our Behavior When We Know We're Being Watched.” Axios, 7 Sept. 2019, www.axios.com/surveillance-changes-behavior-36cc1c06-bd2b-4994-8d30-c1b7c274b961.html.

“US: NSA Surveillance Restricts Press Freedom.” YouTube, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bloPC_BHCDQ&feature=emb_title.

[koopatzi]

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One thing will be crystal clear: if you desire people to discover your function, you need search engine marketing (SEO). This just about all means when you're thinking regarding your SEO strategy, you require to think about how your own social media marketing strategy fits into the particular puzzle, too. As your visitors slowly increases, be sure to include various other SEO strategies (like adding exterior and internal links, guest publishing, etc) to engage more customers and keep your metrics higher. Google has still left a very narrow band associated with opportunity when it comes in order to SEO - and punishments are developed to take you out associated with the game for some period while you cleanup the infractions. Head of Marketing, Shiny Edstrom, at BioClarity, a San Diego based health-science company, feels 7 New Thoughts About SEO 2019 That Will Turn Your World Upside Down that SEO is going in order to see a decreased importance within 2019, and SEOs should begin ensuring they're competent in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. The best rank that you could notice the profile with contact information and maps on right hands side of search result web page is achieved after long process for using SEO tactics. Numerous search engine marketing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique of customizing a website for search motor discovery and indexing. SEO is actually a technique which search motors require that sites must enhance properly, so that they show up high in search results. The European Search Honours is an international competition that will shines the spotlight within the best SEO and Content Marketing organizations in Europe. Keep in mind that will links, content, and user knowledge are all major SEO position factors. Could holistic approach will ultimately eliminate a lot of the particular issues created by some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION practitioners over the years, We suspect that search engines' technicians will initially overestimate the accuracy of their AI, resulting within Penguin-level collateral damage. SEO (Search Motor Optimization) is the process associated with making a website more noticeable in search results, also called improving search rankings. Siteimprove SEO furthermore provides in-tool tips on where to start as well as how to get the most out associated with your keyword research and supervising. We've already been operating in the SEO plus content marketing industry since last year and know how search motors work. Presently there are a great number associated with resources out there surrounding competing link analysis (and a great deal that have been authored simply by me! ) but whenever I actually speak with people that are usually working on SEO projects, really always one of those "yeah, I am aware I should do this more" tasks. Amy Kilvington, Marketing Executive at Custom Drapes, believes that SEOs are heading to have to optimize social networking more as Google indexes this and prioritizes it over their own sites' pages. Social media is definitely the easiest and most efficient way to push the SEO-based content. However, presently there are some easy adjustments that will you can make to the particular search engine optimization (SEO) component of it, which will ideally enable you to get fantastic results.

An extensive dental marketing plus dental SEO campaign can end up being attained by the enterprise just if the web address associated with a dental practice includes straight into all the promotional materials with regard to the business. This shows the importance of focussing voice search engine results within order to grow your company, marketing, and Search Engine Optimization(SEO) strategies. They obtain this by increasing their web site rank through a method known as SEO or even search engine optimization. Just like most other SEO approaches, be certain your links are appropriate, plus be careful to not cross the particular line into excessive linking -- you don't want your website visitors to obtain annoyed. Bryan Yeager, Research Director at Gartner, may share 9 Key Insights through Gartner's Marketing Technology Survey in order to Help You Prepare for 2019 and Beyond. SEO is a combination associated with digital marketing efforts all functioning together to increase a website's value to users and presence in search. On-page SEO (also identified as "on-site" SEO) may be the work of optimizing different parts associated with your site that affect your own search engine rankings. In 2019, we will have to optimize voice research answers with CTAs that Google's algorithms don't pick up upon, but humans do. Dan Mallette, Lead SEO Strategist at each InVue Digital & HearstDMS, forecasts that SEOs will need in order to optimize for voice search and discover new avenues as SERP real estate property shrinks. Obviously, a social media marketing web page that has more interaction will probably bring bigger SEO benefits in order to some business than one the fact that has less interaction, but simply having a social presence is definitely a good start.

