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seoulnotes · 4 years

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Love Is Not Over — knj

Inspired by lyrics from Love Is Not Over by BTS

Track 2 of The Playlist Series

S Y N O P S I S | Namjoon wants a divorce; he fell out of love. y/n has one request for her to sign the papers: Namjoon has to act like the husband he once was for the last month of their marriage before he stopped caring. Is 30 days long enough to save love?

P A I R I N G | Kim Namjoon, reader (y/n)

G E N R E | angst (a lot), fluff (a bit) ; PG-13

W A R N I N G S | none

W O R D C O U N T | 4.5k

사랑이란 아프고 아픈 것

이별이란 아프고 더 아픈 것 같애

니가 없으면 나 안될 것 같아

사랑해줘 사랑해줘

다시 내 품으로 와줘

—

Love is so painful

Goodbyes are even more painful

I can’t go on if you’re not here

Love me, love me

Come back to my arms

You already knew what the bound papers Namjoon gripped were as he approached you at the kitchen counter before he had set them onto the countertop.

“What is this?” You feigned ignorance as if you hadn’t discovered the bound papers hiding in Namjoon’s dresser a week prior when you were doing the laundry. It wasn’t a good hiding place. Although, the words in bold at the top of the front page were mocking you far more now as Namjoon set the papers before you.

You were hurt having found them hiding, but now that they were glaring at you on the countertop you just cleaned, you couldn’t help the way your heart shriveled just a bit within your chest.

It was an inevitable end that was coming and it had finally arrived after months of apprehension.

For months, he slowly distanced from you, bit by bit. You felt him slipping away, losing hold on promises he bound himself to in front of both your families. He rarely even touched you anymore.

It started with the little things like your kisses or hugs. He didn’t return them the same at first and then he stopped altogether. Then he slowly spoke less to you. You thought it was because of stress or work, but you couldn’t have been farther from it. A normal stressed filled month never went this far.

He distanced himself so far away you couldn't pull him back even if you tried. And you did, so much. You wondered if there was someone else.

“How was today?” It took enough built up courage for you to speak with him as he walked through the doors. You tried to uphold a smile on your lips as an offering from you.

“Fine,” just one word without even taking a glance towards you to acknowledge your presence.

“Did you eat yet?” Another attempt.

“Yeah.” It made you look at the plates set on the counter with cling film around it. You made dinner for two, but only one person was home.

He continued to walk further down the hall and you trailed behind him with just a bit of courage left after the initial rejection. He laid down on his back.

You leaned against the doorframe. “Are you okay?” Perhaps it would be your last try at trying to talk to him.

“y/n, I'm really tired,” just four words and you knew he didn't want you there. It was probably the most he had spoken to you in a while.

With that, you turned to walk back. When you thought you had reached a far enough distance with a door in between, you crouched down as your vision became blurry. You were defeated; his rejection was enough to shut you out of your attempts to reconcile what was broken.

You let it out. All the built-up frustration came out in cries you attempted to muffle with your hand.

Maybe he had heard it, but either way, he didn't do anything about it.

When enough time passed and you felt more numb towards the matter, you emptied all the dishes on the counter and went to bed. Next to him.

You slept that night with a lovely dream. You dreamt that he would hold you close like he used to with his arms slung around your waist as he pressed tightly to you.

If you dream hard enough, you would be on cloud nine and would feel a slight warmth around you as if he was holding you.

But the next morning you woke up to his side empty.

“I want a divorce.” His words were laced with utter gentleness as if speaking to a child. He knew what he was asking of you. “Just look through the terms and change anything if you need to.”

“Why? Do you have someone else?” You felt pricking in your eyes and that familiar lump in your throat, but you forced yourself to speak.

“No, I don’t,” there was a firmness in his voice. He was telling the truth leading you to further question how things got this way.

“If you can’t tell me why, I can’t accept this.” The lump at the back of your throat became harder to swallow and it was near overpowering the stability of your voice.

“I-,” it seemed the words were hard for him to get out. They were stuck at his throat, unable to be formed by his tongue and he paused.

You knew what he was going to say before he even began the first syllable.

He didn’t love you anymore. You wished you knew what had gone sour.

“Please y/n, please do it for me?” His tone was begging.

This was the most you had spoken to each other in months and it was him asking for a divorce.

At the end of the day, human selfishness was stronger than human logic. Instead of allowing him a chance to escape your marriage which no longer brought him happiness, you turned your body and stood from the chair.

For so long you had wanted his attention, for you both to be in the same room. At this very moment, you wanted nothing but the opposite, to be alone and away from him.

As you turned your back to walk away, you said quietly, “I want to be alone, please.” You took the divorce papers and went down the hall to the guest bedroom.

With yourself locked away, you allowed your emotions to take over and the tears to fall.

What had you done for this to go so wrong?

He'd peek into the room when he came home once every day to check on you. You made sure to avoid him with times that aligned with his schedule. You left the room when he would be out for work and slipped back in around the time when he would arrive home.

The first couple of days were avoidance out of hurt. You cried and cried, but you did it quietly when he was home.

After the initial tide of emotions, you began to briefly look over the papers considering. Those days, you slowly began to abandon the avoiding. You did what you wanted to do and he didn’t bother you.

You caught him at times, eyes glancing towards you, probably noticing the dark circles that formed from nights of not sleeping or the redness of your eyes, and you swore his eyes hid worry as his hand went to the air to reach out to comfort you. He’d catch himself mid-air and then rush to slide his hands back into his pockets.

One day, he came back to see you out of bed and sitting at the counter. Laid out in front of you were the divorce papers and a black pen.

You slid the papers to his view. You had crossed out all of his terms. You crossed out all the terms that gave you anything he was giving you out of pity. The house, your car, you didn’t want any of it.

“I don’t want any of it.”

His eyes held confusion as they began to gloss over what you scribbled next to it. It wasn’t anything of value or you could trade for money after the divorce; it was more like a deal.

He can get what he wants and you can get closure.

Then it would be fair for both of you.

For one month, your last month before divorcing, you both will act like that last month was the first month of your marriage, when things were right. You will act as if there isn’t a divorce, just like how you used to be.

“Just one month. That’s all I want. At the end of 30 days, I’ll sign it.”

To be honest, he was looking at you as if you had grown three heads. “y/n, one month is not going to fix what is broken.”

You shook your head. It would be a dream if that could happen, but you knew reality better than that. “That isn’t what I want. I just want closure so I could remember the end as happy.”

Even if it wasn’t real, at least to pretend to love me for one last time.

That’s what you really wanted to say, but it sounded too pitiful coming from you who was basically asking him to play husband for one last time. At least for one month, you'd receive the love that was once lost; even if it wasn't real.

After a drawn-out moment of silence, Namjoon met your eyes. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“I have one more request. Every day, carry me to bed for this last month.”

It received another strange look, but he nodded. You honestly didn’t think he would have agreed and in some time, you would have signed the papers regardless.

That very day started the 30 days and you were beginning to think it was an extremely terrible idea.

Namjoon forced everything he did that day with you. It was as if you were both strangers, he didn’t know what to say to you when you ate dinner, leading the air to hang in thick silence and the worst came when he had to carry you to bed.

You were both sitting on the sofa. “Do you want me to stand? Would that be easier?”

To be honest, despite the divorce lingering in the air, the entire situation was quite humorous.

He shook his head and turned towards you. He bent down to slide an arm behind your knees and another arm behind your back.

“Hold on or I’m gonna drop you,” he half-joked with a quiet chuckle.

You obliged and looped your arms around his neck. “You’re out of practice,” you joked back.

Unfortunately, the words didn’t sit well and Namjoon answered back in a still tone. “I suppose I am.” With that, he moved towards the bedroom and gently placed you onto the bed.

