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clan-sayeed-fic · 5 years ago

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Let me earn your trust (Kamilah Sayeed & MC) finale

Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Book: Bloodbound (property of Pixelberry Studios) Pairing: Kamilah Sayeed & MC: Amy (I do not own those characters, they're the property of Pixelberry Studios as well) ❗ Warnings: this chapter describes difficult situations / angst / might cause distress ❗ Rating: Mature Author's note: I'm not a native English speaker, I'm sorry for any mistakes (feel free to correct me).

So here we are, at the end of the story. I'm honestly shocked that this story even has the end, or that I wrote it because... you know... every story has it 😄

From this place, I would like to say thank you to everyone who read this fic and stayed here with me in anticipation of what will happen next. Believe me, for the majority of the time, I was totally clueless about what the next chapters would bring to the story haha 😅

The finale turned out to be probably the longest chapter of all from this fic. I hope you'll enjoy reading it! 💖💖💖

~ 3300 words

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Chapter 25 finale

"Why don't you free yourself?" the calming voice woke Amy up, once again.

She opened her eyes to see almost the exact same ones, a little smile was playing in the corner of the woman's mouth in front of her.

"I'm tied up to this stupid chair if you haven't noticed," her company started annoying Amy earlier, but the woman never left.

No matter what.

"Soon enough, all those ferals will spread all over the city, and you're down here, waiting," the woman's voice judgemental.

Amy looked at her own hands and tried to struggle, pulling on the rope. But her attempt ended up with the string driving deeper into her skin, causing more pain.

"I'm too weak," she gave up, tilting her head back, exhausted even after such a little effort.

The woman was staying in front of Amy without doing anything. All she had to do to help her was untying the ropes, cutting them with something sharp.

Instead, she just said out loud.

"Don't give up."

***

"Have you heard the rumors?" Adrian's words were trying to fight their way through Kamilah's thoughts.

It had been almost two weeks since Amy disappeared. They didn't have much progress so far in finding her. Adam left without saying anything, which only confirmed their theory about him being guilty.

But even though their hands were tied up.

If they accused a senator of New York of doing such thing as kidnapping a person without actual proof, no one would ever believe them. They needed to talk to him first, push him into giving himself away, and telling them where he was holding Amy captive.

The next matter they had to take into consideration was that Adam wasn't only a senator of the city. What most important was him, being a well-respected member of the Council and a clan leader. Baseless accusations would cause chaos and make vampires grow suspicious.

Because, why would any vampire be concerned about a human?

Explaining it would require giving up Amy's identity about her being a Bloodkeeper. And that wasn't an option.

"I did, I'm already on the way to his office," Kamilah's voice sharp.

"Please, Kamilah, don't do anything stupid," Adrian's voice showed his deep concern.

But the woman only hung up, driving as fast as she could, heading to Vega's office. Kamilah's source had already told her about his arrival. It was like this man didn't exist for the last few days, unable to find. And now, when he finally decided to step out of shadows, they would have a talk.

Not the most polite one.

Kamilah didn't even bother to wait or ask anyone to let her in. Thanks to her vampire speed, she was standing in front of him within a second.

"Where is she?" her eyes flashing with red from anger.

Adam was in the middle of work, crowded with a stack of papers around him. He stopped writing something down right after the woman walked to his office.

"Can I help you with something, Ms. Sayeed?" he took off his glasses, leaning back on his seat, his expression untouched.

"Yes, you can start by telling me where the hell did you hide her, you..." Kamilah was filled with rage, barely controlling herself.

Vega looked at her with surprise. That was an unusual view to see the great Kamilah Sayeed being attached to someone such weak like a simple mortal.

"That's interesting," his voice calm, as the opposite to hers. "Because, a while ago, I remember having Amy here in my office," he made a pause, taking out some documents from the drawer. "Or, should I say... Amelia."

"If you even touched her, I swear..." Kamilah made a fist out of her hands, using all of her strength to stay in place.

She knew that anger would have no use for Amy at that moment, but the awareness of it didn't stop the rage burning inside her veins. Hearing the girl's name leaving this poisoned mouth made it even harder for her to handle.

"I did way much more than that," Vega smiled, but before the woman jumped to his throat, he put the files before her. "But nothing that she hadn't already agreed on."

Kamilah grabbed the documents, reading them with impossible tempo, taking all the letters, words, sentences, paragraphs of the contract in.

Recognizing Amy's signature at the end of it.

"She didn't..." Kamilah's mouth slightly opened in disbelief.

"She did what she had to do," Adam's mouth curling in a sly smile. "Uphold her end of the deal," he reached for the speaker, a smile never leaving his face. "Be so kind and send here someone who'll show Ms. Sayeed the way to the doors."

Kamilah's eyes had never been before this red, an intense shade of crimson burning inside her iris. She ripped the contract apart with her nails, assuming that Adam showed her only a copy of it.

"You don't know who you're dealing with Vega," icy stare of her eyes. "I will..."

"You will do nothing," he put on his glasses. "And if I may suggest something, I recommend you to leave the city before it gets too hot in here," he looked at her one last time. "I'm saying it as a friend, Kamilah."

"Don't you dare call yourself my friend," she almost yelled.

At that moment, the security entered the room, and not wanting to cause any more scene Kamilah turned around speechless.

She made a promise to herself.

She will not rest until she finds Amy and brings her home.

***

"It's happening."

"How do you know?" Amy's forehead sweating.

It had been hours since Vega left her there. The wounds after needles were finally healed, but she lost a lot of blood until it happened.

"I don't, but you do," the woman looked at her with concern.

Her skin was getting paler with every minute of waiting, acting like she was the reflection of Amy. Like what was happening to both of them was somehow connected.

But what she said was true, Amy was able to feel it inside her chest that something was happening. New York might have been burning or being destroyed by the enormous amount of free ferals running between the buildings. The mindless creatures killing innocents.

And she was still closed there, alone.

Almost alone.

To think that her blood was the key for Vega to build his own empire. The blood that was running inside veins of such useless girl as she was at that moment.

No, it won't end like this, Amy scolded herself in thoughts. She started to struggle again on the chair, pulling on the ropes. With a similar result to her previous attempt.

"Good, keep fighting," the voice echoed next to her, or inside her head, she wasn't sure of that anymore.

That's when Amy started moving her body back and forth, trying to swing the chair. It was actually working, legs of the chair slightly lifting and falling again. But still not enough.

Come on...just... fucking... move, her mind shouted.

Suddenly, the chair lost its balanced, and she fell with it on the ground. The chair broke after meeting with the floor, leaving the girl writhing in pain.

"Amy, get up, you don't have much time," the woman beside her, encouraging her.

Amy sighed loudly and slowly lifted her weak body. Everything before her eyes went blurry, but somehow, she managed to focus on the surroundings, and reach the stairs.

She climbed slowly to the doors, and without much hope, she gripped the door handle.

To her surprise, the doors were left open, and she needed only to give them a little push to see what was hidden behind them.

Freedom.

***

"We need to go now!" Adrian shouted at both women.

The whole city was under evacuation. Everything started in the morning.

At first, there were only speculations from someone seeing a few ferals in unrelated to each other places, which made it look like a coincidence. But then, reports started coming from many clan members and sources that Council had spread all over the city.

It was sure then, they had to call it a crisis.

It made Kamilah, Lily, and Adrian hurry to Vega's office, trying to finally get information about where he kept Amy. Since there was already chaos and panic everywhere, they didn't care anymore about the meaning of his reputation.

But, to their great astonishment, when they got there, the place was filled with ferals. They were sure that Adam did it as a distraction, so anyone would think about him being responsible for the attack.

So that's where they found themselves, fighting those ferals together. Every time it seemed that they were getting closer to win, there was more of them appearing out of nowhere.

"We are outnumbered, we stand no chance with them!" Adrian tried to reason with women once again. "We won't help her by dying here today!"

"Either way, this whole city is gonna burn with everyone in it!" Lily shouted from a different place, getting herself lost in a fight.

"That's why we need to save ourselves," Adrian answered, between ripping heads of several ferals. "Vega must have taken Amy with himself. He wouldn't have left her here to die, he needs her."

Their talk was interrupted by more attackers. Ferals were hissing from every side of the hall, getting closer one by one.

It was the worst type of enemy. They weren't scared of anything, and the only thing responsible for their bloodlust was their instinct. Even seeing one of their own kind getting killed meant nothing for them.

"I know that she..." Kamilah's voice interrupted when she cut through the chest of another feral with her daggers, "...is here. End of discussion!"

One of the ferals came out of nowhere, attacking Kamilah before she even sensed its presence behind. That's when Adrian came with help, killing the creature just in time before it tried to bite her.

"I won't let you die, only because you have an intuition," he sent her a grave look, showing how serious he was about that.