There is definitely no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or user's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital marketing expert who views SEO in the broader context will surely come out there ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and exactly how to structure your entire internet site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses start on an SEO advertising advertising campaign, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face when a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that will be, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and today outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. A lot of business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from every day priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The app process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship is definitely done 100% electronically and demands these list of materials. SEO & Content Marketing Software for eCommerce Business, Agencies and Enterprises. Calib Backe, SEO Manager for Walnut Holistics, writes that mobile plus voice are going to keep on their domination of importance because we rely on desktop much less and less. If much associated with your competitors has hired SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION firms to 10-20 keywords within a moderately competitive industry, after that you will have to pay out a small more. The Google Lookup Console may be the most essential SEO tool on the globe. No BS. In the event that you're done with the worn out cliches told over and around again at SEO Conferences, after that you're prepared to experience UnGagged - an UnConventional SEO plus Digital Marketing conference that offers real-world results. SEO is a good acronym for the phrase "search engine optimization. " Search motor optimization is about doing specific issues to your website to push even more traffic to it so that will you can increase online product sales - and traffic. By 2019, the method we search might not alter completely, but these new systems will definitely change the way we all build links, engage users, plus generate leads through content advertising. Site Champion® increases site visitors by helping shoppers find your own products in search engines via increased keyword rankings using SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION automation. While link quantity is nevertheless important, content creators and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION professionals are realizing that hyperlink quality is now more essential than link quantity, and because such, creating shareable content could be the very first step to earning valuable hyperlinks and improving your off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. An SEO on-line marketing strategy is a extensive plan to get more individuals to your website through lookup engines. Several search optimizers try to tip Google by using aggressive strategies that go beyond the fundamental SEO techniques. Subscribe to the particular Single Grain blog now with regard to the latest content on SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, PPC, paid social, and the particular future of internet marketing. SEO can furthermore stand for search engine optimizer. Like the rest of the particular digital landscape, SEO marketing will be continuously evolving. Search Engine Book — Read information right after Moz's guide to solidify knowing regarding it of the basic parts of SEO. If a person do not have the period or have insufficient training upon web design or SEO, Appear for web design experts plus hire a professional SEO support agency to keep your site Blog9T and your good reputation usually you business may depend upon it. I ended with the website number 1, 228, 570, 060. This particular generates SEO anchor text, which usually helps you in improving your own search engine rankings. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing is about the keyword choice that will attract a excellent deal of unique visitors in order to your website. Perhaps you have question what will be the brand-new changes and updates that we all can experience in SEO one way links sphere in 2019? A Cisco research found that by 2019, eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic will be from Web video traffic. If might spent time online recently, might probably look at the term "SEO, inch or "Search Engine Optimization. Dave Gregory, Content Marketing Supervisor from the UK based overall performance marketing agency, SiteVisibility, predicts that will 2019, and not 2018, is definitely going to be the true year of voice. If we consider Google's Guide then there are almost 200+ factors that lead a web site in ranking, which we have got researched and clustered in twenty one On Page SEO Factors, that will needs your attention in 2019. SEO Wise Links can automatically link crucial terms in your posts plus comments with corresponding posts, webpages, categories and tags on your own blog. 41. An effective sociable media strategy needs a strong SEO plan. Google does make several of this data obtainable in their own free Webmaster Tools interface (if you haven't set up a free account, this is a very important SEO tool both for unearthing search query data and with regard to diagnosing various technical SEO issues). AI and Tone of voice Search Impact SEO, Lets notice how voice search analytics Impact's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and can impact in the particular coming time. A great many businesses choose to hire external help to be able to get the full benefits regarding SEO, so a large portion of our audience is mastering how to convince their consumers that search is a good investment (and then prove it! ). Nevertheless, SEOs tend in order to prefer links higher on the page. Because your site, thanks to the nature of the business is going to end up being more image orientated than written text heavy, you can be at a moderate disadvantage when it comes for you to employing SEO techniques such because keywords, backlinking and so out.

[222417-aka]

week 9 homework - kelsey

project planning + research write ups + holographic logo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Project planning

Gathering the group together to sort out exactly what needs to be done for our hand in and setting some targets to hit each week so we can keep on track and aren’t doing anything last minute! 

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Research write ups

Access - Charging Station: [Explanation - features/specs] [Where] We envision our revitalisation of Tesla superchargers to be installed in more places around more cities and towns. Our goal is to place more chargers in highly populated areas of big cities, and in both public and private car parks. We want to see more superchargers situated across New Zealand’s smaller cities, and rural townships; and we want to see the same new technology, available in a Tesla owner’s own home. [What] We have revitalised the Tesla supercharger shape and size, to become a sleeker, more complementary feature of the many environments we envision the supercharger will be situated in. Our supercharger post measures 1 metre in height, 0.2m in width and 0.15m in depth. It conveys a sophisticated and functionally modern feel in its clean cut rectangular shape with our new Tesla blue tones, on white vinyl. Our new Tesla supercharger will not only be recognisable as a Tesla charger through the use of our new brand colours, but also through the characteristic of our Tesla bolt - our pictorial mark derived from our revitalised identity - which is used here as both visual and functional elements of the supercharger. Functionally, the dark blue sections of the bolt house solar panels to harness some of the energy used to charge a Tesla from a more sustainable source. Neon light strips outlining the Tesla bolt project holographic rings around the post which visually show a user the amount of charge and process of charging. Our revitalisation also sees the introduction of wirelessly chargeable Teslas and the integration of AI Personal Assistants with Tesla. We have designed a wireless charging conductor, which will be situated in the asphalt of the car pack, underneath a car when a car is parked in the park. This conductor also double functions as a sensor and works to gather data on the Tesla (or EV) and driver/owner to personalise the interactions and experience of charging a car, through the use of AI Personal Assistants. Data gathered from the car includes battery percentage, voltage/power capacity specs, driver name and pre-entered driver interests. The AI Personal Assistant will communicate to the driver through a speaker internally situated in the supercharger post, or through the Tesla App “[needs a name]”, about how much battery percentage the car has remaining, how long it will take to charge to certain percentages (e.g. 50%, and 100%) and suggest things to do nearby that align with the pre-entered interests of the driver. The AI Personal Assistant will also notify the driver when the car is 5 minutes away from a complete charge and again when it has finished charging. 