He disappeared into the attached bathroom and reappeared moments later, dropping onto the bed beside you.

You supposed sleeping in the same bed every night was also a part of becoming a husband again. As much as you wanted to ask for more, asking for something like him sleeping with you in his arms would just be ridiculous.

When the one week mark rolled around, the routine wasn’t as awkward as the earlier days. This morning, Namjoon woke up before you and snuck out of the room.

When you woke up, you were surprised it was by his hand gently shaking you and the first thing you smelled was coffee.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” his lips curved into a smile and he offered the mug of coffee towards you.

“Coffee? For me?” You were still in your sleepy state, sitting up, and blinking a couple of times to adjust yourself to the situation.

“Coffee in bed, for the both of us,” he added and handed you the mug.

It was warm in your hands. You took a sip; you had not had his coffee in nearly half a year.

Namjoon walked around to his side and slipped in next to you leaning on the headboard. “I suppose it is fair that we have coffee in bed for these couple of weeks since we used to do it all the time.”

You knew what he was really trying to say behind those words.

Yes, you used to have coffee in bed every morning for as many mornings that would allow between both of your work schedules. The real meaning was when he used to wake you up every morning with a hot cup of coffee. He did that and he did it every morning, never missing one.

When you went on vacation or stayed away from home, he found a way to get instant coffee or bought coffee from any shops nearby to surprise you in the morning.

You nodded. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Yeah, I forgot how nice this used to be.”

He thought you were referring to the coffee. You shook your head. “Thank you for the coffee, but thank you for agreeing to do this. I know it’s kinda ridiculous and you might think I’m trying to make you love me again, but it’s not really my intention.” I don’t think that’ll happen anyway.

“I just wanted a nice conclusion you know? That we both said a proper goodbye and remembered the good things better, fresh in our mind, instead of the bad things.” You took another sip of coffee.

“If I’m being honest, I’m glad you chose to do this,” he mused.

While other people liked to spill feelings and nonsensical thoughts over wine or alcohol, you both liked your mornings with coffee in bed better. The comfort of warm sheets and a nice mug of coffee brought peacefulness to your minds. You didn’t mind sharing your thoughts with him and he didn’t mind sharing his thoughts with you.

Guess that was one thing that had never changed.

It was the weekend and that meant your days off. It also meant Namjoon’s days off if there wasn’t anything on his schedule.

Weekends you both had found were the hardest in all of the days of the week to spend with each other. During workdays, it would be a simple dinner, a couple of hours of watching T.V. or spare time, and then off to bed. You really only spent a couple of hours together for the weekdays.

For weekends, it meant the entire day that you had to spend with each other.

At least it was the middle of the month and you were set to do many tasks including laundry from the past week, cleaning the entire house, and shopping for the next two weeks of groceries and other things that you were out of.

“I’ve got some errands today. I mean, you could come with or just do something by yourself.” You swiped through shirts in your closet and chose one.

He was sitting in the bed behind you as you pulled on the shirt you’d wear out.

“Joon? Got an answer?” You began to button your shirt.

“I’ll come with,” he offered, though it took him a seriously long time to answer such a simple question.

No, he had been too distracted, watching you and you noticed realizing that it had been months since he had seen that much of you.

“It’s not something you hadn’t seen before,” you teased. “Or touched.” Which prompted his face to turn a shade of red.

“Groceries!” He attempted to diffuse his own humiliation with a laugh and darted towards the front door.

You realized the intimacy in your marriage had been missing for a long time. You missed the intimacy of Namjoon loving you and all of you. He made you feel confident in your own body when he used to remind you how much he loved every inch of you.

You shook your head and followed him to the door. Now was not the time to be bringing up things you might begin to long for when the divorce was still on the table.

All the while driving to the store, you had the urge to reach over and grab his hand, but you refrained.

Shopping with someone other than yourself proved to be another thing that had gone in your marriage. Groceries on the weekend used to be a two-person job.

It was nice to have someone push the cart behind you while you went searching through every aisle for the items on your list. It was amusing to see the spark in Namjoon’s eyes when you went into the snack aisle and him wanting to fill the rest of the cart with snacks.

“We can’t survive off snacks!” You began to laugh as he swiped numerous items from the shelves.

It felt normal today. It felt normal because this day wasn’t forced. Namjoon didn’t force himself to be your husband again; he naturally began to fill the role.

At the beginning of the 30 days, you almost signed the papers and escaped your own terms. The awkwardness that was yet to overcome was almost unbearable, but falling into this old routine became normal again.

You wanted a conclusion, to end this happy and full of good memories. Instead, you were a dog that was being led on, treat after treat, and you didn’t want this to end. You came to realize you missed all the things that used to be every day in your life. You came to realize that you wanted this so much that you made this ridiculous deal up so you could get it again.

30 days later, you felt the dread of 12 PM hitting the following day. What you had feared had happened: you didn’t want to let it go.

However, at 12 PM, you would take a pen and sign those lines on the divorce papers as promised. It was only fair for you to complete your end of the deal.

Thankfully, the one thing that could potentially have you unraveled completely didn’t occur.

Thankfully, Kim Namjoon had not kissed you.

“Ready for bed?” You attempted to muster a smile.

Namjoon had not shown any sign of dejection for the impending date. He only continued to work towards completing his part of the deal of being your husband again.

“Yeah,” his lips curved slightly as he approached you.

His arms were quick to slide behind you and your knees and pick you up from the ground.

“At least you’re not as bad as before when we started this,” you joked.

Namjoon released a chuckle, throwing his head back slightly. You joined him, releasing a small laugh yourself.

He hasn’t moved yet. After silence settled, he took steps towards the bedroom.

Each step felt like they were taking longer than before, but you weren’t sure if it was just in your head. You subconsciously let your arm fall onto his chest, wanting to be closer if it was even possible with him practically carrying you.

You breathed in a deep breath and noted to remember the way he smelled, a lingering scent of his cologne, the laundry detergent that you used to wash your clothes, and… peaches?

“Did you use my body wash?” You rose your head to look at him and realize that you stopped moving. Turning your head, you were met with your bed and you waited for Namjoon to place you down.

Except he didn’t budge.

“Aren’t you gonna put me down?” You asked with slight humor in your tone after he didn’t move for another minute. You placed a gentle hand onto his shoulder to grasp his attention.

“I don’t want to.” He spoke so quietly that the words were barely audible to you.

You felt a frown tug on your lips. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of responding or repeating himself, he shook his head as if to get rid of whatever was lingering in his mind. He gently placed you onto the bed, but when he was leaning down to remove his arms, he lingered for a second longer.

He wanted this closeness. He shifted his eyes to you and the confusion knitted on your features at his strange actions tonight.

He disregarded your confusion and allowed him to truly see you for the first time in a long time. As his eyes roamed your face, he remembered how beautiful the girl he fought for so hard was.

He remembered your eyes that were always bright like stars reminding him to be hopeful and find the best in anything. He remembered that he hated it when he saw tears in those beautiful eyes because they would dull with the tears washing out any ounce of happiness. He remembered that he was someone who made you cry like that.

His eyes flitted to your lips and remembered the feeling of kissing them. Most importantly, he remembered the way they moved when you spoke or curved into the most beautiful smiles that anyone who saw them might be charmed. He remembered he fell for that smile.

He remembered the curves of your face and how bare the side of your face looked right now because he was used to having his hands caress that exact spot. He wanted to do it right now and subconsciously, he did. His hand raised in the slowest motion and you didn’t stop him when they gently caressed your face.

You didn’t stop yourself from leaning into his touch even though you know you shouldn’t. He was just having a moment and you didn’t want to believe it was anything more than that.

