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pinkpastelcalesti · 6 months

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LANDSCAPING LOVE || Bakugou Katsuki x Reader || Chapter I.

SUMMARY -> Tired of bouncing back and forth between the U.S. and Japan after graduating college, you’ve finally secured the career of your dreams: You’re Japan’s first heroics cartographer, a title bestowed upon you due to your quirk and specialty, that creates geographic maps for hero agencies across the country. While your work is highly respected and sought after, you’re known for a more niche reason among your coworkers at the Dynamight Agency: the food you make is fucking amazing. When Dynamight himself inevitably gets word that you’re coming for his cooking title on his own turf, chaos ensues and you find yourself competing against your boss for not only best chef, but also to win over his heart.

CONTENT/WARNINGS -> Pro hero AU, agency reader, reader with a quirk, fem/AFAB reader, reader is originally from America, reader is bilingual (English and Japanese), strangers (more like coworkers that don’t get a chance to speak much) to friends to lovers, fluff & chaos, minimal angst, suggestive humor.

LENGTH -> 7.9K

MASTERLIST

Running late for your first agency project presentation was not on your bingo card this year.

Because of nerves and the constant fear that you were going to tumble over your words during your presentation, you pulled a semi-all nighter and stayed up until 3 a.m. rehearsing your slides and your speech for the Dynamight Agency’s meeting on your current geographic project.

You’ve been working for the company for 7 months now, and this project is the first large-scale assignment you’d been given since you started. You’ve worked on smaller, personal projects for Dynamight and other pro heroes, but this project was your pride and joy, seeing as it was requested by Dynamight himself.

Your quirk, landscape, allows for you to create an entire mental map, in very graphic detail, of the area around you within five miles. This includes the visualization and relative scale of buildings, sidewalks, roads, and alleyways. Your quirk works when you place your bare hands on the ground, which sort of sucks because the city’s grounds weren’t exactly the cleanest. In order for you to utilize your quirk correctly, you grew up practicing cartography of all sorts. One could say your quirk opened up doors to many different career paths, such as engineering or urban planning, but you had decided early on that the best way you would be able to help people is by utilizing your maps for heroes.

Heroes use maps for everything, and you were going to profit off of that no matter what. Your quirk could expand past the five mile radius if you kept bouncing around to different areas, drew their maps from your memory, and combined all maps to create one whole map of a specific city or town. During your time in undergrad, you majored in and graduated (Summa cum laude, may you add) with a degree in geography, your main focus of research being urban cartography. Heroics cartography didn’t exist, so you figured the next best thing would be urban areas.

Your undergraduate research consisted of said urban cartography, and because of your academic standing, you were offered a study-abroad program for geographers that was located in Tokyo, which you took without a second’s hesitation. You always dreamed that you’d be helping U.S. heroes, however, during your time in Tokyo, you fell in love with the entirety of Japan and the vast landscapes you got to visit and draw. Your research professor oversaw your projects, which consisted of city maps, data collection, and utilizing GIS software to create digital maps that could be used for multiple different areas, whether that be infrastructure planning, evacuation routes, or heroics, your main focus.

Your current job as a heroics cartographer is a first in Japan. While it’s not that well-known that you’re the first person to ever have such a title, the pro heroes around you seem to understand its importance. Your job at Dynamight’s Agency allows you to create maps for Dynamight and his sidekicks to use for patrol routes, monitoring high crime areas across the city, and visualizing the areas where property damage occurs most. Not only do you work for Dynamight, but your skills have been requested and used by other pros across the city, including but not limited to Deku, Shouto, and Red Riot.

You really got into this career out of sheer luck and fate. While you were drawing up maps for the city during your third year of undergrad, pro hero Red Riot had reached out to you after he accidentally destroyed one of your maps at the post office in Musutafu during a fight with a villain. He’d picked up the broken display and noticed your name in the corner and contacted you through your professor. Initially pissed off because you’d just finished that map literally a week and a half prior to its destruction, you gave him grace and told him you’d be in touch with the post office to create a new one.

He ended up paying you back for the damage, and upon realizing how detailed your maps were, inquired about your skills in cartography. It was quite jarring, sitting in Red Riot’s agency at the ripe age of 20, sweat dripping down your back through your blouse as one of the top heroes in the nation asked if you’d be able to draw up a map of a large electrical facility for him to use for an upcoming mission. He’d apparently been trying to find an up-to-date map of the interior, but had no luck. Within a week, you were being driven in a fancy company car to the facility so you could use your quirk and recreate the building’s interior infrastructure.

After you’d created the map for him, Red Riot, or Eijiro, as you now get to call him, had asked that you look into working for the pros after you graduated. He was under the impression that you were actually a Japanese university student, so you had to break the news that you actually worked in the U.S. Upon realizing, Eijiro explained that he would be more than happy to get you in contact with plenty of heroes that could use your work and give you a job abroad for almost double the pay you’d be receiving if you stayed in America.

Turns out that keeping in contact with a top hero in Japan that destroyed weeks of your work within 3 minutes of a fight was a good idea after all. Eijiro was the one who ultimately hooked you up with a job under the roof of Dynamight’s agency. Once you’d graduated, you decided that you’d work in the U.S. for a little while longer to build up your experience and resume before you decided to go abroad.

You ended up staying in America for two more years after graduation, traveling across the country and working with urban geographers in cities like Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C. During this time, you were given full travel privileges to fly to Japan and help Red Riot and his pro hero allies develop brand new patrol map routes across different cities. You loved this part of your job most, and after finishing up your second year post-grad, decided to make it official and asked Eijiro if the job position was still on the table.

He would go on to give you one of the prettiest smiles you’d ever seen and excitedly tell you that yes, it was always available to you. Being friends with Eijiro meant not only a once-in-a-lifetime career connection, but it also meant realizing your potential early on.

You absolutely adore the work you do for Dynamight and his peers and wouldn’t trade it for the world. However, if you don’t hurry the hell up and get to your building in the next 7 minutes, your dream job might as well go poof. Dynamight absolutely hates when people are late, and you’ve had the pleasure of watching him blow up on company execs for showing up 15 minutes late and “wasting his fuckin’ time.”

Working for a man like Bakugou Katsuki was definitely a wakeup call the first two months you were at his agency. Turns out that while he approved your position that would inevitably change the way cartography was viewed in the modern world of heroes, Bakugou didn’t exactly care to look into what you specialized in, or so you thought. You really hadn’t had a chance to actually speak with him aside from filling him and his manager in on upcoming projects and maps you were in the process of making. After 7 months of working for the agency, you’d spoken to your boss a whopping four times, all lasting under three minutes.

This presentation you were about to give is the first one where Dynamight would be present, and fuck if you weren’t about to shit your pants from not only nerves, but fear that you might not get in the door on time for its start.

Racing past the front desk and haphazardly greeting the security guards before flashing your badge to be let through the agency gates blocking visitors from reaching the elevators, you managed to press the button for the remaining elevator on the ground floor that was being sent up.

You probably looked like an absolute atrocity in front of your fellow coworkers, with windswept hair and panting in the virtually silent elevator, save for the whirring of the machine as it took you up to the fourteenth floor of the building.

As soon as the doors of the elevator opened, you booked it down the hall to the meeting room, with 43 seconds to spare before the clock hit 9 a.m. sharp. “So sorry I’m running late! I was supposed to be here setting up earlier but some big stupid bitch tried hijacking the bus I was going to take-” you began in a rush, placing your bag and coat on your chair in the large room with a round table full of your team members and other coworkers from the analytics department.

Your team member Carl, one of only three others in the cartography department at the agency, hit your foot from under the table while calling out your name. “You’re speaking in English, we have no clue what you’re saying,” he whispered, with you quickly muttering out an apology. “Shit— sorry about that— slips my mind to switch back and forth sometimes. Apologies for not being here sooner,” you bowed to the ten workers in the room, suddenly realizing Dynamight himself nor his manager had shown up yet. Thank god, you let out a small breath of relief.

“Is Dynamight going to be in soon or should I begin without him?” You asked as your other team member Kanako grabbed your computer out of your bag and plugged it into the projector while you began pulling out your speaker notes.

“Said he’d be in soon, had to catch up with Red Riot about an ongoing police chase outside the city,” your last team member Naomi spoke out loud. Naomi was your resident work bff, and was also the one that regularly reached out to Dynamight for you to inquire about starting new projects or letting him know of recent updates. She honestly didn’t even like having to email her own boss that much, but she was more than happy to run into his manager and talk about the highs and lows of cartography if it meant staring at the poor man like he was on the lunch menu.

“Well that at least gives us some time to set it up. Sorry you all had to wait on me to get here to pull up the slides.” You felt guilty that your team had to sit in awkward silence with a department that rarely ever interacted with your own for probably a solid 20 minutes, but at least you got to the room before Dynamight so you didn’t risk a verbal ass beating in front of everyone.

As soon as you’d finished laying out the hand-drawn maps of your project out on the round table, Dynamight himself opened the large oak door and walked into the meeting room, glancing at you for a split second before sitting in the chair that was opposite of you, towards the back of the room and for him to be able to see everyone clearly. His manager trailed in behind him, scolding him for not slowing down and hearing his run down of how the meeting would go. Dynamight only waved his hand in the air at his manager before casting his sharp gaze back to you.

You felt a twinge of anxiety race up your body. You really hadn’t been expecting him to come to this meeting until Naomi filled you in two weeks ago that he wanted to attend. Guess it meant he actually did pay attention to what he hired you and your team for. Regardless, you bowed to him and began speaking, not waiting for him to tell you to start, as he wasn’t one that gave directions to grown adults.

“Thank you for joining us today, Dynamight. The project that my team and I have been working on recently is one you formally requested for us to start three months ago,” you clicked the presentation remote that flipped to the next screen on your slideshow. “As you requested, the cartography department created digital and physical choropleth maps of the districts within Musutafu and their relative crime rates within the past year.” You pointed towards the round desk. “The top map is the same as the map you see on our slideshow,” you spoke in a quick, easy-to-understand manner and glanced at everyone’s faces to gauge their reactions throughout your presentation speech.