[How - journey map of experience incl feelings at points] Janey, is a 28 year old, young professional, who works on Wellesley Street West in Auckland’s CBD. She drives her Tesla Model X into work each day and parks it in her office car park. She’s about to go meet a friend, Sally, for lunch in Parnell, on the drive from the CBD to Parnell she notices that her Tesla battery is at 16%, as a busy person she always get anxious whenever her car drops below 20% battery remaining. As Janey makes it to Parnell she spots the familiar blue lightning bolts and spots on the car parks - thankfully the street the cafe is on in Parnell is lined with wireless charging Tesla car parks - which also available for other EV’s to use. She pulls into a Tesla park outside the cafe. As soon as her engine is turned off her phone bleeps with a notification from [Tesla App name]. As she opens the app she’s greeted by the familiar personal assistant: “Kia ora Janey, your Tesla Model X has 16% battery remaining. It’s going to take 40 minutes to charge to 100%. I’ll let you know when it’s almost done - I hope you enjoy your lunch with Sally!” As Janey steps out of the car she notices the glowing rings ebbing around the Tesla supercharging post - she feels relieved knowing her car is definitely charging and that she is able to charge her car so easily whilst she’s out doing other things.

[Justification - relate to Findings/Audience/Central Idea and key word: access] [why > where] By installing more superchargers, we not only make charging away from home more accessible to Tesla owners and users, but we initiate the notion of owning a Tesla or an EV as the social norm. As Tesla’s and EVs become normalised, stereotypes and stigmas around owning one begin to dissolve. Petrol cars will likely begin to become alienated, and society will no longer be equipped to accommodate them. Tesla’s and EV’s become more of commodity and consumers are more inclined to purchase that which is considered the ‘norm’. [why > what] Our sleek and modern revitalisation of the supercharger allows for it to become a part of the city environment, rather than intrude on it. In doing so we are able to disperse any hostility towards new and innovative technology that comes in big and bulky progressions. Their new size allows for one charger per car park which will allow cars parked in the same vicinity to charge at the same rate, unlike current super chargers with two charging ports whos rate of charging will drop if two cars are connected. Furthermore, wireless charging is a piece of innovative technology which already exists in our society, by transferring this technology over to a bigger platform we are able to comfortably take a baby step towards being able to introduce new advances of technology. The use of bright colours not only resonates with our revitalised identity but brings about a spot of colour in concrete jungles. It’s appealing on the eye which allows this touch point to continue to represent the aesthetic of a Tesla car and brand. 

Convenience - App [Explanation - features/specs]

“It’s because it’s very important to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport… this is really important for the future of the world.” Elon Musk (on the Model 3 unveil, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4VGQPk2Dl8)

[What + How]

The Tesla App, “xxx”, assembles all Tesla touch points into one convenient place, and integrates AI Personal Assistant, Geolocation, Google Maps and even Netflix into your car and your Tesla experience.

AI personal assistant works for customer service at a charging station but also for a hands free device when driving, promoting safe drivers on our roads. Geolocation services enable users/drivers to find nearby charging stations when in a smaller or unfamiliar town, or when you need a charge stat!

Google maps becomes transferable from your mobile device to your Tesla windshield with the flick of your fingers making wayfinding available for you without having to take your eyes of the road. Netflix also becomes transferable from your device to your windscreen (only when the car is not running) allowing the capacity for entertainment for users who are wait for a charge when the weather is too bad to step foot outside of the car, or there is nothing nearby that take their fancy. 

[+ Seat - reads the movements of the user/driver.]

[Justification - relate to Findings/Audience/Central Idea and key word: convenience] [Why] Mobile phones are ever prevalent in today’s society and there is no doubt that they will continue to evolve and advance as years go by. The greatest thing about a mobile phone is the element of convenience, it’s everything in one place. So why not let drivers control major elements of their car (and possibly daunting technology) from their device?

By facilitating the link between a mobile phones geolocation, and the windscreen of a car, we are able to enable an even safer hands free solution for drivers - inevitably making our future roads safer. [Find articles on hands free movement + safer driving in NZ]

Findings “It’s more than electric, it’s Tesla,”

The world over knows that Tesla as a company is renowned for innovation, sustainability, technological advances and opulent style. There is no doubt that this company is the Beyoncé of the automobile world. It’s classy, bold, and determined. A true pioneer of the 21st century.

But whilst this company makes strides in America’s dominant western culture, it leaves behind the smaller first world countries - countries which yearn for sustainably opulent, technological leaps forward.

Furthermore, Tesla has located itself singularly in an Americanised bubble. It holds on to the unchallenging, universal ‘silicon valley’/‘California-ised’ appearance values, allowing it to sit with older brothers: Google and Apple.

When removed from this bubble and placed in a new cultural context - such as it would be, when entering the market of a new, non-american, country - these appearance values fail to match the technological advances that Tesla is globally recognised for. Their identity becomes invalid to their image and manifests an absence of adaptability.

Audience New Zealand, is country which prides itself on the notion of being 100% Pure New Zealand. We are a country who advocates for movements towards an increasingly sustainable planet. As a young country we strive to keep pace with our older counterparts - this includes facilitating innovative solutions in anyway we can envision.

However, as a smaller country placed on the edges of our world, we aren’t overly exposed to the opulence of America’s ‘big, better, best,’ conceptions. We get by on Kiwi ingenuity and resonate with humble triumphs.

In doing so, we are fiercely loyal to the brands who represent and instill these values - of sustainability, kiwi ingenuity and humility - and this is visible in the way we buy our cars.