This was a level of intimacy he had not felt in a while and he came to the conclusion that he was partially to blame. 30 days of trying even if it was pretending in the beginning, it made him feel again. Pretending brought back memories, actions like riding a bike, ones that you didn’t use in a while, but they were built in.

Along the way, he realized one of the faults was that he stopped trying. He stopped giving and kept taking. At the same time, it led him to lose the feelings that came with giving.

Taking gets too boring after a while.

He took advantage of the term marriage. He got too comfortable.

“Joon?”

He moved slightly as if you reeled him out of his thoughts once again. You wished you knew what he was thinking.

Instead, he leaned his head towards yours. You stayed frozen; he was not about to do what you least wanted.

He did; he did the one thing that would release you of any control you had over the situation.

His lips were on yours.

He didn’t hold back the emotions that he no longer kept a chain on and deepened the kiss.

It felt like poison yet if the kiss was poison, you wanted to get drunk on it. You lost control over yourself for a second, kissing back and having your hands grasping his hair and sliding down his neck and his back. The feeling that your fingers had longed for and the lips you longed to feel against your own.

Then the leash came back.

You pulled away quickly out of his hold. Shame caught a hold of you and you frowned. Honestly, you were angry. Angry that he would mess with you like that. “Don’t kiss me like that. No, don’t kiss me at all.”

He ducked his head as if just realizing how far his emotions took him. “I’m sorry.”

You wanted to ask him why he was doing this. You want to know if your own hope was fulfilled; you bit your lip to stop the questions from surfacing.

You didn’t want empty hope. It was better to let curiosity be.

Instead, you just slipped the covers over you and turned away from him.

You were already awake when Namjoon brought your coffee the next morning.

It was silent, but not like before. The silence had weight.

“You don’t want to sign it,” he spoke beside you.

“Do you want the truth or something to make you feel better?” You didn’t want to make it sound so harsh, but your words had a bite to them.

“I think the truth and what I want to hear to make me feel better would be the same,” he said, nothing but honesty in his tone.

You didn’t like that he was using riddles. They only made you feel hopeful he wanted the same as you, but he was too scared to admit it.

“What would that be?” You questioned. You wanted to hear him say it.

“That you don’t want to sign it. That after 30 days, you found that this was not a worthy conclusion. That this was not something that put your feelings to rest,” he said. “That you still feel something after this month.”

“You’re right. All of it.” But you couldn’t bring it in you to turn your head to show the truth in your eyes. You were leaving your feelings vulnerable and for all you knew, he could be playing a cruel joke.

“y/n, I don’t want the divorce.”

To hear him say it, you didn’t know why you felt anger rising within you. He was the want who wanted this. He was the one who put you through months of hell and self-doubt that you weren’t good enough and brought divorce onto the table.

The remaining love you nurtured the past month was like cold water splashing onto the fury you felt.

“You’re the one who wanted it in the first place,” bitter. Now you really couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“And it’s my fault. In 30 days I realized I still love you and I let that slip from me.” Namjoon knew that whatever he wanted to say, they would never be good in words, but he was willing to try.

You were conflicted because the work of trying to bring yourself to face the fact that you were going to divorce the one person in the world you would never, was being shattered by this decision he came to face.

You were prepared to give up some of your happiness and out of love, give him freedom and happiness. You didn’t want him trapped in this marriage even if you still loved him.

Now he wanted to stay.

But you wanted him to stay. After 30 days, you’ve come to remember the feeling of being loved again and giving love. You didn’t want to let that go.

You didn’t realize opposing thoughts ripping through your mind made your heart ache so. It was crumbling within your chest.

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon’s voice was weak. He didn’t know if even he would forgive himself for having brought up something like divorce only to take it back. “I know I stopped trying and I know I put you through hell, but,” he paused because you reached under the blanket to grasp his hand.

He was asking for a second chance to start over and you were willing to give it.

“We can try,” you said. For the first time in this conversation, you brought your eyes to meet his with confirmation in them.

It was something that wasn’t nothing. Of course, you wanted to give it to him. You just had to tread on the thin sheet of trust you had for him now and hope it wouldn’t break below you as he slowly worked to bring that trust back again.

Namjoon knew he would have a lot of work to bring things back to what once was if it was even possible.

Subsequently, that afternoon, the divorce papers were shredded and you both began to try once again to fix your marriage. This time, both parties were aiming for the same goal.

a/n

i don’t know how to feel about this one guys, is it angsty enough lol?

yours truly, Selene ♡

#bangtanarmynet #bangtanfairygarden #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #namjoon fanfic #bts namjoon #bts rm #bts angst #namjoon scenarios #bts #bts fanfiction #bts scenario #bts x you #bts x reader #w: love is not over #w: the playlist series #writing

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Psychological Apocalypse.”

Ha ha I think I love angst a little too much. Its probably unhealthy. Hope you guys have fun reading this extension to he burg war arc. Hope you are intrigued and interested to see what happens :)

Warning: Mentions Drugs and drug related things.

Sunny was glad to hear the silence.

Raised voices and angry yelling had characterized much of the past thirty minutes as Adam made a call to the UNSC. She didn’t know what he was talking to them about because, despite his voice being raised, the walls were too thick to really make anything out. Down the hall Krill peered out from the medical bay where he was tending to the injured.

Sunny shook her head at him, and he returned to his work.

Neither of them knew what was going on, and Adam wasn’t talking, all they knew was that he had a plan they weren't going to like. The only person on the ship who truly knew what was going to happen was Conn, and the one thing about him is that he never gave away secrets, though the twisting of his expressions were enough to say that he was not particularly pleased about the idea either.

That made her worried.

Conn was usually into most things that caused other people emotional anguish.

He was an asshole like that.

Just then, the door next to her slid open, and commander Vir stepped out into the hallway. He was pale, white as a sheet. She would have said he looked sick, if she didn’t know better. Behind him, waffles, his service dog, followed after her head looking up ears pricked in concern.

He didn’t speak to her, but turned and walked down the hallway. She followed after him, and Krill, peeking his head again, from the medical bay gave sunny another look . She could only shrug and continue following him down the hall and towards the cargo bay.

When they reached it, he almost immediately sat down burying his head in his hands suffering silently and refusing to speak to her. His dog sat in front of him nudging at his hands and face with her nose incessantly until he began to pet her. She crawled into his lap forcing him to pay attention to her as she did. It had been a while since Sunny saw that sort of behavior from either of them.

It was almost hard to remember that Adam had post traumatic stress sometimes. Hard to forget that he wasn’t actually cured of his demons.

Though what would be making them flare up now?

The war?

The atmosphere of combat?

The people?

She worried for a moment that it might have been her before dismissing the idea. No, her and Adam were reconciled. There was no hard feelings between them, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t scare hi or even get him to flinch despite being the one who had done this to him.

It hurt her every day to think about it.

The dog’s tail beat against the ground.

They were there what seemed like an hour before red lights around the room began flashing, and crew members rushed to prep the airlock for an incoming ship. Adam took a deep breath and took to his feet looking pale but focused as the airlock doors slowly began to open.

A small ship rolled onto the deck.

It was a human ship, though the distinctive pulsing noise was clearly GA in nature.

She stood up, curious to see what was going to happen.

Commander Vir walked forward just as the doors were opening.

A man stepped onto the ramp and then onto the floor pulling a hover cart behind him, with a large, dusty crate marked with the UNSC seal.

The two men stopped to face each other.

Adam did not offer to shake the man’s hand, instead inclining his head, “Amidral.”

The other man, who sunny had never seen before looked like a person hounded by his own inner demons. He was thin and scruffy, with unkempt grey hair and an outgrowth of stubble over his chin and cheeks, which were sunken and discolored.

“Not my title anymore, Kid.”