The maps that Dynamight had asked for were so that he would be able to see if his patrol routes needed to be changed in order to monitor areas of Musutafu that were still unresponsive to patrols by heroes in terms of crime decreasing. If there was one thing your boss prided himself on, it was his patrol routes and his ability to cut crime and villain attack rates in his designated areas in half. However, recently there was an uptick in petty crime rates, and in order for him to not get shit on by the public for a “lack of appropriate response,” he put in a formal request for your department to create maps relating to recent data changes in crime rates across the city.

You and your team were more than happy to fulfill this request, as it meant working with real, recent data and meant you got to visit neighboring hero agencies and compare their patrol route crime rates with Dynamight’s. Any excuse to get out of your department’s office on the fifth floor was a godsend because your back really couldn’t handle anymore work days where you were hunched over the large workbench mapping out the city for hours at a time.

As you continued on with your presentation, you periodically glanced towards Dynamight to check his facial expressions for any annoyance or confusion at your maps. Seeing none, you internally LETS FUCKING GOOOO’d because you knew it meant at the very least that if he was understanding the maps, everyone else most likely could too.

Once you reached the last slide, you made a small noise of dissatisfaction. “When we took a look at certain districts, we did notice that the victims of the crimes committed were young women who regularly walked home by themselves later at night. They seemed to be around their early 20s to their late 30s.” Naomi nodded at you, a silent way of saying to continue on.

“I’m sure that you don’t like when many do this, and forgive me if I’m stepping out of bounds,” you began, feeling your hands sweat. “But please do take this information seriously. I know you’re a hardworking hero, so I trust your skills. But I sincerely hope the next time I check the data that the rates will have fallen. People deserve to walk home without fearing for their lives.”

Dynamight’s eyes seemed to bore into your skin, wanting to bark a clipped response back, but he managed to nod silently. You didn’t want to outright mention you yourself were scared of the trend in crime since you fit the statistic, often walking home by yourself late after all-day shifts, but it seems like he’d caught on by the look on your face.

You wrapped up the presentation and answered a couple different questions that the analytics department had about the data collection and resources you used. After your coworkers began packing their bags to leave, you noticed that Dynamight had gotten up out of his chair and walked over to you, who currently stood beside your bag, closing all the tabs you had open that were starting to overheat your little computer.

Glancing up, you nearly choked on your spit at the proximity between the two of you. He was in his winter hero suit, with the black turtleneck beneath his chest piece being pulled tight against his arms, making his muscles pop out unnecessarily in your face, but you definitely were not complaining. Bim..g… muscles… you thought, trying not to stare too long.

“Y-Yes, Dynamight sir?” You managed to sputter out, all too aware of your team members looking at the two of you now. Dynamight managed to grunt in acknowledgement before speaking. “Wanted to ask if you could make one of your fuckin’ maps for Deku. The shithead keeps begging me to ask, he wants one to hang up in his office of his patrol routes.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. Of course you would make him one, but you didn’t expect for Dynamight to ask you directly. Typically he forced his manager Atsuno to write out emails of requests he had. You managed to nod eagerly to him. “Yeah, no problem. I can email him later and ask about details. Thanks for letting me know.”

Dynamight only grunted once more before turning on his heel and leaving the room, leaving Atsuno to give chase to his boss as he bowed quickly at you and gave his appreciation for your presentation before leaving the room himself.

The only ones left in the room now were your teammates, and all it took was one glance between the four of you before you all let out a holler in excitement. “We did it! You did incredible up there girl,” Naomi slung her arm around you as you pulled her in for a hug. “I was shitting bricks the whole time, I don’t think I realized how intense Dynamight’s stare can be.”

Kanako and Carl high fived you as you all made your way to the elevator to take back down to your department. “Our first big project presentation and we didn’t get screamed at for a minuscule error? I think we deserve to celebrate tonight,” Carl wiggled his eyebrows towards you and Kanako, with Naomi agreeing excitedly.

“Bar or at someone’s place? Should we drink? Oh we’re totally drinking.” You couldn’t help but smile at your coworkers beside you. You were so grateful to have them beside you while you’d adjusted to the agency life the past couple months. All three of them had come from a specialized area in the analytics department that related to gathering information data on the public, which included things like crime rates and damage assessments.

When your job had been approved, Atsuno told you that you’d be working in a new department in your own section within the agency with some people taken from the analytics department, taking you off guard. You’d surely thought you’d be thrown into analytics too, seeing how geography and cartography could squeeze into it somehow.

Meeting your team for the first time, you were more than grateful to have them work with you as you’d expected to be alone in your department for a while. You helped walk them through the basics of cartography and digital mapmaking using current software, quickly realizing the talent each one had for different areas. While you were technically the head of your department, you felt like everyone pulled their weight equally and deserved to be held on the same level.

“We can go out or I can make us something,” you spoke out loud as the elevator dinged open. “I know you guys have been bugging me about cooking since I bring my own lunches everyday.” Naomi cheered beside you, agreeing as Carl and Kanako hummed in thought. “I’ll pitch in for ingredients if Carl and Naomi buy the alcohol,” Kanako said, casting a glance to her coworkers that were chanting, American food! American food! Over and over again to one another.

All in agreement, you quickly got off on the fifth floor and entered your department room. Located towards the right hand corner in the back of the large office floor, the department itself wasn’t noticeable to the general eye unless you went looking. You each had respective offices lining a small back hallway, with the room at the very end of it being your workshop that expanded into a large open-area space containing desktops, workbenches, and cartography supplies strewn around the place. Atsuno had been kind enough to order a custom nameplate to go above the awning of you and your team’s hall, with Heroics Cartography Department written out in beautiful gold lettering, contrasting nicely against the cool grey paint of the wall.

“Let’s lock in on the rest of the requests and orders today so we can leave at a decent time,” you said, closing the door to the workshop as everyone spoke in agreement. Carl called out your name as you were booting up the desktops to pull up emails from your clients. “We doing hard liquor shit tonight or going with something like wine? Need to pair it well with whatever you’re making.”

You hummed in thought. “We could definitely do cocktails. I was thinking about making gumbo since it’s still cold outside.” You grabbed your phone that was situated in your bag and opened up the Notes app to create your grocery store list. Luckily Japan kept up with their spices and typically had an American section in larger stores where you could grab some of the spice mixes needed for your food.

“Make it spicy as fuck girl, I wanna feel tears pouring out of my eyes to your incredible cooking,” Naomi said, sending you a dreamy look. “If I make it too spicy, Carl’s gonna shit his pants. We all know this man can’t handle spice to save his life.”

“Hey! Will not,” Carl scoffed in surprise. “I just got dunked on by my ancestors because they thought it was funny to give me no spice tolerance in a country that literally eats spicy food in almost every meal.” Kanako managed a laugh at that, sending Carl a sympathetic glance before speaking to you. “If it’s not too much trouble, you could always split it into one pot being spicy and one pot being milder.”

“Fair point, but y’all better eat every morsel of my food. Southern cooking isn’t for the weak,” you mentioned as you scrolled through your finished grocery list, checking for any missing items. Naomi sent you a questioning look before asking you, “you’re from the south U.S. right? Isn’t that like hella country?” You sighed as you nodded. “Yeah, but I lived in the city, not necessarily rural. Didn’t stop me from cooking all types of recipes though.”

“Well wherever you were, you managed to become a pretty kick ass chef on your own. Your lunch always looks god tier.” Kanako said as Carl and Naomi nodded in agreement. You felt your face heat up in embarrassment at the compliment. “Living on your own in college will make you think of some wild new recipes in the name of using up all your groceries to not waste food.”

“That’s for sure, I lived off 20 different cup ramen recipes I created myself with random items from the dining halls I could snag before I got caught.” Carl muttered out loud while he pulled different sized calipers from his desk drawer to begin sketching up a project for Chargebolt.

“Food is food, for real,” you nodded in solidarity. There’s been one too many times where you felt too lazy to make full meals during school, which meant being stuck with random microwave food you kept for low energy days in your apartment kitchen. “Can’t wait to get shitfaced and discuss the existential dread of fucking up on expensive mapping paper,” you mused. Being an absolute geek over geography and cartography, you’ve caught yourself in too many drunken rambles about work-related topics when out with college friends after finals and papers were finished up for the semester.

“Let’s do our best so we can enjoy our Friday into the weekend!” Naomi pumped her fist in the air as she spoke, all of you cheering in agreement.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

Later that night, after you all managed to finish up your progress for the day and headed out to grab your respective supplies for your celebration, you found yourself humming to a random 2010s playlist that Kanako had thrown on randomly while you cooked in the kitchen of your apartment. You lived not too far from the agency, a 25 minute walk or an 8 minute bus ride, in a nice neighborhood adorned with townhomes along the street, away from the major roads but still comfortably accessible. The salary you had now had blessed you with the opportunity to live in a nicer place, but you still opted for a more homey feel rather than all the modern bullshit that people were raving for. You really hated the idea of solid white walls and no color in your living space.

Your apartment was on the smaller side but it was just you who lived there. Naomi actually lived in the townhome across the street on the second floor. You both had found out early in your job at the agency, walking home at the same time and going from that awkward “going the same way, sorry” to “oh word you live here?” It meant that you had regular girls nights together and grew close, the friendship between the two of you falling into place naturally. Kanako and Carl were actually roommates in a flat that was a 10 minute train ride away. It truly was fate that all of you managed to not only work well, but vibe with each other outside the office too.

As you finished plating your dishes in bowls, you could hear the conversation flowing between your team in your living room. A couple drinks had already been thrown back and you were more than aware that drinking before you had food in your system was probably a bad idea, but you were about to eat anyways so fuck it. You were already two Moscow mules deep by the time you’d finished up the gumbo.

“Food’s ready!” You called out from the kitchen, the open floor plan making it easy for you to get the attention of everyone else sitting on the couch watching Love is Blind. That show was a debatable one, but you enjoyed watching Carl’s bewildered expressions at the absolutely heinous jokes Kanako would throw out about the men and women of the show and some of their horrible personalities.