In 2017 approximately 70% of cars registered in New Zealand were used cars (this figure is made up of public-public trades, dealer-public trades, imports and trade ins). Our top five most popular car brands consisted of: Suzuki, BMW, Honda, Toyota and Mazda. All of which were established in New Zealand at least 20 years ago, pre turn of the century.

From this data we can gather that New Zealanders hold a fear of the unknown - new brands and new technology.

There is a tension in that Tesla is a brand renowned for its innovative advances and is a completely new car. Due to this Tesla may find that the New Zealand market is too intimidated by such values and isn’t ready to immediately buy into the brand.

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Holographic logo

I swear I had seen people make holograms with their phones on the internet before so decided to have a google and see if this could be the way to go with presenting my final project - if you’re gonna be futuristic, take it all the way.

Link to Youtube tutorial

I attempted to make the prism out of an old CD case first but the plastic was too hard to cut through. 

I ended up making this out of an old take away container lid. Very quick 5min prototype and its not very sturdy but it’ll do for testing this idea for now! 

Testing the prism:

Using this video from the youtube tutorial as testing material.

Here’s a video of me testing the prism:

A quick mock up of our logo:

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/facebook-is-the-enemy-now/

Facebook Is The Enemy Now

It’s long past time for the biggest internet companies to pull their weight in society. Trembling startups not long ago, the global technology superelite have amassed the effective power of major nation-states, but without accountability, responsibility for their public influence, transparency, checks and balances or even awareness that they might be a problem rather than a solution. Focus on Facebook and Google, plus Twitter. They are radically unregulated. They hold our most intimate personal information. They have destabilized traditional, fact-based journalism. They have vast wealth ― a combined market value of $1.2 trillion ― and the power that accompanies it. In Washington and other capitals, they lobby hard for their self-interests, often against ours. And during an era when even the National Security Agency gets hacked, they have created data stores that could fundamentally threaten our democracy and others.

The internet’s aristocracy arose with the commercialization of the web, starting 20 years ago. To the hectic leaders of Silicon Valley, two decades seems like geologic time – but in the evolving social and political cultures of our species, two decades is the blink of an eye. We haven’t yet absorbed the implications of these potent, purposefully disruptive technologies. We’re addicted to smartphones. We’ve lost control of much of our personal data. The corporate and governmental entities that so voraciously collect our secrets seem indifferent to their protection. Our biometrics will be hacked. Baseless accusations of “fake” corrode the foundations of our civilization. 

In December, Facebook posted a response to the question: “Is spending time on social media bad for us?” Among the studies reaching that conclusion is one published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, stating: “Our results showed that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being… The negative associations of Facebook use were comparable to or greater in magnitude than the positive impact of offline interactions, which suggests a possible tradeoff between offline and online relationships.” Such are the unintended, faintly understood consequences of commercialized internet technology.

Technology alone is not the problem. Our vulnerabilities arise from commerce – specifically, the tech-enabled exploitation of personal data by businesses.

You’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors… understood this consciously. And we did it anyway. Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president

Imagine that back in the 1950s, the U.S. Postal Service opened every letter and recorded its contents, while the phone company taped every call. What’s happening now is like that. Back then, though, no one had the computing power, digital storage capacity, or algorithms to make sense of so much data. Now it’s easy. And folks then would have raised hell if the post office or Ma Bell had invaded their privacy; now we give our privacy away. That has enabled a tiny group of companies to establish themselves as hosts of much of our public discourse, by accumulating and exploiting data better than the competition.

Unlike businesses that make money principally by selling things, Facebook, Google and Twitter offer services for “free.” In business, “free” almost always is a lie. As an executive taught me ages ago, “If you are not paying for a service, you are what’s being sold.” In exchange for their services, many free-model companies spy on us — memorizing our data, noting our interests, often capturing our keystrokes and following us wherever we venture online. Then they exploit us, by selling advertising individually targeted to us and others, to anyone with a dollar or a ruble. With data on at least two billion users each, Facebook and Google consume consumers the way whales eat krill. According to research firm eMarketer, the two companies together control 60 percent of digital advertising in the U.S.

Companies selling digital ads rely on two sources of value: data on individuals and engagement. The more time we spend on Facebook, the more engaged we are, the more ads we see, and the more valuable those ads become. That’s the essence of Facebook’s business. “The thought process that went into building these applications… was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president, recently recalled. “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while… You’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors… understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”

Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, is a venture capitalist who invested early in Facebook. Now he is terrified of Facebook and disappointed. “They’ve taken techniques that were around for hundreds of years and married them to invasive techniques. The result is brain hacks. People are losing agency, and they don’t realize it. It affects civilization,” he said.

It’s normal for media to try to engage consumers, and many stoke interest with sensation. But on a platform like Facebook, human bias for the sensational actually disadvantages rational, fact-based discourse relative to the crazy nonsense freely forwarded by conspiracy nuts, bots and trolls. Socially destructive messages get cheaper and better distribution than constructive ones. And Facebook’s reach – a quarter of the entire human population – dramatically raises the stakes.

Danah Boyd, a social network expert and founder of the Data & Society think tank, warns, “Tech companies are ill-prepared for how decentralized networks of people manipulate their systems for fun, profit, politics, and ideology. They often think that they can build better technology to solve the problem, failing to recognize how agile their adversaries truly are.”

