#architectural speaker system

[watthifi]

Discover the top 10 features to consider when choosing the best architectural speaker in India. Ensure top-quality sound, seamless design, and wireless capabilities for an enhanced audio experience.

[starsandsuch]

Your 4th House Sign And Your Ideal Living Environment 🏡

Aries 4H: living somewhere that is a good launchpad for you to do other things. Only being home for short amounts of time. A place where you can be physically active: home gym, treadmill etc. A place with a good kitchen that’s well equipped: gas oven, microwave, toaster oven, etc.

Taurus 4H: living in a place that is luxurious and comfortable. A home or apartment with amenities. A home that is well built and sturdy, it has good structural integrity. Living in a area surrounded by nature, trees, flowers. Somewhere that is relaxing. Living in countryside or suburbs. Living on a farm.

Gemini 4H: living somewhere with multiples: multiple bathrooms, bedrooms, mirrors etc. somewhere where you can participate in hobbies at home. Having a garden, game room, community room etc. living with a friend or sibling. A place with good WiFi. Living in walkable city, you live walking distance to supermarket etc.

Cancer 4H: living somewhere that is peaceful and serene. Living in a comfortable environment. It is a pleasant sensory experience: quiet, gets great sunlight, prefect size etc. A place with good amount of privacy and security. Living Oceanside, near water or the beach. Living traditionally in a suburb or archetypal home. Living with family.

Leo 4H: living in a place that is like a castle. High rise apartment condo, house in the hills. A home fit for royalty. Living in a gated community. Living in proximity to celebrities. Living like royalty: having house staff. Living in an environment that looks glamorous.

Virgo 4H: living somewhere modern and clean. Everything is new, updated and functioning well. Somewhere efficient, and well organized. Properity is well taken care of. Living somewhere that is easy to keep clean: hardwood floors, marble surfaces. House is pristine and untouched.

Libra 4H: living somewhere peaceful and aesthetically pleasing. A place with good architecture, a home that is artistic in someway. It’s neutral overall: not to big or too small. It is close to city but not to far either. Prefers to live with spouse.

Scorpio 4H: living somewhere that offers privacy and protection. Living somewhere secretive that’s not accessible to public. Private gated community, hidden hills etc. Having security codes, access codes, doorman, front desk person etc. Home that has powerful spiritual energy.

Sagittarius 4H: living in and environment that is flexible. Like a studio. Living abroad or internationally. Living amongst foreigners and immigrants. Living somewhere that gives you freedom: having a month to month lease, renting short term etc. Living in a diverse major city. Metropolitan environment. Living in a big house with alot of space.

Capricorn 4H: living somewhere that is well structured. Building that is antiquated or prestigious. Home looks like office, you have your office in your house. Living in a traditional home or apartment, nothing too unique or out of ordinary. Living near the state capital or government buildings.

Aquarius 4H: living somewhere that is good for environment. Eco conscious living. Living with friends/ having communal living space. Prefers not to live completely alone but having friends, roommates or house staff. Having unique quirks in home, like gadgets, speaker system, solar panels etc. living environment is out of the ordinary for some reason.

Pisces 4H: living somewhere that is like a sanctuary. Home has powerful spiritual energy: good numerology, energetically cleansed etc. home is in isolated place. Living in home where you feel disconnected from world around you. Home seems haunted, spooky or abandoned. Living near the beach or bodies of water. Living in foreign lands. Living somewhere that’s hard to find.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Villain Monologue

Villain Monologue - a long speech by an antagonist, antihero, or “bad guy”.

Villain monologues may reveal the speaker’s inner humanity or be an opportunity to showcase the bad guy’s wickedness.

Strong performers can bring these characters to life, but movie monologues start with a great screenwriter.

How to Write a Villain Monologue

Define the purpose of the monologue. Monologues can progress the plot, delve into character backstories, and much more. Understand how your monologue operates and how its placement fits into the architecture of your script. Ensure you are intentional with each word.

Hear your monologue read aloud. When you have a draft of your monologue, read it aloud and then hear an actor or peer read it. Assess how natural the speech sounds and ask yourself if your specific villain would speak this monologue.

Instill truth in your villain. Though your character is fictional, their wickedness may be more symbolic than realistic. Ground the villain in reality. Villains should have goals, reasons for their actions, band a three-dimensional personality beyond their malice.

Play with different forms. Villain monologues come in many different styles. There are origin stories (in which a character explains why they behave the way they do), torture descriptions (in which the villain tells what violence they will enact), and calls for sympathy (in which a character expresses remorse for their wrongdoing).

Revise your monologue. After drafting and hearing your monologue, edit as you see fit. Some parts may be unclear or overwritten—edit your writing until it comes across as you intend.

Tips for Writing Villain Monologues

Counter your protagonist’s traits or speech patterns. If your protagonist speaks cheerfully and quickly, give your villain a dark, measured cadence. Villains can be foil characters to your main characters, and monologues can show off this contrast.

Position your villain monologue toward the end of the narrative. In some stories, but not all, the villain is the supporting character, not the protagonist. For this reason, you must give the audience or readers time to get to know the character. Only after that point, and often during a final confrontation, should your villain finally get their shining moment to change the audience’s mind or confirm their notions of this character.

Try giving your villain a catchphrase. Sometimes writers utilize the power of threes: Repetition is a helpful tool, and repeating a phrase thrice in a story can help audiences track a beginning, middle, and end. If your villain has a catchphrase, let them speak it toward the start, the rising action, and the climax.

Examples of Great Villain Monologues

Apocalypse Now (1979): Colonel Kurtz details the horrors of war in his monologue, sharing that he poisoned children with polio. Kurtz deduces that the best soldier is the one who cannot feel and instead transforms into a killing machine devoid of empathy.

The Matrix (1999): In the cyberpunk movie The Matrix, Agent Smith interrogates a captured Morpheus and tells him of his plan: to destroy Zion, the underground city where those who have escaped the Matrix go to be free. The monologue underlines how Smith is Morpheus’s antithesis: The former has chosen to live within a planned system, and the latter wants to break free from it.

The Incredibles (2004): Even an animated movie can feature a fantastic villain monologue. In The Incredibles, the character Syndrome shares his origin story: He was a fan of Mr. Incredible and wanted to be his sidekick, but Mr. Incredible rejected him. This embittered Syndrome, who then manifested artificial superpowers to wreak havoc on the Incredibles.

The Dark Knight (2008): The Joker gets a few famous supervillain monologues in this Christopher Nolan film, which sits between Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). First, the Joker tells Bruce Wayne’s love interest Rachel how he got his scars, and later, he tells Batman just how similar the two are.

Inglourious Basterds (2009): Anti-Semetic SS officer Hans Landa delivers a monologue disparaging Jewish people and the police to hawks who have to search for rodents to keep the circle of life going. Set in World War II, this movie, and Landa’s monologue, showcase the ideologies that led to the persecution of countless lives.

Game of Thrones (2011–2019): Cersei Lannister is a power-hungry character who gets many monologues across this hit HBO drama’s eight seasons. Toward the end of the series, she torments Ellaria Sand, who poisoned Cersei’s daughter. Cersei explains the equal vengeance she will seek on Ellaria’s imprisoned daughter.

The word “monologue” derives from the Greek roots for “alone” and “speak,” and it is the counterpart of the word “dialogue,” which comes from the Greek word for “conversation.”

Monologues can address other characters in the scene or be one character talking to themselves or the audience.

Monologues serve a specific purpose in storytelling—to give the audience more details about a character or the plot.

Used carefully, they are a great way to share a character's internal thoughts or backstory or to give more specific details about the story.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[probablyasocialecologist]

The first thing you’ll notice — perhaps helped by a translation app, as tourists and monolingual English speakers are not among Familjny’s usual clientele — is that the food is outrageously cheap. Once you’ve worked out what dishes you want, you queue up to a little niche. You ask here for what you want, and you’ll be given a bit of paper. You take this to a larger niche, from which you can see the kitchen, and you give it to a uniformed staff member, who would usually be middle-aged or older. They will dollop the particular parts of your meal onto your plate. Then you sit down, and you eat it, and when you’ve finished, you put the plate and your cutlery onto a rack — there is nothing so servile as waiting staff. There are some drawbacks to this system, to be sure. I have only once or twice been in a milk bar that had a toilet, and because at lunchtime especially there are always a lot of people queueing, you are not encouraged to linger. You eat, and then you go home or back to work — but you’ll have been able to have a decent three-course meal of soup, a main course, and a slice of cake for the equivalent of, at the very most, £5, in a country where the cost of living is almost comparable to Britain’s.

[...]

In Poland, the milk bar idea has been dated by some to the late nineteenth century, when the bulk of Poland, including Warsaw, was under Tsarist Russian occupation. Milk bars would offer locally produced food to benefit Polish farmers, and there would be no alcohol to cloud the minds of Polish workers, and also, importantly, little meat, which would make the food both cheaper and healthier. But nearly every milk bar in Poland was opened between 1945 and 1989, becoming the local example of a subgenre of cheap communal eating facilities built and encouraged by state socialist governments; what distinguishes it today is the fact that it still endures, for reasons which are complicated and surprising. Communal eating was regarded as being of crucial importance by Bolshevik thinkers from the start. Partly, this was a consequence of their pioneering feminism. Both for Lenin and for explicitly liberationist thinkers like Alexandra Kollontai, one of the central tasks of the revolutionary government that seized power in October 1917 was to free working-class women from ‘kitchen slavery’, as exemplified in the St Petersburg’s textile industry, which saw women work in factories all day and then go home and cook (and clean) for their menfolk. Early plans were highly ambitious, and they were integrated with avant-garde architecture and urban design; a few remnants of this programme survive in the larger cities of Russia, and Ukraine in particular. When researching a book on Soviet architecture in the 2010s, I went looking for a few of these, and the results were often sad to behold. In St Petersburg — then Leningrad — at the end of the 1920s, a team of architects, some of whom had worked with Vladimir Tatlin on his famous unbuilt twisting tower in tribute to the Third International, were charged with designing communal kitchens in the factory districts of the city. All three of them survive, but they have been turned into dodgy nightclubs, cheap malls, or worse: the finest of the group, a fabulous, dynamic, futuristic building, in the Narvskaya Zastava district, had been subdivided into little units by, among others, McDonalds. In Moscow meanwhile, enormous Constructivist bakeries were built around the city. One of the largest of them, Bakery Plant No. 5, was turned into a museum of Constructivism in 2022; the year, that is, of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a vainglorious nationalist slaughter that would have horrified the socialist modernists behind these buildings. In the 1920s, housing was sometimes built in such a way as to encourage its inhabitants to eat collectively. In Moscow’s experimental Narkomfin Communal House, duplex apartments were connected by a walkway to a restaurant, a library, a nursery, and a gym, with a roof garden on top; inside the flats, kitchens were either tiny or, in the ‘fully collectivised’ apartments, absent entirely, with the assumption that you could always eat in, or take your food from, the communal restaurant. For its Constructivist architect Moisei Ginzburg, this would liberate women residents entirely from the assumption — unavoidable in the early twentieth century — that they would be cooking the dinner. But in the Stalin era, Soviet food culture became much more hierarchical. These dreams of vast avant-garde dining halls serviced by streamlined, automated processes and administered by happy class-conscious workers were replaced with, at the top, a series of luxury restaurants for the nomenklatura; at the bottom, factory canteens; and, in between, the stolovaya — a network of public dining halls across the country, expanded especially in the more egalitarian Khrushchev era, during which period modernist glass box cafes also appeared in the larger urban centres, as a return to the 1920s dreams of automated communal luxury.

17 February 2025

[burnorgetburned]

okay. OKAY. I JUST WANT TO SAY.

NEW MUSIC STYLE. NEW ART STYLE. NEW MAGIC SYSTEM, NEW GIRLS, MORE CLARA DOLLS, MORE HOMURA OUTFITS, MORE EVERYONE OUTFITS, and AAHAHAHAHSGH.

Homura wins by style points alone.

Anyway. Choice screenshots and my thoughts on them. Plus a few wild theories. Replies, tags, and your own reactions are VERY welcome.

(You're doing great, sweetie!)

First of all, I’ve already said this, but Homura has usurped Kyubey. She is the contractor in this new system. She calls magical girls and asks them if they can bear the responsibility of fighting (LEAGUES better than Kyubey's misleading BE A HERO language), using a magical lizard phone. She knows better than anyone else how heavy this is.

And she looks amazing while doing it. Look at that outfit! Look at her steampunk-esque aesthetic! Her throne. Which, notably, has glowing magenta eyes and her wings as a backrest.

The moon is either actually, physically repurposed, or she’s made something that looks like it. Not only that, but the pins going into the moon are exactly like the pins that went into her soul gem when she was being experimented upon in Rebellion. Those pins, according to the artbook, are for draining her gem of grief to keep her just before the point of witching.

Well, here’s my first wild speculation: Homura has not only taken over Kyubey’s job as a contractor but also its job of disposing of grief. That moon steampunk device is maybe for collecting, concentrating, and distilling grief into energy - hence the strange tesla coils connected to red liquid in the second screenshot above. She's doing what Kyubey says it's doing - turning the grief of people into energy to prolong the universe's lifespan.

I for one support her reality-warping shenanigans.

Here are some voices over a phone, sometimes speaking over each other, sometimes together. They call Homura “Akuma-sama” (!!!) which is a distinct upgrade from calling her Good-For-Nothing. They say “Just bring hope” like a mission statement. Are these her contracted girls? Or her Clara Dolls? They seem to show her a lot of respect.

I’ve also said this, but I strongly feel that this and the girl shown later are some of Homura’s new contractees. Their magic is darker. It warps the world around them, even. Their outfits incorporate black a lot more, too, though that might be the lighting.

Look at the little sigil on the top left-middle! Looks a lot like Homura’s lizard sigil shown when she was consuming the universe, just with a longer lizard.

And, of course, the image of Madoka throwing herself off of a building. “Wraith” and “Legend of Bestie” (lmao) show up here. I’ve actually been really looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with Madoka’s… self-sacrificial tendencies, so this might be part of that. Or, because of “Wraith”, it’s… well, I’ll get to that later.

On the other hand, it might not be Madoka. It might be the girl who the speaker in the phone call calls her "best friend", jumping to her death because of a wraith, and Homura saving her to fulfill a wish.

So glad that the insane architecture from Rebellion is making a comeback. Love what you’ve done with the place, Homura. Look at all those cranes!

The outfit changes are very cool to me. I honestly don’t have speculation for why Sayaka is covered in bandages, but I do have speculation for the changes!: they’re older. Years have passed. Since they’ve changed and grown, their outfits have changed, too. I don't have proof of this - I just like the idea.

Light shines down on Madoka. Petals fall towards her as flowers bloom above. Behold, Homura's extremely subtle and inscrutable feelings. (Sorry for the blurry Madoka, but I am not going through the ordeal of uploading screenshots to my computer again because Tumblr does not like mobile users).

Homura is apparently waiting for Madoka here. She's standing right in the fountain's water and holding a Victorian umbrella like a vampire. Right now we can see that the visuals of this movie will not miss.

Is this a routine thing for them or is Homura just showing up to greet them this one time, for some reason? No clue. Madoka's expression as she notices Homura could indicate either.

Eagle-eyed people on Twitter noticed this, but in these shots, Sayaka already has her bandages.

Aside from the multiple and/or teleporting Homuras, there's also a Clara Doll in a ballerina dress and a cute Clara Doll peering over the side of the tower like a little kid.

The tower is interesting. It appears to be made of books or pages, and there's chains throughout it. More notably, it's in the shape of a helix - infinity symbols on top of each other.

Please appreciate these Clara Dolls. I'm sure they're working hard.

But seriously, those Clara Dolls' details. One has a witch's hat. One has an apple on its head. And the one with a teacup appears to have not only a lizard's tail but a replica of Homura's Devil outfit. Appreciate them!

Here is Homura(?), lounging or trapped on a chair filled with even more of those pins. Look at her closely. She's wearing a strange combination of her magical girl outfit and her Devil outfit - her shoulders are bare, and she has... feathers? She's sitting on a bunch of nails. But she also has two soul gems - one in her hand, and one hanging from her neck.

Is she cleansing them? Eating them? Holding people hostage? I don't know, but I support her completely.

She looks so tired.

So: here's some of what I think might be going on.

Homura is using wraiths to repress her worst memories. We know already that wraiths take memories and emotions from their victims. Well, there's no reason it can't be used as extremely terrible coping! Homura actually does this in the Wraith Arc, too - she lets a wraith take her feelings for Madoka.