He looked him up and down, “I've seen you in the news the past couple years. Was glad to see you were doing ok.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly.

Adam didn’t move, “Yes, I’ve had far more luck than the others.”

More foot shuffling, and the man looked down, “I know….. It was generous of you to donate your money like that.”

“I did what anyone would do.”

“No… no I don’t think so. There are a lot of men who wouldn’t have done as you did.”

More silence.

Adam nodded to the crate, “Is that it.”

“Yes.” The man whispered, “Though I wish you wouldn't have called.”

“Why are you even here.”

The man shrugged, “After the indictment , well, I was found criminally complacent in an unethical and wildly illegal operation, however,” The man’s face twisted into an expression of shame, “The UNSC didn’t want the public hearing about it so, it was all kept quiet. I was silently demoted and my pay was cut.” he placed a hand on the crate, “I was made a keeper of this.” he looked away, “It has been a reminder of what I did yo you men and women….. 64, there were 64 of you, and now less than half of the original number remain.”

Adam’s mouth was pulled into a taut line, “And what happened to them.”

“Pills, guns, ropes…..” He went quiet, “Alcohol, addiction. Those that do live well, they aren’t much better off drugs, alcohol , rehab centers, mental health institutes. You and maybe five to ten others are the only ones I know who made it through…. Sane.”

Sunny was growing very uncomfortable, she placed a hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away.

The strange other human eyed her up and down.

“But I see you’ve recovered quite miraculously.”

“I have.” His voice was stiff.

He motioned the other man to follow him, and together, all three of them walked down the hall.

They were almost to the medical bay when, the admiral cut in front of him stopping the two of them in their tracks though he had eyes only for the commander, “Please, Commander, don’t do this. There are other ways, other things we can try, other newer technologies. Every day I live with the guilt of what this project did, I suffer enough knowing that and I cannot allow you to throw away your sanity for…. For what?”

Adam pushed past him and shoved the doors to the medical bay open.

“You don’t decide what I throw anything away for… not anymore.”

Krill looked up from where he was standing next to one of the beds keeping tabs on one of his patients.

He looked concerned, “What is going on?”

“Prep a surgical suite.”

“Im sorry, what.”

“No questions, just do it!” The commander snapped, and krill stepped back in shock.

It wasn’t like adam to talk like that at all, but the look on his face had krill nodding and quickly hurrying from the room.

Adam followed after stopping before the surgical suite in a prep room with the box. Sunny stood at his shoulder while the other human tried to block the door. His expression was almost pleading. It seemed as if he was about to begin crying, “Please commander, you don’t know, everything. You Don’t have the full truth.”

Adam knelt down in front of the box hooking his fingers under the latches and popping the locks with a soft click. He knelt there for a long moment staring at the unopened box before, reaching out, and flicking the lid open.

Sunny stepped back in shock.

Blood running cold.

“No… no no no, Adam, you can’t, you can’t do this. I won’t allow it”

Her voice overlapped with the other human “You don’t know everything, besides, it won’t work without the attachment, which I don’t have.”

Adam ignored the both of them staring down into the box. As she watched his hands and body trembled head bowed. His shoulders hunched under some horrific weight.

“No, No we are done!” Sunny reached out to close the lid, but in a flash her hand was caught, held fast by the wrist.

She tried to pull away but his grip was surprisingly strong.

He looked up at her, one Green eye blinking at her, It was cold though the edges around it glistened, “You will not interfere, and that’s an order.”

“Be damned about your orders.” She snapped back, “Adam this is insane, and I won’t let you go through with it.”

He stared at her, “I care about you sunny…. Very much, and that is precisely why, I don’t give a damn what you or anyone else says. I am doing this for you, for my family, for my species, for the UNSC, for the GA.”

Sunny shook her head.

The other human was almost panicked, “No, no ,you can’t even operate it. It doesn’t have all the equipment.” Commander Vir reached down and tugged up his pant leg silencing the man in one moment.

“Is that?”

“It is.”

“No…..”

Krill stepped into the room now staring between the three of them and the box on the floor .

“What-”

“Sterilize the equipment, doctor, and prepare it for implantation.”

Krill started on.

“Now!”

He moved to do as asked, though he clearly didn’t like it. The medical staff walked in to help dragging the box into a DECOM chamber at the side of the room.

Adam went to follow, but the man caught his hand and held tight. He held so tightly that his knuckles and fingers had turned a gross, sickly white, “Commander STOP.”

He did turning to look the man in the eye, “You don’t know everything.”

The commander Pulled his hand out and turned away.

“Commander! I didn’t get indicted because of the suit.” Adam paused, turning to look at the man. He paused even further when he saw tears begin to spill down the man’s cheeks. Sunny stood stunned form where she was watching. His voice was soft and filled with pain “ I was indicted because we lied. We weren’t feeding you medication because your limbs had been ripped off though that was part of it. We were giving you medication because just wearing the damn thing is so excruciatingly painful the people we tested it on begged us to kill them.””

There was silence.

“The only way you were able to operate those suits. The only way that we could keep you alive during the process was because N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine, N-(1-(2-phenethyl)-4-piperidinyl-N-phenyl-propanamide.and (5α,6α)-7,8-didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methylmorphinan-3,6-diol diacetate….. That’s what is says on the official papers….. Do you know what that means?”

Adam shook his head though he was very still.

“Those are the scientific names for Heroin, Fentanyl and Meth.”

The silence was deafening.

We had to get you high so you wouldn’t notice the excruciating pain of what you were using. We used the Heroin or the Fentanyl to keep you functioning, and then we added the amphetamine to cancel out the drowsiness and make you more focused. We got an entire platoon of men and women high, destroyed them physically and mentally to win the war.”

“You cannot survive that again….. You cannot expect me to allow that again.”

Adam was very quiet, and Sunny had a hard time reading his face.

After a moment, “I would do anything again, for my species, for my family, for my friends, and for the GA.”

Then he turned and walked out.

Sunny ran after him begging pleading with him to stop, but he continued onward, ordering the medical crew to prepare him for the procedure.

Sunny glanced through the window onto the surgical floor to see the suit suspended above the operating table its metallic frame looking like some sort of twisted scorpion, a parasitic thing just waiting to infect.

The ex admiral was pleading, near incoherent now..

But the commander ignored them both standing with the medical team, who looked on in discomfort and horror.

He removed his shirt, and Sunny saw the small white scars running down the length of his spine, starting at the base of his skull and riveting into every vertebra. The scars on his shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms and hands were never so stark as they were in that moment.

Krill tried to protest as well, but was silenced.

The surgical team could not bend him, and so did as told prepping him, lying him down and preparing him for what was to come.

He lay there silent staring up at the ceiling.

Outside the room Waffles barked and whined as if she knew what was about to happen.

A mask was placed over his face, and as he closed his eyes, a single tear leaked down the side of his cheek disappearing against the pillow on which his head rested. They knew they could do nothing, if Krill didn’t perform it, he would find someone else when he woke, someone less skilled perhaps, someone who could get him killed.

So they did as they were told Rolling him into the surgical suite with Sunny standing helplessly outside the door.

Somewhere, the dog was still barking toenails scratching against the floor as she whined and whimpered for her master.

Adam was placed on a breathing tube, and then rolled onto his stomach.

The ridges of his spine were bright against the light overhead.

Krill stepped forward hesitant unwilling to make the first cut.

Overhead the Steel Eye Exoskeleton loomed.

A psychological apocalypse.