In this context, Facebook emerges as public enemy number one. It’s by far the biggest social network, 35 times bigger than Twitter. Google purveys such invasive offerings as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Home. Nevertheless, core Google offerings such as search and maps are grounded in actual reality. Thus, while Facebook’s vulnerability to malicious abuse is bone-deep, deriving from the algorithms that made it successful, Google has a compelling economic interest in what might be called objective truth. “We came from … a more naive position,” says Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company. “But now, faced with the data and what we’ve seen from Russia in 2016 and with other actors around the world, we have to act.”

No such considerations may inhibit Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s CEO shows every sign of being in denial. At the Techonomy conference two days after Trump’s victory, Zuckerberg called the idea of Facebook influence on the election “crazy.” When Facebook, Google, and Twitter were called before Congress to testify about Russian meddling in the election, none of their CEOs showed up. Zuckerberg went to Beijing instead, paying homage to China’s Xi Jinping. The fifth-wealthiest person on the planet, and a tireless promoter said to harbor presidential ambitions, Zuckerberg structured even his putative philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as a for-profit LLC that’s free to invest in lobbying. Perhaps disingenuously, he framed Russian interference as a security problem, rather than as a feature of Facebook’s core business. “We’re serious about preventing abuse on our platforms. We’re investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability,” Zuckerberg said. “Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits.”

McNamee reports that, in 2016, he emailed a friendly warning to Zuckerberg and Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg. He documented seven instances of bad actors abusing Facebook to harm powerless people, “Jim Crow stuff,” he says now. “I hoped they’d take a look.” After waiting four months, a period that included Trump’s election, McNamee began publicly airing his concerns. “They treated it as a PR problem,” he recalls. “They never took it seriously. And now they are lobbying like crazy to protect themselves.” (Facebook has announced the belated implementation of one of McNamee’s suggestions: informing users of their contacts with Russian agents.)

Chamath Palihapitiya, formerly Facebook’s head of user growth, told an audience at Stanford University last month, “Even though we feigned this whole line of, like, ‘There probably aren’t any really bad unintended consequences,’ I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of our minds, we kind of knew something bad could happen,” he said. “We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.” Facebook’s PR apparatus lashed back, “Chamath has not been at Facebook for over six years. When Chamath was at Facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing Facebook around the world. Facebook was a very different company back then and as we have grown we have realised how our responsibilities have grown too. We take our role very seriously and we are working hard to improve.”

Now, if ever, is the time for CEOs, writers of algorithms and other architects of our future to take responsibility – before, crippled by self-interest, they irreparably harm us all. Artificial intelligence looms, ominous and unknowable as a Kubrick monolith. AI, like any complex digital product, is a mysterious black box guided, but not illuminated, by data and algorithms. Once set in motion, AIs make decisions that even their makers cannot fathom, much as a major airline today doesn’t know precisely how its computers priced a seat. It may not be long before AIs shape the fates of our species and our planet.

But even cadres of enlightened CEOs will not suffice to turn things around, warns Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which advocates to protect democratic institutions from digital threats. “We need to realize that the tech world cannot regulate itself,” he says. “We need to end the myth that there are technological solutions to all problems provoked by technology. We need to develop social and political solutions.”

Our ultimate champions must be ourselves. Start by quitting Facebook. Here’s how: After downloading your data, go here and click on the blue button marked “Delete My Account.” I just did it, and I feel better already. Pass it on.

Stratford Sherman, a former member of Fortune’s Board of Editors, reported on business and technology for 20 years, and co-authored Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will.  He currently works as a leadership advisor and coach, with a clientele of Silicon Valley CEOs. He has consulted for Google and OpenAI.

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[andinewton]

Born To Be King - Avengers Redemption Series - Part Three - Chapter 3

Characters: Loki, Sigyn;  pretty much everyone from the MCU appears at some point!

Pairings: Loki x Sigyn; Bucky x Amelia

Warnings: Smut, canon typical violence, swearing

Word Count: 60k + (complete with ongoing epilogues)

Summary:

He never wanted the throne...

Loki's life seems to be charmed of late. His dead wife has been reborn and has married him once more, they have beautiful twin boys, and they are working and living with The Avengers. The only blot on his otherwise perfect landscape is the constant friction Odin seems to be able to cause with one simple request delivered by Thor. Odin wishes to meet the twins but will not cancel Loki's banishment, allowing him to travel to Asgard with his wife and children. Loki finally caves but has a sense of foreboding about the trip which proves to be all too true...Join Loki, Sigyn and the team as they fight to find one another against all odds and protect their sons from those who would have them as their kings.

Master list

A/N:  Apologies, everyone, I have played a little fast and loose with Strange’s abilities in this story!  Just forgive me and enjoy, okay? Okay.

Chapter 3

Summary:  Enter Stephen Strange...

Stephen Strange sat watching the events in Queens unfold with concern.  More creatures from off world.  It had been bad enough just having Thor and Loki here full time but now Frost Giants and Loki’s wife?  Things were getting out of hand.  He needed to investigate before anything worse happened.  He sighed heavily, knowing this meant a trip to Park Avenue, and potentially running into Stark.  The man was a genius however he had an ego the size of Manhattan, and had been trying to convince Strange to participate in experiments to see how his powers reacted versus Stark’s repulsor technology.  Going to The Avengers Tower willingly might be taken the wrong way, but he didn’t see what choice he had.