If it is Madoka, it explains the shot with Madoka throwing herself off a builing - what if Homura has seen this happen in the loops, and out of pain lets a wraith pull it right out of her? The shot says "WRAITH" and billows with smoke. A wraith could have taken Madoka's form to act out this memory. And it doesn't need to be a memory - it could also represent Madoka's self-sacrifice and almost suicidal tendencies. This, too, would explain the multiple Homuras. All wraiths using her form.

This puts forward powerful enemies for the plot, as well as an interesting point of literally fighting Homura's demons. Most importantly, this lets everyone see Homura's pain.

Other wild dartboard speculations:

Homura will try and present herself as a villain. This is, honestly, kind of guaranteed, but it bears mentioning that her magical girls will be very likely to try to defend her.

Kyubey may appear to try and turn the girls against Homura.

Homura made the new magical girl who is drawing a bow. She has a lot of design choices from the Quintet, and people have already noticed how much she looks like Madoka. This new girl plays a role of the hero to Homura's pretend-villain, eliminating the risk that her friends will get seriously hurt.

The new magical girl is actually Madoka. Or the Law of Cycles. Or Kriemhild Gretchen.

The girl who jumps from the tower is a contractee being asked to take a leap of faith. She does so, and Homura rewards her with magic.

[angel-of-the-moons]

A Rose Under The Moon

Moon Knight System (Marc/Steven/Jake) x Fem!Reader

TW/CW: Violence, graphic violence, blood, fighting, human trafficking, mentions of abuse, drug use, child abuse, sex trafficking, angst. So much angst.

MINORS DNI: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT YOU CONSUME

A/N: Whew! I'm proud of this one! Many thanks to my bestest friend, Artemis, who himself has DID and helps me understand this condition and describe them (hopefully) more accurately! His system is a big help in me learning more about this subject! (Extra note: any Spanish spoken in this fic is in italics. As I am not a fluent speaker by any means, it is mostly translated by Google. Have fun!)

🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒

Chapter 2:

Inside Voices

(Steven, no…) Marc's voice groaned out, glaring at him through the shared reflection in the glass door.

"But Marc! I've lived here for ages and didn't know this shop was here!" Steven beamed, smiling widely. Thankfully the wireless headphones he had on made him look like he was on the phone, and not completely off his rocker…

Marc ran his hands through his curly black hair. (You have enough books!)

"But this store might have books I don't have!" He pointed out.

(Just let him look, hermano.) Jake sighed, his reflection staring up at Steven from a puddle on the ground.

"Yes, thank you, Jake. At least somebody encourages my hobby!" Steven huffed indignantly at Marc.

(Jake, stop babying him!)

(Hey, nothing wrong with having a hobby?) The man snorted.

Marc rolled his eyes and slumped his shoulders, he directed a tired glare back at Steven.

(You gonna go in or just stare at the front door?) He finally asked.

Steven grinned like an excited boy going into a candy shop.

Marc really needed to have a talk with Jake about this. Steven already had too many books in their flat!

Steven pulled the headphones out of his ears and shoved them in his pocket as he opened the door, nearly jumping when the bell dinged.

He looked around, rather impressed with how much was inside a small space. Steven almost jumped again when the clerk spoke.

"Hi! Welcome to Here Today Books!" She said cheerfully.

🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒

(I'm just saying, Steven… that's too many fucking books.) Marc said, crossing his arms at Steven through the reflection in the window across from his desk, cluttered with papers, folders, and books on various subjects of the Egyptian religious pantheon, architecture, etcetera.

"Oh, hush." Steven hummed, pushing his glasses up his nose as he examined the pages on one of the old books he held in his hand.

(Steven…) Marc sighed, exasperatedly. 

"I know, I know." He sighed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The stubble there was getting rather coarse. Maybe he could talk Jake out of growing that mustache or goatee he was thinking about…

Steven looked over and picked up the bookmark, sighing deeply as he looked at the gold-tipped rose sealed so lovingly in the plastic. Small vine-luke designs had been penned into the colorful sheet of paper inside the plastic as well.

(Very Beauty and The Beast, no?) Jake mused, his reflection from the mirror on the desk looking at Steven with a cocky grin.

It helped them, they found, to have as many reflective surfaces as possible in their flat; it enabled them to talk to each other simultaneously and "see" one another. Sure they could all talk in the headspace, and when they co-fronted it was almost like they could feel each other; rubbing shoulders, as it were, but sometimes you just needed to see the other person, y'know? Outside of your own head? Shared head? The terms still confused poor Steven, at times.

"I s'pose." He hummed, holding the plastic in his fingers gently, as if it were made of the thinnest glass. Absentmindedly, he pulled the sleeve of his shirt up and looked at the inside of his left wrist.

A mark was there.

A rose, to be precise.

Sometimes it would look like it was wilting, other times it was blooming and vibrant… other times it was closed, not ready to bloom.

Right now, it was somewhere between wilting and blooming. He wasn't sure what it meant. He thought back to Marc's ex-wife, Layla. And how he practically fell head over heels with her when they first met.

He had hoped, with Layla, that she had a corresponding mark… but she didn't. Layla was one of the few who didn't have a mark, or in the very least it hadn't shown up yet. Which isn't entirely implausible… But… something happened. After escaping the Duat, coming back to life, fighting Ammit… finding out about Jake.

They just drifted apart. The sparks that may have been there snuffed out, any hints at romance gone from the equation. They all decided it was better to leave it at that.

Well, at least they were all still on friendly terms, Steven mused. Layla still spoke to he and Marc via phone, or even email. It took Steven forever to convince Marc to ditch that "old dinosaur piece of plastic" he called a phone, and stick with his touch-screen.

Except… Jake. Ah, Jake. Layla never fully trusted him.

(Steven.) Jake said, getting his attention, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Hm?" He hummed, turning the bookmark over and over in his hand thoughtfully, eyes fluttering back to their mark on their wrist.

(It's my turn tonight.) Jake reminded him softly.

"Oh… right." He cringed. "Bollocks, I hate this…"

(I know, hermanito. But it has to be done, or the bad guys roam free…)

"All right, just… don't let me see any of it, yeah?" Steven sighed, placing the bookmark on the table as he put his hands in his lap.

(Of course.) Jake replied.

Marc stayed silent.

Suddenly, eyes flew closed, the jaw clenched; a bit of a sharp pain fluttered briefly through the brain at the sudden switching. They were getting better at seamless transitions, but sometimes some form of discomfort lingered. The body sat, almost like an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Whether it was five minutes or five seconds, it was unsure. 

When the eyes opened again…

Jake was sitting where Steven sat. Steven's reflection wasn't in the mirror as Jake's had been, previously. He was left alone with Marc staring at him from the inky-black reflection in the window.

(I really hate that we have to do that to him.) Marc sighed, shaking his head.

"He's too gentle for our work, Marc." Jake said, clicking his tongue as he stood, walking over to the wardrobe in the corner and reaching out to grab his old leather coat. "He's too… good."

(I know.) Marc's reflection was in the fishtank now, where Gus the Second was swimming alongside… they really should think of a name for the other two.

Jake tugged the old worn garment on and pulled the gloves out of his jacket pockets with a sharp yank, flexing his fingers as they filled out the soft, well broken-in leather. Lastly, he pulled out that golf cap and slid it on his head, and looked at Marc.

(You don't have to see this, either, Marc.) He said to him.

(Somebody's gotta bear the weight with you, brother.) Marc said intently.

"Gracias por eso, hermano." Jake mumbled, twirling the flat's keys in his fingers as he walked to the front door.

🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒

He sat, kneeling on the rooftop, his body hunched in a way that made him look like a gargoyle, unflinching and unmoving in his gaze; the cape gifted to him flared out almost like a long, tattered set of broken wings.

He wasn’t sure why he decided here of all places was a good place to talk. Why here? What drew him here? Was it the lingering joy and comfort Steven felt when he came in earlier that day?

The sign was hand-painted and in need of a new coat. Flecks of it had chipped away, the exposed wood beneath bleached by years of exposure. But… why was the bookshop important enough to stand outside now?

He looked down below, the curtains were pulled back still in the flat above, old lightbulbs casting a soft, orangish glow to everything inside. He could barely see from this vantage point across the street the boxes of books and book stacks lying on a desk in front of the window. Small knick knacks lined the sills, a hanging plant pot on the outside containing flowers of different kinds, slightly wilted from the lack of sun from the past few days, and now the night.

He stirred when he watched the young woman inside walk to the window in the living room and close the curtains; then tracked her movements as she went about her nightly rituals.

She seemed relaxed. Comfortable. Safe.

She didn't need protection tonight.

He felt the air chill around him, seeping through the wrappings of his armor.

“Jake Lockley.”

There it was. The voice he was waiting for. The voice that always knocked him away from his personal thoughts. The voice that told him of his duties during the night.

Khonshu.

“Yes, father?” Jake asked, standing up, turning to see the large imposing silhouette of a gaunt man, enshrouded in ancient, wispy linen wraps, a tattered shawl hanging from his bony shoulders, clenched in his fist; in place of a head was the dessicated and fleshless bone of a bird skull, small web-like tendrils wafting about here or there. Large, eyeless sockets fixed him in a crushing gaze, the skull tilting in an almost inquisitive manner.

(I wish you’d stop calling him that…) Marc grumbled from within. 

“Have you located the evil-doers I sent you after?” Khonshu’s ancient and ethereal voice grated out.

“Yes. I plan on taking them out tonight.” Jake replied dutifully.

Khonshu tilted his head at Jake, and stood from where he sat on the aircon unit. “Now… Why are you here? This is not where you usually prefer to speak with me.”

“I… don’t know.” Jake admitted softly. “Felt like I had to be here.” 

“Hmm.” The god hummed, stopping to stand next to Jake, looking down at the flat below. “Indeed.”

“Was there… anything else, father?” Jake asked, looking up at him.

“No. You can leave. I will issue new orders when our quarry is dead and dealt with.”

“Of course.” Jake bowed his head, pressing his fist over the moon on his chest; sparing one last glance down at the woman before walking away, leaping to another rooftop with superhuman strength.

Khonshu stayed. Observing, just for a moment longer, at the woman inside the safety of her home. 

“Interesting.” He mused to himself, stamping his staff down and vanishing in a haze of mist.

🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒🌒

Jake panted, pulling one of his darts out of the chest of the man who had tried to previously shoot him just now. He sheathed the weapon and approached the shipping container, hesitating for a moment before smashing the lock open with his bare fist and hauling the heavy doors open.

Inside were half a dozen women and young girls, and children. Some of them naked, others half-dressed. Many of them were dirty and half starved, injuries evident on their poor bodies.

He noticed how they all flinched, backing away from him.

“I won’t hurt you.” He said, in a tone as soft as he could possibly manage, trying to ease their worries. “I’m here to save you.” 

Jake leaned down and pulled the jacket off the dead body of the man he had just killed, stepping over the corpse to the young woman nearest to him. 

She was clad only in her underwear, bruises and track marks lining her body. He draped the jacket over her shoulders, zipping it closed for her as he guided her arms through the sleeves. 

“The police are on their way. You’ll all be safe, soon.” He said, his glowing white eyes fixed in the black abyss of his mask immediately zeroed in on three women, clinging their arms around a group of small children.

The youngest couldn’t have been older than three years old. Her eyes cold, far too ancient and haunted for one so young, clouded by the things she’d been forced to endure for the profit of her traffickers; her tiny body already bearing the scars of the abuse and trauma. Jake’s fist balled at his sides as he forced his breathing to try and calm; adrenaline surging through him again, a hot coal of rage dropping deep into the pit of his stomach.

He wished he could kill them all over again. He wished he could make them all suffer in ways they could barely process for the things they’d done. He wanted to–

His cloak was tugged on, snapping him out of his seething.

He looked down, and a small boy, all skin and bones looked up at him. He looked to be about seven. Could be older, as malnourishment can inhibit growth. His big green eyes looked up at Jake as he wrapped the edge of his cloak around his shoulders like a blanket, his dirty and grimy fingers clinging to the blood-soaked material, seeking comfort he so desperately needed. Jake felt his heart crack in two. He looked almost like...

He closed his eyes for a moment and kneeled, getting as eye level with the boy as he could.

“You’re safe now. They can’t hurt you anymore.” Jake said, his voice quiet, almost broken. He reached for a ratty blanket on the ground and covered the little boy with it, the sight of him covered in a bloody cape almost too much for him to bear. 

He felt his breathing hitch when the little boy smiled up at him, gap-toothed and happy. He handed the boy off to a woman who looked to only be maybe nineteen.

“Stay…” He cleared his throat, looking at everyone within the container, standing back to his full imposing height. 

“Stay here while I make sure it’s safe and I got them all. Someone will be here soon to get you all out of here.”

“Thank you.” One of the women sobbed quietly, clutching onto what looked to be her own child. They looked too similar for them to be anything but related.

Jake turned, his cape flowing out behind him like a white shadow as he stalked into the warehouse beyond, his fists already tight; the spiked knuckles on the back of his hands ready for blows he was all too eager to deliver.

He stepped over bodies, beaten, broken. Lifeless. 

All at his hand. They deserved worse.

The eerie quiet of the cavernous space was only interrupted by the tinkling of chains suspended from the rafters, wind whistling through unseen cracks. 

He could hear the sirens in the distance closing in, but he didn’t relax. He wouldn’t. Not until he was sure.

Not until he knew they were all dead.

Jake’s hands trembled with anticipation as that coal of rage ignited into an inferno, burning hot and low in his belly, sending sparks through his bloodstream. He was so far into that haze of red, he missed the man rushing him with a kabar knife. 

He must have missed that one, the coward was probably hiding the moment the carnage broke out.

The moment he turned, he felt the blade slip easily through the wrappings of his dark armor, piercing the flesh and organs beneath, the pain tearing through his body like a macabre tsunami.

He brought his fist out, slamming the spiked knuckles into the face of the man.

The coppery scent of blood, the crunch of bones and cartilage filled his nose and were deafeningly loud in his ears. He was sure he watched his eyeball dislodge, hanging over the crushed and bloody expanse of his cheek as his body was sent flying into the cargo loader nearby.

The sound of his bones turning almost to powder overpowered the haunting ambience of the dark lair.

Jake marched over to him and gripped him by the shirt, rearing his fist back for another punch, even as his body hung limp in his grasp. 

Only… he couldn’t land the blow. He just couldn’t. It was one thing to kill to protect. But it was another to beat a corpse that he’d already wrought with one blow. His ears picked up the sounds of shouting, sirens, bootfall. A helicopter whirred above, spotlight shining at the carnage below.

He stood, clutching at the knife still sticking out of his side as he dragged his feet, pulling the shell of his body outside, where he was met with armored police officers, wearing what he assumed was some kind of riot gear. The pain in his side was maddening, he almost didn’t hear them demand he kneel. But he did hear a woman cry.

He lifted his gaze to see the woman he’d handed the boy off to; the child still clutched in her arms as they looked over at him, their eyes locking with his.

“He saved us!” She cried.

“Don’t hurt him, please!” Another shouted.

“He’s a nice man!” A child sobbed, clinging to the emergency blanket around her frail body.

Jake felt like he could cry, he felt his heart swell to bursting; not able to tear his gaze away from the innocents he’d saved, that he killed for. Not even when one of the officers approached him, gripping his elbow to keep him steady.

The older man sighed, unable to cuff the man that the human trafficking victims were shouting and crying accolades for. Even if he apparently killed all these monsters bare-handed. “Come on, lad. Let’s get you looked at. We can’t leave that knife in ya.” 

“I’m fine.” Jake mumbled, looking at the ground. His shoulders slumped.

“Like hell you are.” The officer turned and shouted for a medic.

“Perdóname, mi corazón." Jake muttered to himself. To someone else.

But as the man carrying the equipment bag jogged towards him, Jake gripped the handle of the knife and wrenched it free in one tug, blood spurting from the wound.

“Good God!” The officer gasped, reaching out to press his hand over the gushing wound. “Are you insane, boy?”

“Yes.” Jake mumbled, pulling his hand away from him, with gentle care that betrayed the violence his bloody fingers had wrought mere moments ago. He felt the wound close, the magic and blessed armor already performing its duty. Just as he had, so violently.

Jake straightened his posture as the medic and the officers backed away in a strange mixture of fascination, horror, and awe.