Kamilah was ready to argue with him, but at the same time, something hit her. It was this impossibly intense and tempting smell. It made all of the vampires look at each other meaningfully.

They didn't have to say anything, everyone knew what this scent meant.

"Go get her," Lily said to Kamilah and smiled slyly. "My bro and I will keep those greedy ferals in place a little bit more."

***

Amy went out of the basement, and from that moment, the noise hit her.

Earlier, she wasn't able to hear anything since walls and doors were soundproof. And then, when she escaped from that place, every sound was hitting her brain, making it almost explode from ache.

"Keep going, Amy," the voice behind her pierced through all the noises. "Focus your hearing on what's important."

The girl followed her advice, being able to recognize the sounds, separate them from each other. What the most stood up from all of them was hissing. This characteristic, irritating noise was coming from higher floors of the building she found herself in.

Amy never heard something like that, so she only assumed that it was ferals who made those sounds.

But, there was something else in the noise.

Somehow, maybe subconsciously, Amy heard a deep, feminine voice. The one that she would recognize anywhere.

"Kamilah!" she screamed without thinking, feeling a sudden relief in her chest.

But even though she yelled as loud as she could, nothing happened.

She tried shouting again, but clearly, it wasn't working.

"She can't hear me," Amy leaned her back against the wall, feeling hopeless.

Kamilah didn't hear her, she was lost in the fight. She would probably never know that Amy even was down there. The thought of it made her legs tremble as she slowly sat down on the floor, putting both hands on her sides, trying to steady herself.

That's when her fingertips touched the cold surface, making her move away in surprise. She looked at the floor, noticing shattered glass all over the place. And she knew what to do.

"Please, notice this," Amy whispered to herself.

She cut deep through her wrist, right at the place of her old scar.

Breaking it apart, making blood flow out of her body once again.

***

"Tell me, what has all of this brought you?" a soft voice, the same one never leaving her side.

Amy looked into her eyes, smiling. There was no chance left for her, and the thought of that made her chuckle ironically.

The woman was right. Was it all even worth the effort?

Frustration, pain, constant feeling of fear.

Good memories, friendship, love.

Her head became heavier, breaths were slowing down. She was giving up little by little, drifting away into darkness.

Her body couldn't take much more.

She didn't want to fight more.

"Amy," the young woman tried to wake her up, but the girl's eyes were closed.

"Amy," another attempt.

"Amy!" the voice sounded different, waking her up immediately.

She didn't see the blonde girl in front of her anymore. No, the view was way much more gorgeous. She quickly recognized the features she knew so well, eyes that she kept looking into so many times, completely mesmerized.

The definition of pure perfection.

"Kamilah," Amy smiled weakly, barely believing in what was happening. She looked around, searching for the woman that accompanied her earlier. "Where is she?"

"Where is who?" Kamilah already healed Amy's wound, stopping the bleeding.

"This woman... she was here," Amy's voice was shaky. "She helped me."

"Amy..." those chestnut eyes were showing so much concern. "You must be mistaken. There was no one except you when I got here."

How...Amy's brain started working, reminding itself all the moments during which she was talking to this woman. The woman with blonde, wavy hair, light skin, green eyes.

How she spoke to her, with the exact same voice that was leaving Amy's mouth every time she said something. How she was looking at her with the same eyes, feeling the same emotions.

"Oh my god," Amy looked at Kamilah when the solution hit her. "It was me."

It was me all this time, she said to herself, shocked when she finally understood the message behind the vision.

"Amy, you lost too much blood," Kamilah tried to lift her, but the girl disobeyed. It made the woman frown with misunderstanding, "I need to take you from here as soon as it's possible, it's not safe."

But the girl looked like she didn't want to be saved, the view making Kamilah's heart to break in half. She was looking at this person, and she couldn't recognize her anymore. There was no light in her green eyes.

Not in the way like it was before.

"How bad is it?" Amy asked her, smile fading away from her face. "Tell me, Kamilah, how bad is it, is there any chance to fight it?"

The vision of herself hit her again, the memory when her own eyes turned red.

"No," Kamilah kneeled down, close to the girl. "Adrian and Lily are upstairs, they are trying to keep the ferals away, but there are no more vampires left in the city," her voice broke, "only humans."

Amy closed her eyes for a moment, she was aware of what needed to happen next. She knew that Kamilah would not be able to get her out of there, not when Amy was in this state.

And at least one of them should have a chance to make it out alive.

"You need to fight them all," Amy looked at her, holding her by the cheek because Kamilah was avoiding her eyes. She knew what was coming before she even heard the words. "You need to fight them all, save the city."

"Even if we tried, that's impossible," the woman placed her hand over Amy's, feeling her cold skin that caused shudders down her spine.

"Of course it's impossible on your own, silly," Amy chuckled, a single tear escaping her eye. "That's why you have me."

"Amy...don't," Kamilah couldn't take it.

There was no need to go back to the night of their argument. No need to say the words of apology, when they understood each other without them. This night was just a meaningless episode, nothing compared to what they felt toward each other.

And Amy already made her decision about their future fate.

She freed her hand from Kamilah's grip and neared her wrist to the vampire's mouth.

"With my blood, you can do this," she spoke aloud, keeping herself calm.

"It will kill you," Kamilah's eyes filling with tears, the view breaking Amy's heart into million pieces. "You lost too much blood for this..."

"Take what's left," Amy interrupted. "Take all of it," she smiled reassuringly, "all of me with you."

Tears escaped Kamilah's eyes and flew down her cheeks without control. She knew that what Amy had in mind would work. That this was the only way to save those innocent people. Maybe even the only one to save Adrian and Lily.

Drinking Bloodkeeper's blood would make her impossibly powerful, it would stand for enough time for her to kill all the ferals.

But it was Amy's blood.

It was her Amy who they were talking about, and Kamilah didn't know if she was ready for such a sacrifice.

"Hey," Amy sensed her pain. "It's ok, it's my choice, I'm ok with it."

"I'm not," Kamilah's voice shaky.

"Kamilah..." Amy didn't hold back tears anymore. "I trust you...I...I love you more than anyone in my life."

The woman froze in place, she wasn't expecting to hear such words. She didn't expect to hear them at all, and for sure not under such circumstances.

She opened her mouth slightly, wanting to say something, but Amy didn't let her.

"Don't say anything," the girl smiled a little. "You'll tell me when all of it will be over," her hope was killing them both from the inside. "You can be sure that I won't let you forget about it," Amy smiled weakly.

"Of course, you won't," Kamilah returned the smile, looking at her with love in her eyes, trying to be brave.

She leaned down to Amy's lips, placing a soft kiss on them.

This one last time.

When she stepped back, they shared a meaningful look, ready for what's to come.

Kamilah took Amy's wrist up to her own mouth. Her fangs grew out from her teeth, but this time it wasn't accompanied by any intoxicating feeling.

After a moment of hesitation, she finally did what she hated the most at that moment.

She bit through the soft surface of her skin.

Blood started floating down her throat, but its taste brought no pleasure. Kamilah's body was growing more powerful, her skin was glowing. Every cell, nerve, muscle in her body was waking up alive.

But all she felt was the pain.

Like she was dying all over again.

For this whole time, they were looking into each other's eyes.

As life from one was flowing to another.

Amy kept a reassuring smile on her face as long as she could, trying to give the woman courage. To help her get through this. Even if she was the one from whom the life was escaping with every minute.

After a while, her eyes closed up, and all she was hearing was her heartbeat, dangerously slowing down.

At first, she felt pain, then the ache changed into pure exhaustion that was mixed with relief.

Sounds around her mixed with each other, leaving silence behind.

Until the very last drop of blood left Amy's body.

And there was nothing more for her to feel in this life.

***

One thing was clear,

Amy was dead.

And who would have guessed...

That when you die,

Your heart can beat stronger than ever before.

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Explanation

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tag list: @onyxgaytrash @lightning-fury @scarlet-letter-a0114 @caliseds @myonlybae-joohyun @spacecarrousel

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the-light-followed · 5 years ago

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EQUAL RITES (1987) [DISC. #3; WITCHES #1]

“‘Where does it say it?’ said Granny triumphantly. ‘Where does it say women can’t be wizards?’

The following thoughts sped through Cutangle’s mind:

…It doesn’t say it anywhere, it says it everywhere.

…But young Simon seemed to say that everywhere is so much like nowhere that you can’t really tell the difference.

…Do I want to be remembered as the first Archchancellor to allow women into the University? Still…I’d be remembered, that’s for sure.”

Rating: 6/10

Standalone Okay: Yes

Read First: Yeah, if you like magic and bad puns, you’ll be fine.

Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]

* * * * * * * * * *

Equal Rites does not mess around. It’s early Discworld, so you’ve still got a little bit of that High Fantasy vibe to it, where sometimes Pratchett just spews fantastical-sounding terms and concepts so that the reader can’t forget that This is Fantasy, We Are Not in Kansas Anymore, Folks! And to be perfectly honest, a lot of the plot, especially the early stuff, is kind of forgettable. There’s a lot of people talking to people about doing stuff before the actual doing gets done, if you know what I mean.