“Girl get in here and tell me whether or not you think Gigi needs to up and leave ugly ass Damian,” Naomi said, helping you grab two of the four plates you were bringing out to the coffee table. “I can tell you right now that she does, she’s way too good for someone that looks like a chad version of Ed Sheeran.”

Kanako busted out laughing at your remark, agreeing at the resemblance. As you ate, everyone poured endless compliments into your food, making your chest swell with pride in your hobby. You absolutely loved to cook, and it helped you get through the more rough parts of life when you were struggling to keep up with the demands of school and research. Cooking was your safe space and you made sure you perfected staple recipes from home so you could share them with others, like you were doing now.

Kanako threw back another shot as she chased it with a can of Dr. Pepper before speaking your name. “You do know that your cooking could rival Dynamight’s, right?” You paused mid chew, throwing up an eyebrow at her to continue. You didn’t strike your boss as a cooking connoisseur, but you yourself didn’t look like one either, so you kept an open mind.

“He brings food to the potlucks we have during holidays sometimes. When I tell you that man can damn well cook, believe me,” she slurred slightly, the alcohol already hitting her. Naomi nodded in agreement. “Trust us when we say his cooking is top tier. He’d never admit it, but he likes cooking for others if it means feeding into his ego.” Naomi said, letting out a huff of laughter.

“I tried his signature mapo tofu once and it was so good but I literally had to call in sick the next day because I could not handle the spice he puts in his recipes,” Carl’s forehead thudded against the wood of the coffee table as he grimaced at the memory. “If he ever found out I nearly passed out on the toilet from what he called ‘baby shit spicy’, I think he’d fire me.” You barked out a laugh at that, imagining Dynamight drilling it into your teammate about not appreciating his food and getting sick from it.

Your team had been working with the Dynamight Agency for almost 2 years before you’d joined. It was always jarring to hear the stories of Dynamight from them. Your initial reactions to him early on were anything but pleasant, and still sometimes lean on the side of moderate annoyance. He sounded like a total dick at the beginning, but had apparently mellowed out after high school. You heard he’d bullied the hell out of the current number 1 hero during his time in middle school and a little bit of high school, which had made you livid.

You grabbed the handle of Tito’s sitting in front of you all and poured it into your glass before cracking open a new can of ginger beer and pouring it into the glass as well. You could feel the warmth of the alcohol spreading through you, loosening up your tongue the more you drank.

Retrospectively, you really shouldn’t have said the next thing that you did if it meant saving your ass in the workplace that following Monday.

“I could definitely kick Bakugou’s ass if we had a cook off, I mean I’m basically a god tier hobby chef at this point,” you muttered, missing the expressions of your coworkers, specifically the smirk Naomi had on her face. “You think so?” Carl nudged your leg with his own, casting you a tipsy glance. “Fuck yeah I could, I don’t think you realize how hard some southern cooking can be. If I can keep making the recipes without screwing them up, I’m pretty much a god in the kitchen.”

Naomi snickered as Kanako sighed out. “Don’t let Dynamight hear you say that. He gets competitive fast, especially when it comes to food. He was known in high school as the chef of his dorm, didn’t trust others to cook as well as he could.” You definitely could see that, as he struck you as the type to call his friends’ cooking skills trash compared to his own. You hadn’t had the chance to try anything by him yet but could assume it was pretty good if your coworkers spoke of it so highly.

“He can bring it on, I’m not scared of his ass, I bet he couldn’t cook a Cajun recipe if he tried,” Your mouth was moving before you had a chance to realize the words you were saying. “Yeah yeah, big talk for a girl that stuttered after taking one look at her boss’ biceps.” You nearly choked on your drink as Naomi absolutely obliterated you with one sentence. Damn, I really thought I was slick with the look. You sighed as Kanako simply whistled in your direction.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling for him already? His good looks are hard to miss,” she said as she handed you a napkin to wipe your mouth with. Muttering out a thanks, you tried to save yourself some embarrassment. “Oh please, if I wanted to torture myself by falling for a narcissist, I’d go for Shindou instead.” You shuddered at the thought of working for someone like him, suddenly grateful at the fact that you were working for Dynamight instead.

“Don’t deny yourself. I bet you probably had a Dynamight wall in your dorm room at some point.” Carl was an absolute menace when he got tipsy, clearly not skipping out on poking fun at you. You groaned at his comment, shaking your head. “Nah, it was a Deku wall, actually.” You weren’t lying if you thought about it, you did have a lot of respect for the hero as you’d learned more about him during your study abroad. He came from a humble background, what was there not to like about someone as sweet as the number 1?

“You always struck me as the type of person to go for someone batshit crazy though. I bet you’d probably like it if Dynamight was mean to you.” Kanako sent you a look that made you shiver. “How dare you accuse me of such nonsense,” you tutted, sipping on your drink before muttering a small, “I probably would.” Naomi slapped her hand on the table, yelling out, “I heard that you freak!”

You couldn’t help but laugh as your team members switched the topic to their picks for hottest heroes, with Carl sighing dreamily as he named Red Riot his number one choice, Uravity being a close second. During the chaos of the conversation, you forgot all about your quip towards Dynamight’s cooking.

You really should have remembered, because remembering would mean you could have prepared yourself more for your conversation with him later.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

After the eventful weekend and nursing a massive hangover from the sheer amount of vodka you managed to drink together, your team trudged their way into the workplace again and began the process of uploading and creating new maps on ArcGIS to send over for clients’ approval. You were all lucky you got weekends off when there wasn’t a high demand of requests for maps and geographic data.

You were midway through a rough sketch of Deku’s patrol route, taking a small break to grab a water bottle from the vending machine on the second floor when you heard the first whispers.

“— she definitely wouldn’t,” a man from the finance department whispered to his coworker who was shaking his head enthusiastically. You recognized the guy who was speaking as Leo, a coworker you’d met early on that helped you budget out what was needed in terms of supplies in your current workspace. He often chatted with Naomi, who regularly contacted him to put in new orders of pencils and ink for the maps you all drew by hand. “I think she could. She’s from the west, they tend to take home cooking pretty seriously over there. No doubt she could beat him.” The other coworker beside Leo spoke. Now that caught your attention. It sounded like they were talking about you, but you couldn’t be sure. You didn’t know how many other people were in the agency that were also from the west, they could be talking about anybody, right?

As soon as they saw you, Leo nudged his coworker to shut up before waving at you with an uneasy smile. “What are y’all talking about over here? Something about cooking?” You said, walking over and greeting both of them. Leo nodded, slightly caught off guard. “Yeah, we— uh, we were talking about a cooking show we both watch! One of the chefs is from the west and she’s competing with other chefs to win a national title.” You raised an eyebrow at him, not really buying it but not really caring too much to think that hard about it. “Well remember that westerners can be pretty goated at cooking all kinds of food. She’s probably got a chance,” you shrugged before excusing yourself, waving at them as you walked back to the elevator once you purchased your water bottle.

You continued to flutter in and out of your workspace throughout the day, stopping for lunch and eating in your office with Naomi before returning back to work. However, you weren’t stupid; there were way more eyes on you today than you’d ever experienced, even more than when you first joined. You knew Naomi was sort of a gossip guru in the office, but you’d assumed she was probably flexing your cooking to anyone that crossed her path during the day.

You didn’t mind it, but the attention on you was definitely kind of concerning, especially because people kept whispering about something to do with an upcoming agency event that would include food. You figured you could probably whip up some good appetizers to bring to it, whenever it was.

As you were finishing up your sketches and scaling them correctly with the notes on your computer, Atsuno hurriedly burst through the door of the workshop, looking slightly disheveled. Your coworkers all glanced up at him at the same time before he coughed awkwardly and straightened his posture.

“New request sent in? Surely it’s not that important for you to have to run in here for,” You asked him as you wiped your hands on a towel to get rid of the ink stains along your palms. You definitely couldn’t risk messing up the paper now that you were this far along. He sighed heavily before shaking his head. “No, I uh— I had to come in here and ask that you go meet with Dynamight before you get off work. He wants to check in on the progress with Deku’s patrol route map.” You raised an eyebrow. Couldn’t he just shoot us an email? you wondered before nodding, asking if he was in his office. Atsuno nodded, offering to walk with you there, filling you in on the progress that’s about to be made with the maps your team had created relating back to crime rates along the districts in the city.

You missed the slightly concerned glance Naomi cast your way as you exited the shop.

After taking the elevator up to Dynamight’s office located on the 10th floor, you stepped off the lift and looked around the interior. You rarely ever came to this floor since it was mainly Dynamight’s office, the rest of the floor filled with smaller offices that were for his sidekicks, Atsuno, and his other head managers from different departments.

Turning right out of the elevator, Atsuno walked you to Dynamight’s office, adjacent from his own. Upon knocking, a gruff “come in” came from the other side of the door. Dynamight’s office was fucking nice.

It was as large as your own workshop, if not larger, and contained Dynamight’s desk, shelves full of memorabilia and other items, a couch in the center of the room, and what seemed to be an en-suite bathroom. His office overlooked the rest of the city, large window panes lining the wall his back was turned to. Along the rest of the non-windowed walls were frames of photos that contained Dynamight in his younger years, from when he was in high school to now. He was still in his mid 20s, but the photos along the wall told an interesting story of his life the past few years as he climbed the hero ranks.

Turning towards him, Atsuno cleared his throat before bowing to you and leaving, citing that he had to go sit in on a phone call with a sports clothing brand that was looking to sponsor Dynamight. He sure did clear out of here fast. You figured he was probably just busy, as all Mondays are.

Dynamight was staring into your soul again as you turned back to him and awkwardly shifted your weight onto your other foot. You began the conversation with, “you wanted to check in on Deku’s request, right?”

“Yeah. Nerd’s looking forward to it and won’t shut the hell up every time he calls me. Enjoys your work a fuckin’ ton,” he spoke, his gravelly voice sending a pleasurable hum through your body. If he wasn’t a hero, he could definitely be an ASMR YouTuber, you mused.