“Who… what are you?” The medic breathed.

Jake turned away, his gaze to the sky.

“I’m Moon Knight.”

And with that final goodbye, he leapt up, disappearing into the blackness and depths of the night, his heart heavy but relieved, cloak streaking across the shadows, as if to chase them away.

Chapter 3: Link

[queenoftheworldisdead]

Non-Compete

Chapter 3

A/N: Reader is female. No physical descriptors used. Let me know if i fucked up and not do that. Chat me up i don't bite!

Summary: Your super genius younger sister is offered a chance of a lifetime to work for either Oscorp or Stark industries straight out of high school. Her choices leave you stuck in an unrequited love triangle.

Warning: Slow Burn, Adult content only! 18+ only please. Dark! There is potentially triggering stories ahead.

Peter Parker x Reader, Norman Osborn x Reader

🍽️

It’s been hard coming to grips with how much Emily has been slipping away. You’d known it would happen eventually—that she’d carve her own path—but you never expected it to come so soon. You stand outside Stark Tower, trying to calm the nerves stirring under your skin. The place looms, a stark monolith of glass and steel, its futuristic lines and towering height leaving Oscorp’s old-world architecture feeling like something from another era. The double doors sweep open as you approach, swallowing you into a gleaming interior. Inside, it feels like stepping onto a different planet. Massive screens flicker with scenes of serene landscapes and starry expanses, while glass elevators hum up and down in silence. Robotic assistants glide past, and people move in sharp, purposeful lines, barely registering your presence. There’s a hum to the place, polished and cool, and already you feel out of place, the glossy surroundings swallowing your figure in their efficiency. As you cross the threshold, a voice—soft yet unsettling—echoes from hidden speakers. “Welcome. Please state your purpose.” It comes from nowhere and everywhere at once, unsettling in its precision.

You jump, nearly tripping over your own feet. Looking around, no one else seems phased, only concerned with their own tasks as they filter through the polished halls. "Uh, I’m here to see my sister," you say a bit awkwardly to the bodyless voice. A bright light blinks, and you flinch, the sharp flash momentarily blinding you. You blink rapidly, spots dancing in your vision as you try to steady yourself. “I—uh, I don’t have a code,” you add hastily, feeling a rush of nerves. “but it’s my sister. She works here, and—” “Access denied.” You swallow, heat rising in your face as the system’s words land like a punch. "But—Emily,” you start again, voice edged with frustration. “She works here. Just let her know—” “Access denied. Please vacate the premises, or Security will be notified.”

You force a stiff smile, cheeks burning, and turn on your heel, the sting of rejection settling heavy in your chest. All you’d wanted was a simple lunch with your sister. Instead, you’re walking back into the downtown noise, feeling a bit ridiculous, hoping no one noticed the exchange on some invisible camera.

Outside, you slip back into the crowd, the city’s chatter and thrum filling in the hollow feeling left behind. Downtown has always grated on you—the crush of bodies, the traffic pressing in—but right now, all you want is to get to your car, even if it’s four blocks away. At least getting back a little for the unused meter time will be a relief to your pocketbook.

"Excuse me, miss?" A voice calls out, slicing through the crowd. The words grip you like a hand on your shoulder, stopping you in your tracks.

Your pulse stutters, and instinct tells you to keep moving. But curiosity has you bracing, stealing a steadying breath before turning to see who’s called.

Is it security? You half expect to see someone from Stark Tower, chasing you down for trespassing. For a split second, the thought of running flashes through your mind.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass,” you say quickly, lifting your hands in a gesture of surrender as you turn around slowly. “I was just trying to take my sister to lunch.”

“Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you,” he replies, his voice cutting through the crowd with quiet authority. “It’s me Norman. Norman Osborn. I interviewed your sister.”

Recognition lands, and embarrassment creeps in, realizing your mistake.

“Oh—Mr. Osborn, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“No harm done.” He offers a faint smile, his gaze assessing as he falls in step beside you. “So, I understand Emily took an offer at Stark?”

“Yes, she did.” A faint pride slips into your voice. “She was so disappointed when she hadn’t heard back from Oscorp, and then this boy showed up out of nowhere—almost like fate.” You give a small, rueful laugh, feeling the awkwardness.

“Boy?” Norman’s brow wrinkles, curiosity flashing in his eyes.

“Yeah, Peter. Peter something.  Just showed up one day, out of the blue.” you say excitedly. 

For the briefest moment, a flicker passes over Norman’s face—too quick to catch, like a shadow crossing his features. It’s gone before you can read it, replaced by his usual cool, casual smile, leaving you wondering if you imagined it.

“Interesting,” he murmurs, almost to himself. His tone is steady, but something taut lurks beneath the surface.

“So, downtown to visit your sister, then?” he asks, a polite smile touching his lips. His gaze flicks over you, sharp and assessing, before sliding back toward the street, as if his thoughts are elsewhere. 

“Tried to, anyway. Wanted to surprise her with lunch, but it didn’t quite work out as planned,” you say, the feel of earlier embarrassment still lingering.

He pauses, stopping so abruptly. You turn back a few steps ahead, brow creasing at his unreadable expression. The crowded sidewalk flows around you, but he seems fixed on you, gathering his thoughts.

“How about we grab lunch instead?” he suggests, the invitation unexpectedly warm but his tone hard to place. “My treat.”

🍽️

You hate saying no. You hate disappointing people.

Sitting across from the well-dressed man, you mentally kick yourself for not finding an excuse to back out. Your eyes drift to your casual jeans and worn-out sneakers, feeling painfully out of place in this restaurant. Chandeliers glisten above, casting soft light over the carefully set tables with crisp white linens. Even the silverware seems excessive—how many forks could one meal possibly require?

You pick through your salad as he cuts into his steak, nodding along as he talks tech—just like Emily, really, always in a language you don’t quite speak. When he orders the wine, you don’t refuse. The soft buzz settles over you, making it easier to hold your smile, easier to get through the meal. You take long, deliberate sips, not for the taste but to steady your nerves, Norman's gaze almost dissecting every word, every small movement. The weight of his attention presses down, leaving you hyper-aware and exposed, as though there’s nowhere to hide. You shift slightly, hoping to appear composed, but Norman's scrutiny keeps you on edge.

“You work at a Al's grocery-right? How long have you been there?” he asks change course, just as the waiter refills your glass. It’s surprising he knows where you work, but you brush it off—Emily must’ve mentioned it in passing.

“Oh, uh, since junior year of high school.”

“I admire your dedication,” he says, a curious glint in his eye. “It’s rare to see someone your age with such a strong work ethic.”

You force a smile, hesitating. “I didn’t really have a choice. After Mom passed, Dad... wasn’t really around, so someone had to keep things going.” The words slip out before you can stop them, the wine loosening your guard far more than you’d like. Normally, you wouldn’t say this much, you don't like talking about your personal life.

“That must’ve been a lot, balancing school and work at that age.”

“I... I didn’t finish,” you admit, wincing. You drop your gaze, feeling the old sting of shame. You’d always meant to go back, but creditors don’t care about circumstances. Without work, there was no food, no roof over your head.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t mean to-,” Norman says, voice softening. “I know that must have been tough. But honestly, that doesn’t define you. What you’ve managed to accomplish despite it shows resilience. Sometimes life takes us down unexpected paths, but you’ve clearly made the best of yours.”

You nod, though his words settle like a weight in the air. It’s the last thing you want to hear—too close to the raw truth. The conversation feels too personal now, and you shift uncomfortably in your seat, a half-smile barely managing to lift your lips.

“Um,” you begin, swallowing thickly, your fingers tracing the rim of your glass. You hesitate, then force the words out, “I just—uh, I realized Emily asked me to pick up... I mean, sign for some packages.”

You stand suddenly, almost too quickly, and reach for your purse, the movement stiff. “I really should go,” you say, the words coming out in a rush, sounding more like an apology than anything else. The tension wraps around you tightly, and you feel the heat rise in your face as you hurry to leave.

“Wait,” he says softly, signaling to the waiter-maybe for the check. “Let me take you home.”

You hesitate, clutching your purse a little tighter. “I have my car…” 

Norman shakes his head, his expression firm but kind. “You’ve been drinking. I can’t in good conscience let you drive. I’d feel terrible if something happened.”

You glance down at the floor, biting your lip. He’s right. The wine had blurred the edges of your thoughts, and now you’re feeling more off-balance than you’d like to admit. With a quiet nod, you give in, feeling both defeated.

“Okay,” you say softly, reluctant, “thanks.”

You can’t escape his kindness though you wish you had the will to. 

[bluegekk0]

I was thinking of the technology in the AU based on what's in the game, primarily in the context of a potential water pipe system that allows for running water (which also uses the hot springs for hot running water; and since Dirtmouth is one of the biggest settlements in Hallownest, the pipes were extended there during Vyrm's rule), and by looking at some of the mechanisms and architecture I realized that I completely forgot about the speakers inside the trams. The music they play stops the moment you destroy the speaker, which imples that they somehow figured out gramophone-like technology and can actually record and play music.

This means that all the music preference ask responses didn't even have to be a modern AU thing like I approached it. If they can record music, that means there are potential different genres, and Vyrm and the others would absolutely have their preferences.

This, alongside the other elements and technology in general as I interpret it in the AU, is definitely going to be a bigger part of the worldbuilding section on the lore page. I think it's interesting how technologically advanced it seems compared to a more medieval-esque general vibe I imagine for the rest of Hallownest. Mixing the history inspired architecture and vibes with some almost steampunk-like elements sounds like a really fun concept that I want to explore. I already introduced clocks and watches as one of Vyrm's main interests now that he lives in Dirtmouth, and I love the idea of him slowly introducing more advanced technology to Dirtmouth (which thus far only got the basics such as the water pipe system and stuff like the lifts) through his inventions and plans.

I'll have to revisit the game, maybe there are other similar elements that I missed or forgot about, that I could use as further inspiration.

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 595

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @thisweekinrust.bsky.social on Bluesky or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub and archives can be viewed at this-week-in-rust.org. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Want TWIR in your inbox? Subscribe here.

Updates from Rust Community

Official

March Project Goals Update

Newsletters

The Embedded Rustacean Issue #43

Project/Tooling Updates

Shadertoys ported to Rust GPU

Meilisearch 1.14 - composite embedders, embedding cache, granular filterable attributes, and batch document retrieval by ID

rust-query 0.4: structural types and other new features

Observations/Thoughts

Rebuilding Prime Video UI with Rust and WebAssembly

ALP Rust is faster than C++

what if the poison were rust?

A surprising enum size optimization in the Rust compiler

Two Years of Rust

An ECS lite architecture

A 2025 Survey of Rust GUI Libraries

BTrees, Inverted Indices, and a Model for Full Text Search

Cutting Down Rust Compile Times From 30 to 2 Minutes With One Thousand Crates

SIMD in zlib-rs (part 1): Autovectorization and target features

Avoiding memory fragmentation in Rust with jemalloc

[video] Bevy Basics: Who Observes the Observer

Rust Walkthroughs

Rust Type System Deep Dive From GATs to Type Erasure

Async from scratch 1: What's in a Future, anyway? | natkr's ramblings

Async from scratch 2: Wake me maybe | natkr's ramblings

Building a search engine from scratch, in Rust: part 4

Pretty State Machine Patterns in Rust

[video] Build with Naz : Declarative macros in Rust

Miscellaneous

March 2025 Jobs Report

Rust resources

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is wgpu, a cross-platform graphics and compute library based on WebGPU.

Despite a lack of suggestions, llogiq is pleased with his choice.

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Calls for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear in this list, add a call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

No calls for testing were issued this week by Rust, Rust language RFCs or Rustup.*

Let us know if you would like your feature to be tracked as a part of this list.

RFCs

Rust

Rustup

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Call for Participation; projects and speakers

CFP - Projects

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

rama - add serve command to rama-cli

rama - add support for include_dir for to ServeDir and related

rama - add curl module to rama-http-types

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here or through a PR to TWiR or by reaching out on X (formerly Twitter) or Mastodon!

CFP - Events

Are you a new or experienced speaker looking for a place to share something cool? This section highlights events that are being planned and are accepting submissions to join their event as a speaker.

If you are an event organizer hoping to expand the reach of your event, please submit a link to the website through a PR to TWiR or by reaching out on X (formerly Twitter) or Mastodon!

Updates from the Rust Project

480 pull requests were merged in the last week

Compiler

detect and provide suggestion for &raw EXPR

don't suggest the use of impl Trait in closure parameter

make the compiler suggest actual paths instead of visible paths if the visible paths are through any doc hidden path

tell LLVM about impossible niche tags

remove Nonterminal and TokenKind::Interpolated

re-use Sized fast-path

Library

add core::intrinsics::simd::{simd_extract_dyn, simd_insert_dyn}

initial UnsafePinned implementation (Part 1: Libs)

polymorphize array::IntoIter's iterator impl

speed up String::push and String::insert

std: add Output::exit_ok

Cargo

added symlink resolution for workspace-path-hash

improved error message when build-dir template var is invalid

Rustdoc

search: add unbox flag to Result aliases

enable Markdown extensions when looking for doctests

Clippy

arbitrary_source_item_ordering should ignore test modules

implicit_return: better handling of asynchronous code

accept self.cmp(other).into() as canonical PartialOrd impl

add manual_abs_diff lint

consecutive returns dont decrease cognitive Complexity level anymore

consider nested lifetimes in mut_from_ref

correctly handle bracketed type in default_constructed_unit_struct

deprecate match_on_vec_items lint

do not propose to auto-derive Clone in presence of unsafe fields

fix: iter_cloned_collect false positive with custom From/IntoIterator impl

fix: map_entry: don't emit lint before checks have been performed

fix: redundant_clone false positive in overlapping lifetime

various fixes for manual_is_power_of_two

Rust-Analyzer

ast: return correct types for make::expr_* methods

add children modules feature

add normalizeDriveLetter

distribute x64 and aarch64 Linux builds with PGO optimizations

fix dyn compatibility code bypassing callable_item_signature query

fix a small bug with catastrophic effects

fix an incorrect ExpressionStore that was passed

prevent panics when there is a cyclic dependency between closures

shadow type by module

ignore errors from rustfmt which may trigger error notification

port closure inference from rustc

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

Relatively small changes this week, nothing terribly impactful (positive or negative).

Triage done by @simulacrum. Revision range: e643f59f..15f58c46

1 Regressions, 3 Improvements, 3 Mixed; 2 of them in rollups 35 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

Tracking Issues & PRs

Rust

Split elided_lifetime_in_paths into tied and untied

check types of const param defaults

Stabilize flags for doctest cross compilation

Do not remove trivial SwitchInt in analysis MIR

Implement a lint for implicit autoref of raw pointer dereference - take 2

Implement Default for raw pointers

make abi_unsupported_vector_types a hard error

Stabilize let chains in the 2024 edition

Make closure capturing have consistent and correct behaviour around patterns

Stabilize the cell_update feature

Other Areas

*No Items entered Final Comment Period this week for Rust RFCs, Cargo, Language Team, Language Reference or Unsafe Code Guidelines.

Let us know if you would like your PRs, Tracking Issues or RFCs to be tracked as a part of this list.

New and Updated RFCs

No New or Updated RFCs were created this week.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2025-04-16 - 2025-05-14 🦀

Virtual

2025-04-16 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Rust Study/Hack/Hang-out

2025-04-17 | Virtual and In-Person (Redmond, WA, US) | Seattle Rust User Group

April, 2025 SRUG (Seattle Rust User Group) Meetup

2025-04-22 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust User Meetup

Fourth Tuesday

2025-04-23 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK) | Rust and C++ Cardiff

Beyond embedded - OS development in Rust

2025-04-24 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | Rust Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2025-04-24 | Virtual (Charlottesville, VA, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Part 2: Quantum Computers Can’t Rust-Proof This!"