He made it his business to keep track of all the sorcery wielders planet-wide and he had thought that Sigyn was a mutant, having attended Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters as Maia Tomson, however it was now apparent that was not the case.  He knew that there was a blog dedicated entirely to the romance of the God of Mischief and his wife but he had believed it embellished and romanticised, of her being reincarnated, aiding his redemption, however it was proving that may not be the case.  Two sorcery talented immortals on his planet was two too many, in his opinion, but there was little he could do thanks to the accord with Odin, however he could ensure he was familiar enough with both Mr and Mrs Mischief that he would know if there was likely to be a problem.

He called the Cape of Levitation to him and slipped the Sling Ring onto his hand.  It was for the greater good, in the long run.

Loki had left the compound for The Tower as soon as he knew Sigyn was finished in the fight and was safe, loading up the twins and insisting Thor go on ahead to set his mind at rest.  Neither had yet mastered driving and an agent was assigned to provide chauffeuring services back into the city.  The appearance of Frost Giants so close to his beloved was worrying, it could not be a coincidence that they set down so close to any one of the three Asgardians on Earth, and while he knew she was born of Midgard, Odin’s declaration of the return of her Godhead, along with providing the Golden Apple of Idunn, had returned her biologically to an Asgardian.  The biochemists, including Dr Banner, were still having a field day with her blood results and she was regularly giving samples for their continued research.  But no, this was highly suspicious, and he would ensure either he or Thor were with her at all times, including for her journey to Asgard.  No one was more important to him than Sigyn and their sons.

Sigyn and Darcy returned to The Tower by subway, ignoring the offer the team made to take them back.  Sigyn wanted her cookie and coffee, her first little semblance of normality without the boys for weeks having been spoilt, and the two of them sat and ignored the clean up crew arriving, and the staff and patrons’ glances.  Sigyn felt annoyed, but she couldn’t figure out why, and Darcy was trying to help her work it out.

‘Is it because our lady date got wrecked?’

‘Not really, because we finished it.’  Sigyn pressed the elevator button to take them up to the secure Avengers floors.

‘Because it was Frost Giants?  Technically your hubby and kids’ people?’

‘Maybe, kind of.’  She wrinkled her nose.  ‘That’s part of it I think, but something else too.’

‘Being hit on by the jerk in the coffee shop?’  Darcy leant against the side of the elevator.

‘No, that was kind of amusing.’  She managed a small smile.  ‘You won’t really post his efforts online, will you?  Because Loki will hunt him down.’

‘Should be flattered his wife is so hot, if you ask me.’  She shrugged.

‘I’ve got it.’  She looked up as she remembered.  ‘Spider-Man.’

‘Spider-Man pissed you off?’

‘Not him himself, no.’  She frowned as she thought about it.  ‘The fact he’s so young.  I’m with Bucky on this one.  He has no right being in a fight.’

‘Oh, it’s the mommy in you.’  Darcy grinned.  ‘He’s got mad skills though.  Have you seen the footage of him?’

‘Yeah, I have, and that makes it worse, knowing that under that suit is probably someone half my age.’

‘I don’t think he’s fourteen.’

‘Still.’  Sigyn kicked the floor with the toe of her sneaker.  ‘Didn’t seem right.  And Tony is encouraging him.’

‘That’s probably not a bad thing.’  Sigyn glared at her but she defended herself.  ‘No, hear me out.  If he’s going to do it anyway at least this way he has Tony’s backing.  He’s not at it alone.’

‘I guess that would be worse.’  She admitted reluctantly.  ‘But if it were Narvi or Vali I’d be worried sick.’

‘If your boys are half as magically talented as their parents you won’t have a choice, they’ll be joining you on the team eventually, but I get the feeling this guy’s folks don’t know what he’s up to.’

‘I feel like I ought to give him detention, or ground him.’

‘Teacher versus mommy.’  Darcy pulled two candies out of her bag and offered one to Sigyn who declined.  ‘Mommy is scarier.’

Sigyn chuckled.  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’  The elevators opened onto the common room.  ‘I’m going to change and go down to the gym, I think.  I need to kick the crap out of some poor, unsuspecting inanimate object.’

‘Between you Asgardians and the super soldier bros it’s a wonder we have any punching bags left.’  Darcy grinned as she backed up towards the corridor leading to their rooms.  ‘But in that gym wear you put the Ass into Asgardian.  You rock it!’

‘Hush!’  She laughed, planning on heading to her own quarters but light on the balcony caught her eye and she had a moment to consider why Heimdall might be opening the bifrost, with them all already on Earth, when she realised that wasn’t what it was at all.  A vertical circle appeared outside the glass, sputtering around the edges, like a sparkler from the Fourth of July, with orange light, before a portal appeared in the centre.  ‘Run, Darce!’  She yelled as a man stepped through the portal wearing a blue tunic and pants with a red cape that billowed around him in a very unearthly manner.  His hair was dark with grey streaks, a goatee not unsimilar to Stark’s curved the lines of his chiselled features, and he strode confidently towards the doors.  ‘FRIDAY, intruder alert!’  She steadied her feet and called to her power as Darcy ran out of view down the corridor, Sigyn hoped to the stairwell to get off the floor.

‘Mrs Loki, I pres…’  Strange didn’t get to finish his sentence as Sigyn grasped him with a extension of her own hand made of power, shoving him back against the nearest wall.  ‘I mean you no harm.’  Strange assured her with a small eye roll that irritated her no end.