You gave him a small smile. “I’m surprised he’s heard of me. My work isn’t exactly groundbreaking,” you began to fiddle with your work jacket’s zipper. It was cold as shit in your office, so you had Leo sneak in an order for your team to have matching work jackets by Carhartt since they were durable and warm. “Yeah, well get used to the recognition. Your job is a first for the country. Constantly gettin’ questions about why I hired you.” You felt a small spark of annoyance work through your system. “Not sure you mean that in a good or bad way.” You huffed, walking towards his desk and sitting across from him in one of the plush seats. He eyed you with mild curiosity before explaining.

“Not a bad thing. People just don’t understand why yer work’s so important.” You nodded in acknowledgement. He wasn’t wrong. Cartographers are uncommon in the modern world now that technology has dominated the industry. You remember the times in college where people would always ask why you got into your field. You had to explain that cartography wasn’t just hand drawing maps; it related back to software and digital images too.

“I get to create anything I want on a map. My quirk’s a weird one, but it helps a lot of different people, so I’m not complaining.” You eyed the pack of pink sparkly sticky notes and glitter pens sitting next to Dynamight’s keyboard. Pinky probably brought him her new stationary set that launched recently, you thought to yourself with amusement.

“Speakin’ of, been wantin’ to ask you a question.” Dynamight caught you eying his stationary and scratched his neck in what you could assume to be embarrassment. “Shoot,” you replied, noting that the sun was finally beginning to set later in the day now that the winter solstice happened a month ago.

“Why didn’t you become like— a fuckin’ underground hero or some shit? Your quirk isn’t that niche. Could use it for raids n’ infiltrating places.” You didn’t know whether or not to take his commentary as a compliment or not, but you figured that if he was questioning your avoidance of the hero career path, it meant he noticed something in you that you didn’t.

“It wasn’t for me. My quirk is exhausting. Five miles sounds like a pretty small radius, but when I’m visualizing the area, everything is visualized. Buildings, roads, you name it. Drawing it from memory takes a lot out of me,” you spoke. “I take a while to draw and digitize my maps. It wouldn’t be easy to keep up with the hustle of hero work, let alone working within a time crunch.”

Dynamight hummed in acknowledgement. You really didn’t expect to be conversing with him about your life choices, but it was a nice break, and it meant you got to learn more about him, even if he was asking about your life.

“You still chose to work with heroes though.” You let out a small laugh. “I guess you’re right,” you began, meeting his stare. He was really pretty now that you were looking closer at him. “I figured if I couldn’t handle the stress of real hero work, that working behind the scenes is the next best thing. My maps are almost always accurate and to scale; I pride myself on it. Means that heroes can rely on the information for a multitude of things.”

He nodded, seemingly hesitating before speaking again. “Know we ain’t had a chance to talk much since y’started working here. Red begged me to put you in my agency because he figured you’d be easier to reach here and your name would get recognized if it was associated with my office.” You hadn’t really thought of that before, but he was right. Red Riot’s office was packed as it was, and you figured everyone else’s was too. It was a lucky shot that you got placed with Dynamight, since he was still looking for workers to fill in his office due to it being newer than most.

“I really appreciate Eijiro being able to start my career off like this. I never would have imagined moving across the country to start my dream job so soon, if at all,” you said, casting your gaze to the pictures on Dynamight’s shelves behind his desk. “First name basis, huh?” the hero smirked as you let out a small noise of shock. “Y-Yeah, we kept in contact a lot and he would regularly help me gain clients in different cities. Told me that we were friends and to stop addressing him by his hero name every time we talked.”

“That’s Eiji for you.” A pregnant pause followed before your boss let out a groan of frustration. “I’m not— I fuckin’ hate small talk like this. Don’t know how people do it,” Dynamight said finally, pinching the bridge of his nose before speaking again. “Couldn’t figure out how to speak to you without sounding like a dick ‘cause I didn’t do it sooner. Atsuno was grilling me about not even having a functional conversation with you yet, even though I’m the one that hired you.”

You let out a laugh at that. You had been a little mad at him for not even properly greeting you since you began your work for the agency, but you assumed that being the number 2 hero in Japan was busy as shit. “I get it, you’re a top hero. I’m sure you’re busy enough as it is, can’t blame you for not being able to talk to a cartographer of all people,” you shrugged as you spoke, Dynamight leaning back in his office chair and giving you a small nod.

“Yeah. Sorry for steering the conversation elsewhere. How’s Deku’s shitty map comin’ along?” He asked as you began going through the details of your progress.

After you explained the gist of it, he grunted in response before standing up. He’s tall as fuck, you realized as you hurriedly stood up as well, assuming your talk was over with. Dynamight walked you to his office door before stopping once you turned around to thank him again. “Thanks for uh— earlier. When you were complimenting my work. It means a lot, truly.”

“Don’t let it inflate yer shitty ego. Can’t handle another person that gets a big head after someone compliments them,” he spat. You could tell he wasn’t used to being given a sincere thanks very often. “Hey. One more thing.”

You raised an eyebrow at him as his face turned blank for a moment before he sighed and his signature scowl returned. You should have known the conversation you were having earlier was too good to be true.

“You would not be able to win against me in a fuckin’ cook off. My cooking probably beats yours by a shit ton. Watch your mouth next time you run around all bark and no bite.” You nearly fainted on the spot as your body ran as cold as ice. What the fuck. What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? You repeated in your head, eyes going wider than dish plates as Dynamight’s glare sent another chill down your spine.

“Shit.” Is all that came out of your mouth after he all but pushed you by your back out the door and closed it in your face.

It’s official, you think as you trudge your way to the elevator, the beginning of a migraine creeping into your skull. You were going to kill Naomi.

#pro hero katsuki x reader #pro hero bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #ross works

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mariacallous · 2 months

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NextCity recently published a hot take by Steffen Berr tying the ways in which the US is failing at reducing pedestrian deaths to the misaligned training that most transportation engineers in the US receive. Berr explains that a transportation engineer “is a really a civil engineer who has received a little exposure to the transportation sector.” Due to the structure of accredited degree programs, “In a best-case scenario, a civil engineer will only take three transportation classes during their bachelor’s degree. In the worst case, they’ll only take one: Introduction to Highway Engineering. To put this into perspective, the most educated professionals we entrust to design and run our roads and streets have received only half of a minor with a handful of credits on the topic.”

Berr goes on to address the reasonable objection that in many fields, people learn on the job. But what transportation engineers learn on the job, per Berr, is not things like how to choose the most appropriate intersection for the desired use, how the road system should be laid out at a network/route level, or how to fix congestion (none of which, he argues, they learn in school either.) Instead, they learn “how to navigate the impressive amounts of bureaucracy that have been built up in the industry, memorize an impressive vocabulary of technical jargon, practice with design software like AutoCAD to produce engineering plans, and how to copy the current engineering standards. There is no exposure to deep levels of theory that can help our future professionals create original solutions to fundamental problems like safety, congestion, emissions and ethics.”

I’m less interested in Berr’s point about the wrong degree requirements than I am in his observation about what the job of transportation engineer actually is. As Stafford Beer observed, “the purpose of a system is what it does,” and by analogy, the purpose of a job is not its stated goals but what the people who do it actually do day to day.1 When talking to people who’ve never worked in government, the biggest disconnect is usually a lack of understanding of the actual jobs of public servants. A rather dramatic illustration of this comes from a Mercatus Center podcast with Lant Pritchett in which he shares an anecdote about advocating for evidence-based policy in the Indian bureaucracy.

After they had done the RCT [random control trial] showing that this Balsakhi program of putting tutors in the schools really led to substantial gains and learning achievement and reading outcomes, he took it to the secretary of education of the place in which they had done the RCT. And he said, “Oh, by the way, I have the solution to your problem of low learning levels, or at least part of the solution. Look, we’ve got this powerful evidence that this works to improve leading outcomes by putting these volunteer tutors and pulling their low learning kids out.” The response of the secretary of education was, “What do you think my job is? Why do you think that this is a solution to a problem I have? Look around my office. See these piles and piles of files that keep me busy 60 hours a week and not one of these files is about a child not learning. I’m under no pressure about that problem. If I try and transfer a teacher, I’ve got a court case on my hand. If I try and close a school, I got a court case on my hand. My job is to administer the existing education policy such that there’s policy compliance. Super kudos to you for this cute little study you’ve done. It has nothing to do with my job as secretary of education.”

Ouch. And that’s a secretary of an agency serving a county with 1.5 billion people.

I suspect a lot of public servants in the US will read that and think “My job is not quite as bad as that but it sure feels that way a lot.” The people I know maintain enough connection to the actual mission to avoid such a meltdown (though I find the secretary’s frankness refreshing.) But both these stories help explain a conundrum that many who care about effective government (or, shall we say, state capacity) struggle to explain: the contradiction between the dedication, smarts, and creativity of most public servants and the sometimes terrible outcomes they are associated with, like the recent tragic lapses in administering student loans by the US Department of Education. (Or in Berr’s world, the 40,000 traffic deaths we’re stuck with every year while countries like the Netherlands have dropped their own already low number by 46%.2) To be sure, there are often extraordinary outcomes (hello Direct File!), and we notice them far less often, to our own detriment. But while it’s impossible to give government a meaningful overall grade, if its job is to meet challenges we face (national security, climate change, an effective safety net, etc.), we are at risk of falling dangerously short. The problem isn’t that public servants are doing a bad job, it’s that they’re doing a great job — at the wrong jobs.''

The (unnamed in this context) Indian Secretary of Education seems to agree: “My job is to administer the existing education policy such that there’s policy compliance.” I highly doubt that’s the job he thought he was getting, or the job he wanted to do. Berr is on the same general theme when he says that what transportation engineers learn on the job is “how to operate in the industry effectively as it has been currently set up.” Note his use of the word effectively. Effective towards what? Not towards reducing traffic deaths or congestion levels. “All the experience in the world of copying and pasting a standard invented fifty years ago is useless when the problems that the standard was invented to resolve have changed,” he says. “Understanding this sheds a lot of light as to why 40,000 people are still dying on our roads every year and why your local city insists on laying down sharrows [which are known to be ineffective and often dangerous] in their latest round of “safety improvements.” Quite frankly, it’s because we have no idea what we are doing.”