But that doesn’t really matter, because Equal Rites has important shit to say and, by god, Pratchett is going to say it. And in case you didn’t bother to read the book itself, you can tell just by looking at the title that a) it’s about gender inequality in the magical community, and b) there’s going to be puns. So many puns. Sir Terry, please, take pity on me. I just don’t have the time to go around explaining to every person I meet on the street why this kind of thing makes me absolutely batshit feral for the Discworld.

I love it so much.

Anyway. Equal Rites is the story of Eskarina Smith, or Esk, the first ever female to be born a wizard. The whole concept of ‘the eighth son of an eighth son is chosen by the magical staff of a dying wizard to become a new wizard’ brings up a lot of questions for me—a lot of questions that will never be answered—but if I ignore that and just accept that it’s true, then by Discworld tradition Esk is undeniably a wizard. She is the eighth, uh, child of an eighth son, chosen at birth by the magical staff of a wizard who promptly dies and decides to be reincarnated as a weirdly randy tree and then, later, as an ant.

…Cool, I guess.

More importantly, and also by Discworld tradition, Esk undeniably cannot be a wizard, because she’s born female. Honestly, Pratchett might as well have named this Sit Down and Shut Up While I Talk About Gender Roles and Gender Inequality, You All Are Going to Listen to Me Because I’m Going to Make Bad Puns While I Do It.

Over the course of the book, Pratchett does some deep dives into what it means to be a witch, what it means to be a wizard, how they’re the same, how they’re different—and why none of that actually matters. For something published over thirty years ago, I think Equal Rites holds up incredibly well as a conversation on gender and society, and it’s still just as relevant as ever. It just goes to show that a) writing with thought, kindness, and care makes for a timeless product, and b) society really hasn’t made that much progress since 1987, has it? It’s a little sad that the issues Pratchett wants us to think about here are still just as recognizable and just as common in the world as they were thirty-three years ago.

(Kind of as a side note, there are definitely things I don’t think Pratchett considered about the basic premise he’s set up, namely that just because Esk was born with a certain set of genitals, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about her gender. I’ve seen a lot of discussion, especially on the internet, about trans Esk, and trans wizards and witches, and what that would mean for the Discworld universe—really interesting stuff, things people should definitely look into, but not what I’m going to focus on here. I would highly recommend that people think about it, especially cis people like me. It would be wrong to go through Equal Rites without even bringing it up, even if I read the text as more as a discussion of gender roles rather than gender identity. Since Pratchett was a cishet man writing this in the 80s, I’m also willing to bet it’s what he was intending. But it’s still an important conversation to have.)

Anyway, let’s jump in and look at the dichotomy that Pratchett is setting up for us!

What is a witch? What is a wizard? How are they the same, and how are they different? Why does that split matter?

I did the messy work of going through my copy of the book and highlighting every instance where definitions are provided for ‘witches’ and ‘wizards,’ specifically so that I could run a compare-contrast, and I want to point out right off the bat that basically all of the details on so-called ‘defining’ features of these two schools of magic are provided through characters and their POV—direct dialogue and thoughts—not by word-of-god narration or omniscient POV. So, obviously, we have to run all this through the internal bias filter; this stuff is all what people believe about wizards, witches, and magic, not necessarily how things are.

What makes a witch, according to Equal Rites:

Magic out of the ground

Dress in black to look the part

Witches bow. They’ve got to be different from everyone else; it’s “part of the secret” (headology)

Cunning, old (or they try to look it)

Suspicious, homely, and organic magic

Appearance of magic can do more work than actual magic (headology)

“Leaving the world as it was and changing the people”

They can “Borrow” and work gently

“Fighting her [Granny] was like swatting a fly on your own nose”: if you don’t struggle and make waves, you can do a lot with less outright power

Do the messy, practical stuff, not just the flash

Always, “without exception, women”

What makes a wizard:

Magic out of the sky

Over-the-top ways of dressing up to look the part, often with robes and sequins

“Books and stars and jommetry.” (Granny absolutely does not know what geometry is, or what it is for.)

“Talked too much and pinned spells down in books like butterflies,” and looked at “numbers and angles and edges and what the stars are doing”

Wise, old

Powerful, complex, and mysterious magics

Magic is condensed out of the air and into the staff, and used by the wizard

“Magic changed the world in some way, wizards thought there was no other use for it”

Can’t “Borrow,” only take/seize control

Too busy with the “infinite” and “never noticing the definite”

Always, “without exception, men”

Witches “normally work with what actually exists in the world,” while a wizard can give thoughts shape, “put flesh on his imagination.” Witches learn to walk softly and move over and around an obstacle, while wizards puff up and fight to go straight through it.

Witches “need a head.” Wizards “need…a heart.”

In short, witches are self-taught, intuitive, grounded in reality, and fluid in their magic use—when they actually use it at all. They work with what they feel and what they know about the world. Wizards are academics and learn from set rules and their books, and their magic is often over-complex, overpowered, and difficult to control. Wizards are more rigid and structured in their magic use—ritualistic, even—but less connected to reality or grounded in the real world.

And, of course, both groups wear fabulous outfits and dramatic pointed hats!

Just look at ‘em. Such wonderful weirdos.

The more I look at the ‘definitions’ like this, all laid out and proper, the more I start to think that the witches who do things we would consider ‘bad’ witchcraft are just correctly using elements of wizardry. For example, think about Mrs. Earwig, with her books and rituals, her special tools and fancy dress code; even though she doesn’t focus on the world around her or the people in it, the way a ‘good’ witch would, she’s good at what she does, and so certain in herself that she can stare down the glamor of the Queen of the Elves without flinching in The Shepherd’s Crown. On the other hand, we have our classic ‘bad’ wizard, Rincewind, who demonstrates some exceptionally witchy tendencies—he’s excellent at headology even if actual magic isn’t really in his wheelhouse, as Interesting Times makes pretty obvious. And despite the fact that he’s a coward-sprinter who’d really rather avoid danger if at all possible, when it comes down to it, he’s still the man who’ll put himself between the world and a great evil with nothing but trembling knees, a spine reluctantly turned from water to iron, and a half-brick in a sock. As Granny would say, he walks the line.

So, really, what does gender actually have to do with it? Why is there a distinction at all? Is it actually important?

And to make a long novel short, what Pratchett is saying in Equal Rites is that it’s not. There’s no difference between witchcraft and wizardry that actually makes for a good reason for a gendered split. Men aren’t inherently better at math and academia, or as Granny says, “jommetry;” women aren’t inherently more practical, emotional, or intuitive. That’s a social construct, not a biological one.

And beyond that, even, there’s no real reason for the two ‘types’ of magic to be split up at all. They might be different ways of operating, but it’s all magic. Anyone could do either. Or neither. Or both.

There’s an early conversation between Death and the wizard whose mix-up with his staff marked Esk as a wizard—just after the man has died, when he’s realized that he’s passed his magic along to a female and, in his mind, made a terrible mistake. “I was foolish,” he says, “I assumed the magic would know what it was doing.” But instead of agreeing, Death tells him, “PERHAPS IT DOES.”

It all comes down to what Esk calls magic beyond magic—the reality of the thing beyond the concepts we’ve created to define and confine it. If we’ve invented these distinctions between ‘types’ of magic, between ‘types’ of gender and the self, then what remains once we’ve removed them? What happens when we peel them away and see what’s left behind? Why do we cling to our invented categories, the things that limit both sides and create conflict?

I really like that Equal Rites never puts Esk into a specific category. She doesn’t end the book as a ‘true’ wizard or a ‘true’ witch, but she also doesn’t fully reject either. As sad as I am that Pratchett never goes much deeper into Esk (her brief appearance in I Shall Wear Midnight doesn’t actually explain much), I’m fine with not having a concrete answer. One, the other, both, neither—it’s not the point. Magic is magic. People are people. Gender is, honestly, irrelevant. Beyond the academic divides we’ve made for ourselves, it’s all the same stuff given different names. Esk does magic, and she is herself, and in the end, she’s not bound by the limitations that witches and wizards put on their reality.

Infinite possibilities!

It’s something the other wizards and witches never get to have. They’re so locked into what they believe magic to be, what they believe themselves to be, that they never really look outside those boxes.

It’s wild to me that the concept Pratchett is introducing here—specifically about wizards and witches and gender—basically disappears as long as Esk does. Esk is a really cool character; the idea of female wizards and male witches is fascinating. I want more of all this. So, I’m genuinely sad that Esk doesn’t reappear again until the Tiffany Aching books, specifically I Shall Wear Midnight—in 2010, more than twenty years after Equal Rites was published. And we don’t get another wizard or witch or magic-user in general working outside their typical gender alignment until Geoffrey appears in 2015 in The Shepherd’s Crown and asks to become a witch, and even then, the witches take to calling him a ‘calm-weaver’ instead.