‘Yeah, because appearing out of nothing in other people’s homes is normal!’  She approached cautiously.  ‘What do you want?’

‘My name is Stephen Strange.  I know both your husband and brother-in-law.’

‘And I’m just supposed to believe you and let you go?’  She stopped some way from him.  ‘If you don’t start talking…’

‘I know Stark as well, if you have to clear my presence here, he will be able to do it, but I am not a threat.’

Sigyn watched him carefully, as he reasonably tried to explain away why she should let him go. ‘FRIDAY, can you identify him for me?’

‘Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange, former neurosurgeon at Metro-General Hospital, now resides on Bleecker Street, New York as Master Sorcerer.’

‘Master Sorcerer?’  She gave him an unimpressed look.  ‘And that’s meant to make me want to release you?’

‘Stark’s AI can also confirm that I don’t mean any harm, that I’m a friend.’  He explained reasonably, his hands by his side meaning he couldn’t work any of his own sorcery to try and get free, not that he would as that may lead her to believe her assumption correct.

‘FRIDAY?’  Sigyn asked for confirmation again.

‘Mr Stark does know Doctor Strange.’  FRIDAY dutifully replied.

More movement from the window drew Sigyn’s attention but she knew she couldn’t hold Strange indefinitely and go up against someone else.  Where the hell was everyone else?

‘Sister, you may release Strange.  He is a friend.’  Thor’s voice came from the balcony even as she began to turn towards it.

She let out a shuddering breath and dropped her magic, but Strange didn’t fall to the floor as she thought he might but floated down elegantly until his feet touched the carpet.  ‘Sorry, can’t be too careful.’  She said simply as Thor approached from one side, Strange from the other.

‘Understood.’  Strange nodded as he reached her.  ‘We haven’t been formally introduced.  Stephen.’  Rather than offer her his hand he touched his chest as an introduction and she bowed her head.

‘Sigyn.’

‘It’s good to finally meet you.’

‘What brings you here, Strange?’  Thor asked.  ‘Other than frightening my sister?’

‘I wasn’t frightened.’  Sigyn argued, backing away from the pair, assuming they had business.  ‘I’ll go get my bags and be on my way to the compound.’

‘Loki is on his way here, even now.’  Thor shook his head.

‘Drama queen.’  She rolled her eyes, knowing she was supposed to have met them at the compound and to spend the night there.  ‘It’s going to be a wasted journey.’

‘Actually,’ Strange interrupted, ‘it’s you I came here to see.’

That made her stop and narrow her eyes at him.  ‘Me?’

He nodded his head, one small bow.  ‘If you can spare me some time?’

She looked at Thor, unsure what to think, but he seemed relaxed and smiled encouragingly at her.  ‘Sure, I guess so.’  She pointed towards the far corridor.  ‘We can use my office.’

‘I will inform Loki of your whereabouts upon his arrival.’  Thor patted her shoulder.

‘Thanks.  Can you tell Darcy it’s safe, wherever she’s hiding?’

‘Of course.  You are in good hands, Sigyn.  Strange.’  Thor nodded his farewell and left on his quest to find their sequestered friend.

Sigyn didn’t take her eyes off the man before her as Thor left.  She was still irritated by the entire incident with the Frost Giants, Spider-man, and her heart rate was only just calming after the sudden appearance of this sorcerer on their doorstep.  Maybe the break to Asgard was what she needed, less stress, even just for a day or, more accurately, a different kind of stress.  A change was as good as a rest, or so they said.

‘Lead the way, Mrs…what do you want me to call you?’  Strange gave her a sideways smile.

‘Sigyn is fine.’  She said as she started towards the office and he fell into step beside her.  ‘And what do I call you?’

‘Stephen is fine.’

‘Fine.’  She repeated and they walked the rest of the way in silence, Sigyn holding her arm out for him to enter the office first then closing the door behind herself.

Strange looked around the room, obviously well used, with a state of the art computer, neat stacks of paperwork, and two framed photos on the desk.  He picked up the nearest one and looked it over.  It was a picture from Loki and Sigyn’s wedding, a candid shot of them both laughing while they held one another.

‘The other one’s of my kids, you want to familiarise yourself with that one too?’

‘Why not?’  He replaced the picture and picked up the other, looking at Loki and two small boys; one red haired, the other ebony, both freckled like their mother.

Sigyn huffed out an irritated breath.  She had just met the man but he seemed to annoy her more than Tony had back in the early days, and that was saying something.  She walked around him, pulling the picture out of his hand and putting it back on the desk before sitting in her office chair.  ‘Take a seat, Stephen.’  She said firmly and he did, still wearing the small smirk he had since she released him.

‘Tell me about yourself.’  He sat back in one of the two chairs opposite her desk and crossed one leg over the other.

‘Me?’  She took a slow breath.  ‘My name is Sigyn, I’m a Sagittarius, and I like long walks on the beach and avenging things.  That what you wanted?’

‘I get a sense of hostility from you.’

‘Your sorcery tell you that?’  She folded her arms and sat back in her chair.  ‘Listen, Doctor Strange, Stephen, when a random sorcerer shows up in my home unannounced I am automatically on the defensive, let alone when I’ve just had to fight off Frost Giants, and my coffee went cold.’

He gave her raised eyebrow, his smile still one of amusement.  ‘I caught you on a bad day.’

‘If you appeared like that any day I’d be on the defensive.  What exactly is it you want from me?’