This is a useful nuance as I develop a framework for building state capacity. One of my admittedly obvious and oversimplified tenets is that systems have both “go energy” and “stop energy,” much as a car has a gas pedal and a brake. You wouldn’t drive a car without a brake, but you also wouldn’t drive a car in which the brake was pressed all the time, even when you were trying to accelerate. This is a good metaphor for how we’re dealing with the implementation of CHIPS, IRA, and the Infrastructure Bill, for example, where the clear intent is speed and scale but the public servants responsible are held back from that by the brakes of overly zealous compliance functions. I hear a version of this at every agency I visit: “Congress tells us to do something. Then the compliance offices keep us from doing that very thing.” (And side note for further discussion: This is an issue of representation, voice, and democracy.) The stop energy in our government is currently a lot bigger than it should be. We’re hitting the gas but we’re not accelerating because we’re pressing the brake at the same time.

Lots of people in government have “stop energy” jobs. We need them, and we need them to be good at them. I don’t want to live in a country where our government doesn’t exercise “stop authority.” I try to remember not to complain when my flight is delayed because I really don’t want to die in a plane crash, and a rigidly implemented checklist is a big part of how we keep safe (the current epidemic of doors and engine cowlings blowing off notwithstanding). I also really like being pretty confident that a pill I’m taking has been tested and not tampered with. I like thinking our nuclear arsenal is protected. You know, little things like that.

Stop energy is critical. Rigid adherence to protocol is usually lifesaving. But it must exist in balance. I recently learned the Navy concept of “front of sub/back of sub.” The back of a nuclear submarine, where the nukes live, is run by the book. You don’t deviate from the checklist. You don’t innovate. You don’t question. The front of the sub, on the other hand, is responsible for navigating through dark waters. You have to improvise. You have to make judgment calls. There are manuals and checklists, for sure, but the nature of the work calls for a different approach, and the Navy recognizes that the cultures of front and back have evolved appropriately to meet distinct needs.

There are times, of course, when you’ll need front of sub judgment in a back of sub context. If the plane I was on was about to be bombed by an enemy combatant (unlikely in my life, I hope), I would be okay with the pilot using her discretion to cut a corner or two on the takeoff checklist, because the very thing that checklist is there to protect (the lives of the people on board) would under threat from a different vector. Taking every precaution in that scenario could be reckless. That’s a bit how I feel about the NEPA reviews and other bureaucratic processes that are holding back building the infrastructure we need to move to a low-carbon economy. I wish for the public servants in charge to see the threat of inaction – those species the checklist is trying to protect are threatened by temperature rise as much or more than they are by the project in question – and make good judgment calls about getting the plane off the runway a lot quicker, so to speak. This feels like a domain where back of sub culture has more hold than it should given the circumstances. And to Berr’s point, we can’t rely on back of sub culture when the checklist and protocols it uses no longer serve the purpose.

Of course, “stop energy” roles can themselves be balanced – if only I had a dime for every discussion about the value of lawyers who get to yes and the frustrations with those who seem to do nothing but block. The analogy breaks down a bit here because the items on a pre-flight checklist are binary – they are either red or green – whereas the ad hoc checklists that lawyers assemble to ensure compliance before signing off on an action are almost always shades of gray – they can be open to lots of interpretations. Any given lawyer, or compliance officer, or ethics cop can treat their role with appropriate balance, reserving their stop authority only when the risks truly outweigh the benefits. But getting the culture of a team, department, or agency to balance stop and go correctly at a macro level is extremely difficult. It’s rare to see leadership really change that balance, or for it to stick. It’s a retail approach, hugely dependent on personalities and circumstances.

What would a wholesale approach to getting back into balance look like? One answer should be a simple matter of top-down workforce planning, of the kind our Office of Personnel Management should be empowered to do: fewer stop energy jobs relative to go energy jobs. Hire more doers than brakers, both in how the position is defined and in the characteristics of the people selected for the job. But that proposal needs several important caveats. Of course, every great employee is some mix of these energies – a “go only” employee would be exhausting and dangerous in all but the most extreme circumstances – so we’re talking about a general orientation. More importantly, having fewer brakers will only result in enormous backlogs if they have the same stopping power. But there are plenty of functions where its possible to safely move from default no to default yes, possibly with an after the fact correction mechanism.3 Instead of requiring form redesigns to go through a long White House approval process before they can be made available to the public, for instance, allow agencies to apply the appropriate level of scrutiny and sign-off for the form at hand and develop a process for catching and quickly fixing anything determined to be detrimental. This example speaks to the issue of multiple levels of safeguards. Loosening a safeguard that operates at the top level of federal government may not make much difference to overall stop energy if agencies, or in turn their subcomponents, or even teams, react by strengthening their own safeguard processes. There might be something like a Law of Conservation of Safeguards at play here. But it’s still worth considering the value of moving to default yes processes where appropriate.

Of course, the question of the nature of the job public servants are tasked with is about much more than just stop vs go. It’s about what kind of work we’ve decided to invest in. I go into some depth about this in Chapter 5 of Recoding America as it relates to our lack of investment in digital competencies and how ideologies about private sector superiority led to a big outsourcing push just as digital was beginning to massively transform society.

…these internal competencies in digital became necessary just as we were jettisoning internal competencies of all sorts, not developing them. Instead of digital competency, government has developed extensive processes and procedures for procurement of digital work, and the ins and outs of procurements sometimes seem more complex and technical than the latest programming languages.

This points to another way to understand the disconnect between high employee performance and the outcomes our government produces (or fails to), especially relative to the investment made.4 Take procurement. I know a lot of people in procurement who are really good at their jobs. Some of them are considered really good because they’re great at the “back of sub” tasks of making sure every box is checked, and a manager might feel compelled to give them a high performance rating because of their thoroughness and dedication, even if the people who need the thing being acquired are frustrated by the slowness and rigidity of the process, and even if the thing that is ultimately acquired has checked all the boxes but doesn’t actually work. (For an example of this, see Chapter 4 of Recoding America.) But many of these procurement professionals operate according to “front of sub” principles, and are enormously creative and mission-driven. The other public servants who rely on them to procure things value them enormously. They may or may not receive high ratings, if the manager is judging them based on a “back of sub” approach. But procurement processes simply should not be as complex and burdensome as they have become. Both of these kinds of procurement professionals are doing a job that simply shouldn’t exist in its current form.

Especially with the looming threat of the return of Schedule F under a possible Trump administration, there’s a lot of talk of public sector employee performance and protections. I agree strongly with Donald Kettl, who has said about the left’s silence on civil service reforms in the face of Schedule F: “You can’t fight something with nothing.” I hope to be part of proposing a something there, something that improves government’s ability to fill many open positions and to effectively and ethically manage the workforce. But we could succeed entirely at that and still fail to meet the challenges in front of us if the jobs we fill are the wrong jobs.

Another of my admittedly obvious and oversimplified principles of how to build state capacity is that there are really only three things you can do:

You can have more of the right people

You can focus them on the right things

You can burden them less.

There is obviously quite a lot to say about each of those things, and they are all deeply intertwined. A big reason we don’t have more of the right people is that we overburden both the people responsible for hiring and the applicants, focusing both on the wrong things. We overburden public servants generally because we have designed too many of their jobs to stop bad things instead of to enable the things we desperately need. We are too often asking if public servants are doing a good job instead of understanding and questioning the nature of the jobs they’ve been hired to do.

We need a much more robust understanding of how to fix the problem of hiring the right people to do the wrong jobs. We need wholesale strategies for tuning the dial between front of sub and back of sub, between stop and go, between brake and gas, and refocusing the job of public servants on the work that’s most directly meaningful towards the outcomes we want. We need staffers in agencies who act as if the climate crisis is the enemy plane that’s about to bomb us. We need transportation engineers whose actual job – as practiced on a daily basis, at scale – is to reduce congestion and pollution and improve and save lives. We need Secretaries of Education who have time in their day to look at the study on improving learning achievement, and maybe even take action on it. We need all of this now.

Imagine a world in which this — not just enforcing rules, not even just helping agencies fill open jobs, but ensuring that federal government fills the right jobs — was the mandate of an empowered and deeply collaborative Office of Personnel Management. They couldn’t do it alone, of course — it’s agencies that define the jobs they think they need and Congress that throws down law after law they must comply with, feeding the need for compliance. The White House Office of Management and Budget adds its own reporting and compliance burdens. Each would need to buy in on an agenda of building state capacity and do their part. But this is what workforce planning should really be, and in 2025, we will need it more than ever. If Biden gets a second term, this is the kind of ambitious agenda he should set.

Please read Dan Davies’ excellent new book The Unaccountability Machine for a lot more on Beer and why this is important.

The US has 12.8 traffic deaths per 100,000 people, the Netherland 3.6 per 100,0000.

I think this is a Guarino-ism… if I’m misattributing it, someone will correct me.

Some will point out that perverse incentives in the performance management practices can sometimes make it hard to give public sector employees poor ratings, which may skew the data. I don’t quite know how to evaluate that claim, but I also don’t think it’s all that relevant if you’re trying to

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kellyscabin · 2 months

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Hey I love ur amvs!! I was wondering if you had advice for someone that's interested in making their own? I'm not sure what the best programs are for editing or getting clips. Ty! :)

this is so flattering thank you so much!!!!! I LOVE making amvs…… favourite thing in the world to do so this is gonna be probably longer than you wanted…..

I’ve bounced around just about everything in the last couple years so I can give you a few different ideas!!