2025-05-03 | Virtual (Kampala, UG) | Rust Circle Meetup

Rust Circle Meetup

2025-05-05 | Virtual (Tel Aviv-Yafo, IL) | Rust 🦀 TLV

Tauri: Cross-Platform desktop applications with Rust and web technologies

2025-05-07 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2025-05-08 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | Rust Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2025-05-13 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust User Meetup

Second Tuesday

Asia

2025-04-22 | Tel Aviv-Yafo, IL | Rust 🦀 TLV

In person Rust April 2025 at Braavos in Tel Aviv in collaboration with StarkWare

Europe

2025-04-19 | Istanbul, TR | Türkiye Rust Community

Rust Konf Türkiye

2025-04-23 | London, UK | London Rust Project Group

Fusing Python with Rust using raw C bindings

2025-04-24 | Aarhus, DK | Rust Aarhus

Talk Night at MFT Energy

2025-04-24 | Edinburgh, UK | Rust and Friends

Rust and Friends (evening pub)

2025-04-24 | Manchester, UK | Rust Manchester

Rust Manchester April Code Night

2025-04-25 | Edinburgh, UK | Rust and Friends

Rust and Friends (daytime coffee)

2025-04-26 | Stockholm, SE | Stockholm Rust

Ferris' Fika Forum #11

2025-04-29 | London, UK | Rust London User Group

LDN Talks April 2025 Community Showcase

2025-04-29 | Paris, FR | Rust Paris

Rust meetup #76

2025-04-30 | Frankfurt, DE | Rust Rhein-Main

Kubernetes Operator in Rust

2025-05-01 | Nürnberg, DE | Rust Nuremberg

Hackers Hike 0x0

2025-05-06 - 2025-05-07 | Paris, FR | WebAssembly and Rust Meetup

GOSIM AI Paris 2025

2025-05-06 | Paris, FR | WebAssembly and Rust Meetup (Wasm Empowering AI)

GOSIM AI Paris 2025 (Discount available)

2025-05-07 | Madrid, ES | MadRust

VII Lenguajes, VII Perspectivas, I Problema

2025-05-07 | Oxford, UK | Oxford Rust Meetup Group

Oxford Rust and C++ social

2025-05-08 | Gdansk, PL | Rust Gdansk

Rust Gdansk Meetup #8

2025-05-08 | London, UK | London Rust Project Group

Adopting Rust (Hosted by Lloyds bank)

2025-05-13 | Amsterdam, NL | RustNL

RustWeek 2025 announcement

2025-05-13 - 2025-05-17 | Utrecht, NL | Rust NL

RustWeek 2025

2025-05-14 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup

North America

2025-04-17 | Mountain View, CA, US | Hacker Dojo

RUST MEETUP at HACKER DOJO

2025-04-17 | Nashville, TN, US | Music City Rust Developers

Using Rust For Web Series 1 : Why HTMX Is Bad

2025-04-17 | Redmond, WA, US | Seattle Rust User Group

April, 2025 SRUG (Seattle Rust User Group) Meetup

2025-04-22 | Detroit, MI, US | Detroit Rust

Rust Community Meet and Conference Report - Ann Arbor

2025-04-23 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

2025-04-23 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground 2025-04-23 | Spokane, WA, US | Spokane Rust

Community Show & Tell at Fuel Coworking

2025-04-24 | Atlanta, GA, US | Rust Atlanta

3rd 3RD TIME OMG YES!

2025-04-25 | Boston, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Ball Square Rust Lunch, Apr 25

2025-05-01 | Saint Louis, MO, US | STL Rust

SIUE Capstone Project reflections on Rust

2025-05-03 | Boston, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Boston Common Rust Lunch, May 3

2025-05-08 | México City, MX | Rust MX

Calculando con el compilador: Compiler time vs Run time

2025-05-08 | Portland, OR, US | PDXRust

Apache DataFusion: A Fast, Extensible, Modular Analytic Query Engine in Rust

2025-05-11 | Boston, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Porter Square Rust Lunch, May 11

Oceania

2025-04-22 | Barton, AC, AU | Canberra Rust User Group

April Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

IEEE 754 floating point, proudly providing counterexamples since 1985!

– Johannes Dahlström on rust-internals

Thanks to Ralf Jung for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, U007D, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez, bdillo

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

[spaceintruderdetector]

This study is a trans-disciplinary and trans-historical investigation into civilian and battlefield contexts in which speaker systems have been utilised by the military-industrial and military-entertainment complexes to apply pressure to mass social groupings and the individuated body. Drawing on authors such as historian/sociologist Michel Foucault, economist Jacques Attali, philosopher Michel Serres, political geographer/urban planner Edward Soja, musician/sonic theorist Steve Goodman, and cultural theorist/urbanist Paul Virilio, this study engages a wide range of texts to orchestrate its arguments. Conducting new strains of viral theory that resonate with architectural, neurological, and political significance, this research provides new and original analysis about the composition of waveformed geography. Ultimately, this study listens to the ways in which the past and current utilisation of sonic, infrasonic, and ultrasonic frequencies as weapons, apparatus for psychological manipulation, and instruments of physiological influence, by industrial, civilian, entertainment, and military organisations, predict future techniques of sociospatialised organisation.

[watthifi]

Architectural Speakers and their Role in Home Theaters

In the realm of home theaters, Architectural Speakers play a crucial role in transforming a regular viewing experience into an immersive audio journey.

[dre4ml4nd-st4rlight]

**｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆ ｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆ ｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆ ｡･::･ﾟ★,｡･::･ﾟ☆ Mephistopheles Alter Pack - For @theworldtree01 . I hope this is good, excited to post my first alter pack. Ty for req, the other one will be posted soon when spoons are higher :3

「 ✦ Base ID ‘ s ✦ 」**

╰┈➤ names : Mephistopheles / Mephie ,

╰┈➤ Pronouns : he/him , they/them , it/its , goth/goths , vamp/vampires , bat/bats , ey/eyes, cross/cross , stab/stabs , cree/creeps , pred/predators , dark/darks , love/loves , blood/bloods , sin/sins , cast/castles ,

╰┈➤ Titles : The Dark Master , The Lord of Blood , Predator , ⌞ prn ⌝ Sinfulness , Immortal Lover , ⌞ son/child/Spawn/kin ⌝ of the eclipse

╰┈➤ Genders : predator omninoun , angelivamp , violeboy , nyctophic , phosnightal , aneium , gothvictoric , vampgothic , batumbrellic , tradgothic , gothaudic ,

╰┈➤ Orientations : omnisexual (masc lean), necromantic , nonhuman for nonhuman , masc for masc , cupiospec ,

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ other id ‘ s ๋࣭⭑ ꩜ ˎˊ˗

☾ Cis - born 800 Ad during the Carolingian Renaissance , vampire , half-dead , corpsebodic , German , demon , folkloric nonhuman

⟡ Trans - ageless , living , alcoholic (wine addict) , royalty (vampire prince) , transcharacter ; mephisto (Germanic folklore) , French ,

ᯓ★ 「 ✦ Roles + Alter Functions ✦ 」. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

persecutor , falsehood speaker , Auxillary , emotion enhancer , emotional processor , babysitter , caregiver , communicator

Mephie’s role is to check in on those in the system and ensure that people get help when needed. bat itself doesn’t tend to do any helping- vamp just makes sure those who need things get what they need (food, water, mental health help,)

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆ Interest and misc details ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

Favorite colors : reds, blacks, dark green + blue, greys , dark brown ,

hobbies : writing (poetry specifically) , learning cursive , learning about history , looking at castles + old gothic architecture , listening to goth music , reading novels (specifically mysteries, horrors, or gothic lit. Although he does have a secret love for cheesy romance books. Would probably have a love hate relationship with the twilight series) , gothic dancing

Cree was an architect for many different gothic architectural buildings- including the Notre Dam. looking at / exploring old gothic buildings is a big source of joy for him.

It is an immortal vampire that feeds off of energy (and blood, but mostly energy), different emotion give him different energy levels. Vamp automatically picks up on the energy in the room, and goths mood involnutarily changes depending on it

Snape voice Claim ??

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩

── .✦ Photos + Aesthetic hoard - Face Claim

- Aesthetic Hoard

[mwexodusofficial]

Chapter XXIV: P-O-W-E-R

(Music: "Blue Veins", by The Raconteurs)

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

3 years ago. January 24th, 2280 CE.

A labor colony on Eranya, under the mighty sovereign authority of Canaris in its golden age, was engorged in a large-scale near-mutiny over the back-breaking labor, long hours, and lack of representation in Canaris' domestic policy and chaos-seamed tiered systems of governance- as well as a dozen other issues. Their treasonous ring leader, Greine Altomeier, demanded autonomy for the colony of Miranys and protectorate status under Canaris as an included territory. The initial objective of these insurrectionists was to leverage their value to Canaris as a major producer of Eranyium (named after the first settler leader of the planet, who also found the invaluable mineral in the same week); a metal that, when first mined, looked like silver-sheened, iridescent-hued fragments of coarse and grainy, heavy metal- but in its refined state, was smooth and reflective. Its extremely heat-resistant properties were plated on the outside of spacefaring vessels as a means to insulate the vessel from the extreme temperature changes that occurred during long voyages.

In short summary, it was extremely vital to Canaris. And the sickening amount of defensive capabilities it had built on the planet as a solid defense against Terror Remnants or enemy nations, ended up being turned against Canaris on this very day. The labor colony was heavily equipped with armed manpower numbering in the millions; innumerous artillery emplacements, orbital batteries, and anti-air flak guns. De-centralized military fleets patrolling the ground level of Miranys, sub-orbital battle cruisers, orbital defense platforms, shielding systems, sensor & reconnaissance drones, well-armed & well-manned orbital shipyards, and railgun stations which practically swarmed around the atmosphere of Eranya akin to a humming hive of agitated bees.

In response to this crass declaration of quasi-independence, Canaris sent Admiral Hawkes and his fleet of twenty battle-hardened super-dreadnoughts to quell the rebellion—complete overkill, and a demonstration to other labor colonies within Canaris' sector, of the consequences of resisting their martial masters. The warships encircled the planet at every major orbital port, blockading the planet's ports of entries and exits as the Argonaut's monstrous mass loomed menacingly over Miranys, blotting out the sun for several city blocks and factory complexes.

"They are ready to receive you, Admiral."

Admiral Hawkes stood gazing over the wide window view of Eranya at the very front of the Argonaut, spotting the sizable speck of a colony below orbit that demonstrated the naive gall to stand against a planet-razing military terror like Canaris. As it seemed, twenty massive warships and the Argonaut's mile-long architecture weren't sufficient enough for the neophyte rebels to immediately surrender and submit to some very lenient punishment compared to what they would suffer for rejecting Canaris' repeated demands of compliance. Admiral Hawkes gestured ever so slightly with his fingers to the bridge officer managing the telecommunications, and she began patching him through to the colony's communications array. A young, spritely, and charismatic voice popped up over the speakers, loud and belligerent whilst introducing herself to the Argonaut.

"Lord Admiral Fenris! We are honored by your presence."

"Hey, Yvette, it's been a while."

The radio abruptly fell silent. A long minute passed, and Hawkes stared back over the planet and above its haloed horizon; taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of the innumerable twinkling stars, distant and near; nebulae, galaxies, planets- chaos and order so seamlessly integrated. It all seemed so heaven-sent until the reality of this immense, slogging, agonizing existential suffering was heaped upon all sentient, conscious, intelligent beings at the first naive encounter of horror.

"...You... remember me?" Yvette eventually responded more timidly and torn emotionally.

"'Course I do. I remember the moment you were born to your first Ordeal. What made you think I ever forgot you?"

A stifled sobbing emitted over the radio, before the sound of disruption, and another voice came over the receiver; grumpy, gruff, and sneering with a low, vaguely Cockney-English accent.

"Hawkes."

Admiral Hawkes' expression, softened and relieved only seconds prior, was now contorted and twisted into a snide grimace and beady, frosted eyes of cold hate.

"Take your forked tongue out of the chatterbox and cower in your hovel, Nemdo." Hawkes rasped over the receiver. "I have seven-hundred-thousand armaments, big and small, on this vessel alone. I could -snipe- the atoms off your nose, even from this distance, and no barriers nor armored structures would protect you from it. Get off the receiver, hand it to Yvette."

"So that's what we are now, to you? Just slaves for you to keep in line, kill as you please, you cunt?"

"You are a fool, to think you, of all those in the colony, would be the one to tug at my heartstrings."

"It wouldn't matter who's speaking. You're here to obliterate us."

"I think this will end amicably if I simply obliterate you with a thousand orbital precision lasers so I don't have to suffer your under-developed brain synapses flapping fecal matter from your rotting gums. Hand. The. Radio. To Yvette, or the next words you decide to spew will lie in a pile of your ashes. Try it."

A devilishly long silence ensued. Then-

"Fucking tyrant."

The receiver crackled as commotion occurred on the other end, before Yvette's voice nervously cropped up over the radio.

"H...Hawkes."

"Hey there. Sorry for the cruelty you heard earlier. You know our disagreements."

The receiver was silent for a moment, before a reply: "Y-Yeah. I get it. Um... well, uh... we're the colony of Miranys, and we w-would like to, uh, request that w-we rewrite the, uh, g-governmental relationship between M-Miranys and Canaris-!"

"I'm not against this idea," Hawkes stated, which seemed to both surprise and throw off Yvette.

"Wh- really??"

Hawkes obviously had, in advance, reviewed the terms put forth by the leader of Miranys, Greine, who was currently on the other side of the planet in negotiations with the other colonies to try and snowball a planetary-wide liberation movement as he knew that Canaris would reject the demands. Hawkes' intentions were to negotiate a deal with Yvette, the third-in-charge of Miranys, so he could officiate a deal that would undermine Greine's authority to the other sector leaders on Eranya and put a quick end to the idea of insurrection. Hawkes had just intimidated Nemdo, second-in-charge of Miranys and a cowardly person whom he harbored a venomous history with, into handing the official negotiations to Yvette; even though Hawkes bluffed about the precision lasers being capable of piercing their defensive shielding. The plan was to give a few or several good industrial and political incentives to Eranya, and with the political power he held, Hawkes had no doubt he could free the people of Miranys from those draconian labor quotas and laws put in place by Atriarchs of the past. He'd already received the greenlight from the current Atriarchs to initiate these negotiations on their behalf, especially with how integral of a colony it was to Canaris- but full or partial autonomy was out of the question.

Any form of autonomy for fledgling colonies always led to demagogues and populists capturing the spirit of those laborers and civilians, turning them into a fomenting crowd of wrathful indignation against their current or formal rulers. Trade deals would soon end, followed by scheming with rival or enemy nations, and ending with those nations or others watching from the background ultimately preying on and exploiting the colony until its citizens dreamed of the life they had before autonomy. It wasn't as if Hawkes was particularly against the idea of a noble underdog nation freeing itself from the constraints of a despotic dictatorship-

But compared to the other nations and colonies across the Lower Quadrant of the Milky Way, Canaris was far more palatable in its treatment of vassal territories. This was, in Hawkes' opinion, a powerplay by Greine disguised as a noble pursuit for freedom from tyranny. As the leader of Miranys, there were a hundred different departments and offices Greine could have contacted to have the laws of his colony changed from the decades-ago edicts as was his right with the powers vested in him by the Linde-Fjarnar Compact of 2267; yet he didn't. Instead, Greine allowed the edicts to cause further suffering and misery to build more resentment and mobilize the populace against a strawman villain. This was a power play, by every metric.

And Hawkes was not going to let this power-hungry wannabe big-shot have the opportunity to get hundreds of millions of people killed, whether now or a hundred years into the future.

"Yes," Hawkes responded over the radio. "I have a lot of leeway in this negotiation. Let me know what you personally want and what the colonists generally want, not what Greine wants. Okay? Labor hours, contract revisions, opportunities for vertical promotions- I am more than happy to get this signed and done with so Miranys can flourish. The only thing we can't concede on is autonomy. So, basically, everything you good fellas want minus one. I'm sure you know, Yvette, but Canaris needs Eranyium for interstellar travel. People could suffer if this goes badly one way or another, and that isn't anything I want right now. I was exploring the Kalis Sector with a few warships when this came up on our radar- that's how important to me you are. I crossed half the colonized galaxy just to make sure the war hawks on Canaris wouldn't have the chance to scheme against your homeworld- and I have not forgotten about the years I've spent on this damn planet, Yvette!"

The last line was said in provocative but good-hearted humor, and Yvette chuckled over the radio, seeming more at ease now that the negotiations were broken down so simply by her long-time friend and mentor. "Well then, I mean, I wouldn't mind a few in-person discussions to set preliminary terms. A lot of the people here are pissed, though, so you, you know, ya gotta be very lenient, I-I'm sorry if that's rude to say."

"Indeed. And no, I have no issue with how you speak to me, Yvette. It's infinitely more preferable than the chittering of the insects that plague your top leadership."

His reply was passive-aggressive; he was primarily referring to Greine, but there were a number of other officiated bastards in Miranys' government that Hawkes highly disapproved of, including the treacherous, weaselly, cowardly fuck-nugget Nemdo.