He sat forward in his chair, his expression becoming more serious.  ‘I am one of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and it is our job to watch for any potential magical threats.’

‘And you consider me a threat?’  There was an edge of laughter in her voice as she shook her head.  ‘I am an Avenger, I take my responsibilities very seriously, and there are people out there who are a lot more powerful than I am.’

‘But they're human.’  He stated.

She pursed her lips as she realised just what he believed the issue to be.  ‘So am I.’

‘But your power is not.’

‘You want a DNA test?  Or to see my parents’ birth certificates?  I’m not a threat.’

‘I said potential threats.’

She sighed heavily.  This was getting them nowhere.  She drummed her fingers on the back of the opposite hand as she looked at him, still regarding her with a combination of suspicion and amusement.  ‘Okay, let’s start over.  What do you need from me?  What can I do to make you realise you don’t need to worry about me?’

He sat back again, as though the offer relaxed him.  ‘I want to understand where you came from and how you came to be here, under the radar for so long.  I’ve seen the blogs and vines online, the story of your romance with the God of Mischief is like something out of a romance novel.  I want to know how much of that is true.’

‘All of it.’

‘Really?’  He said doubtfully.

‘Really really.  You might think it’s farfetched but it’s true.  I am the reincarnation of Loki’s dead wife, Sigyn.  I was born Maia Tomson, to human parents.  I spent my childhood having dreams of my past life, not knowing that was what it was, then I hit puberty and powers developed.  I couldn’t control them and I ended up at a special school.’

‘Xavier’s?’  He clarified, as that had been left out of the details, keeping the school’s true nature a secret.

‘Exactly.  After high school I went on to college and studied to become a teacher and counsellor, then took a job doing just that at Xavier’s.  From there I was offered the position as Loki’s guide.’

‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’  He was very familiar with their story from that point on, as documented by one D Lewis.  ‘How do your powers work?’

‘Loki says it always felt like Asgardian sorcery, and the more familiar I became with my past life memories the more I recognised it, the more I was able to connect to it.  Loki taught me the control I had always lacked.’

‘What about your mind?  You say you’re familiar with your past life memories?’

She nodded.  This was always the part that confused people, or one of the parts.  ‘I remember both sets, which is weird, because I remember two completely different childhoods in very different environments.  I remember turning sixteen twice.  I remember two sets of schooling, I married Loki twice and, maybe worst of all, I remember dying.’

‘You remember that?’  He asked in surprise.

‘In more detail than I would wish on anyone.’  She said quietly, her eyes on the desk yet unfocused.  ‘Some nights I dream about it and when I wake up I can’t breathe.  I’m in so much pain, here.’  She pointed just below her sternum and when he glanced back up at her face her eyes were haunted, deeply hurt by what she was telling him.  ‘It’s like I’m choking on my own blood, I can’t get any air in, and all I can do is reach out for Loki, and he helps me through it, he calms me down, and he holds me while I cry.’  She swallowed heavily, pressed her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes as though trying to compose herself, and when she spoke again her hushed voice was tight and emotional.  ‘I’ve never told anyone that.’

‘Then I’m honoured.’  He realised that this was obviously a touchy subject and decided to try and steer away from something that was so painful.  ‘What else?’

She looked up at him.  ‘That’s it.  That’s all there is to tell.’

He gave her raised eyebrows as though he doubted that was true.  ‘Is there nothing else?  No biological evidence of what you are?  Asgardian or human or mutant?’

‘My blood tests are an enigma.’  She explained.  ‘Physiologically I am Asgardian, legally I am human.’

‘Not a mutant?’

‘The mutant registration act was repealed a good many years ago.  It’s not necessary to declare that.’  She gave a small smile.  This was a topic she knew the answers to without it making her brain and heart hurt.

‘But you are an immortal sorcery user.’

‘If that’s how you want to define me, sure.’  She shrugged.  ‘I don’t want to cause problems, Doctor Strange, I just want to help through The Avengers when I can, and live happily ever after with Loki and our boys.  I know the happily ever after is a fairy tale but my entire life seems to have come straight out of a fantasy novel in recent years, so why not?’

He stroked his goatee as he looked at her.  She was very petite, freckled and pretty with very unnaturally red hair, and he wouldn't have even considered her a magick user in her simple jeans and T combo, but he knew looks could be deceptive.  ‘Would you be willing to give me a demonstration of your power?

‘What did you have in mind?’  She asked suspiciously.  While her powers were now an innate part of her it wasn’t something she took lightly.

‘Anything.  Just a small sample of what you can do.  It doesn't have to be flashy.’

‘Okay.’  She nodded slowly and glanced around her desk, her eyes falling on her pot of pens.  She selected one mentally and concentrated, levitating it until it hung in the air between them.  ‘Enough or do you want something else?’  She asked, not taking her eyes from it.

‘That’s quite alright.’  He reached up and took the pen out of the air so she dropped her power.  From just that small demonstration he had got a feel for what her power felt like and how it worked.  She was a sorceress, of that there was no doubt, no matter where she actually came from.  ‘Thank you for your time, Sigyn.  It was very nice to meet you.’  He said, getting to his feet as he put the pen on the desk, and she frowned.

‘That’s really it?’

‘That’s all I needed to know.  I am sure we will cross paths again, hopefully on the same side.’  And he walked out the door, leaving her more confused than she had been.

Chapter 4