386 notes · View notes

kirliancamera1 · 4 years

Photo

Rede Vamp Brazil (https://redevampirica.com) interviews Elena Alice Fossi of Kirlian Camera (English text attached hereunder) 🔥🔥🔥

Question 1: Be very welcome to AcessoRedeVamp, it's a true honor to realize this interview with you Elena Alice! You are a great singer and more every time we see you on stage your performance transmits great emotion and this electrifies all of us! You tell a real story with your performance and this is amazing and rare these days! At the same time, we perceive an expressive revolt against an old world and its stagnant postures. How have you handled 2020?

*** EAF – First of all, I wanna thank you for your words. Being able to communicate with the people who follow us is the most important thing to me. Singing becomes ephemeral if doesn't convey a message. Also for this reason I consider that the stage is the base of a musician, so you can imagine how I miss it. In this sense, it can be said that the category we belong to is very unlucky, not only because it's forced not to work, but rather 'cause concerts are pure lifeblood for a musician's soul. In any case, both Angelo and I can't stand self-pity people, so we immediately jumped into new musical projects, putting top concentration on composition. At any rate, we couldn't be simple observers of an event on this scale, so right from the beginning we tried to dig deep, looking for, and comparing news, data, statistics, whether they came from mainstream channels or from alternative sources. In Italy, for example, the economy has been torn to pieces and furthermore, the same politicians who mourn the dead on TV... cut so many funds for health facilities for a long time, so they may be considered taking part in such a mess. This situation has created a real drama, especially for families who have lost their loved ones without even having a chance to say goodbye one last time. But, it's also true that the worldwide exploitation of this pandemic has given us, we citizens, an opportunity to wake up. No need to use words such as anarchy or rebellion to understand that the old world is showing all kinds of holes. "Divide et impera" is the motto of several governments, so we citizens must not fall into the trap of making war on each other, each nonsense comes up! This is the time to show ourselves united. And, most of all, it’s time not to turn ourselves into servile dogs of a “Power” becoming more and more antidemocratic.

Question 2: Do you feel that the marks left by the year 2020 will bring some effective changes to this "abstraction" called humanity? Will there be a "new normal" or will we just return to an average 2019 when this whole pandemic passes?

*** EAF - If I’d been told about what we have experienced for almost one year, I’d have thought it was a joke, bullshit. But unluckily this is not the case. Such an event has brought much grief and is ruining the economic system of many nations, as already said. But in addition to the injury, here it comes the insult from the absurd and chaotic dictates imposed on us. I'll give you some examples of what's happening here in Italy. “Don't go out after 10 pm”. While people keep on getting sick or even dying, here comes the policeman with a ticket 'cause you left home for a goddam moment. I have this picture on my mind, of a person in pajamas, carrying the garbage bag full of stinking mussel shells at less than one hundred meters from home in a totally deserted night. At that point a flash on him. It’s the police who writes a ticket to that dangerous criminal. And then, for everyone's sake, the Christmas mass was moved from the usual midnight to 8 pm. How the hell can you think it's not a mockery? And... the last “gag”! Before Christmas, our Minister of technological innovation made an appeal to telephone companies so that video calls were free on Christmas days... But what year does she live in? But... is she not able to understand that in Italy almost everyone has either unlimited gigas or wifi? Nothing changes if the telephone companies for a couple of days give us video calls because we already use free services such as Whatsapp, Skype, Zoom, Telegram, and so on and so forth... Ok, in a vain attempt to avoid death, they are putting us in an induced coma! Seriously, all this offends our intelligence! And, when you realize you are inside a joke, you don't like to discover you're the main character, do you?! So, to answer your question, I couldn't foresee how a post-covid society will be reshaped, but the severe weakening that now is burdening us will have some major impact, no doubt. Currently, most folks are obsessed with fear, so are unable to reflect on the consequences of unconstitutional actions such as those foolishly propagated by many States. Furthermore, the pharma companies, the giants of the online shopping industry and many other powerful satanic puppet masters who are used to appear as philanthropists are ready to get their hands on everything, well pleased with the next “big reset”. So, after the pandemic, things will change a lot! For sure, from a human point of view, the feelings will be devitalized.

Question 3: Hologram Moon is a great name! Evokes conspirations like what really is the moon and this strangeness opens a vast creative field to find answers or even new questions... please tell us a bit more about this album, his name, songs...

*** EAF - "Fake is your face" is one of the phrases that most resonate in me when I sing "Holograms", or when in “Lost Islands” the old world said “Goodbye”! It's as if you had to face a new reset, as if you discovered everything you've always believed is swept away in an instant. There's the awareness that in the face of a new and suffocating truth, when the sky collapses, only true love can resist and guide you. In this sense, the final track of the album, “Travellers’ Testament” is a real stone on my heart, as it describes a fantastic journey to a planet. The astronaut is now impatient to fulfill his dream, but he will never arrive on that planet. The landing will take place on a space station. The moon landing's been questioned over and over again and certain evidence of the fact's inconsistency eventually seems credible. But we cannot say what reality is in any scientific way, especially when we're already prepared to believe a reassuring source. This is a simple starting point to embark on our history. More than finding answers, our sacred duty is to open the door to new questions, ask doubts, not take anything for granted. “Hologram Moon” is a purely poetic vision, but also a way to question everything. The mind can atrophy very easily. Habit, for example, can be complicit in this and the so-called comfort zone can be just complicit as well. The hypnosis that we suffer every day without realizing it, also grinding so many and bad TV shows, and so on... So, let's remain thinking and dreaming! This is a message from us.

Question 4: How was the experience of working with Covenant's Eskil Simonsson on the beautiful "Sky Collapse"?

*** EAF - We had come across Covenant several times before doing this collaboration; on festival occasions, in the dressing rooms... But it was a chaotic situation, so... we gave each other a fleeting smile, a kind greeting, but nothing more. Then, when Angelo and I wrote “Sky Collapse”, we immediately thought that a deep and sincere voice like Eskil's would add something precious to the song. Even before recording the two-voice song, we met at a charity festival. We had called him as a guest just to sing this song together, which was yet unreleased. He made himself available immediately. It was a nice gift for us and when the moment came, I think that on stage you could feel my strong emotion all the way down the hall!

Question 5: Well, I think now we will have our fan moment! Let's talk about some Kirlian Camera songs that our DJs and the audience of the REDE VAMP love it? Do I speak the name and may you tell a little about the meanings, influences, or a curious story?

*** EAF ***

>>> NIGHTGLORY. It refers to the triumph of the night, perhaps as a momentary spiritual retreat. I'm talking about that precious moment that regenerates your very existence into yourself. The music of this song was born in a symphonic form, very different from how Nightglory was then arranged. This is a song and an album that has been appreciated by many people only after some time, partly because of a promotion that described the album as the most commercial in our history, which is absolutely harmful and misleading. Invisible Front and Eclipse were even more listenable, for example... Sometimes words spoil your work. It would be better to listen to music only, ignoring its promotional presentation. Fortunately, Nightglory has recovered over time till becoming one of the most requested live songs of ours.

>>> BLACK AUGUST. In this song there are various hints coming out from a dark moment in my life, I mean a period that risked devouring me. Wounds that take time to heal. Sky Collapse can be considered the final act of that period, even if the music of the two songs sounds very different, as you know. Black August blends various stylistic dimensions in a single “body of music”, so many didn't know how to label it at the time, as it effectively goes running free, out of the box. A very atypical song that has gained some actual success despite its distinction, which has also brought us closer to fans of dark metal and so-called electronica.

>>> HELLFIRE. I chose this piece to add an echo to the dark period I was talking about above, in order to exorcise all that negativity, so we went to deal with a theme showing gospel traits but containing some demonic references in the lyrics. Then I didn't know THE 8th PRESIDENT was waiting for us at the SCARLET GATE OF TOXIC DAYBREAK, with his COLD PILLS! A wordplay whoever is following us will understand!