I like that the idea eventually comes full circle. I don’t like that the circle takes thirty years, and goes basically unacknowledged in the meantime.

But the point Pratchett is making is still there in the Discworld, and it never really goes away. Remember how I said earlier that this stuff—all this ‘witches do and are x, wizards do and are y, that’s how it has to be’ nonsense—it’s all what people believe about magic and such, not how things are? Pratchett and Discworld are huge on belief. Belief shapes reality, belief becomes real, and we see that over and over again. But part of what Pratchett is saying here is that even if we all believe in something, then it doesn’t mean that it’s right. Just because something is doesn’t mean it should be.

More importantly, though, it also doesn’t mean we’ve locked ourselves in place. Esk proves that much. We learn. We grow. We change our understanding of our reality and ourselves, and we believe something different. And then the world changes, too.

* * * * * * * * * *

Side Notes:

We get to see Granny Weatherwax for the first time! She’s absolutely fabulous and I love this sharp-tongued bitter old lady so much. In later books starring the witches we will focus in a lot more on Granny herself as a witch and a person, rather than just as a teacher.

Granny Weatherwax is said to live in the village of Bad Ass in Equal Rites. In future books, she will live in Lancre.

There actually aren’t that many footnotes in this one. Since I kind of just…expect footnotes to appear in every book Terry Pratchett touches, despite the fact that they’re super rare everywhere else, it’s almost weirder to not see a footnote every page and a half.

Esk does some magical nonsense—mainly by not realizing the magic she’s doing should be impossible—that ends up “changing the Discworld in thousands of tiny ways.” This is probably part of Pratchett’s attempt to slowly shift what he started establishing in The Colour of Magic to what we’ll see in later Discworld books, moving from High Fantasy to more of a, I don’t know, steampunk-y magical surrealism? What even is the Discworld, I ask you? It’s impossible to describe. But what Esk does to it here is described as follows: “the wavefront of probability struck the edge of Reality and rebounded like the slosh off the side of the pond which, meeting the laggard ripples coming the other way, caused small but important whirlpools in the very fabric of existence. You can have whirlpools in the fabric of existence, because it is a very strange fabric.”

We get our first mention of sourcerers here in Equal Rites, but they’re not very well defined. We’re just told that they’re now extinct. They’ll turn up in a lot more detail in a couple books, of course, once we get to Sourcery.

Favorite Quotes:

“I know what I mean, she told herself. Magic’s easy, you just find the place where everything is balanced and push. Anyone could do it. There’s nothing magical about it. All the funny words and waving the hands is just…it’s only for… She stopped, surprised at herself. She knew what she meant. The idea was right up there in the front of her mind. But she didn’t know how to say it in words, even to herself.”

“‘But,’ he said, ‘if it’s wizard magic she’s got, learning witchery won’t be any good, will it? You said they’re different.’ ‘They’re both magic. If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least ride a horse.’”

“The old witch yanked the staff out of its shadow and waved it vaguely at Esk. ‘Here. It’s yours. Take it. I just hope this is the right thing to do.’ In fact the presentation of a staff to an apprentice wizard is usually a very impressive ceremony, especially if the staff has been inherited from an elder mage; by ancient lore there is a long and frightening ordeal involving masks and hoods and swords and fearful oaths about people’s tongues being cut out and their entrails torn by wild birds and their ashes scattered to the eight winds and so on. After some hours of this sort of thing the apprentice can be admitted to the brotherhood of the Wise and Enlightened. There is also a long speech. By sheer coincidence Granny got the essence of it in a nutshell.”

“‘Never mind what I said, or common sense or anything. Sometimes you just have to go the way things take you, and I reckon you’re going to wizard school one way or the other.’ Esk considered this. ‘You mean it’s my destiny?’ she said at last. Granny shrugged. ‘Something like that. Probably. Who knows?’”

“Animal minds are simple, and therefore sharp. Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.”

“‘Why are you holding that broomstick?’ he said. Esk looked at it as though she had never seen it before. ‘Everything’s got to be somewhere,’ she said.”

“Why was it that, when she heard Granny ramble on about witchcraft she longed for the cutting magic of wizardry, but whenever she heard Treatle speak in his high-pitched voice she would fight to the death for witchcraft? She’d be both, or none at all. And the more they intended to stop her, the more she wanted it. She’d be a witch and a wizard too. And she would show them.”

“‘Million-to-one chances,’ she said, ‘crop up nine times out of ten.’”

“For a moment he nursed the strangely consoling feeling that his life was totally beyond his control and whatever happened no one could blame him.”

#discworld #equal rites #witches #esk #granny weatherwax

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purplesurveys · 2 years ago

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1566

Whose birthday did you last celebrate, and what did you do for it? My mom’s. Apart from the decorations my siblings and I placed around the house, I also ordered in Spanish food which she requested. There was a typhoon at the time so we couldn’t really go out.

Do you use an alarm to wake up in the morning, or can you wake up naturally? I can wake up naturally most of the time, but I would occasionally set my alarm if I’m feeling a little unconfident about waking up on time.

Do you use an electric or manual toothbrush? What colour is it? I haven’t had an electric toothbrush since I was like, 5. Mine is blue and white.

Any idea how many mobile phones you've owned, in total? My current one is my 8th, if I’m not mistaken. How long have you had the mobile phone that you currently use? 8 months.

Are your nails usually painted, or not? What colour did you paint them last? They’re never painted. My hands are quite restless in the first place, so nail polish wouldn’t last with me for more than a couple of days.

What brand is the shampoo/conditioner that you currently use? I use Dove shampoo, and my conditioner is a local brand.

How long was your last car journey, and where were you going? It was around an hour and a half. One of the longer trips we’ve taken recently since we went down south to visit my dad’s side.

Have you recently been in any store where music was playing? Did you know/like the song(s)? Well yes; idk how it is in other places but where I live, all stores constantly have some sort of music playing. Most recently I was in a milk tea place and I remember mouthing along to Closer by The Chainsmokers and Halsey. As for whether I like it, I mean it’s not my favorite track and it’s in none of my playlists but I’d hum or mouth to it, which is what I did.

When did you last encounter someone who seemed rude or unpleasant? An hour ago. My mom is in the middle one of her weird tantrums again and didn’t acknowledge my presence upon arriving home until I was the first one to say hi; even then, she seemed super stoic and curt. Funny though how I give less and less of a fuck every year.

^And what was it about their behaviour, that gave that impression? She couldn’t look at me and barely said a word. Unfortunately for her I have bigger things to worry about now, so I just proceeded to being cheery around my dad and siblings.

Do you use Goodreads? If so, what are some of the books on your 'Want To Read' list? I don’t use Goodreads and would never be able to touch my hypothetical account because I haven’t read in years.

Do you own anything that was from a vintage/antique shop? I don’t think so, no.

What was the last item that you 'fell in love with' and decided to buy? BTS sticker sets.

What are your favourite kinds of accessories to wear with an outfit? Never was a big accessory girl. I’d lose them all the time, if I was.

Has anyone ever bought you a gift with your name or initial on it? What was it? No, I think my friends know better than getting me something like that hahaha. I was never a fan of personalized anything.

What type of cuisine was served in the last restaurant you ate at? I want to say largely French...? Italian? Idk, they have a bit of everything though as far as I can tell.

^Would you recommend that restaurant to others? Why or why not? Sure! It’s at the 52nd floor, offers a spectacular view of the city, and they’ve got really attentive staff who’ll make you feel right at home.

What was the last type of dessert that you tried for the first time? Was it good? Randy’s Donuts. It was actually pretty amazing, yeah. I appreciate a good dense doughnut.

The last time you checked the mail, was there anything for you? Not technically ‘mail,’ but the last thing I had shipped to me was a copy of Hobi’s Jack in the Box.

Do you own anything that has an image of a unicorn on it? Nope.

Do you know anyone who is still in a relationship with their first love? Or are you lucky enough to be one of those people? Yeah, I do.

What kind of music did you listen to as a child/teenager? Do you still enjoy any of that kind of music now? I didn’t have much of a music taste until I was around Grade 6, which is when I started paying attention to punk rock – Rancid, H2O, The Misfits, Against Me!, that whole sound – mainly due to being a fan of CM Punk. I kept that up til around high school when my circle of friends grew and my music preferences changed to revolve more around indie and pop rock – so artists like Coldplay and Hozier.

I definitely still revisit punk from time to time; but I have moved on from the artists I listened to in high school (exempting Coldplay because why stop listening to them ever?) because the people who once introduced me to indie are no longer in my life.

Tell me a little about the last photo you liked/reacted to on social media. My friends’ Disneyland photos.