For clip sourcing:

initially, I used episodes that I had downloaded as supernatural was airing so the quality was iffy and there were logos on a lot of them… THEN I went the screen recording route (for when I was on my phone, I’ve never tried this on desktop but I know this works well for others!!) but I found that the quality still bugged me AND I ended up with nearly 2000 supernatural clips on my phone…… which was a nightmare to sort through… NOW I use this which is very fabulous and easy to use… you can select which eps to download if you don’t need all of them!! (and no vpn needed)

For editing:

I’ve used a lot of different programmes til I found one that worked well for me so definitely shop around…. youtube tutorials are your friend…. when I started, I was using sony vegas pro…. which worked fine even though my laptop was the first one ever made… but I didn’t want to pay for it and it got blocked on my laptop forever and windows would notttt let me get it back…….. SO, as I mentioned, for a while I was editing on my phone which I would personally nottt recommend for full length amvs… smaller edits would be completely fine!! I used splice which was very basic but it got the job done!! actually. looking through my videos- everything from mr perfectly fine to dean movies was made on my phone which is about 30 videos- so this works!! it’s just much more difficult and harder to polish up…. I personally make amvs much quicker and cleaner on my laptop.. and noticed a big big difference in my own quality since I switched….. NOW I use capcut since it’s free and my laptop can run it without any issues. I’m genuinely very impressed with it as a free software- lots of really good tools and effects, I find it so easy to alter colours and subtitle as well!! which I struggled with on other platforms!! very user friendly too!!! would be very beginner friendly!!

fun stuff :)

PLANNING is my absolute favourite part of making an amv…… normally I hear a song and can very easily picture shot by shot how I would amv it - once I’ve got the song and general theme I’m going for- I normally print out the lyrics and annotate them - jotting down timings, voiceovers, season, arcs and clips.. I can sometimes skip this if it’s just a simple video but if it’s anything complicated I HAVE to write it down. I also find it’s easier to make a video have a ‘point’ if I do this??? idk.. I think it helps but idk if this is something everybody does :)

there’s the spn transcript searcher which is very useful as well if there’s a line you’re looking for but can’t remember where it’s from!!

and of course homeofthenutty which is great for thumbnail stuff!!

editing things:

honestly… I don’t think there’s a wrong way to do this if you’ve got a really fabulous idea….. timings are the trickiest thing to get the hang of- I do dashes on my printed plan to kind of show where I need cuts and if it’s fast cuts I write down how long each clip should be so it looks cleaner. I find that my videos don’t really look finished until they’re subtitled either- so that always helps!! everybody kind of does that differently so definitely play around until you find a style you like!!

I wouldn’t worry too much about colouring when you’re just starting out- sometimes I find that filters can be distracting but I know others who swear by them so that’s just personal preference!! I really just tweak certain clips to make them less saturated or green-looking….

for posting:

I really recommend posting simultaneously on tumblr and youtube!! I have videos with basically no notes on tumblr but did really well on yt and vice versa!! the yt algorithm can be funny- I find that as long as it has a custom thumbnail and a few comments it does alright!! on tumblr- I always link the yt video since the tumblr player doesn’t always work for everybody…. also don’t be afraid to use taglists!!! I’m sure your mutuals would love to be tagged and please definitely tag me in anything you make!!! genuinely owe so much to my mutuals for their support 🫶🫶 and also don’t be afraid to self-reblog!! chronological dashboard means people WILL miss things if they aren’t online!!!

but genuinely the most important thing is to have fun…… I seriously love amvs…. I think they’re the best thing in the world and spend probably at least half an hour minimum a day watching amvs…….. and we need more of them!!!!! so thank you!!! and please please tag me when you make one!!! and feel free to dm me if you need anything at all!!! like all technical aspects aside… an amv made with so much love and to a fabulous song is a gift to the world…… 🫶🫶

#I’m so sorry if this is more than you wanted….. but I’m a teacher… it’s my nature…..#and the world needs every amver it can get…..#🫶🫶🫶 TY FOR THIS #amv ask #<- so I remember

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being-kindrad · 10 days

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hey, i just found out about the forum, and while i admit i haven't checked it out myself yet, i have a couple questions that i'd love to ask.

how is the forum in terms of user privacy? are passwords stored in plaintext? (please tell me they aren't.)

related to that, how can we be sure the website won't be an easy victim to attacks? if the forum were victim of a cyber attack, would user accounts be compromised?

lastly, what do you think of implementing a rule similar to 4chan's "don't talk about 4chan"? if we want to keep the website hush-hush and less vulnerable to male infiltrators, it might be good to promote secrecy in some degree, maybe even encourage willful misnaming of the website (but i'd like to know what you think).

Hi. Please check out the cybersecurity page for tips on how to stay safe on the internet and especially when using the forum. If people are not comfortable with any chance of a database breach, I would recommend not making an account. While I would love people to join, I care about being honest and making sure people are aware and okay with the risks of participating.

how is the forum in terms of user privacy? are passwords stored in plaintext? (please tell me they aren't.)

Passwords are not stored in plaintext. However, I will say MyBB's (the forum software I'm using) password encryption algorithm is not the best, so if the database were breached, it would be relatively trivial for a hacker who knew what they were doing to decrypt user passwords. MyBB plans to use a better encryption algorithm in its next release, and switching to that once it is out will be a top priority for me. This is why I suggest using a unique password for this forum (and tbh on any website it is best to use a unique password, you never know where the next database breach will come from).

related to that, how can we be sure the website won't be an easy victim to attacks? if the forum were victim of a cyber attack, would user accounts be compromised?

All passwords for all administrative accounts/logins related to the forum, its database, its server, etc. are very long and randomly generated, and are completely different from each other. Password hacking would be extremely difficult, likely impossible.

The biggest way I could see user accounts becoming compromised would be through a database breach (getting access to the database). There are two ways I see this could happen:

Someone directly uses the server account credentials to log in and breach the database (highly likely impossible as they would need to know where the server is located and the password for the server).

Someone hacking into an administrator account on the forum and downloading the database. This would be the more likely route, but they would need to know the password of an administrator account. This is how Kodi, a MyBB forum with 400k users, got its database breached. However, there are multiple ways to avoid this. 1.) I found instructions on how to lock down the MyBB Admin CP (Control Panel) with an additional password, which would mean a hacker would need to not just hack into an admin's account, but also know the password to the Admin CP. 2.) There is another option of editing the forum source code so that the ability to download databases from the Admin CP is completely disabled. 3.) If any additional administrators are needed, I could give them adjusted permissions which would not allow them to create database backups. Overall though, I don't think I will need to add administrators any time soon, if ever. (Moderators are different than admins.)

In the worst case scenario of a database breach, what would be leaked is similar to the Kodi breach above. This is why on the Cybersecurity page, I say: use a unique password, don't use an important email, be wary of the private messaging system, etc.

Hmm, well I've already announced the forum on Tumblr, so it's not very hush-hush already. :') My view is that male infiltrators would try to get in regardless. I don't think I can stop people from talking/sharing the forum, and I would prefer feminist women be able to find it easier. I would like to hope the application process would weed out most bad actors.

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thepodcasthoard · 5 months

Text

How to Start a Podcast | Complete Step-by-Step Guide for 2024- Riverside FM

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l Part 6 l Part 7 l Part 8 l Part 9 l Part 10 l Part 11

The twelfth article Sydney gave me is from riverside FM, which is a recording and editing site for podcasters.

This article has a video accompanying it.

The article lists ten steps.

Plan your podcast

Think about why you want to make a podcast.

Choose a niche topic, with a linked article with ideas of categories. I say categories and not niches because they're 'true crime,' 'health and fitness,' 'business,' and others like that.

Think about what you're both knowledgeable and passionate about, who your target audience is, how you can help that target audience, what gaps you can fill in the podcasting market, and what will make your podcast stand out.

This article gives you over a hundred topics to think about, which I actually found interesting. Some of the really grabby ones I saw were 'day in the life' where you interviewed everyday people, 'mystery theme' where each episode in a season is seemingly unconnected or only loosely connected before you reveal the underlying theme at the end, a music podcast where you take calls or emails and suggest new artists based on what they already listen to, a scavenger hunt where you ask your listeners for specific audio cues both spontaneous and planned, a sports podcast about the history of that sport, interviewing kids, riddles, different personal challenges like how long you can go without watching TV, flashbacks to old trends and inventions that didn't stand the test of time, a poetry podcast, and where a quote is from. For the last one, all I could think of was 'who's that pokémon?'

Choose a name. This article goes into more detail.

Choose a format. This article lists descriptions of popular ones.

Structure your podcast. This includes length and schedule.

Sequence your podcast. Keep to a set order- hook and intro, main body, and conclusion. Now that I'm writing that out, I'm reminded of learning how to write an essay in grammar school. Hamburger poster showing the buns as introduction and conclusion, and the meat as the body, anyone?

2. Set up equipment

A microphone is a must, as are headphones and a computer.

3. Software

Both recording and editing software are needed for a podcast.

4. Prepare your first episodes (two or three is a good start)

Schedule and prepare interviews, if you're going that route. If you do, keep a record of who you've reached out to so you don't double dip, send them an approximate interview length so they know what to expect, plan your interview questions and put them in an order that makes sense, ask unique questions, and keep the questions tailored to what your audience wants to know

If you script the episodes out, this is a handy article with templates to help you out

Test your equipment and software so you know what buttons to press

5. Record

If you're recording in person, using a mixer for multiple people is your best bet

If you're recording remotely, you'll need software and to send your guests guidelines on how to set it up

For a hybrid setup, where some of your guests are present and some are remote, you'll need to think more about how to record. This video will be helpful in that respect.

6. Edit

You're going to need software to do this if you're doing it yourself, or an editor if you're outsourcing. Whichever way you choose, there are some basic things to keep in mind- narrative (meaning make sure everything flows naturally from one thought to the next), spice it up (any sound effects or music), do the detail work (background noise), export, and create smaller promotional bites. This article gives more of a tutorial.

7. Artwork

This video goes into creating artwork. Keep in mind a few things- make sure the art represents the podcast clearly, think about what will attract your audience, keep the dimensions in line with directory guidelines, and don't overwhelm the image with detail.