>>> K-PAX. I wrote this piece in a night when everything seemed dreamy and I almost didn't realize where I was anymore. No, I wasn't under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but all my memories were mixing in tremendous chaos that needed to reinvent itself and turn into an immaterial fog, in a light but lost dream. Angelo literally translated the music and melodies I had written on the staff, giving both them and my voice the perfect terms to guide the journey. In fact, it's not a complete and static text, but a sequence of dreamy and painful phrases at the same time. I felt that Angelo listened to me attentively since he knew how to translate my notes so perfectly into written sentences as if he were sending me back into my music. It was magical and at K-Pax Angelo and I discovered the other life of ourselves, bringing to light so many breathtaking emotions and it was just the departure, after the suffocating mists of Still Air, an album we love, and the crepuscular decadence of Stalingrad Valkyrie.

Question 6: There is a cover of Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd from Kirlian Camera that is a true work of art. The Mad World cover performed by Spectra Paris is fascinating. Are there more covers from other bands that you would like to record?

*** EAF - Well yes, there are ideas, but we prefer to evaluate which are the best. Meanwhile, I tried to produce a version of a Johnny Cash song and I made Angelo interpret it: I really like the result. It may be used by Stalingrad Valkyrie.

Question 7: I love your lyrics! What can't Elena be missing when creating new lyrics or musical arrangements? Are there any poetry, films, books, comic books, or other influences?

*** EAF - Mostly everything happens unconsciously. You don't know how many times I realize why I wrote a certain phrase only after a song was released! But I can say that my imagination works mostly by processing images. So, the movies are very helpful in this. Similarly, Angelo and I tap into imagery that could be part of the quantum physics new era, where multiverse and multidimensionality are both playing an important role. This world appears like a really tiny thing when compared to everything else.

Question 8: Elena, I read in an older interview about a "Young Ladies Homicide Club" I found an undeniable reference to the films Noir and the figure of the characters called "Vamp" and all the charm and spectral magnetism ... but I was a little curious. .. what is this "Young Ladies Homicide Club"?

*** EAF - Let's say I imagined an unreal club created by apparently dead or so to say "disappeared" models in order to get rid of fashion people who were acting a bit too naughty! The work to clean up that world wouldn't be lacking, as, after all, it happens in all professional areas. As for myself goes, I gladly opted in a flash and without second thoughts for singing and making music, leaving everything behind, buying a couple of synths and a decent microphone, which I then enriched with various electronic devilry, kicking away possible easy money, foolish nights, cocaine, heroin, stereotyped relationships, and absurdly worshipped wines! Every so often I like to play with the ridiculous and grotesque ghosts of some fashion designers, photographers, and evil spirits, then going to recreate noir stories in which everything happens. I also drew some digital comics with a noir-glam flavor, a few years ago... It was a fun pastime, while with Kirlian Camera I'd been exploring deeper and more fundamental universes.

Question 9: Is there more news on the way for the incredible Spectra Paris and also for Stalingrad Valkyrie? May you talk a bit more about them?

*** EAF - Stalingrad Valkyrie is a project I am very fond of, in a special way. So I insisted on getting it back to life after a period of hibernation which lasted too much in my opinion. "Martyrium Europae", the most recent album, proved me right, even if it’s not a commercial project. Well, it seems our listeners have appreciated the attempt to combine different musical sources in a unique style, certainly linked to the more symphonic and dramatic Kirlian Camera pages, but also quite free to express itself on his own, trying to avoid the most standard patterns of neofolk, progressive and industrial, without on the other hand completely ignoring their now distant origins. So, in its small way, the new album turned out to be a success and I'd really like this project to keep on living with further fresh ideas. We're currently working on a new chapter that will be released on vinyl and some digitals, which contains previously unreleased songs and versions.

Question 10: Elena, our Rede Vamp is a platform about Cultural Vamp and Vampires production ... and there is a question that our interviewees never escape. Is there a character or perhaps a vampire story that you never forgot?

*** EAF - Needless to say the vampire who most impressed me over time can't be anyone other than... Angelo Bergamini!!! Not many know that Angelo was the leading actor in a short film entitled "Himre Bakai", shot in the late nineties or so, directed by Antonio Bocchi, the later owner of the dark-electronic project Lux Anodyca and author of detective books. I don't think the film is regularly available or downloadable at the moment, but I know it was also screened at the time in various festivals and reviews, also getting some good feedback! Angelo (Himre) and Antonio told me that one day the film "will see the light ”, but at the moment... he lies in the dark, by the book, of course!!!

Question 11: Elena, thank you so much for your time and generosity! You and Kirlian Camera have many fans on our events and radio shows, please leave a special message for our audience! Are there plans for a new gig in Brazil after all this pandemic?

*** EAF - While it's true that we've never been able to play in Brazil so far, I'm sure your Land is actually right for us, 'cause I can feel that's full of feeling and passion, so we'd love to perform for you very much, 'cause in spite of the fact it's so far away, I feel a deep affinity and a certain familiarity with your world. And while we wait, confident that sooner or later we'll succeed in our aim, I wanna greet all those who had the kindness to listen to me, with a quote from the American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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raja-myna · 4 years

Text

yesterday is long since lost

FINALLY got this thing done!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25070434

Anakin – and he is Anakin, even if that name feels a little bit like putting on a shirt he had thought he had outgrown – knows that he’s messing up. When he first realized what had happened, that he really had come back, he had been grateful that his body had collapsed under the weight of his future memories, leaving his subconscious mind to slowly make the connections and let him wake up again. He had thought he was prepared for it, when he shook off the last of the sleepy haze. The phrase ‘rude awakening’ turned out to fit almost too well.

The two weeks that it had taken for his body and mind to acclimatize to each other proves itself to be so far from enough. He’s jittery, uncomfortable in his own body (and it’s his body again, more flesh than metal, inescapable marks of betrayal (but whose was it really? Not Obi-Wan’s, he knows now, and that thought cuts impossibly deeper than ever) erased) with its lack of aches and pains, and reflexes that no longer match flesh limbs.

Rex knows something is up, but military discipline keeps him from asking, at least for now. Ahsoka knows something’s up, but she’s still too relieved that he’s okay (and hah, if only she knew) to push.

He thanks the Force that Obi-Wan isn’t here, because even though they’d made some sort of peace at Anakin’s funeral pyre and after that, he doesn’t know how he would react to seeing his former Master with them both alive again. Obi-Wan also likely wouldn’t hesitate to call him out on his poodoo. Oh, he’d be diplomatic, and he likely wouldn’t push if Anakin reacted badly, but Anakin still isn’t sure he could take that.

When they had been dead there hadn’t been much to do but make peace. Now, alive and with the Clone Wars barely halfway through, Anakin is realizing that a lot of their peace had come from the fact that nothing they could have done would have affected anything in the end. That calm understanding that had come with being one with the Force is gone as well, and Anakin’s love for and rage at his old Master are dueling for prominence. His guilt wants to land on the side of his love, but his anger has always run hot. He fears seeing Obi-Wan, for he truly cannot tell whether he’ll be angry, snappish and rude, or if he’ll want to fall to his knees and cry.

There’s enough of Anakin wanting to cry as it is.

It had been hard, seeing Ahsoka, seeing Rex when he first woke up and truly getting hit with how he had failed them. But they had been the lucky ones, in that awful future. They had gotten away.

Seeing Coric in the medbay, seeing Kix… that had been worse. Kix had been gone before Anakin Fell and Order 66 was executed, they hadn’t even found a body. Coric had died two years later, two years of living not unlike a battle droid covered in flesh, with only the barest glimpses of the man he really was underneath the weight of orders and grief he wasn’t allowed to understand.

Grief that none of the clones were allowed to understand.