The voice of Elise crackled over his shoulder radio suddenly.

"Grand bâtard."

Hawkes sighed internally as the horrid French onslaught of Elise assailed his fragile Canari ears.

"What now? I'm in the midst of negotiations."

"Shut up, I'll do what I like, garce. Your negotiations may be cut short, Greine is heading back to Miranys very quickly, probably five minutes roughly. He slipped past the quarantine measures, raced over the ocean in a Rathian Bike, took out the Canarii Ranger that was pursuing him, and hijacked a Helixad."

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME. THIS 2-BIT V FOR VENDETTA ORE SHUNTER DID ALL THAT?!

Hawkes thought calmly. "You didn't think to tell me about that?!"

"I was too busy trying to pick my jaw up from the floor, Admiral."

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

(Music: "The Painful Way", by Darren Korb)

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

Hawkes exhaled venomously, quickly panicking as he realized the worst possible outcome was zeroing in and going to ruin both Hawkes' and his entire colony's day if Hawkes didn't finalize some preliminary negotiations he could wave in front of the rest of Eranya as a sign of peace and ongoing arbitrations. 

He did not want to escalate this into a conflict. Several people would die, and several others would die as collateral damage. This near-mutiny had to be quelled, or they would involve everyone else across the planet and rake in more naive idiots with hopeful eyes to join in the slaughter. Hawkes would much rather kill a few and save the many, if it came to that.

"So," He immediately began speaking to Yvette once more; with no time to spare, he could neither waste time on pleasantries nor reveal his urgency to finalize the deal. "I'm thinking, we can do an exclusive trade deal with Eranya by having our freighter ship and mining vessel manufacturing plants only import from your planet. I can put in some requisition orders to start up some new secondary and tertiary industries- more jobs, more growth, and less mining and extraction- we can gradually replace the workers with drones when the logistics of that operation is fully planned out."

Though Hawkes couldn't see it, Yvette was intently listening but feeling slightly overwhelmed by the bulk of information being shoved over the radio. It felt less like a negotiation and more like a big hush-money present was being thrown at them for underlying reasons.

"Eh, Hawkes?" Yvette asked. "That's fine and all, uh, but uh, we should probably have an arbitration at our embassy about this; there's a lot of stuff I need to write down. We'll also have to, uh, talk about how our representatives feel on the topic of autonomy and political rights, because a lot of them are pretty... unhappy after the recent riots and crackdown. I mean, we- they literally mutinied, so, uh, I mean, yeah."

Hawkes was sweating. He was keeping a timer in his head the nanosecond Elise informed him of Greine's approach. 4 minutes left.

"Of course, Yvette," Hawkes replied smoothly, trying not to betray the tremendous urgency running through his head like a particle accelerator. "I just wanted to set some preliminary terms over radio, something I can write home to the Atriarchs to let them know that we're on negotiating terms and that this isn't, you know, a conflict that's gonna break out. You get what I'm saying?"

"Y-Yes. I understand. What did you want to set out, then?"

3 minutes 30 seconds. Hawkes pulled on his collar, feeling as if his throat were tightening; he'd gotten past the first obstacle, he just needed to set out some lenient and reasonable terms, even if he reneged on them later. 

"For the discussion of autonomy, we are definitely open to, at most, partial autonomy, though I can certainly relay messages between Miranys and Canaris as necessary about the particulars on that. Political rights aren't a problem, I assume you all have your representatives picked out, you'll need to write up an Autonomy Compact and allow us to review it for approval and then you'll be good to go. In the meantime, we can adjust working hours and labor laws as necessary and for the best compromise of both parties. How is this sounding so far?"

3 minutes left. His eyes strained at the radio, feeling prickles of stress ride across his brain matter with every second Yvette was silently deliberating with others gathered in the comms room.

"Several of our representatives are extremely upset with the labor quotas and tithes imposed on Miranys every financial quarter. They want to discuss a serious change downward in those aspects."

"Sure! I'm not opposed to that one bit." Hawkes said, a small tinge of panic and irritation lurking behind his words. As this conversation was furthering, Yvette was growing more bold and confident in her voice once it seemed clear she had some leverage over Hawkes on this matter.

"And the families who suffered from the Fir Street Riots need to be compensated! As well as the families who lost their loved ones in the Bakkian Incident! Speaking on that, our equipment is outdated, our safety guidelines are lackluster, and half our labor force have become drug addicts to cope with the daily misery and pain!"

I HAVEN'T INTERACTED WITH YOUR WORLD IN A FUCKING DECADE! I CAN'T BE EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE! Hawkes wanted to shout over the receiver. 2 minutes left. "Done, and done. Any last requests before I type this up and call off the fleet so we can have a proper sit-down?"

And I can kill that upstart cunt trying to get his colony obliterated, Hawkes pondered maliciously, planning Greine's assassination after this matter was settled.

More silence over the radio.

"Tell him..."

Hawkes grimaced as the sound of other representatives chirping in Yvette's ear was audible over the radio. Yvette eventually spoke once more.

"And... the representatives of Miranys... want the Atriarchs to recognize Miranys' Autonomy Compact in a speech-"

"Who the fuck told you to say that?"

The radio went dead-silent. Hawkes was extremely upset hearing this from Yvette's mouth- words spoken by proxy from one of the cancer-filled slugs leaning in on this horrifically-vital conversation.

"I-I... I, uh, I didn't mean-!"

"Nevermind," Hawkes quickly cut her off, trying to smooth over the extremely perfidious comment. 1 minute left. Even if he had to lie his mouth off, it would be worth it to save everyone in this system from a very bloody afternoon. "I'll relay the requests to the Atriarchs. I've documented your list of demands and will be calling back the fleet-"

"We wish to have our own defense force!" "And we wish to control and operate our own media networks, free of censorship by the Canaris Media & News Regulation Agency!" "We wish to mint our own currency!"

Hawkes was utterly infuriated at the Miranys representatives having the gall to start chiming into the receiver with additional demands, eating up the precious seconds Hawkes had to finalize these preliminary terms and present the evidence of successful parley to the rest of Eranya. 30 seconds.

"GET OFF THE RECEIVER, UNLESS YOU ARE YVETTE!" He shouted over the radio, having no other course to settle this now than to assert authority between him and the third-in-command. "Once you agree, I can pull back my fleets and we can end this amicably! Do we have a deal, Yvette??"

The radio was silent. 20 seconds. 15 seconds. 10 seconds-

"You're hiding something."

"Yvette. Please. Just agree. We can settle everything, just agree and we'll be-"

Slam!

The sound of doors being forced open came through audibly on the receiver. The distant sound of a voice could be heard: "Yvette! Hand me the radio!"

It's over, Hawkes thought miserably as Greine's young, authoritative, and demanding vague German voice cropped up over the speakers.

"Nice try, bastard. I've lived with you for five years- I know how you think, Hawkes. You won't get the chance to-"

"If you want to die this badly on your lonesome, you have my blessing. Do not drag innocents into your pathetic power play."

"Is that what you think this is? I-"

"Yes. Yes, I do, you fuck."

"It is not! Most in Miranys have signed on to this compact, and soon enough the other colonies will join onboard. Whether you like it or not, we are going to gain our autonomy. We aren't Delisse, nor Ugradja, or any of your other servants that bow down meagerly after a mere show of force!"

"A mere show of force..."

"Fuckin' A right. We have the upper hand. And when we gain our freedom, our history won't be mired by exploitation, slavery, imperialism, and slaughtering people who want a better life."

Hawkes cackled sadistically at the bottomlessly naive and idiotically proud statement uttered by the braindead warrior handling comms.

"How do you think nations have been forged all throughout history, since the dawn of mankind, you fucking pissant? Through hugs and kisses and communal cocksucking ceremonies? You ignorant peon. You'll get your 'autonomy', then stick with us for about five years, then stab us in the back and heap your exports onto a rival nation to get full sovereignty. After they've used you for long enough, your planet will get exploited, then steamrolled by neighboring warmongers who will cut out your tongues, slice your Achilles heels, and force you and your family into lifelong menial labor and servitude. Your spouses and offspring will be used for pleasure and breeding by savage thugs and retired warlords; your dreams will rot away while you witness your little empire crumble and wither, your lands and people perverted and humiliated by idiots with more experience in combat and cruelty, over decades shall you and your kin suffer. I'm far more merciful than letting that become your end legacy. I will simply turn you, painlessly, to ash, and your grandiose ideas that lead to terrible fates will dribble into nothingness through time eternal, and this planet shall continue to prosper under Canaris, its citizens forever safe and secure from the idiotic half-assed ramblings of irredeemable patsies like you."

The radio was again dead silent. Then:

"You will not scare us, Hawkes. Our-"

"You should be scared. You should be utterly fucking terrified. I am speaking from experience, not fantasy, boy. I would rather obliterate your entire colony off the face of Eranya than allow you to steer this planet toward a horrible fate."

Silence, again. This time it was far lengthier, with whole minutes passing by of no radio contact. Hawkes was not going to let this powermonger get the chance to whip up any more colonies into a frenzy to mutiny, nor permit him to better prepare for an invasion should he choose the Darwinian option.

"You get one, and only one answer. Submit or Die. Choose now, or I'll take it as a refusal-"

"We would rather die than continue slaving away under a revolving door of tyrants and robber barons! I have slain your Canarii, and if I must slay YOU, as well, then IT SHALL BE DONE!"

BAAASSSSSTTTAAAAAARRRRDDDDD.

"Then you and your fucking ilk will see Hell Unto Earth."

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

(Music: "Command and Control", by Mick Gordon | YT Only)

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

He ended the communications after catapulting the radio receiver at the floor, shattering it into thousands of pieces and storming out of the bridgehead.

"DANNY!"

"Yes, Admiral!"

"TAKE OVER COMMAND. I'M DROPPING WITH THE CAEDES."

First Officer Danny paled in the face as he heard his superior would be heading into direct combat with the Magna Caedes, but followed the orders without any pushback- the look on Hawkes' face was frightening enough to silence his concerns.

Hawkes found his quarters, slamming his hand against the DNA scanner and walking in, honing in on the heavily-plated suit locker at the end of his room, typing in the 50-letter-long passcode along with a DNA scan of his retina before throwing open the door hinges and grabbing the suit of armor inside.

The Ryn-Hague Chassis; a stygian-black, extremely bulky, hefty, and 3-inch thick armor that consisted of hundreds of Achilles Series armor plates melded and meshed, woven and perfected through a thousand forges until it was one of the most durable suits of armor in all of human history, capable of deflecting and neutralizing anti-tank rounds and artillery shells with little issue; the interior of the suit was affixed with a reverse magnetic propulsion device which prevented the wearer from feeling the impact of even orbital artillery, and worked in conjunction with exterior piezoelectric layers attached to the pinpoints of the outer armor, which served to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy and used inertial dampening to slow or neutralize the projectiles on impact.

Having secured the chassis to his body over a few painstaking minutes, and finding comfort in the heavy burden it proved on his body, he exited the quarters with the mighty thumping of his heavily-armored boots thudding against the pristine alloy floor.

Admiral Hawkes swiftly turned on his heel and stormed toward the Orbital Deployment Bay, exiting the bridgehead and sifting through the maze of hallways with such force and speed that a strong gust of air followed strongly behind him, staggering passersby and ship crewmates with transhuman dread. After hingeing a left, he was gradually flanked on either side by Magna Caedes; goliath-like augmented superhumans over eight feet tall, plated with dozens of sets of the highest Achilles Series tiers in layered, immensely-dense armor with a 2-inch thick tank-like graphene-composited panoply, known as the 'Deathmark Carapace', fastened over the top of the interior armor they burdened upon flesh and bone alike. A two-fold wall of near-impenetrable alloy, painted and decorated painstakingly by hundreds of artisans with scenes of their past victories, scrawled across the entirety of their black-matte bulwark akin to an animated war poem. Their bulky, trapezoidal helmets were entirely devoid of exterior features, the whole of their senses being transmitted and relayed internally through the diagnostics and substrata of the Magna Caedes' outfit through dozens of sensors and systems. Strength, speed, foresight, willpower- one had to be at the apex of such traits to even be considered for the life-lasting honor and duty of becoming a Magna Caedes; and the acceptance of such forged into service rivaling immortality. Whether or not one was capable of surviving the procedures that even the cutting-edge surgeons and researchers on Canaris found insanely difficult, was a question tens of millions had asked and only twenty in Canari existence had answered.

'Twas one, then two, then four, and finally six that flanked Admiral Hawkes on his left and right, made impossibly conspicuous by the deafening thumping of their magnetic greaves, able to keep them grounded on slippery terrain and in zero-gravity environments. Fastened to their backs were monstrously-sized melee weapons in a variety for each Magna Caedes; A battleaxe, a war maul, an oversized bayonet rifle, a Las-Blade, a war glaive, and a shoulder-mounted plasma cannon; each ordered and mandated to learn a new variety of melee and ranged weaponry each year. Without exception, all of these supersoldiers were equipped with a two-foot-long combat knife and Riveters; oversized handguns capable of blasting shell cartridges the size of golf balls, and thus termed aptly for their overwhelming destructive capability.

Even these warriors from another era showed great deference to Admiral Hawkes, their eyes gleaming with arrogant pride and a fanatic urgency to demonstrate their unparalleled martial skill to the one man who singlehandedly carved out Canaris' path to succession for 3 decades straight.

"Our warships will handle the orbital and sub-orbital defense networks," Hawkes relayed to the Magna Caedes through an internal communications network that allowed them to speak remotely to one another even in high-intensity firefights. "We'll be landing at the northmost edge of the Synacot Marshes and make our way to their headquarters. Keep collateral to a minimum."

The Magna Caedes nodded their daunting helmet frames in approval, performing hundreds of mental calculations in anticipation of the upcoming battle whilst Admiral Hawkes patched in to Lilia.

"Lilia-"

"WHY ARE YOU DROPPING INTO THE BATTLE, YOU FUCKWIT?!"

Hawkes groaned as Lily's distraught voice pierced his ears.

"I've been doing this my entire fucking life, Lily! Why are you making a commotion about it now?!"

"THERE'S NO REASON TO ANYMORE! YOU'VE ALREADY LED BY EXAMPLE HUNDREDS OF TIMES! STOP RISKING YOUR LIFE OVER NOTHING! PLEASE!"

"I'LL DO WHATEVER I GODDAMN WELL PLEASE!"

Hawkes growled gutturally as he turned off communications with the Argonaut; entering into a battle trance as he prepared for an onslaught of enemies. Hawkes and his team of Caedes reached the Orbital Deployment Bay, busy with deploying regiments of Canarii to the surface of Miranys in the same way Hawkes and his team would be doing. They walked past the rows of drop pods, where Canarii warriors stepped into person-sized chairs that held them steady while RMPDs kept their body in stasis during the hard impact into the ground, and entered their own uniquely-designed drop pods for seven and eight-foot-tall behemoths.

"We'll be operating alongside Clémence and Caz's teams, we'll be the vanguard until they've reached the primary defense fortresses, then it's infiltration and sabotage." Hawkes relayed his last order, waiting as the drop pod doors hissed on their hinges, pulling downwards slowly to seal in the interior capsule and prepared for deployment.

"Dropping in 3... 2... 1..."

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

(Music: "Incendiary", by Nateki)

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

SCH-P!

The pods shot downward at terminal velocity, rocketing like war-beckoning comets hurtling toward an unfortunate populace of rebels. The window view from the drop pods provided a picturesque and equally dread-inducing tapestry of hundreds of space vessels immediately engaging in all-out warfare; bullets, shells, grapeshot, explosives, particle beams, and dozens of other forms of projectiles were traded in the thousands each second between warring vessels, happening in such rapid and growing magnitude that Hawkes managed to hear those half-second soundwaves blasting with muffled ferocity through the interior of his drop pod, before falling deathly silent in the empty vacuum of space.