What was the last activity that you tried out for fun, but decided it wasn't for you? Good question. I’m...not sure, actually. I feel like I easily back out from things that I feel from the get-go wouldn’t work for me. I want to be sure I’m super into something first, or that I’m ok to get my feet wet in something unfamiliar, before making a decision; and I quickly say no if I already envision myself being miserable throughout hahaha. Like how I’d never be game for a game of basketball, even if it’s for funsies; or taking theater classes.

Do you have any alcoholic drinks in your fridge at the moment? Yeah we have a ton of wine, beer, and soju in there currently.

What is something that you like to do, to wind down before going to sleep? Put cooling ointment all over my arms and stomach hahahaha

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welovekpopscenarios · 7 years ago

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11 questions tag! ❤️❤️

So!!! We were tagged by the amazing @theliqht to do this and Candi and I are delighted to answer!! Thank you so much for the tag my queen, I hope you’re having a lovely day ily ily ily,,, *AHEM* These are some cool ass questions, here we go!

01. What are your fears/phobias?

Mimi: Bugs. I really, really hate bugs. Any kind I really just can’t handle asdfgfd pls get away from me tnx. Also public speaking, or doing anything where I have to be centre of attention or whatever nope nope my anxiety does not like that lemme tell ya Candi: I really hate clowns, small spaces and open water but let’s just say nothing scares me 😎

02. Are you taking any classes that are not academic (if you’re still a student)? if yes, what?

Mimi: I’m in college, and I do Creative Broadcast Production, so does that count??? Candi: I’m in college so uh I guess they’re all academic? I do creative broadcast and film production

03. Your top 3 fav albums? doesn’t have to be kpop!

Mimi: OOOH MAMMA MIA- Uhm, I guess it would be Diamond Eyes by Deftones (I love them so much), a tie between Going Seventeen or A|1 by Seventeen (ofc asdfliasj my actual LIFE), and idk if this counts as an album or naw and this might seem nerdy but the skyrim soundtrack is a blessing and very good for study so I’m going to put that down bc I can’t think of anything else (tbh all game soundtracks are phenomenal hmu if you want some recommendations bc I have TONS) Candi: O boi this is gonna be hard. Demon Days by Gorillaz, Bad by Michael Jackson and Never Mind The Bollocks by Sex Pistols.

04. Would you rather explore the depths of the ocean or go to outer space?

Mimi: As much as I love the big, blue and beautiful ocean, I’m gonna say space lol. Like, space is infinite, and there’s so much to discover, and the ocean is just limited and scary tbh. Take me to the stars lmao Candi: Definitely space, fish are creepy and y’all have ye seen the shit that lives in the ocean? I mean I guess I’d stumble upon funky ass aliens in space too but sure look it, space is cooler imo.

05. Which celebrity would you want to be best friends with?

Mimi: Oh damn, this is really hard. Would it be cliché to go with someone from SVT and say Seungkwan adsjkfasldj I just, I love him so much he’s so funny and kind and I’ve always said I’d love to be friends with him like I feel like he’d be down to do whatever with you so yeah Candi: I’d say Miley Cyrus because we could chill and smoke weed all day, she is one of my favourite arists as well so.

06. Do you have any piercings? how many?

Mimi: I only have the regular ears pierced, but I don’t even wear earrings LOL I haven’t worn earrings since I was like 14,,, Candi: I have 11 piercings, lmao yeah 11. I have my vertical labret, snakebites, septum, both my nipples, tongue, industrial, rook and helix. Hawhaw pls don’t judge me.

07. What animal best represents you?

Mimi: Damn this is deep what’s on your mind fam asdfjkdfdsf lmao I jk I jk, uh,,, my fave animal is a wolf, and I guess wolves are kinda like quiet creatures like me? Loyal and steadfast. Wow that was poetic. But tbh I’m probably more of a turtle – slow and scared of everything to the point of hiding ^^’’ Candi: I don’t know tbh I never know how to answer these questions. I like to stay in my bed a lot so I have the qualities of a sloth, I’m very loyal so I’m also a dog, idk fam, lots of animals.

08. If you could change one law, what would it be?

Mimi: I guess since the topic is big here atm in Ireland, changing the law on abortion? Like I’m not comfortable with the idea of it like idk, it’s a big thing to think about, but if a woman needs to do it, then I believe she should have the choice. It’s her body, her decision, and no judgement should be passed to her Candi: This is a lil bit controversial but I’d love if abortion was legalized in Ireland because we are currently fighting H A R D for it with all the protests and stuff and it’s 2017 ffs, give women the right to their bodies thank you bye.

09. Your ideal type?

Mimi: Someone who makes me laugh, who can bring me out of my shell at my own pace, who will accept my flaws and be comfortable with me, who’ll bring me peace and happiness even in the simplest ways, someone who’ll have patience with me but also like to be crazy with me (so like, if I’ve somehow described wonwoo, mingyu or hoshi, don’t be surprised and just overlook it ok I love them so MUCH) Candi: I honestly don’t know, I love guys who look like they haven’t slept since they left the womb and who look psycho because I obviously have issues but then when it comes to girls I like chubby/curvy girls who are quite girly. Honestly, I don’t even look at the appearance that much it’s always the personality that blinds me. A person could look like ass and I’d fancy them because they’re funny. I just have a lot of issues l m a o.

10. Would you rather live in the city or countryside?

Mimi: I’d say the city, as much as I’m not a fan of big crowds, I feel like you can get comfortably lost in a city? Like you’ll have your solitude as you want it! Unless someone offers me a cottage in the forest then bye I’m living there for an eternity and becoming a witch of the land Candi: Both have their advantages but I’d much rather live in a city. I’m a busy busy person and I love the hectic lifestyle so in a city I’d be able to live how I like

11. How did you find my account? or if I was the one who found you first, what was your first impression of me? (just be honest really, no hard feelings !!)

Mimi: I’ve followed your blog on my personal one for a while and I absolutely love your content bc you bring me those amazing SVT scenarios that I lack in my life and you’re just a lovely person and your blog is so positive and nice and UGH I’M A BIG FAN ILYSM KEEP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING YOU’RE SO SWEET Candi: I’m pretty sure Mimi followed you and you and Mimi chat but just so you know I LOVE YOU TOO OKAY? YOUR CONTENT IS A++

Ok, all done!! Here are our questions now!

1. Describe your personality.

2. Who is your ultimate bias and why?

3. Besides kpop, what other music do you listen to? (If any, if not that's g)

4. Favourite movie and why?

5. Your hobbies!

6. Do you see yourself falling in love and staying with the one person for the rest of your life? : ) ) ) )

7. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would your ideal trip be?

8. Let’s be positive! What is something you’re proud of? (can be a feature, smth you’ve worked on, smth you’ve done etc.)

9. Do you have a large friend group, or small?

10. What was the last book you read?

11. If you play games, what would you consider your favourite, and why? (I’m sorry I had to gghjkgjk)

We hope you like the questions! We’re tagging @kpop-stole-my-lyfe, @seventeen-teen-teen-trash @incorrect-seventeen-quotes, and @incorrectmxquotes You don’t have to do this, but this is the handful we thought might like to! Enjoy!!

#mimi #candi #asks #theliqht #kpop-stole-my-lyfe #seventeen-teen-teen-trash #incorrect-seventeen-quotes #incorrectmxquotes #11 questions

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srseattlestreetnews · 8 years ago

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Seattle Street News 46, New Model Army

Announcement:

I, your trusty editor, am happy to welcome a new reporter, FooBar, into the Seattle Street News family. FooBar is an experienced digitally based reporter who’ll give us the skinny on the streets and back alleys only found in the Matrix. Welcome FooBar!

Corp News:

Ghost of Arislen the Sexiest Ghostie in the 6th World?

We all know the digital rag, the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer: your place for celebrity gossip and irregular sightings of Bat Boy. Everybody seems to read it…legally or not. It is ubiquitous. If you want to know if the lead singer of SuperUniverse is still dating Trid Star Alpha Omega, the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer is the place to go. If you want to know if the brain of Elvis (some 5th World Trid Star) has been uploaded into a biodrone that also looks like Marilyn Monroe (some other 5th World Trid Star), the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer is the place to go.

Every year the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer also has the Sexiest Entity in the 6th World competition. Now, I think we all knew who was most likely to win the competition this year: Alpha Omega. Alpha Omega has been everywhere this year. She was the star of the year’s biggest blockbuster trid: 52 Fast 52 Furious—Bourne’s Impossible Mission 92: The Revenge of Electric Boogaloo. She also had 13 hit singles, including “Love Song #87: Buy This Song! (The Very Edgy Remix).” In a mainstream digital rag? We all figured she was a lock for the win. If not her, then maybe Lofwyr again. Dragons always seem to win these things.