(Vader had seen Bly. He had seen Shocker. He had seen Cody.)

(He had seen all those who had eaten their blasters as the chips died, never actually intended to survive past usage – just like the clones themselves.)

Vader hadn’t cared, or at least tried to tell himself that he didn’t. Anakin does care. And Force, but it hurts.

The first day Anakin just avoids everyone, using Kix’s orders of rest as an excuse. Facing everyone is… something no amount of preparation could help him with, a punch to the gut and a knock to the head that leaves him reeling. The effort it takes to not simply flee for his quarters actually leaves him winded when he finally reaches the corridor, enters the room, closes the door behind himself and locks himself in.

There’s something wrong with him. Anakin is not reacting the way he should – the way he ought to, having seen so many ghosts in so short a time. His mind is a mess.

Meditation does not come easy.

He forces himself into it, in an attempt to reconcile the different parts of himself. He is Anakin, jedi general, student, teacher, husband, lover, twenty years old and so arrogant. He is Vader, sith apprentice, failure, world-weary, beaten down, a monster shackled to a madman… a father, in the end.

He is Ani, slave boy, who cares so much and loves so deeply but doesn’t know how to handle it, never learned how to grow it, only hoard.

(If you love something, let it go.)

(He let Luke go, in the end. Let his son choose his own path and…)

I am a jedi, like my father before me.

Sleep doesn’t come at all.

Vader has spent literal decades hating his past, weak self, disgusted with the man who couldn’t even save the single most important person left in his life, who had lost everyone else along the line. Past-(present-?)Anakin is horrified by what he became, by what his future self allowed himself to be twisted into. Ani doesn’t understand, doesn’t want to understand how it could have even happened.

It’s a good thing self-hatred is nothing new to him, he thinks, because that is the common point that finally allows him to reconcile the different facets of himself.

That’s kind of sad.

It’s also awfully appropriate, in a twisted sense.

The second day he tries to play at normalcy and heads to the bridge. Ahsoka tracks him down when he’s alone during a quiet moment and hugs him until he stops trying to make her let go. Her relief broadcasts in the Force and their bond alike. Anakin… lets himself hold her, and heal, just a bit. Then Kix finds them and sends him back to bed. It’s enough to make Ahsoka laugh and think everything’s back to normal. Anakin lets her believe it.

He heads back to his bunk, and since Kix is a suspicious one, wise to the ways of his jedi, Anakin has company the entire way.

“Forty-eight hours of rest,” says Kix dryly, “and a visit to medical. Neither of these has been completed, and you’re still obviously tired. Get some more sleep, sir, or I can’t clear you.”

“How about just the visit to medical?” Anakin tries to bargain.

“Sir, I know disasters tend to strike like clockwork around here, but please. Nothing will happen if you just get some more rest.”

And despite Kix all but punching fate in the face and yelling ‘come get me’, nothing does happen. Anakin meditates some more and actually manages to grab a nap as well.

When he wakes up it’s shipboard afternoon. He heads down to the hangar, and instead of attempting to work on the Twilight like he planned to, he finds himself drawn into a discussion with three of the troopers (Lyn died on Umbara, Bell was lost on Mandalore, while Flipper had marched on the temple and not died until after more than five years of atrocities in the name of the Empire).

He failed them. The thought hovers in his mind even as he gets more involved in the debate. He failed them like he failed all his men, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan. Like he failed his mother. Like he failed Padmé. Like he almost failed Luke, like he did fail him several times.

The storm of emotions is like a vibroblade to the gut and Anakin claws desperately at it, keeping it from showing either on his face or in the Force. He almost pulls away again, until Bell’s words cut through him like shards of glass.

“-but not this time!”

Bell punctuates his words by punching the air. They’re talking about marksmanship contests now, but Anakin cannot fully restrain how deeply it hits him. His expression must twitch, because Bell turns to him, eyes wide with feigned upset.

“You think I can’t, General?”

Flipper nudges him. “The General simply knows better than to put his credits up on the word of such an… unreliable source.” The grin is contagious, and Anakin finds himself smiling as well, grounding himself in their gentle teasing and free-flowing affection.

His failures feel further away and, desperate to keep that feeling, he does what he always did best – jump without looking. “Well, maybe I can help make it less unreliable.”

“Sir?”

Anakin’s mouth really ran away with him this time, but something tells him that this is good. A comfortable warmth that sits in his gut, the Force whispering in his ear, Bell’s disbelieving – but growing – excitement. “You’re off duty. I have some spare time. There are several training halls available.”

Not this time. He failed them all then, but not this time.

It is with a strange sort of budding contentment that he puts Bell and several other clones through their paces in a training hall. He’s doing something, changing something, and it’s such a tiny difference but it’s a difference. Anakin can’t do a lot from here, not yet, but this – being with the men, helping them – is something he can do.

For the first time since he woke up, Anakin feels like he’s doing something right.

Nearly an hour after they began, Anakin catches sight of Rex by the door. The expression on his face is one part amusement, one part ‘I know what you’re doing’ and about five parts exasperation. It’s familiar despite the years, comforting, and Anakin laughs before he can even register the urge to.

The next moment he freezes because – how long has it been? He catches himself almost immediately and excuses himself from the practice session. They can continue without him anyway.

By the door, Rex’s amusement sharpens into instant hyper-awareness. Anakin starts running through the excuses he’d hoped wouldn’t be necessary.

Rex’s care for his jedi is something Anakin has been in turns awed, perplexed and humbled by. Now, his worry is just as humbling, but it is also troublesome. In the end, Anakin finds himself released to medbay only because Rex too is still shaky after his coma. None of them are fully back to normal, so Anakin’s issues are easier to hide.

They won’t always be, but Anakin will get better at hiding, too.

He runs into Ahsoka again in the hallway and she immediately attaches herself to his side. The last time he had seen her in that other time flashes in his mind – tall, strong, grieving – and he rests his hand on her montrals, his tiny, beloved padawan who the galaxy has barely even started to break yet.

She’s here.

She is here and he hasn’t lost her, not to his own madness nor her iron-clad conviction that he’s gone forever.

The poisonous thinking that came with the Dark Side is still haunting him, and for a moment he wants to drag her even closer, make sure she could never leave – and then the thought leaves him sick, his hand drops down to squeeze her shoulder and then he lets go.

She follows him to the medbay, where Kix clears Anakin. The clone is clearly reluctant, going by the grumbling, but Anakin is free to return to duty. As such, he is free to check out exactly when it is he has returned to.

The answer… staggers him. It’s the early days of the war, that much had already been obvious in the many presences that had been long gone, but… so many of the bad things haven’t happened yet, so many things he can change, disasters he can undo, lives he can save –

Sidious.

And even though he knows he can’t just rush in, the scene plays out in Anakin’s mind. Since he’d learned about Luke, Vader had ever entertained the thought of killing his Master. And even before that, before Padmé and Obi-Wan and Mustafar, Sidious’ survival had never counted in Anakin’s plans. More than once he had tortured himself with what-ifs… and now he has the chance to make them come true.

Still, striding up to the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and attempting to cut him down, for all that it would be satisfying, would more likely end with Anakin fleeing from the Coruscant Security Forces with his task still not accomplished more than anything else.

It’s nothing but wishful thinking and Anakin waves it away.

A quick talk with Yularen confirms that they’re heading back to Coruscant. They’re still six days out, at current velocity, something Yularen relays with an apologetic look, since Anakin tends to be eager to get planetside. In this case though, it means there’s only six days to prepare for seeing the temple again, seeing Padmé, seeing – Force, seeing the younglings.

“Master?”

Ahsoka’s voice pulls him out of those dark musings.

“Yeah, Snips?” The nickname rolls off his tongue with reflexive ease, and it is not until it already lingers in the air that he realizes how much it grounds him.