8. Publish

Once you're done, you'll need a hosting site. Like I've said in previous posts, you need an RSS feed to submit to directories, and the hosting site creates one for you.

Create show notes and an episode description- think of a hook to get them to read more, keep them clear and short, and incorporate keywords naturally

Get your podcast on a directory from your hosting site.

9. Promote and monetize

Promotion:

Use search engine optimization (SEO) wisely

Make teasers and share them on your social media

Make a podcast website

Join a network

Monetize:

Get sponsors

create subscription tiers/ask for donations

Make merchandise from your podcast

Affiliate

10. Assess

Keep an eye on data and adjust your course accordingly, depending on what brings in more viewers. But, as I've cautioned in previous posts, don't get too hung up on numbers.

#beginner podcaster #podcast help

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kiwi-duckquack · 8 months

Note

Scrolled thru your page and couldn't find anything on your spider verse OC please infodump

AH sorry for the late response!!! There is a post from ages ago but I will GLADLY infodump again >:)

(also some stuff may be different from actual Spiderman canon but shh)

(also also this is a really long post I'm so sorry-)

So basically, their name is Charlie and they use they/them pronouns. They're 17 I think? Might change. But essentially they've suffered with severe social anxiety and general anxiety since they were a child, causing them to be pulled out of school early and homeschooled, and they literally never leave the house.

But when they were around 7, a new family moved into the neighbourhood - the Parker's. Which of course came with Peter Parker, another troubled child mourning his parents and being bullied at school. Charlie's parents hit it off with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and so they decide to get the children to meet once realising they share an interest - science.

The two befriend each other surprisingly quick, and suddenly they're almost inseperable. Every afternoond evening Pete's at Charlie's house, doing experiments in their room, and May and Ben join them for dinner enough times. It's like a big, loving family. Peter even helps somewhat with Charlie's anxiety - he held their hand the entirety of the first time they all went for a walk together. It wasn't for long and Charlie hid their face a lot, but it was progress.

Of course the first person Peter tells about his spider-powers is Charlie. They freak out, both good and bad, but overall decide that the two can design some epic tech for Spider-Man. Because, hey, Charlie's bedroom is basically a lab anyway, and Petsr can sneak supplies from his school (which isn't the most heroic thing to do but if it works, it works!)

Uncle Ben's death hits everyone hard, but not as hard as it hits Peter. All of a sudden Spider-Man isn't a fun, helpful thing - lives are at risk, he has to protect people he loves. He's got great power. We all know the rest of the phrase.

But Charlie's there to share that responsibility! They're the man-in-the-chair, helping out whenever they can, planning routes, designing tech and software. Constantly making sure their best friend is okay. And when Peter starts to hang out with MJ and Harry from his school, no biggie! Charlie's on-call 24/7 just in case. They're even going outside more, and there are plans in place for them to meet Harry.

Then Peter dies.

It should've been impossible, really - the amount of armour and tech and everything. There was no Achilles heel, no secret weakness. But, behind it all, Peter's still a teenager, a human. Even with the spider-powers and enhancements.

It destroys Charlie. Erases all their progress, now they won't even leave their room. And, of course, the logical thing to do is for them to continue what Peter couldn't, to use their technology and become Spider-Man.

But they can't.

They won't.

(OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO LONG AND BORDERLINE TURNED FIC-Y I'M SO SORRY DHSBFJEBFIEBFIEN)

#spiderman #spiderverse oc #spiderverse #into the spiderverse #across the spiderverse #oc #spidersona #??????????#not really a spidersona #more like a spider'sfriendsona #haha #oops #ask #<3

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lunaavaa · 8 months

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Best Logistics Fleet Management Software

In the rapidly evolving world of logistics, effective fleet management is the key to success.

Whether you oversee a fleet of trucks, delivery trucks, or a combination of vehicles, having the right logistics fleet management software can be a game changer. These software solutions are designed to streamline operations, reduce costs and improve overall efficiency. In this article, we'll explore some of the best logistics fleet management software options available, each offering unique features to help businesses navigate the path to efficiency.

1. Geotab:

Geotab is a comprehensive fleet management software known for its real-time tracking, route optimization, and maintenance tracking. It's a versatile solution suitable for fleets of all sizes.

2. Samsara:

Samsara offers a robust fleet management platform with features like real-time GPS tracking, driver safety monitoring, and vehicle diagnostics.

It's a favorite among businesses looking to enhance safety and compliance.

3. Teletrac Navman:

Teletrac Navman provides fleet management software focused on real-time tracking, compliance and driver behavior monitoring.

This is the preferred choice for companies looking to improve driver performance and reduce fuel costs.

4. Fleet Complete:

Fleet Complete offers a comprehensive suite of fleet management tools, including GPS tracking, dispatching and asset management. It is highly adaptable and can cater to different industries.

5. KeepTruckin:

KeepTruckin is known for its user-friendly fleet management software. It offers features like electronic logging, IFTA reporting, and vehicle inspections, making it a great choice for small to medium fleets.

6. Verizon Connect:

Verizon Connect provides GPS fleet tracking software focused on route optimization, fuel management and field service automation. It is ideal for businesses looking to reduce costs and increase productivity.

7. Route4Me:

Route4Me offers advanced route optimization software, perfect for last-mile delivery operations. It offers real-time tracking, geolocation, and route planning capabilities, making it an essential tool for businesses delivering to customers.

8. WorkWave Route Manager:

WorkWave Route Manager is a cloud-based fleet management solution designed for mobile workforces. It offers route optimization, GPS tracking, and reporting, making it an ideal choice for delivery businesses.

Selecting the right logistics fleet management software is crucial for businesses seeking to stay competitive and efficient in the logistics industry. These software solutions cater to a wide range of needs, from real-time tracking and route optimization to driver safety and compliance.

As the logistics landscape continues to evolve, having the best fleet management software can put your business on the path to success.

#Logistics Fleet Management Software #Logistics Fleet #Logistics Fleet Management

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lazyflower48 · 11 months

Note

I'm bored but I like your posts so please excuse me for the mini interview TT. I hope its okay.

What's your favourite piece of fiction?

What's your favourite mode of fiction? (movies, novels, manga, etc?)

Who's your favorite BSD character and why?

What's your dream job?

Do you have a best friend?

Girl sorry for all the questions, I'm just bored, curious and have nothing else to do 😭

I'm glad that you liked my posts! Thank you! And it's totally fine cause right now, I don't have much to do either.

There are so many shows and books I've liked, but I guess for the sake of picking a few - when it comes to anime - I'll say, currently I absolutely LOVE BSD (I'm obsessed). And AOT is one of my all-time favourites as well. Spirited Away is one of my favourite anime movies - it's basically my comfort movie, and this applies to almost every ghibli movie. And when it comes to books- I haven't read many since i mostly stick to fanfics these days lol, but I really enjoyed the Harry Potter series. (I used to be obsessed back in the day).

Okay, this one is quite hard to pick because I love all of them. I suppose I'll have to go with movies.

My favourite BSD character is Dazai. He has been my favourite since s1, and I could write a whole essay on why I love him so much. I love him because he's such a complex character. He's not exactly a good guy, but you understand the reasoning behind his actions even if they're questionable (though I do believe that he is changing for the better). He also adds to the comedic relief of the show while at the same time being one of the most mysterious and terrifying characters, so I love his duality. Other than Dazai, I love Chuuya, Atsushi and Odasaku. (Honestly, 90% of the BSD cast is loveable, so it's kinda hard to pick a favourite)

Well I'm planning to major in Computer Science so following that route, I'd like to work as a software engineer!

I have quite a handful of close friends, but I wouldn't exactly call them my best friends.

#ask

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writing-with-zoe · 1 year

Text

Part 1 - Primaxis

Chapter 1

There was a rip in the sky above the city. A woman fell out of it, falling down and landing on the top of a skyscraper. Had she been any ordinary woman it would've been a painful, if not deadly fall. But, 04 was an elite android unit.

Damage warnings flooding her visual feed, only to have her swiping away the pesky blinking boxes.

“You have sustained a good deal of damage. Is the core okay?” Lucy, her program assistant, came to life on 04’s wrist. A miniature composite of the software. She had long blonde hair and anime eyes, always dancing around and annoying 04.

“The damage report will have to wait.” 04 flicked Lucy from her wrist to her leg as she adjusted her position, leaning her back into a large metal door.

“Will that be once you're down to bits and pieces.” Lucy made a hmph sound and sat down on 04’s knee.

04 ignored her and unzipped her suit to access her chest compartment. Once opened, she reached in and pulled out a small power core, nestled in next to hers. Her own core glowed with a bright red orange color. The one in her hand appeared broken, with no glow of energy within it. Why did it risk everything for a broken core? The question nagged heavily in her processes.

“Why did we flee with a broken core?” Lucy asked, walking closer to run an analysis on it.

“It spoke to me.”

“This thing?” Lucy laughed. “It has no power. Not a single reading from it. We've become fugitives for no reason. They're going to scrap us, you know. Well, you, its an innocent bystander.” She pouted and 04 rolled her eyes.

“It is telling the truth, it showed me him, and these others visions. But it was all connected to him.”

“He is here. His location should be pinging on your map. What do you plan on-” Lucy stopped and 04 noticed warning visuals alerting her visual feed again. “They've found us.”

04 stood up and looked up at the sky. Another rip appeared and two others came from it. Two more from her team.

“Unit’s 02 and 05 have arrived.” Lucy spoke up from 04’s shoulder.

“We should run.” 04 turned and began running, triangulating the speed and jump she would need to reach the next building. All while navigating her route to him. Noah Williams.

She was the fourth of five units created in an elite team of androids by Liam Milford. They were the best of the best of any model out there. Their mission was to save their world. This broken power core she'd been carrying around was supposedly the key to do it all.