Hundreds upon hundreds of drop pods barreled toward Eranya's surface around Hawkes and his team, carrying Canarii warriors driven into battle frenzies for the oncoming fight, platoons and fireteams that would work like sentient, collective ants to achieve their objectives. Armed and armored in the finest Canaris had to offer, and carrying decades of experience in their flesh and bones; this was Canaris setting an example for future labor colonies with the same foolish gall to try and break away from their rulers. An age-old adage the Patriarch enjoyed sending in replies to war declarations and treasonous communications:

|-|-| Fuck around, find out. |-|-|

2 minutes till arrival, Hawkes thought, watching as the cinematic maelstrom of interstellar battle unfolded before him, witnessing turrets, fighters, autocannons, and enemy cruisers lock in on the drop pods and attempt to blow them out of the sky; their shots missing as the pods were quickly leaving their fields of view and piercing the thermosphere of the planet. The drop pods seared and reflected orange, then red, then bright red, then hot-white as the alloyed surfaces heated up from atmospheric entry. 

1 minute till arrival.

The burning persisted for several seconds, before eventually the drop pods had successfully entered orbit; and were immediately locked on and fired upon by artillery emplacements on the surface. Massive shells rocketed by the drop pods, and those lucky few that managed to hit dead-on merely deflected off the 5-inch thick armor coating of the drop pods; made for one purpose only, there was no quarter spared on the sheer durability of the tons-heavy orbital deployment pods.

30 seconds till arrival.

As they parted through the clouds and the wetlands came into view, so did the tens of thousands of Miranys militia fighters, storming the fields to outnumber their superior skilled foe in melee combat. Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs), hijacked by the Miranys Rebels from local Canari authorities, drove down the sloped hills toward the marshlands alongside Postmodern-era Humvees with rotating manned heavy machine guns, swerving wildly as they approached the frontline in a massive haphazard string of hundreds-strong vehicles, their wheels and tracks destroying the landscape as large clumps of soil and dirt flew behind them.

Impact.

DDDSSSHHHH!!!

The drop pods slammed into the earth, and the front doors opened up- Hawkes and his Magna Caedes stepped out of the pods and immediately entered the fray. Dozens of Miranys Rebels immediately charged at them, armored in their own Achilles armor and wielding weaponry of every type. Hawkes led the advancing arrow-point formation, tilting his greatsword sheath downward and drawing out the blade -initializing its lasered rim-, using his other hand to unholster the Riveter attached to his hip belt.

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

(Ambience: "Intense D-Day Ambience", by Sounds of War)

(Music: "Cultist Battle", by Rob Cairns)

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

As the first of the enemy came, he wound his sword low, digging it into the earth, and swung it in an upward arc, throwing clumps of dirt in the approaching Rebel's face, blinding his vision and allowing Hawkes to level his Riveter at the Rebel's helmet. KRAK! Twelve warriors followed seconds behind the headless corpse, assaulting Hawkes' squad with close-range bayonet rifles and two-handed melee weapons, using their exterior exoskeletons (known as Exos) to gain an edge on speed and dexterity, having to avoid all strikes possible, as each and every attack from Admiral Hawkes or the Magna Caedes would provide overwhelming death or mutilation on a successful hit.

The Magna Caedes brought up the sides, their formation slamming into the waves of bodies like a meat grinder; heaving, swinging, and stabbing their hulkish weapons at the Myranis Rebels, who were bouncing around the field in their Exos and keeping their distance from the walking tanks, attempting to stab or slice at the supersoldiers when they were exposed yet finding themselves rapidly brutalized and cut to pieces the moment they tried to enter striking range against Hawkes and the Caedes.

Hawkes brought up his Riveter, firing pinpoint accurate shots at three Rebels darting toward one of the Caedes, blasting two of them into gore and grazing the third one, who was distracted long enough by the near-hit to -SHHHCK!- have his torso cut in twain by a Caedes battleaxe. Hawkes sensed a looming attack from his right side and rolled forward, blasting the assailant with his Riveter which sent the Rebel flying with a massive dent in his chestplate. Three more Rebels approached Hawkes, shooting his armor while charging with bayonets. Hawkes allowed the bullets to ping off his suit, holstering his Riveter momentarily and rotating his greatsword until he was holding the blade with both hands; an ancient technique used by knights of yore in close combat engagements with other heavily armored enemies; using the blunt end or handle as a club to cave in the heads of enemies.

The first Rebel stopped just short of Hawkes' striking range, firing a volley of shots as the second Rebel came up to Hawkes' right, charging with his bayonet for Hawkes' throat. Hawkes sidestepped the charge, wrapping the joint of his forearm around the Rebel's own neck and pulling him toward his body to use as a meat shield. He tossed his greatsword to the ground and unholstered his Riveter, bringing it up and firing with carefully-aimed shots, allowing his hostage to take the majority of bullets being fired at him by the other Rebels on the battlefield. KRAK! KRAK-KRAK! KRAK! KRAK! Bodies fell, slamming and crumpling into the bogs they were moving around, whilst Hawkes examined his hostage; killed violently by the hundreds of bullets that slammed into his armor, tore through it, and eviscerated the Rebel in his grip. He dropped the deadweight, firing his Riveter at a few more Rebels traversing rapidly around the field before one of his Magna Caedes jumped in front of his eastern flank-

DOOSH! DOOSH!

Two heavy artillery shells slammed into the Caedes, one of them glancing off and exploding a group of Rebels whilst the other hit him dead center, throwing the Caedes off his feet, slamming into Hawkes, and tumbling over the wetlands, before immediately reorienting himself and rejoining the formation. Hawkes, recovering from the hit, sighted the elevated autocannon sat atop the northern hill, firing at Canarii, Argonaut officers, and the Caedes with feverish dogma. Hawkes clicked his thumb and finger together, turning on communications with the Argonaut II.

"Danny. AC turret in front of me, sending coordinates."

"Copy."

Hawkes and his Caedes sprinted several meters in seconds, clearing the wetlands and its shoddy terrain with no hindrance, their footwear sloshing through the water and mud with such speed it almost seemed as if they were sprinting on water. As they blasted through the defenses of entrenched Rebels, their traveling hulking masses slammed through both fortifications and enemy bodies alike- immediately vaporizing any unfortunate soldiers that didn't clear the way quickly enough into red mist and internal organs.

Bwoosh. Bwoosh. Bwoosh.

Three distant explosions emanated from the atmosphere, as bulky shells filled with ultra-explosive payloads burst through the stratosphere with precise coordinates locked on the autocannon turret pointed out by Admiral Hawkes.

BOOOOM-BOOOOM-! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The autocannon turret turned to immediate ash as it erupted with engulfing flames, flourishing for meters in every direction as the payloads detonated and wreaked havoc across the secured entrenchment, annihilating dozens of Rebels in the blink of an eye and terrifying hundreds more amid the miles-wide battlefield. Even still, droves of Rebels surfaced the top of that hill and sprinted toward the oncoming Canarii, Hawkes and Caedes, screaming in righteous fury as they prepared themselves for the fight of their life; behind them followed AFVs, Helixads and explosive-packed drones honing in on the opposing forces for self-detonation.

"They're organized," Hawkes spoke through the internal comms systems. "Send chaos right into the middle of their mainstay, Danny."

"Copy."

A few moments passed as Hawkes' team continued slaughtering their way through waves of Miranys Rebels, more pods slamming through the atmosphere, this time rocketing toward the massive fortified metroplex that served as the Miranys Rebels' HQ, as well as haphazardly strafing toward random points on the battlefield.

DSSSH-! DSSSH-DSSSH-! DSSSH-!

These containers, far larger than the standard deployment pods, slammed into the earth, opening up to reveal Gaiters, remnants of the Terror, crawling out in a drug-induced battle frenzy and immediately assailing the closest Rebels possible, causing terror and jheavy morale detriment to the Rebels as their species' greatest ordeal and nightmare manifested itself so horribly on the battlefield, charging from behind their entrenched positions and tearing them to shreds whilst the rest of them were stuck cleaning up the mess and simultaneously fending off the advancing Canarii, finding and retrieving his greatsword before returning to the slaughter.

With the chaos that would ensue, Hawkes led his team and advanced on the HQ in rapid measure. Once their symbol of mutiny was annihilated and their most troublesome leaders executed, this atrocious affair could come to a quick end. Hawkes radioed Elise before he would begin the frontal assault.

"Elise, you've kept eyes on Yvette, yes?"

"The moment Greine took over negotiations, my drones were sniped out of orbit. I've sent more to locate the Miranys leaders, but-"

"But nothing, Elise! Get her in your damn sights and keep her there!"

"She'll be more likely to survive if you find her first. I can't get within a mile of the compound without my drones getting shot down, right now."

"FUUUCK!" Hawkes rasped, turning off ship comms and leveling his fiery gaze on the compound.

"Here's your 'mere' show of force, CUR."

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

(Music: "The Only Thing They Fear Is You", by Mick Gordon | YT Only)

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

Hawkes sprinted up the hill where the autocannon turret was obliterated, using its remains as cover when he crested the hill and spotted hundreds of gun barrels pointing directly at him. They unleashed a wall of lead and hellfire on him, tearing away the metal and fibers of the derelict autocannon and rapidly removing Hawkes' cover. A second later, one of the Magna Caedes sprinted up the hill, planted one strong foot at the crest, and propelled himself several meters into the air, gaining a bird's eye view of the battlefield and rapidly assessing the situation- memorizing the locations of the artillery batteries, underground bunkers, sniper nests and highest concentrations of Rebel soldiers, relaying this information to Hawkes, before rocketing down toward the HQ and smashing through the roof, wreaking havoc inside as his battle brothers engaged in their own devastating combat roles whilst Hawkes made his way towards the compound.

The NCO of the Caedes fireteam, Sergeant-At-Arms Eris, scaled the multi-story buildings throughout the colony, eliminating sniper contingents and picking off troublesome enemy fireteams whilst dicing her way through scores of Rebels with the War Glaive she wielded like a centuries-old battle monk. The glaive flourished between her hands, effortlessly gliding through armor, armor, armor, flesh, bone, organ, bone, flesh- disembowling, crippling, decimating, dismantling foes as if they were still stalks of bamboo. The rare moments where her glaive was not dashing between armored bodies, she was using her fists and gauntlets to punch, crush, and backhand her way through the endless waves of Miranys Rebels.

The Magna Caedes infiltrated the settlement with superhuman speed and dexterity, climbing buildings, weaving through alleyways, and obliterating enemy infrastructure through deft sabotage that was achieved as quickly as they arrived and left the scenes of gore and destruction. Those unlucky enough to carry a pulse and encounter the superhuman warriors were quickly departed from life through a violent reckoning at the business end of their weaponry.

Hawkes ran right down the middle of the war-torn streets leading to the HQ, having to dodge flying rockets, artillery shells, the heaviest of gunfire, and incoming vehicles barreling towards him with the sole intent of running him over into roadkill. One of those Armored Fighting Vehicles careened around the corner, gunning it for Admiral Hawkes and blasting their topside machine gun with unhinged malevolence-

DSSH-CREAAAAKKK-CRRSSSSHHHHH!!!!

The side of the AFV was slammed into by a shoulder check from a Magna Caedes, the AFV turning on its side and slide-crashing across the ground, screeching unbearably as metal met gravel. The Magna Caedes rounded the armored vehicle, slamming his fist with overwhelming force against the bulletproof window -shattering it- then leveled his Riveter through the broken slit and executed the passengers inside.

KRAK! KRAK-KRAK-KRAK! KRAK!

In the same time frame, two Helixads descended on the scene, blasting the Magna Caedes, Canarii, and Hawkes with triple-barreled miniguns that sprayed the streetways with a hailstorm of high-velocity bullets capable of shredding even armored vehicles. Hawkes and the Caedes took cover, a few unfortunate Canarii ripped to pieces by the onslaught of projectiles. One of the Caedes, hailed as 'Infantrier Ajax', stepped out from cover with his Plasma Cannon, leveling it at the closest Helixad and firing.

B-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH-BOOOOOOOM!!!!!

The plasma beam slammed through the middle of the Helixad, tearing it in half and sending its collateral remains careening toward the ground in a fiery haze, spinning uncontrollably as its quick-approaching demise became ever more apparent with each flitting second.

BWOOOOOSHHH!!!!!!

The Helixad exploded on impact, bursting shockwaves and fiery blasts wafting for several meters, sending plumes of smoke into the air and clouding the battlefield with a cloud of smog as the wind blew the ashes and smoke southward across the active firefight. The second Helixad pulled out of the area, retreating tactically to reform with other support battalions to avoid the same fate as the first.

After the aerial threats were neutralized, Hawkes continued sprinting along as the echoes of Riveter shells firing off rang through his ears incessantly. Two Miranys combatants approached Hawkes out of the smoke mirage, swinging their blades at him. He ducked the first one, slamming the magazine of his Riveter into the combatant's gut, causing the Rebel to keel over as Hawkes swung his greatsword in a horizontal arc, cutting through the outermost layer of the second-approaching Rebel, who managed to hop back right as the sword swung towards him. The Rebel feigned an overhead cut with both hands, then arced his grip in a crescent shape, converting the overhead attack into a sideways cut. Hawkes brought up his greatsword and deflected the blade off his sword's edge, allowing the enemy's blade to pass up the length of his greatsword and into the air-

KRAK!

Allowing Hawkes to blast the Rebel in the face with the Riveter in his other hand, sending alloy chunks, brain matter, blood, and skull fragments showering across the roadway as the headless Rebel's body stumbled, then crumpled awkwardly across the street. Hawkes quickly stabbed the tip of the greatsword into the head of the Rebel gasping for air on the ground, right as dozens of Rebels rounded the corner. Hawkes took cover, reaching for his utility belt and pulling off a cluster grenade, tossing it over the burning AFV he was hiding behind and waiting until it detonated.

BOOOSH-KW-KW-KW-KW-KW-KW!

Hawkes immediately rounded his cover, sprinting past the dying and mutilated screaming bodies of the Rebels, watching as two of his Magna Caedes closed in on a Basilisk anti-orbital battery, cleaving their way through dozens of experienced combatants and pincering the Rebels manning the battery. After slicing the last Rebel on the platform from skull to cervix, the senior Caedes unhooked a massive explosive from his utility belt, planting it on the Basilisk whilst the junior fended off both Rebels up close and afar. Dozens flooded up the steps to the Basilisk, assailing the junior Caedes with ferocity and grit- yet they were hopelessly outmatched, ignorant as they were to this revelation. No one in this era of history had fought a Magna Caedes and survived to speak the tale.

And here, they experienced it most viscerally in their last moments.

The Magna Caedes, hailed as 'Infantrier Heracles', sprinted through the line of Rebels in front of him, sending the bulk of them flying through the air and crashing across the obliterated terrain. His war maul traveled over his helmet like an unstoppable force of nature, slamming down upon the head of an approaching Rebel and crushing them right down the middle; before the war maul was pulled back and swung horizontally, slamming into and obliterating two Rebels standing next to one another- their midsections erased by the swing of the maul, sending their chunks of flesh and armor fragments as shrapnel into the other Miranys combatants in battle. Heracles raised his monstrous leg and kicked the lower half of their torsos at approaching combatants, horrifying them with the gore of their comrades for just long enough-

KRAK! SMACK! SLAM! CRCK! SHHCK! BOOSH! CRACK!

-For Heracles to render them in shock, allowing him to sprint forward and tear his way through the crowds of Miranys warriors; using his gauntlets to eviscerate, dismember, and mutilate the enemy with brutal efficiency.

"Well done, Heracles." Hawkes relayed over his communications, garnering a momentary excitement of pure giddiness from Heracles before he resumed his death-making. Hawkes and the remainder of his Magna Caedes advanced on the headquarters, reaching the front doors in little time; their auxiliary forces having eliminated the majority of the enemy's active combatants by this point.

Peering at the double doors before him, Hawkes raised his armored leg and-

BOOOOSH!

-Slammed a hard kick across the decorated and solid surface, sending the door flying off its hinges. Hawkes stormed through the entrance, followed by his Magna Caedes as the sound of continued warfare raged on outside.

BOOOSH!

Hawkes had to do the same for another set of doors, and then another, and another, and another, until he finally reached the main chamber of the Miranys leadership; peering several dozens of highly-experienced Miranys warriors surrounding the grim-faced leadership of this mutiny- including Greine, whose face was shrouded in utter misery and hatred-rage-resentment-fury.

"You fucking tyrant," Greine hissed at Hawkes, tears streaming down his wrath-overflowing face. "I was foolish to ever think we could free ourselves of autocracy at this stage."

"The first intelligent remark you've made." Hawkes simply sneered, basking in the misery of Greine. "Where's Yvette? Even a degenerate like you wouldn't shove her into battle. She'll be leading your colony after I dismember you precisely. At least you accomplished something."

Greine chuckled, half in madness and half in pure hatred for the circumstances he'd been cursed with. "If I'm going to die at the hands of dogs, allow me a duel, you cankerous fucking cunt."