But when the announcement came out…it was not what you’d think. The Sexiest Entity in the 6th World turned out to be former gubernatorial candidate: The Ghost of Arislen. Now this is clearly absurd. The Ghost of Arislen is clearly not the Ghost of Arislen, that much was clear from the election. Who is the cyberjocky that is maintaining the Ghost of Arislen persona and spent their time trolling everyone during an election? Doesn’t really matter, does it? Don’t get me wrong, I do indeed want to know who the Matrix troll is, but that is not relevant to this moment. What is relevant to this moment is that after the Matrix, a bunch of hackers, deckers, and SINless became fans of Arislen. For people who couldn’t vote in the election, a clearly fake candidate trolling the norms, something so very absurd, became one of the few things that made sense in this broken city. Not exactly a gang, but more an anarchist fanclub. And they have been active posting ghostie graffiti all over town…you’ve seen the images.

And it seems, they’ve pulled off the ultimate troll. They have somehow hacked the Sexiest Entity Competition. And so now, the Sexiest Spirit of the 6th World is none other than Arislen’s Ghost. What does it mean in the end that such absurdities come to pass? Perhaps when they have nothing else and no other power, only the absurd makes sense. It may seem like a small victory, but think about it. Arislen’s Ghosties got “The Ghost of Arislen” named the Sexiest Spirit in the 6th World on the cover of the Weekly Wuxing Enquirer. Sometimes that sort of victory is enough.

Reflections on the Robotics Market

The article is one of a series looking at the current state of individual corporate subsidiaries in the Seattle Metroplex. This particular issue focuses on the Metroplex Robotics.

The Robotics market is a medium sized market in the Metroplex with a value of 137.3¥B. It is much bigger than Agriculture and almost as important. Food, the Matrix, Housing, and Robots. These are the cornerstones of 6th World survival. Similar to Agriculture, Robotics isn’t a very crowded field. The four corps with presence in Seattle’s Robotics are the dominant Saeder-Krupp (43%), second place Renraku (29.8%), Shiawase (19.3%), and finally Horizon (7.8%). Robotics covers so much of our lives, from SK’s Kegbots, to Renraku’s new wolf drones, to Horizon’s innovative use of robotics in entertainment and news, from their journalism drones to their film effects robots.

SSN reached out to all the corps with a Robotics presence but could get no comment from official sources—however, we are lucky to get a rather different sort of market analysis from one of Seattle’s premier financial analysts, Saeder-Krupp executive Vorack. Gentle readers will be asked to remember that Vorack is a brilliant analyst but also a member of Saeder-Krupp, and that offers special insight, but also a bit of a SK slant:

Vorack: Good ol Robotics, it’s used for a whole lot more than you would think! Of course there are your typical bipedal humanoid types, the ones you use as a chauffeur to drive you around or even that certain tutor-bot who can actually stand your brat of a child, and maybe someday will teach them how to be more than a god damn good for nothing nerfherding dwarf! Sorry about that, I personally recommend the KLERM as it is an amazing tutor. Then of course you got your fun bots, the ones used for more recreational goods and that just make lives easier. Be it keeping your brew nice and cold and bringing it to you while called, the ones you set up for Halloween for pranks and used to scare anyone that passes by! Or even the ones who can self ignite, throw on a batch of amazing sausages on itself, get em all nice and crisp and crackling and then serve them out, without you even needing to think about lighting a grill, and then having people complain because maybe just maybe you would like to socialize instead of paying full attention to a grill full of BeccaWurst, I’m sooooo sorry that they came out a little overcooked, I was busy being a good host for everyone else! Sorry again, that was uncalled for, but seriously that KEGbot is perfect at what it does, chilled to perfection. And then of course there are companion bots for those who just need a little extra companionship in their life. There is nothing wrong with having a bot sitting around that you can talk to and bounce ideas off of maybe sing you a song or two. There are so many other types of bots out there that I could write this whole article and still not mention even a fraction of them, that's what is so great about them. A good team of engineers can figure out a new way to make your robo act and then figure how to design them to make it work and Bam!, just like that, your life just got slightly easier as now you will never need to fold laundry again!

It’s weird to say but I owe my life to a robot, I can’t give out too many details but it was a certain group of individuals piloting some KEGbots, they were heading out to a party to keep it going and they found me and rescued me from that warehouse after I was kidnapped. If it wasn't for those bots, who knows if I would have been found and I hate the idea of that. [Editor’s Note: SSN Reporting indicated that Vorack was not rescued by a group of individuals heading out to a party, but a S-K Special Forces team using modified Kegbots as combat Mecha.] So ya the Robotics industry is kinda important. We make robots all the time to do tasks that are either way to dangerous for us to do ourselves or so repulsive that even an Ork won’t do! (That's a joke, I don't know if it came across right but I didn't mean anything by it, I mean no disrespect to the Ork community.) [Editor’s Note: Vorack’s views are Vorack’s and do not reflect the views of the Seattle Street News.] I guess it’s time I get to talking about the division and its players then huh? As of right now there are four corps in the Robotics market but there used to be another, sadly their products were of such low quality that we felt bad for them and bought them out entirely so they wouldn't cause any more harm. Right now us at SK are leading, followed by Renraku, Shiawase and then bringing up the rear is Horizon but they are newcomers to the field so that's to be expected. It has always been a growing industry with very few setbacks in general. There seemed to be an attack on a Renraku factory of some sort months back and while SK was attacked twice by NeoNET, one of those time NeoNET’s own robots, who they were using as the attacking force, ended up turning on each other and it was hilarious to watch and report on, man that was a good time. I was actually there for that strike, we actually roasted marshmallows over the burning wreckage of their robots, the wreckage they caused themselves! (The marshmallows didn't taste that great, I don't recommend cooking anything over a NeoNET product) God I love telling that story, I wish I had a Vid of it.

But no aside from those few issues and the one time a Horizon product backfired and went around broadcasting how corrupt their corp was and how they are using the media to control the masses, there have been almost no problems in robotics, just always going up and it doesn't look like it’s gonna stop. I personally wanna see more corporations get into robotics, maybe come up with some new fun ideas that will change up everything but as of now it’s just a really strong subsidiary with very little downside. Who doesn't want a robotic pet Stegosaurus, I know I wanted one as a little kid and now because of SK and their robotics division I have one and let me tell you, Snappy is an amazing pet.

Robotics are central to everything we do. Sometimes that might be good when it is a hacked medbot in that one alley in the Barrens where SINless can get a bit of aid, but sometimes it might be bad when it is a new fleet of oppressive Robocops stomping on SINless.

City News:

Galahad Academy Front for Child Kidnapping Ring?

The rash of SINless kidnappings, that caused so much outrage in the community, seems to have gotten some answers, and they aren’t pretty. The positive side is that they weren’t murdered by some serial killer. The down side is that they were preyed upon by some Ares scientists for immoral experimentation. Brother of one of the missing kids Sam Ortega, contacted SSN the other day to share some information.

It turns out a pair of Ares scientists, Margret and Foster Fitzgerald were enticing SINless metahumans with promises of SINs and scholarships to the Galahad academy, one of the infamous Ares Squire academies. Rather than a pathway to a new life, what they got instead was destructive experimentation. These Fitzgeralds seemed to be conducting surgeries on the children to make them seem human, suppressing their metatype. Rumors have it that it had to do with some sort of human supremacist program. Details are still forthcoming, but all signs are that this was about destroying these children’s selfhood, what made them special and beautiful, in exchange for…what? For the chance to be forever owned by some shadow organization hidden inside Ares?

Is this why Knight Errant was so slow in investigating the rash of kidnappings—because it was an inside job? I think it is not coincidental that Lt. Monroe, one of the most honest Knight Errant I’ve ever met was sidelined throughout the entire situation. Indeed, where is he now?

Fallout information on the scandal is very hard to find. Ares has moved into damage control mode. They have denied any knowledge of the experiments the Fitzgeralds were involved in, they certainly denied approving the program—indeed, they condemned the program in the strongest possible language. This is something we know. Things we don’t know? What happened to the Fitzgeralds and all the children deceived into their secret program. But we also know that Ares is cleaning house in the aftermath of the scandal. Soltysiak Kane, the President of the Galahad Academy and Order Master of the Squires of Galahad released a press release earlier today announcing that he would be stepping down from his position. He, in his press release, announced, “It has been my utmost pleasure over the past eighteen years to guide this prestigious Academy forward. However, in light of the recent revelations of Doctor Fitzgerald's reprehensible activities it has become clear that I am no longer fit to serve as your Order Master and President. It was my signature that allowed them into our Order, and my lack of oversight that allowed them to carry out their experiments on your fellow Squires. It's at times like these, that Squire Orders are most important. Though I shall be leaving this Academy in an Official capacity, I am now, and shall ever be, a Squire of Galahad.” The new President of Galahad and Master Squire is one Maritza Quartermane. Maritza Quartermane is a very symbolic choice. There are things about Quartermane you would expect. They are a graduate of the Galahad Academy. After graduation they distinguished themselves in service of Knight Errant, holding a variety of positions but being most well known for their work in Information Security. This is what Ares would tell you about Maritza Quartermane. What I’ll tell you about them is that they are an Ork. After a scandal involving human supremacy and unethical experimentation to suppress someone’s metahumanity, Ares has placed an Ork in charge of the Galahad Academy and the Squires Program. Is this an indicator of a more significant change in Ares? Let us hope so.