They had found the core, no problem. 04 reached out to retrieve it and once her hands touched it her visual feed was overloaded with images of unknown people and unknown worlds. None of it made sense to her and none of it seemed to save in a way that was transferrable to Lucy to decipher. There was one consistency among the images, a young man with dark blonde hair and green eyes. She knew she needed to get the core to him, and not to Liam.

The rest of her team didn't understand her explanation and labeled her malfunctioning, going as far as accusing her of damaging the core. It had been glowing when she touched it, a swirl of different colors within it. It was the most beautiful and enticing thing she'd ever seen. Once she touched it the light dispersed and the core darkened to nothing. He can fix it. She was so sure of it, and yet she had no idea who he was.

“They're gaining on us. 02’s speed is unmatched, and your power reserves are plummeting. That fall took a toll. It told you to pay attention. You could have rerouted power to healing protocols.”

“It will find a maintenance booth once its able to.” 04 flicked Lucy off her shoulder, just to have her reappear again.

“Take a left up here. We're nearly to him.” Lucy pointed to an upcoming intersection below. 04 didn't want to risk more damage from another fall, and decided instead to activate the grappling line in her arm.

The metal tip protruded from her wrist and expanded out into a hook. She lined up her sight on a working target in front of her and shot the line out, getting it wrapped around before jumping down the side of the building.

She slid down with ease and ejected the line from her arm. Another thing to add to the maintenance list. Lucy pulled the map up and 04 picked up the pace down the street.

“He's inside the Mariscuri building.”

04 stopped in her tracks in the middle of the road, prompting several vehicles to lay on their horns at her.

“He's inside Liam's building?”

Lucy nodded.

“Anymore bad news?” 04 began running again towards the building.

A blast came from behind her, hitting her square in the back. 04 flew forward, landing on the top of a car.

“02 and 05 have caught up with us.” Lucy said, walking across the car's hood.

“You don't say.” 04 grunted and pulled herself up. She turned to face her teammates.

02 was short in size, not much past 4 feet. But what she lacked in size she made up for with speed and strength. 05 was a giant next to her at 6 feet.

“Return the power core, 04. You have deviated from the mission.” 02 held her palm up, ready to shoot again.

“If you listen, they may be lenient on us.” Lucy offered.

“Shut up.” 04 hissed at Lucy. “The mission is wrong.” She said to 02. She was stalling. Activating her weaponry and rerouting her remaining power to shields and speed.

“You're wrong, traitor.” 05’s voice boomed across the distance.

05 rolled her shoulders and six mechanical arms came out of her back. 04 jumped back out of the way onto the top of a car just as 05 shot ribbons at her from the extra arms. Part of her creepy spider modifications. They attached to the car below her and ripped it away, flinging the hunk of metal down the street. People around them were screaming and dashing to get out of the way of the street battle.

“It would not advise staying to face them.” Lucy sounded nervous and for good reason. 02 and 05 were ranked highest in battle strategies and strength. 04 jumped, dodged and flipped around the incoming ribbon attacks.

“It is waiting for something.” 04 whispered, dodging another ribbon attempt, moving up higher to the sky tracks. She weaved between the beams as 05 chased after her. 05 had a temper and she knew the chase would begin to get to her, which would increase her recklessness.

“You're expending too much energy.” Lucy warned, moving a warning alert into 04’s view. Her power levels had dropped below 50%. 04 ignored her and moved the warning out of the way. She was watching the clock.

She boosted her jump up to the tracks, but before her feet could land she felt a ribbon snapping around her waist. There was a sharp pull back. 05 tried to spin her to send more ribbon around. 04 wasn't going to let that happen. She could hear the train coming.

Using her remaining grapple attachment in her left hand, she shot out at the other side of the track before 05 could pull her down. It landed and she switched the settings to pull and felt her body moving forward. 05 was pulling back but the slack she'd sent out in trying to bind 04 wasn't coming back as quickly as she wanted.

“Stop running. It's useless” 05 shouted, gliding up to move herself closer to 04.

“05-” 02 hovered up behind, but 05 put her hand up to silence her partner.

“Give it up, 04. Give us the power core and it will consider salvaging some of your parts. Perhaps your head in a display case.” 05 was visibly fuming and walking more across the tracks.

04 reached the other end of the tracks and began pulling herself up. Lucy was busily trying to disable the ribbon around 04.

“It told you, it saw something while touching the core. It can't let Liam have it.”

“You malfunctioned. A broken bot following a flawed path to play hero.” 05 sneered at her, pulling back on 04.

“Nearly done.” Lucy told 04.

She could feel the ribbon loosening around her. With her arm still grabbed to the track frame she began pulling 05 closer to her.

“05, you really should-” 02 spoke up again and 05 angrily snapped a ribbon at her. The remaining ones she used to hold her position on the track. 05 stopped pulling and instead sent a shockwave through the ribbon to 04.

Luckily for 04, Lucy was anticipating such an attack and routed the shock directly to 04’s core. While 04 was siphoning up the power Lucy finished disabling the ribbon. It fell down and 04 staggered back off the side of the track with a grin on her face. 05 was still scowling as the train smashed into her.

“You could have blown my core to pieces with that move.” 04 said, dangling under the track. She lowered herself down slowly to the street.

“But, you're still alive. It knows what its doing.” Lucy smiled triumphantly.

04 scanned around quickly for 02, knowing she wouldn't be far behind.

The small pink haired android floated a few feet away from her. She held 05’s power core in her hand.

“It did try to warn her.” 02 said with a laugh. She slipped the core into her pocket. “Do we really need to keep this going? Innocent people are getting hurt.”

“Then let me go. Trust in what it saw.” 04 urged.

But 02 shook her head. “It can't do that. We have to complete our mission. To save our world.”

04’s face dropped. Of all of her team she'd hoped to have the most chance to get through to 02.

Seeing neither side was willing to sway they switched to combat stances. 02 fired the first shot and 04 jumped to the side to avoid. She returned fire, aiming for 02’s legs. 02’s shielding deflected her attacks easily.

“You don't have another train in your arsenal, do you?” Lucy laughed. 04 rolled her eyes, shifting behind a beam to avoid 02’s blasts.

There were sirens in the distance. 04 didn't want to involve law enforcement. Still, they could provide enough of a distraction for her to escape. In the meantime all she could do was try to wear 02’s power down and hope that hers lasts.

“How much of a boost did 05 give it?” She asked Lucy.

“Power is up to 75% but unstable. There's a continuous charge from the build up. If you don't find a way to discharge it then your core will explode.”

“Fantastic.” 04 sighed. She scrolled through possible options to penetrate 02’s shields, then decided on a few grenades. She loaded them up in her arm and aimed at 02. Not exactly 02, as when 02 jumped out of the way 04 still shot and the grenade stuck on the metal material of a track beam.

02 didn't catch on quickly enough. 04 fired two more at beams around them. As soon as they struck, 04 backflipped out of the area and detonated them. The area exploded in fire and the beams cracked through, dropping the tracks on 02.

“That was too easy.” Lucy said after 04 turned back towards the building her target was in.

“Says who?” 04 countered, looking down at the missing chunk of her torso that took a hit from 02.

>>> Maintenance required. Maintenance required.

The popup bounced around her visual feed as she burst through the doors of the Mariscuri building.

The first floor was filled with a crowd of mid level workers moving through security.

>>> Core instability detected. Maintenance required.

Lucy scanned the building until she found their target. “Third floor.” She told 04, pointing up.

04 stared at the cluster of security guards blocking her way to the escalators. She didn't want to hurt them, but at the moment they were an obstacle.

They were armed with weapons capable of rendering her useless, so she knew she needed to stay out of range.

“On the ground!” One of them shouted at her.

04 held her arms up to appear non threatening. “Ideas?” She asked Lucy.

“We could just kill them.”

“Any other ideas?” 04 shook her head. It wasn't that she hadn't taken a human life before, but over time the mortality of humans got to her.

“Your grappling extensions are out. Ammunition is low. Shields are erroring from the fall. Your power core is on the brink of bursting. Oh, and let's not forget the hole in your belly region. To be honest the situation is grim. On the bright side, the fifth floor has a maintenance wing.” Lucy moved the diagnostic screens into view.

04 frowned. It wasn't an ideal situation. But it was one she had to see through.

She took a step forward, hearing the weapons charge in her hand. Running through was a risky option but it was the only one she could come up with.

As she was about to take another step when a blast came past her, taking out one of the guards. 04 watched them scramble backwards to take cover. She peered over her shoulder to see 02, barely held together by the wires.

“That android is its to apprehend.” 02’s voice box was damaged, her words coming out in varying pitches.

The guards started to shoot at both of them. 02 returned fire but 04 dove down to the ground.

“Told you so.” Lucy told her. 04 glared at her and shuffled across the floor on her elbows.

04 found a clear path to the side and rolled her way out of the line of fire. The guards were working down 02’s shields with their constant firing but that didn't slow the android down as she moved closer, holding her palm to a guards chest and disintegrating him with her power.

The two androids exchanged a glance as 02 caught 04 crawling away. 04 prepared to defend herself but 02 was overrun by another group of guards. Funny they didn't realize she also worked for their boss.

04 took the distraction as a sign to run. She put all of her energy into making it to the escalators, running up them to the third floor.

“Head down this hallway and turn left.” Lucy instructed.

There were right lights flashing across the ceilings, with a loud alarm playing. A calm female voice came over the loudspeakers.

“This is not a drill. Please move to a safe zone immediately.”

04 pushed her way through the humans running in the opposite direction. She opened her chest compartment and removed the core, hoping it would give some indication of anything the closer she came to him.

There he was. His back was turned to her. She could see the earbuds in his ears, which explained his lack of notice to the alarm. His head was down while he dismantled a lower grade android.

04 took a step into his office. He must've noticed her presence because he turned around to face her. It was strange to her, to see him for the first time after seeing so many flashes of his face.

He had a shocked expression at the sight of her, but it quickly changed to worry. She held out the core to him.

“It found you. You must protect this. It's to-” 04 didn't get to finish her sentence. A powerful blast came from the side and destroyed her.

#my writing #creative writing #writing #androids #story snippet

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