Hawkes was stunned, at first, by the outright declaration of a duel from a far inferior opponent; then the creases of his mouth slithered upwards in a malicious, predatory grin. "Let's go."

Hawkes waved his Magna Caedes to the side, walking himself to the far edge of the circular decor that etched the floor; seeming akin to a dueling arena for just the two of them.

"If I win," Greine spoke aloud, as if challenging the atmosphere that wanted badly to choke him to death in his own panic. "If I win, tell your Canari to fuck off and let us flourish on our own, or under the protection of Canaris if that's what they vote for. If I win... I want your oath that you will-"

"I predict, you will die in one minute and twenty-one seconds."

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

(Music: "Revolta", by ARXMANE)

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

Greine Altomeier was UTTERLY ENRAGED.

He sprinted forward with d-e-a-d-l-y determination, evading the first few swipes from Magna Caedes before leaping into the air and unsheathing his las-blade, wreathing it down upon Hawkes' head with murderous intention-

Whoosh!

Hawkes sidestepped the downward attack, slamming his helmet into Greine's and sending him careening across the floor. Greine reoriented himself, swinging his blade upward as Hawkes approached. Hawkes tilted his head backward, narrowly avoiding the particles of the blade's deadly laser edge by centimeters, before darting into arms' reach and bringing his visor only inches from Greine's helmet.

"THIRTY SECONDS."

Greine headbutted Hawkes, rolling away and unclasping a smoke grenade from his belt, tossing it at Hawkes whilst activating his thermal vision and moving in rapidly for a killing blow. He was shocked as Hawkes countered his straight stab by using the flat side of his greatsword to allow Greine's blade to glide along its shaft- CRACK!- and Hawkes used the opportunity to smash the sharp end of his blade into Greine's helmet, shattering dozens of layers of armor and nearly reaching his left eye. Greine rolled away several times, reasserting his combat stance and in a much more frightened position than before. Fighting a Canarii Warrior was absolutely nothing like fighting Magna Caedes or Admiral Hawkes himself- this was a fight that Greine was despairingly beginning to realize had outmatched him by leagues. All he could do now was land a potential killing blow and get his home colony a chance at-

SHHHHCK!

Greine felt his left leg cleaved away from his body by a Magna Caedes that had closed the gap in the second Greine took to compartmentalize his fears- SHHHHCK! -and could hardly process as another of the Magna Caedes sliced her Glaive through his armor like butter- CRACK!

Greine Altomeier died instantly as Heracles' War Maul slammed over the top of his helmet and pulverized him from skull to clavicle, ribs, organs, cervix, floor- BWSH!

The leader of the Miranys rebellion was left in a pulverized mash of blood, flesh, bones, and sinew. Those gathered in the expansive war room-turned-battlefield were either Magna Caedes or scared-shitless sub-leaders of the rebellion, who were quickly wrought to their knees by Canarii that flooded the room, tying them up and hauling them out as Hawkes interrogated the survivors on the whereabouts of Yvette.

"You fucking indigent. Where is she? Yvette. Yes, Yvette. Your third-in-charge, you PRIMITIVE FUCK!" KRAK!

"You. Yes, you, motherfucker. Location. Yvette. Yes, HER! STOP PLAYING FUCKING DUMB-! KRAK! FUCK!"

"No, no. No teary eyes. Tell me where she is, or you die. It's that simple. You can't be fucking serious. You can't-" KRAK!

Hawkes bared his teeth at the universe as he stormed away from the half-dozen interrogated corpses in his grip only moments prior. His mind simply ignored the worst possible outcome- he had only the picture of the young girl he'd first seen when visiting this planet; that stupid-faced, bright-eyed, freckle-faced, always curious-

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

(Music: "Two Hearts", by Atticus Ross)

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

Oh. She was dead.

Hawkes stared down at the mutilated, half-crushed corpse of Yvette Talima, his long-time pupil and friend during his service as the Martial Governor of Eranya. The memories stabbed through his brain and dug into his soft, squishy brain matter with a blackening, primeval, antediluvian rage and agony that had been materializing in Hawkes' mind for decades.

No, I won. I killed them. I won. Fuck them. Fuck them. I won. I won. Your blood will consecrate the future of millions. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I WON. HA. HAHAH! BASSTARDS!

Hawkes stumbled out of the crumbling headquarters, watching as thousands of surrendered Myranis Rebels were hauled into the wetlands and lined up in massive rows for the Admiral's decision, an approaching storm bringing a most fitting and sorrowful downpour on the morbid after-carnage of the battlefield. He surveyed the vast collection of miles-wide destruction that was wrought over everything that could be seen by the human eye, augmented or naught; buildings leveled, corpses littering the vast landscape, massive craters from repeated artillery strikes; and in the distance, dozens of Miranys-hijacked and Canari space vessels had crashlanded, their behemothic structures adding an otherworldly aesthetic to the grim, bloody battle's aftermath.

"What's the progress of the takeover?" Hawkes muttered despondently into his internal comms network. Lord-Commander Leonidas answered him with a growling, sonorously gritty voice.

"It has been done, Lord Admiral."

Admiral Hawkes affirmed, turning off his radio and wiping the few tears that surfaced from his eyes; excessive stress fomented into inevitable sorrow and mourning for events that seemed entirely out of his control- no matter how intelligent he was, some events in the universe seemed like tragic fate. The cold, indifferent cruelty of life and the silent-cackling universe that endorsed this cycle of violence.

He stomped down the steps of the grand entrance to Miranys' city center, his dissonant and despairing eyes staring past the rows of captured Miranys Rebels. As he walked past their numbers, he stayed deathly silent, merely glowering at their cowering figures whilst he surveyed the extent of widespread destruction across Miranys, as well as the death toll on both sides of the conflict.

"Where the fuck is Nemdo?"

As he uttered the malicious question, the individual in question was hauled out roughly by Chevalier and Caz, thrown to the wettening streetside as rain came in a torrential flurry from the greying skies. Nemdo gazed up with nothing except pure terror, resentment, and hatred beaming from the slashed glare of his irises.

"I know how the Hannou feel now," Nemdo crowed as Chevalier hauled him up onto his knees. "Eranya will not forget this, you piece of shit! You've brought a curse upon you and your ship, Lord Admiral! You fucking... piece... of shit. I hate you."

"Is that all you have to say." Hawkes stated, forgetting the questioning format and simply leveling his Riveter between Nemdo's eyes. "Suffer after death."

KRAK!

He blasted Nemdo's head into pieces, watching as his lifeless, headless body crumpled to the ground. All three leaders were dead now. Their mutineers were obliterated; their defenses shredded beyond recognition along with their landscape. The rebellion was quelled. The job was done. It was time to leave.

He beckoned to his Caedes, watching them storm back to their drop pods which would soon be retrieved by industrial drone carriers and transported back to the ship in quick fashion. Despite the mission's end, Hawkes found it incredibly difficult to move at the moment; his mind was glued onto the corpse of Yvette.

What am I doing? Hawkes wondered. It had been thirty years of service. This was the anniversary date of his first year of admiralty. Consecrated by the death of ten-thousands and the blood of undeserving collateral. What the fuck- what the fuck am I doing??

Thirty years. Thirty years of service. In all that time, he had been hoping to find a reason or purpose for his existence. The war and death and terror was a long distraction, but late into his career, he began to realize that the endless carnage was not what filled the void in his heart.

There might not be anything that does, Hawkes wondered, and immediately he began to eye the Riveter holstered to his hip. My nation is in a great place. They have the Magna Caedes. They have the Canarii. They have the best generation of Atriarchs we could ask for. They're on the top of their game. And they're free of past historical atrocities, I did the heavy lifting there. We're good. We're good to go. We're good to go. I like this view. I really like this view. I didn't think I'd like the view this much. But I wouldn't mind this last view. I think it's the best I'll get. I'm happy with what I've achieved. I hope my people flourish. I hope my crew is happy and successful. What great people I've been surrounded by-!

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

(Music: "Over & Over", by Rio Romeo)

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

"Lord-Admiral, WHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING-?!"

Hawkes raised the Riveter to the underside of his helmet-

KRAK!

-The bolt propelled like a rocket from the cartridge, slamming into his jaw and fracturing it, even with the RMPDs attempting to neutralize the nauseatingly close collision. The Magna Caedes, who had locked into the drop pods, were practically carving their way through the front door hinges to reach the Admiral as he was attempting to kill himself in rapid fashion.

"STOP! STOP, HAWKES!" "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" "NOOO! NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOO!!!!!!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, PLEASE STOOOOOP!!!!"

Please take me out-! PLEASE-!

KRAK!

Another bolt delivered to the underside of his helmet; even with the armor he wore, a point-blank shot from a Riveter was the equivalent of a horse kick to the face. His jaw was shattered, his teeth pulverized by the blast; the rest of his skull reverberating violently and shaking his brain in such a forceful way that he nearly suffered an instant concussion. DEAR GOD, ONE MORE-!

Crck-KRAK!

Infantriere Perseus, screaming bloody murder, smacked the activated Riveter out of Hawkes' hand with such force that he shattered Hawkes' arm and broke it in several areas, promptly tackling the Admiral and pinning him to the ground to prevent him from attempting to harm himself any further.

"LORD ADMIRAL, HAVE YOU LOST IT?! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US ALL?!"

"LEEHHH 'EEEEE 'IIIIEEEE, 'UUUU 'UUUCKKKINNN' INNGRAAYYYHHHEEE!"

Admiral Hawkes frothed at his half-obliterated mouth, utterly enraged at still finding himself painfully conscious and alive, writhing against the unsteady hold of Perseus. The rest of the Magna Caedes moved to help secure Admiral Hawkes, who pushed several of them off and attempted to reach for the Riveter before having his arm broken and secured against the floor.

"Fucking hell!" Lord-Commander Leonidas muttered through his internal comms; the only time in his entire life he had been genuinely shocked and upset by the turn of events unfolding before him. "A manic episode. Tend!"

His laconic language was aptly communicated to the other Magna Caedes, who quickly hauled the restrained and quickly-sedated Admiral onto a Helixad which would transport them to the Argonaut II. Leonidas stood at the steps of Miranys' headquarters, peering out with a grim expression at the destruction wrought upon the once-humble and bustling labor colony.

"Infinitely fortunate ROT OF THE SOIL," Leonidas hiss-growled like an abominable hybrid of feral animals; venting his frustrations in this rare moment when he hardly ever got the chance to otherwise. "Dread that day our Icon perishes, if ever; it will be the last day you experience Peace."

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

earth c hc's huh?

-my go to thoughts for buildings is like kinda similar to zootopia having various sizes of doors for all the species and other accomadating details to architecture

-i go semi back and forth between wanting the kids planet landscapes literally terraformed into earth and speedrunning its evolution around em till their stabalized bcus i mean what 16 yr olds wouldnt wanna go crazy with decorating their new world? let em have fun!

-hashtag lussi are back and have a system regarding who'd be a good caretaker for a child or not, and translator collars for non-lussi speakers

-trains/trolly transportations are more popular and common bcus i said so /lh hj

OH I LOVE THE IDEA OF LUSII COMING BACK…. that’s actually a big headcanon of mine for Earth C, I think it gives the new universe a neat touch and reminder that it’s a world between not only humans but trolls and carapacians too. Just makes it even more fun and thriving, y’know. A++ Earth C hcs, I need more

[lazywriter7]

Written for Stony AUgust over at @stonyauniverse , for week one/alternate professions. 

non functional requirements

There’s a man-shaped twig blocking the door to the lecture hall.

“You coming or you going?”

The twig startles – blue eyes darting under wheat yellow hair. Gwen pulls the worn strap of her tote bag more firmly over her shoulder, MacBook weighing it down, grimacing all the while.

“Sorry.” The twig apologises in a surprisingly deep voice, then opens the door for her. Cute gesture if class hadn’t already started and now she’s gotta squeeze past him through the tiny door.

The guy re-evaluates his chivalry after a couple seconds of awkward silence. He ducks through into the hall but lingers, and Gwen sidesteps him to dump her crap on the floor near the closest seat on the second last row.

“Recording’s kicked off, so we might as well. This is lecture four of System Design Engineering.” The lecturer’s voice crackles over the speakers. Looks like he’s just gotten started, so that gives her a couple minutes to get setup. “Today we’ll be going over NFR’s, or non-functional requirements. What they are, how they’re defined. These can apply to any kind of computing systems, system architectures, front end or backend APIs, you name it. Any kind of – sorry, was that a hand?”

“Morning Tony.” Someone greets from close to the front row. Gwen, who’s waiting for her Macbook to complete its primeval, laborious booting up procedure, feels her shoulders sag even further down. God, not this shit again.

“Did your coffee machine explode again?”

“Implode, and no.” The lecturer – Tony – cracks a brief smile. The band t-shirt he’s got on is mostly just wrinkles, his hair flattened straight down the sides like it hasn’t been washed in a couple days. Really gives Gwen such an inspiring picture to look up to for her own prospective career in academia. “And just for that not-so-subtle commentary on my opening salvo today, I’m gonna teach this entire lecture using a metaphor.”

“Was it Justin Hammer?” Someone else calls from the front. “Did he hog the servers to train machine learning models on LinkedIn posts?”

“Fuck no.” Tony says, and winces immediately in the bout of snickers that erupt. “And now you’ve got me swearing on the recording. Gonna put all of you heathens on a bus to the downtown community college, don’t think I won’t do it.”

The students hush in anticipation. Tony blinks, knuckles at his nose under the wireframe glasses, and looks to the ceiling as if in despair. “I mean. I… pre-emptively apologise, and intend no insult to any students, or family of students listening to this, who may have attended community college. Community college is an institution. Just like… jail.”

“You sure your coffee machine didn’t explode?”

“Shut up Miles.” Tony gestures half-heartedly at the screen behind him, where the slide has finally changed.

Gwen’s brought up her note-taking tool by habit on her up-and-running Mac, but she doesn’t have high hopes. It’s not like the guy doesn’t know his stuff, he’s just easily derailed into tangents and rambles and spicy opinions on SpaceX, and Gwen likes to be systematic about learning new things. Start at the beginning, finish at the end, with preferably zero stand-up material along the way. If she’d wanted jokes, she’d put on a late-night show.

And then to add insult to injury, someone creeps up the side and sinks down on the seat right in front of her, blocking her eyeline to the lower third of the screen. The bluish light dances silver over the light-coloured mop of hair… it’s the twiggy dude, from the doorway. Did he just find a seat?

“Think about a relationship.” Tony’s saying, up at the lectern. “Parent and child, cousins twice removed, romantic partners. Whoever. There are the expectations, the responsibilities… the requirements, you could say, which are obviously defined and the bare minimum for the relationship to exist. If you’re a parent, you gotta house and feed your kid. If you don’t do that, you fail at the basic requirements of being a parent. So if you turn up with your deadbeat ass at your kid’s wedding, they’re justified to go all, ‘you’re not my dad’.”

A guy in the third row raises a pen into the air. “Can I explain it like that in the exam?”

“I’m not going to be the only one marking, Ganke, so I’d actively encourage it.” Kinda nice, how he remembered so many names though. Gwen has been in this course for six months and only knows faces. “However, there are certain requirements which may not be essential for the relationship to be defined and functional but are still important. Like if your parent loves you.” A twitch. “Loves the kid, that is.”

In the seat ahead of her, Twig’s shoulders have risen up to his ears, frame gone all stiff. Gwen bites back a sigh and moves over to the next seat, just to eliminate the distraction.

She thinks about Dad in the next breath, awkwardly jabbing at his cereal and darting glances at her over the table, and immediately shoves it down.

“You might be tempted to think of it as how good a system is at fulfilling a base requirement – like how good of a parent they are, depending on if they do or don’t love you. And that’s not incorrect; whether a website is able to serve a high volume of traffic, or have an uptime of ninety nine percent, is absolutely about how good it is at serving its base requirement, which is to present an accessible resource over the internet. But if the thresholds of those non-functional requirements aren’t met, if the website keeps throwing a 404 more frequently than is acceptable, then it impedes said basic requirement. Even though uptime isn’t in the strict definition of the deliverable. You feel me?”

Silence. Someone from the far end meekly chirps a yes.