But for the moment, for Seattle, the most important thing is Liam has his brother back.

Emerald Rainbows—(by Demmalition1)

While walking along the streets pondering my next piece for this column I saw the most peculiar thing. I saw a man in a bright red shirt fidgeting with his commlink and sweating profusely, mumbling to himself about God knows what. I know this because that’s who he was mumbling to, God. He was having an argument with the most supreme being in the cosmos about his life and the direction that he took to land himself there. That’s right, God himself was standing over his shoulder shouting into his ear, and he being only a mere mortal was mumbling back what best he could. As the devout among us know, you don’t say “no” to Him, the one above all who created the Heavens and the Earth, the one who gave the breath of life into this universe and allowed mankind to degrade itself into its present state of corporatocracy and crony capitalism. However, you might give pause to what you’re being told if you were asked to “kill yourself for the betterment of mankind, you loser fuck. Just jump into traffic already!”.

Zachary DeWitt was a human who led a normal life for the first 30 or so years. He had a stable job with a loving troll husband and an adopted ork rescue child who supposedly was born in Germany near the SOX region. He was an analyst for some small-time accounting firm, going over numbers to find evidence of fraud and coverups. One day Zachary decided to go out with his friends after work to a dive bar for a few drinks. While there they all had a bit too much to drink, and too much alcohol can lead to some bad life decisions. Though the punishment varies, the decision Zachary was about to make would have ramifications far beyond his own life. He decided to slot a BTL chip in for the first time. It went downhill from there.

I sat down with Zachary at a nearby diner, a bit rundown but it was the closest thing not near a major intersection. Under the dim and flickering bulbs and over a hot bowl of soup he told me just what it was like to be a whole other person for a little while. He told me how amazing the high was, and how his ability to experience snowboarding down a mountainside grew to feeling the victory of his first underground heavyweight boxing championship. When he threw the knockout punch in the 8th round it was like being the king of the world, like being a dragon lording over a hoard of gold that was yours and yours alone. This progressed rapidly to wanting to know what the female orgasm felt like, to him experiencing the macabre thrill of his first robbery, to feel the joy of hurting someone, and finally culminating in the hollow revelry of killing an innocent person point-blank with a shotgun, taking glee as his victim’s guts splattered against the wall. But the high was fleeting, and Zachary was running out of money. The repeated trips down memory lanes not of his own were growing tiresome, and he needed something more, something of pure and utter passion.

That's when Zachary turned to other drugs, other drugs that would expand his mind and experiences: novacoke, cram, jazz, and even nitro. But even that wasn’t enough. The repeated exposure to the various personalities he inhabited and the false lives he lived started to make him paranoid, and he was developing the early stages of dissociative identity disorder even when not slotted in. His husband took their daughter after a while, he soon after lost his job and subsequently his UCAS SIN. These events caused him to plunge into the deep end of the drug trade to find the meanest, baddest drug around. Nitro wasn’t enough, he needed something more, something so permeable in its euphoric tendencies that not even Zachary himself could handle it. He turned to a new drug, a drug given the street name of “Little Apple”.

You may remember Little Apple was featured way back in SSN issue no. 32 when it started to inject its way into the bloodstream of the city. It has gone unchecked since then and has grown a small cult following in various underground circles. Users within this following are referred to as ‘fluffies’ on account of the fact that they appear outwardly friendly and sociable before degrading rapidly. The drug causes a euphoric feeling much like bliss, but has the added side effects of causing neurologically-based visual and auditory hallucinations. Users see lights, rainbows, and unicorns accompanied by friendly music before flipping on a dime and going into ranting manic episodes. The drug is highly addicting and causes these episodes to get worse and worse with each use. These episodes eventually reach a crescendo of constant depression, hallucinations, and even death by suicide, most commonly by people wandering into traffic with a glazed look in their eyes. Some, like Zachary, willingly throw themselves off of rooftops or into speeding traffic in order to stop the voices in their heads. And Little Apple, coupled with Zachary’s previous BTL-induced side effects was right at the cusp of snuffing his life as well.

Nothing is being done to help Zachary and the other SINless in Seattle. To those of you who are SINless and read this column, know that I care for and am fighting for you. You are powerless to change your situation, with no legal means of voting or working in this oppressively kleptocratic oligarchical corporatocracy. Something must be done for you. But for the rest of you with SINs, I know sure as Hell that you don’t give a damn about Zachary. If you did care for him you’d be calling your representative right now to complain. After all, Zachary is just one among the crowd of assholes who populate our homeless shelters eating up your hard-earned tax dollars. It’s Zachary’s fault he got into this, let him find his own way out in front of a bus going at high speeds. Yeah, that’ll end the drug problem one deranged person at a time. They don’t need our support, fuck em. But don’t say that about Uncle Earl, he needs all the support he can get, he’s just going through a rough patch is all. It’ll all work out in the end, I just know it.

If any of you SINners got out and looked at the state of our city, and I mean REALLY looked, you’d be outside your local Representative’s office screaming at the top of your lungs for reform. You’d want to help those who can’t help themselves, but you know what? Most people with SINs don’t go out and fight for a better tomorrow. They’d rather stay in the blissful reality of their lives going about their daily loop, aiming for the next big and juicy promotion. It’s the drug of choice, their promotion being the next hit to get high on life and ignoring all that’s wrong around them. They’d rather have life go around and around like a merry-go-round, distracted by the colorful lights and cheerful music until they grow old and drop dead. The only difference between life and Little Apple is that Little Apple does what it says on the tin, just a lot faster.

God help us all.

Ares Rolls Out Jack Booted RoboThugs To Invade Our Homes

Ares/Knight Errant recently announced something very disturbing for the SINless and their fellow travellers. In a press release Ares/Knight Errant have announced the roll out of a new product: the Lancer Humanoid Security Drone. It is a heavily armored “law enforcement” drone that is meant to keep the well off SINners “safe” from those of us protesting for justice and representation. They cited the rise of a protest movement that brought our new government and our new hopes as the reason they brought out these new inhuman and frightening forces of intimidation and violence. A representative said the purpose was to “keep us safe from protestors and anarchists.” But who is the “us”—certainly not unarmed and peaceful protester Pedro Tanaka who was shot by Knight Errant officer Augustus Ivan Polk. Certainly not me and certainly not you. They are labeling us all anarchists because we want to be able to walk down the street like anyone else.

The forces of backlash are rising and now a metal army is coming to our neighborhoods. Keep safe chummers. But keep inspired and keep empowered. Nevertheless, we will persist. Once awakened, we will not fall back to sleep.

Features:

Feedback Loop: Activity in the Arcology—(by Foobar)

Hello Digital Denizens; this is FooBar, your Sultan of Systems, coming to you from the heart of the Matrix. I’m here to bring you all 411 from the 0s and 1s, scoping the systems, and keeping an eye on the digital.

The now government run arcology known as ACHE has been a topic of a lot of debates, It’s walls being closed off, and its imports and inhabitants controlled. Nothing goes in and out of the arcology without the government’s notice.

Or so we thought.

Though information is obfuscated for anything within the arcology itself, import records show there is more need for supply within the closed system. Looking deeper, digital transactions within the arcology seems to be on the rise.

What’s more, connecting the data points paints an interesting picture. Over the last few weeks, there have been identical transactions to several of the arcology’s more independently run stores on a regular basis. What does this mean for the arcology? Is there a third party at play here, or just a coincidence of one of the more wealthy of the closed system’s regular habits?

If this is the work of an unknown benefactor we commend your actions toward the lesser man, trapped within a system they’re unable to escape. That’s all for your wave across the matrix today. Stay jacked in Jackrabbits, and keep an eye on the data.

Once More 6--(by Breach)

The 14th Amendment to the UCAS Constitution, ratified on September 4, 2036, gives birth to the System Identification Number - the SIN that we are SINless without. Some are SINless by choice. Some run SINless to escape the legacy of their SIN. Some are SINless because the system has failed them, ignored them, forgotten them. Other world governments would soon follow (some few preceded, though not in quite the same way), but many found themselves unable to avail themselves of the rights promised them.

Metahumans - especially orks and especially trolls - were often denied access to the procedures to register for a SIN, and on February 7th, 2039, the collected rage of the mass of metahumanity spilled over into the Night of Rage. The protests were global, unorganized, and sometimes messy. Hundreds died in the Seattle Metroplex, and I still remember watching, three days later, as the Sears Tower was destroyed in Chicago. Tens of thousands died in the attack and the fires that followed. Metahumans involved in the protests were framed for the attack - shadow sources know it was the work of the terrorist group Alamos 20,000, but official records have yet to be cleared.

In the decade that follows, metasapient rights would slowly grow. The Athabaskan Council, a member of the NAN, was one of the first nations in the world (and the first that is majority human) to recognize metasapients, declaring sasquatches to be a sapient species deserving of rights and citizenship. A rebirth of Eugenics in southern Germany was quickly squashed in a day by apparently magical intervention as yet another dormant volcano awakens. Yamatetsu, the Japanese megacorp that will later become Evo, gained a seat on the Corporate Court the same day Buttercup, a free spirit, became its largest single shareholder. The Great Dragon Dunkelzahn started the show Wyrm Talk, bridging the gap between dragons and metahumanity.

We all miss you, Big D. Rest in peace.

National power sees perhaps its last stand in the 40s; starting in 2044, Aztlan nationalized all resources and holdings, seizing corporate lands and claims from other nations (but not from Aztechnology.) Aztechnology’s position as a founding member gives it a veto on the Corporate Court, and it takes years of legal wrangling to get around it, but by 2048, the Court finally authorized Operation Reciprocity, allowing the other megacorporations to strike at Aztlan and Aztechnology with impunity in retaliation for the nationalization of assets. After just three days, Aztlan capitulates, and Aztechnology pays billions in reparations to the other megacorporations. Never again would a nation attempt to bar corporations from operating in their territory - sanctions have still been enacted against individual corporations, even the megas, but private industry proves its primacy over the public trust forevermore.

We didn’t know it at the time, but the foundation of the Universal Brotherhood in the California Free State in 2043 would send another shock to the world. It took a decade before we saw what was coming, and we’ll talk about that next week.

Questions about history? Ask Breach! [email protected]

Seattle Street News is an independent activist news source released weekly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays

[Watch CorporateSINs on every Wednesday, 6pm PST or on Youtube at, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11c7BLFQtc&list=PLHKocVDXoWBtzze1SGGUnU6KB5UFrDLFo]

#CorpSINs #shadowrun #HyperRPG

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zipgrowth · 7 years ago

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As Textbook Companies Try New Options, Many Students Say Price Is Biggest Factor

Professors assign textbooks (or other materials) that they view as required to succeed in their courses, but some students say they go in with a wait-and-see attitude: They delay a week or two into the semester, and then obtain only the materials that seem truly necessary to them.

“I try to read the vibe of the teacher and see how it’s going to be,” says Ursula Abdala, a senior at University of Texas at Arlington. “If I feel that one book will save my life this semester, I’ll break down and buy it,” she says. “I’m usually broke.”

When she and other college students do decide to buy these days, they face an increasingly diverse and often confusing range of choices. Besides just new and used print options from the campus bookstore, students might have their pick between print and digital, buying or renting, and in some cases, buying a subscription from a publisher that gives them access to multiple titles by that provider.

One crucial part of the decision is out of the students’ hands, of course, since it is the professor who decides what textbook or material to assign—or whether to skip commercial textbooks altogether and assign a free or low-cost open educational resource, or OER.

Forrest Spence, an assistant professor of the practice at the department of economics at the University of Notre Dame, thinks the textbook market is similar to the healthcare market in that way. He says physicians have more information than their patients, and may have financial incentives to over-provide or under-provide care, depending on how they’re being compensated. Likewise, in the textbook market, those assigning the textbooks aren’t the ones who actually have to buy them. And that “almost certainly” makes professors much less price sensitive than you would expect in a market where the person deciding what to buy actually has to pay for it.

What do students these days think of this changing landscape? EdSurge asked a half dozen students to share their buying habits and their views. Answers varied by the student’s major and type of college they attended, and of course it’s impossible to generalize about something as diverse as student views on anything. But we’ve included highlights from the conversations below to get a sense of how at least a sampling of students see the issues.

Looking For Options

Romina Gupta, a sophomore economics and politics major at Mount Holyoke College, says her professors assign a mix of print and digital reading. A lot of the academic readings in her economics classes are from sources like JSTOR, a digitized library of scholarly journals, and for some of her politics classes, most of the readings are academic works of other professors, research on the subject and books.

Gupta says she normally gets her reading materials from either Amazon or from a used book event at the end of the year, where students sell their books to students who’ll be taking the classes the next semester. Additionally, she turns to a Facebook page for people who attend her university where students sell their books. And students can also get their books and reading sources from the campus library, she says.

Gupta says she tries to not buy textbooks, because they’re expensive—such as her economics textbook in a previous class, which cost $600. “I try to just rent them for the semester,” she says.

McKenzi Morris, a senior public relations major at Texas Tech University, notes that once she got into her upper level-courses, professors moved away from “full fledged textbooks,” and instead assigned books relating to the major. For those books, she says there aren’t as many options to rent the title, which “can make it a little more expensive.”

When professors do assign textbooks, she usually opts to rent them from Amazon or a similar service. But if she can’t find the textbook online or can’t get it quickly, she rents from one of the on-campus bookstores. If she does buy a textbook, it doesn’t really matter to her if it’s a digital or physical version.

Caleb Hylton, a senior majoring in information systems technology at Seminole State College of Florida, says his assigned reading is “a lot more digital.” He says he’s had professors say the textbook is just recommended and will scan the needed sections from the book, or will assign PDFs or a website from a third-party so students can complete assignments. If Hylton does need to buy a textbook, he does so at either the campus bookstore or Amazon.

Unlike Morris and Gupta, he prefers to buy, not rent. He enjoys owning things, he says, and it’s sometimes difficult for him to pay attention to “what has to go back and when.” He tends to buy used textbooks because they are cheaper.

Responding to Subscriptions

Some publishers have recently started offering subscription options for textbooks. Take Perlego, a UK-based company which gives users access to a library of content, including digital textbooks. And starting in August 2018, textbook publisher Cengage will let students access all of the company’s digital higher education materials for $119.99 a semester.

Such arrangements most benefit students when they need to buy more than one book by the same publisher, and several of the students we talked to said they paid little attention to which publishers they encountered in assigned texts, so they weren’t sure how much such offers could help.

“There might be cases in which it works—if it’s optional,” says Abdala, the student from UT Arlington. “Having an extra option is always good.”

Christina Forgette, a sophomore at the University Mississippi, says that what she liked about the idea is the ability to pay by the semester. She complained that one online textbook she encountered required her to buy a year-long pass when she only needed access for a semester.

Hylton also thinks it could be a good idea, but only because it encourages students “to have the ability to perhaps read other materials that they might not be taking but might have an interest in.”

But Gupta is more skeptical. She thinks subscription fee models could work for certain courses—for instance, if someone is a biology major and the university uses books from the same publisher that get progressively harder. But if a student is taking courses in different subjects, like she is, it’s not the best idea. Gupta also points out that at her school, professors have different preferences as to which types of books they want to use.

Limited Exposure to OER

Of the six students we talked to, only one had taken a class that used an Open Educational Resource, or OER in place of a commercial textbook.

Forgette says she was assigned an open textbook that her professor created for a writing course. “Because she wrote it, it was very personalized for the class,” she says. And she found no issues with the quality. “I thought it was just as helpful as any other textbook.”

Morris had never even heard of OERs, but after she was given a quick definition, she said she wishes she’d known about them and they seem like they could be beneficial for students if they can find what they need on them.

Hylton says OER materials make sense if they’re on something that’s timeless, but for something where there needs to be revisions, there’s no guarantee “that those revisions are actually going to be released in a timely fashion.”

Abdala said she had never encountered OER in her courses, but she trusts that her professors would vett any materials carefully before assigning them. “Before I take a class I do research on the faculty,” she says. “And if it’s somebody that’s a good professor, I’m sure that they would not settle for something that is not good material.”

Student Advice to Publishers

We asked the students what advice they have for textbook publishers.

Morris wants them to keep in mind that they’re marketing to college students who “generally are not made out of money” and are getting the textbooks because “they’re being required” and not because they’re seeking them out or want to read them on a daily basis.

Hiral Mistry, a second-year student studying finance at Houston Community College, also mentioned cost, saying she wants publishers to stop making access codes to online supplements so expensive.

Hylton, who says he was part of a Cengage student advisory council about a year ago, says the one thing he wanted them to know was they need to make sure the information in textbooks is relevant, accurate and shows both sides of the argument.

Gupta wants the professors and experts in the field writing the textbooks to present material as if the person reading it is coming into the topic cold. “A lot of times they’re writing from a point of view where things are obvious,” Gupta says, “and sometimes I don’t think things are obvious to students who are just learning material.”

As Textbook Companies Try New Options, Many Students Say Price Is Biggest Factor published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9

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