“Ohhkay.” Tony paces out from behind the lectern, keen eyes scanning the room like he’s actually, really invested. That’s… that’s a nice thing about him too. “Imagine I’m in a relationship, right? My partner and I, we define what a romantic relationship means to us and what we expect of each other going in. Like… monogamy, maybe. Or meeting at least once a week. So as long as I don’t go cruising, or ghost this guy for a month, I’m technically fulfilling my promises as a boyfriend. Those are your functional requirements.”

There’s a tiny murmur in the room at ‘guy’, but it dies out quick. Not exactly a surprise from the man who wears bi flag-coloured sunglasses to Orientation week.

“But to the enlightened, relationships are about more than that.” Tony’s lips curl at one end, like the words amuse him. Or that he’s speaking them? “Dependability. Emotional support. Prioritising the other person’s needs. All that chicken soup for the soul stuff; your non-functional requirements.”

“So I gotta think about it, the third time I reschedule date night. Get lost in a work thing and forget to respond to a text. Several texts. Forget to buy the milk, even though he told me to and put a reminder on my phone. Make life decisions on my own. These things take… a toll.” Tony isn’t making eye contact with the crowd anymore. His eyes skitter up to the ceiling and away again, restless even as his voice continues on methodically. “Maybe my partner can put up with it. Does put up with it. But just because I’m serving the base functionality of a romantic partner, doesn’t mean I can ignore these things. These are also essential to the health of the relationship.”

“But you gotta design for that. I can’t sit there like a dimwit going, ‘oh I’ll just do better next time’ and expect it to magically happen. That I’ll just… be better, with no effort on my part aside from intending to.” Gwen drops her eyes to the plastic tabletop, scratches and pen marks running over the surface. This is weirdly intense. “I have to have the right system in place. Maybe I vow to reply to a text every time I’m downing a cup of coffee. Set up regular delivery orders for milk online. Make it to the date, even if it is an hour too late and not in the place I wanted, just so we’re there together. Plan in advance so that things can get better, instead of crossing fingers and blowing on an eyelash. Do the work.”

She lifts her gaze by an inch, still vaguely discomfited, and catches Twig’s jaw clenching in profile, limned by the light of the screen. He shifts in his seat, raises a fist to wipe brusquely at something under his eye. It’s all very quiet. Tightly controlled.

“And that’s how systems need to function. Sure your primary focus is to get the thing up and running, but you need to think about performance, and security, and reliability when you’re architecting a solution. Two weeks before go live is not the time to realise that you’re pulling from an old-timey relational database when you actually needed caching. That the base components of your system just… don’t work together the way you want.” Tony pauses, blinks a couple times. Like his words have outstripped his thoughts and it’s all starting to come together. Form an obvious conclusion. His mouth turns down, goes wry again. “It gets real expensive to fix things then.”

And so it continues. The hour goes by faster than usual, Gwen startling a little by the time Tony wraps up the lecture, a whole five minutes before time like he always prefers to do.

Or… plans to do, perhaps. Mid-morning lectures, people usually have to empty out of these halls fast to get to the next one, but there’s a disordered cluster of students still lingering around the lectern, shooting the shit and exchanging laughs with Tony. He looks visibly better at the end of the hour, more energetic than he did at the start of the lecture. Like it actually rejuvenated him – which isn’t the worst ideal to look up to as a prospective academic.

Whatever, Gwen isn’t getting ahead of herself. She’s got band to get to.

 Of course, when she stuffs her laptop into the tote bag and does a brief check to make sure everything’s in there, she can’t see her fob. Can’t get into the rehearsal room without it, so she gropes for it fruitlessly for a couple of minutes, before resorting to dumping the bag out on her seat. Chocolate wrappers flutter to the ground, a pen cap without a pen rolling down to join them. Handouts from her other classes, worksheets, one physical notebook, a set of drumsticks… no fob.

Ugh. She ducks under her seat to check, nose twitching as the longer end of her bangs ruffle past. There, small and plasticky-blue against the maroon carpet. Fishing it out through the tiny gap is an ordeal, and by the time she has it secure in her pocket, the hall’s empty.

Or not quite. She’s shovelling her stuff one-handed while pacing up the stairs to the exit, when, “–mean to show up at your place of work.”

“You’re my boyfriend Steven, not a stalker. It’s fine.”

Hang on. What?

Tony and some guy – Twig, she can tell by the bony shoulders – Steven, are standing in front of the door. Tony and his boyfriend. Who was in their class. Who was probably not in their class, just physically present in this… particular class.

Tony seems to be frenetically running through similar thoughts, because his mouth just doesn’t stop moving, hands gesturing through the air like a conductor gone loose. “Well, not fine fine. I guess, considering what I – considering all of the… I didn’t know you were in the audience, obviously. I’ll just do as Taylor does and write a song about it the next time.”

Fuck. Can she just… push past them, really quickly? Or right in the middle of them. She’s been to parties where she doesn’t know anybody before, this can’t be any more awkward than that. Probably.

Steven’s already thin lips press tight together. He’s standing very, very straight, not a thing to criticise in that posture. Captain Stacy would be proud.

“Are we,” He starts, deep voice as startling out of that reed-thin frame as it was the first time, stumbling over the words just a little, “breaking up then?”

“What?” Tony breathes, and it’s like it’s stoppered his flow of thought completely.

Steven’s lips flicker up weakly. “You said Taylor.”

“No, no,” Tony’s hands flutter again – he pulls them back and tucks them close over his chest, just a little protective. “Stupid joke, you know me.” And then, just a little wry. “Of all the times to know a modern music reference.”

It’s like he’s laying out bait, an easy diversion. Steven could say something about preferring The Beatles and they needn’t tug on this line of thought, make things unravel.

Maybe it’s why Gwen hasn’t cleared her throat or done anything to clue them off to her presence yet. Something in her is so discomfited, twisted up with the second-hand awkwardness – she can’t let them go on but it would be worse if they saw her – but there’s also a second voice in her head, the one that’s good at moderating and peeling people open from a distance.

if you stop them talking now, when will they try again?

Steven doesn’t take the bait. Something in him strains like he wants to take a step forward, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he says quietly – “I do know you.”

“I know how much you think about us. How much it matters to you to get things right, and I guess I just…” Steven’s mouth purses, soft and unhappy, “take it for granted, all of that work, because it just happens to be who you are. Who you’ve chosen to be.”

“Steve, don’t – we’re both workaholics–”

“We are.” Steve acquiesces, but the words that follow sound implacable. “But you plan around it. Every single thing you said in the lecture, you… you booked those regular grocery deliveries for us, and I cribbed at you about it because they deliver in those plastic bags and the emissions from the delivery trucks–”

“It was a valid fucking point–”

“It was a stupid point, and you were right to tell me that.” Steve says it without hesitation. “I cancelled on our weekend away, again, and you were right to call me out on that this morning too. You just don’t…” A little softer. “Sometimes you don’t say anything.”

A beat.

Tony unfolds his arms, eyes fixed somewhere off-centre around Steve’s collarbone. His voice has dropped to match Steve’s, simmering with something indecipherable. “I was really… happy when you agreed to be with me. Stunned out of my head, sure. But happy. I wanted to get it right. It would have never occurred to me to… with our history, with my history, it just didn’t compute sometimes that…”

Steve cuts in, mouth twisting with it. “That I’d be the screw-up in the relationship?”

“Careful sweetheart.” Tony lifts his eyes, and they’re still warm. “Name-calling is my department.”

But he seems to be taking Steve’s previous words to heart.

“I know…” He swallows. Drops his hands completely, lifts his chin and talks. “I know how much that place means to you, I know how much you’d have killed to have a queer shelter in the neighbourhood, heck in the city, growing up like you did. I want someone who cares about what they do, I’d have been bored to shit with a person coasting by on a job that meant nothing to them. You wanna do paperwork till one am, I’ll be right there on the couch with you marking papers. That is fine, the donations from your own pocket are – don’t cut me off Steve – are fine, even if it is a little like Mrs. March teaching the kids to give away their Christmas meal to the less fortunate. That’s the guy I chose to be with.”

“You need to save the world. You can’t help yourself.” Tony bit into his lip, smile here and gone in a flash. “And I’m just a guy who teaches a couple university classes, while trying to get a startup off the ground for the last five years. But this morning when you…” He sucks in a breath, exhales it soundlessly. “When you looked like you couldn’t imagine how I’d think we wouldn’t cancel… how you disdained the idea of. Of spending time with me, instead of saving the world. Then it felt pretty shitty.”

For a moment, Steve doesn’t say anything at all. His face is pale, cheeks lost of any colour. His eyes have gone red. “I. I’m sorry.”

Tony clears his throat, voice forcibly bright. “Not gonna say you’d never think like that?”

“… doesn’t matter.” Steve says simply. “It’s how I made you feel.”

“There are those unrealistic moral principles I know and love.” Tony’s smiling, only a little watery around the edges. He moves into Steve’s motionless frame, hands reaching out again, this time to catch him by the elbows and smooth down to hang onto his wrists. “We’ll work on it.”

Steve is staring down at their hands, both like they’re condemned and something miraculous. “In the lecture. When you said that the components of the system didn’t work together the way you’d want…”

He looks up. Tony meets his eyes, gives a little shrug. “A better guy would know how important what you’re doing is. Would maybe resent its importance a little less.”

“Tony, I’m not a better person than you are.” Steve’s voice is thick, almost choking with the entreaty. His hands turn in Tony’s loose clasp, gripping back tightly. “Tony.”

Tony gives a little burble of a laugh. Bends over low, forehead brushing Steve’s shoulder. “We’ll work on me too.”

They lean into each other for a moment. Tony’s face is almost hidden behind Steve’s golden locks. “I don’t really care, if you’re better or worse than me. I’m keeping you.”

Steve pulls back. Leans up a fraction to press their lips together, both their eyes fluttering shut.

They pull apart, smiles pulling up on those mouths like mirroring sunrises. Steve leans in for another peck, then quietly pushes the door to step outside. Tony follows him.

 Gwen sits down on the floor, fifteen metres away, laptop thunking into the carpet. She bends her head down to her belly, and breathes.

Fuck, she’s going to feel the anxiety of this in her back for weeks.

Band practice is a loss. The entire morning might be a loss. She needs a cupcake, and some grunge music. But even as vague ideas for the upcoming day begin to coalesce, she can feel a curious lightness shoot through her body. Like she can take it. The aches and pains, the barista shift in the afternoon. Like the world is alright, actually, and she’s not gonna keel over just yet.

This is why she doesn’t watch rom-coms.

She pulls herself up eventually and finally exits the hall. And there, by himself in the corner, completely failing to look like he’s doing anything but waiting for her – is Tony.

The world is a nightmare. She doesn’t stutter. “Did you know I was in there?”

Tony looks like he’d be rubbing the back of his neck abashedly, if he were that kind of guy. Instead, he visibly decides to brazen it out. “Not until the last thirty seconds before we left.”

Small mercies.

“Were you… did you have something to talk to me about? My office hours are 2-3, but–”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Gwen interrupts, entirely out of patience. That’s what’s going through his head right now?

Tony shuts his mouth with a click, eyebrows rising.

“There’s nothing.” Gwen forces. And then, just as involuntary as the swear – “You’re a good teacher.”

Tony blinks. Gwen remembers him bantering about with her classmates, not losing a step.

“Thanks, Gwen.” His nose looks a little red. So do the very tops of his cheeks. He looks unaccountably pleased.

Gwen’s lips tilt up.

“You could do better than him, you know.”

“I wouldn’t want to.” Tony beams at her. Turns around, waves two fingers. “See you next week.”

The rehearsal hall is in the same direction that he’s walking in. Gwen unerringly walks the other way. By the time she loops the quad and makes it there, she’ll have thirty minutes left. Half of band practice is better than none.

She taps a rhythm on her outer thigh, blows a strand of her bangs out of the eyes. Tugs the tote bag higher up. Band, then lunch, and then maybe she can call her dad.

[govindhtech]

How To Reduce 5G Cybersecurity Risks Surface Vulnerabilities

5G Cybersecurity Risks

There are new 5G Cybersecurity Risks technology. Because each 5G device has the potential to be a gateway for unauthorized access if it is not adequately protected, the vast network of connected devices provides additional entry points for hackers and increases the attack surface of an enterprise. Network slicing, which divides a single physical 5G network into many virtual networks, is also a security risk since security lapses in one slice might result in breaches in other slices.

Employing safe 5G Cybersecurity Risks enabled devices with robust security features like multi-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, frequent security audits, firewall protection, and biometric access restrictions may help organizations reduce these threats. Regular security audits may also assist in spotting any network vulnerabilities and taking proactive measures to fix them.

Lastly, it’s preferable to deal with reputable 5G service providers that put security first.

Take On New Cybersecurity Threats

Cybercriminals often aim their biggest intrusions at PCs. Learn the characteristics of trustworthy devices and improve your cybersecurity plan. In the current digital environment, there is reason for worry over the growing complexity and frequency of cyber attacks. Cybercriminals are seriously harming businesses’ reputations and finances by breaking into security systems using sophisticated tools and tactics. Being able to recognize and address these new issues is critical for both users and businesses.

Threats Driven by GenAI

Malicious actors find it simpler to produce material that resembles other individuals or entities more authentically with generative AI. Because of this, it may be used to trick individuals or groups into doing harmful things like handing over login information or even sending money.

Here are two instances of these attacks:

Sophisticated phishing: Emails and other communications may sound much more human since GenAI can combine a large quantity of data, which increases their credibility.

Deepfake: With the use of online speech samples, GenAI is able to produce audio and maybe even video files that are flawless replicas of the original speaker. These kinds of files have been used, among other things, to coerce people into doing harmful things like sending money to online fraudsters.

The mitigation approach should concentrate on making sure that sound cybersecurity practices, such as minimizing the attack surface, detection and response methods, and recovery, are in place, along with thorough staff training and continual education, even if both threats are meant to be challenging to discover. Individuals must be the last line of defense as they are the targeted targets.

Apart from these two, new hazards that GenAI models themselves encounter include prompt injection, manipulation of results, and model theft. Although certain hazards are worth a separate discussion, the general approach is very much the same as safeguarding any other important task. Utilizing Zero Trust principles, lowering the attack surface, protecting data, and upholding an incident recovery strategy have to be the major priorities.Image Credit To Dell

Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)

Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) lets attackers rent ransomware tools and equipment or pay someone to attack via its subscription-based architecture. This marks a departure from typical ransomware assaults. Because of this professional approach, fraudsters now have a reduced entrance barrier and can carry out complex assaults even with less technical expertise. There has been a notable rise in the number and effect of RaaS events in recent times, as shown by many high-profile occurrences.

Businesses are encouraged to strengthen their ransomware attack defenses in order to counter this threat:

Hardware-assisted security and Zero Trust concepts, such as network segmentation and identity management, may help to reduce the attack surface.

Update and patch systems and software on a regular basis.

Continue to follow a thorough incident recovery strategy.

Put in place strong data protection measures

IoT vulnerabilities

Insufficient security makes IoT devices susceptible to data breaches and illicit access. The potential of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks is increased by the large number of networked devices, and poorly managed device identification and authentication may also result in unauthorized control. Renowned cybersecurity researcher Theresa Payton has even conjured up scenarios in which hackers may use Internet of Things (IoT) devices to target smart buildings, perhaps “creating hazmat scenarios, locking people in buildings and holding people for ransom.”

Frequent software upgrades are lacking in many IoT devices, which exposes them. Furthermore, the deployment of more comprehensive security measures may be hindered by their low computational capacity.

Several defensive measures, such assuring safe setup and frequent updates and implementing IoT-specific security protocols, may be put into place to mitigate these problems. These protocols include enforcing secure boot to guarantee that devices only run trusted software, utilizing network segmentation to separate IoT devices from other areas of the network, implementing end-to-end encryption to protect data transmission, and using device authentication to confirm the identity of connected devices.

Furthermore, Zero Trust principles are essential for Internet of Things devices since they will continuously authenticate each user and device, lowering the possibility of security breaches and unwanted access.

Overarching Techniques for Fighting Cybersecurity Risks

Regardless of the threat type, businesses may strengthen their security posture by taking proactive measures, even while there are unique tactics designed to counter certain threats.

Since they provide people the skills and information they need to tackle cybersecurity risks, training and education are essential. Frequent cybersecurity awareness training sessions are crucial for fostering these abilities. Different delivery modalities, such as interactive simulations, online courses, and workshops, each have their own advantages. It’s critical to maintain training sessions interesting and current while also customizing the material to fit the various positions within the company to guarantee its efficacy.

Read more on govindhtech.com