“Is everything all right?”

He could lie. She would see through it, and either let it be or keep digging until she thought she had found out every little detail.

“No.” Ahsoka stops dead and he turns to look back at her, her big eyes even wider than usual at his uncharacteristic honesty concerning his own state. “But it’s getting better.” How can it not?

“…If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

The ringing silence that follows is belied by Ahsoka’s slow reach for him through their bond, and Anakin’s hesitant reach back, to meet her halfway. Ahsoka smiles at the contact and runs ahead. They’ve ended up by the mess hall and, though it’s still relatively early, there’s more than enough people moving around, grabbing an early meal.

“Glad to see you’re doing well, General!”

Anakin looks up to see Echo. The young ARC trooper has raised a hand to wave a greeting, precariously balancing his rations tray with only one hand. Smile tugging at his lips, Anakin raises his own hand in response. Another fate he would hopefully be able to change. Echo didn’t deserve what had happened to him.

Realization comes a second too late.

Echo slides down on the bench by Anakin and Ahsoka, and Fives sneaks up only half a step behind him. Ahsoka immediately vaults over the table and seats herself opposite Echo.

“Going to join us, General?” asks Fives. Anakin almost chokes. For an instant, Fives has all Anakin’s attention, but just as quick, Anakin turns away.

“Sorry.” he says choppily. “Sorry, I- I have something- I need to- I’m sorry. Later?”

He whirls around and practically flees the hall.

Fives. Oh, Force, Fives.

Anakin hears a hesitant “Is… something wrong?” from Echo, but escapes before he can hear Ahsoka’s response. Yes, something’s wrong. Something he’d managed to avoid thinking of entirely, but that he now can’t escape.

You died for the knowledge that might have saved everything and I didn’t believe you.

Fives had been – is – one of his men and that alone would be enough guilt to drown in but… that isn’t all.

Anakin firmly blocks the thoughts from his mind, refusing to wander down that old path of what-if. He had entertained enough of them, after Fives’… death. Even more after Echo had been found. So much more, in stolen moments with Padmé and occasionally Sabé or Rabé as well, staying up late nights with more alcohol than was probably advisable.

Force.

Three hallways down, Anakin finally stops, leans against the wall, and covers his face with his hands. He slowly sinks down, ending up sitting and pulling his knees close so he can hide in them instead of in his palms.

Smooth, Anakin. The internal reprimand takes on Obi-Wan’s voice, which is almost a step too far. Anakin’s eyes sting.

Eventually Anakin manages to gather himself enough that he can paste the mask back on. He can’t quite push the thoughts back into the box where he hadn’t even known that he’d stored them, however, and from that point on he can’t decide whether to run from Fives out of shame or never let him out of sight again. Over the coming days the result of the impulses leaves Anakin looking like a shy adolescent from a holo-drama, constantly keeping track of Fives, but ducking around corners, hiding behind bulkheads, and on one occasion, making a Force-assisted leap up a staircase (accidentally sparking a game of tag with Ahsoka, but he managed to make it look deliberate, so he counts it as a win) to avoid the clone.

Whatever explanation Ahsoka had given the two ARC troopers must have been unsatisfying however, because suddenly it seems like Fives is everywhere. Anakin tries to distract himself, mingling with the troops, burying himself in the Twilight, catching upon the present, but whenever he senses Fives just a little too close, he’s running again.

Anakin fears he will keep running for a long time.

#fanfiction #my writing #star wars #the clone wars #anakin skywalker #fives #ahsoka tano #rex #kix #bell #lyn #flipper #ani5 #anidala #several implied ships

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ijustwant2write · 5 years

Text

Mr and Mrs Barnes?-Bucky Barnes x Reader

(GIF credit to @veronikaphoenix)

Masterlist

Requested by anonymous: ‘May I ask for an arranged marriage fic where at first Bucky really doesn't wanna be with you as he likes Natasha but eventually falls for you’

Summary: Bucky and (Y/N) were both super soldiers under HYDRA. As part of a huge undercover mission, they were forced into an arranged marriage, both still bound to it to this day. However, as they enter the modern world, Bucky finds himself falling for a different agent, and (Y/N) can’t help but catch feelings for her husband.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader, Natasha Romanoff x Reader (Platonic), Steve Rogers x Reader (Platonic)

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

Warnings: Arranged marriage, arguing, sadness but some fluff

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He didn’t remember.

He didn’t remember what we were to each other.

Sure, it wasn’t for love, but even as robotic, hypnotised super soldiers, it was good to have someone beside you. It somehow made the killings easier; the guilt was shared.

Of course there wasn't any romance, we were forced into this. One mission somehow required it, HYDRA making us sign the papers, surrounding us with guns as a threat if we didn't agree. Bucky and I had never even had a full conversation, only brief sentences during missions to communicate with each other. When he went rogue I had been sent to hunt him down, coming across his friends along the way. It hadn't been a good introduction.

"(Y/N), what are you doing here?" Bucky asked, his eyes wide in shock as I cornered him in the park where I found him jogging. He looked well, in normal clothes, his hair was clean...just good in general.

It wasn’t hard to find him. He had been on the news a lot recently, especially since he had, as the media had said, ‘turned good’. I hadn’t known where the Avengers base was, but found out where they regularly went for jogs; outside of the compound to probably escape the feeling of being restricted to one area. I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets, dark sunglasses covering my eyes as I looked at him.

"I'm taking you in." I simply stated.

"Really? How do you plan to do that?"

"Don't make this difficult, we can't run forever."

"HYDRA fell last year, who's ordering you?"

"You can come meet them." I reach in my jacket, revealing a gun.

"Bucky?" another voice shouted as they approached. Looking over his shoulder, I saw that it was Steve Rogers.

"It's fine Steve."

"Yes, it is." I grabbed Bucky's upper arm."We were just leaving."

"No, I'm not going back there." he snatched his arm back.

Steve stood between us."Alright what exactly is going on here? How do you know each other?"

"She's my wife."

You didn't have to be an idiot to see that I was jealous of Bucky's new life. He was free, safe and had friends. So when he suggested, well begged for me to leave whatever was left of HYDRA, I practically jumped at the chance. At first friends weren't overally thrilled, assuming that I was undercover still; but I had multiple chances to prove myself, something they took on board. However, it was me that took time getting used to this 'normal' life. Luxuries like a comfy bed, bathrooms, coffee even had made me emotional, though I found it hard to express these feelings, having been trained to hide my feelings.

Years had passed, and although it was strange, Bucky and I were still married. Most days I forgot, but today was different. Today marked the anniversary of our marriage, and I had to keep convincing myself that it was a stupid idea to keep it in mind. We wouldn't be celebrating, it was a forced marriage. After Bucky's help to rehabilitate me (even as he was going through it himself) I got to know his true self. He was unintentionally charming, kind, helpful with any obstacles I had to face, and understanding. Who wouldn't want to be married to this guy?

"Morning Bucky." I greeted him in the docking station, making sure I had my weapons for the mission.

When he didn't say anything back, I looked up at him, finding him staring at Natasha. She was getting ready herself, and although it seemed she didn't notice, she was too good a spy not to. I nudged him, repeating what I had said. He managed a smile back.

"You got everything?" I asked, trying to keep up conversation.

"Yeah, I checked." he replied.

"So, what was so interesting about Natasha?" I hadn't meant to be bitchy, but I wanted to get straight to the point.

"What? Nothing, I was day dreaming."

"OK, if you're sure."

“What’s that tone for?”

“What tone?”

“Alright guys, let’s go!” Steve called out, everyone immediately moving to the quinjet.

Was I being stupid? Perhaps paranoid? Bucky and I never had any type of romantic involvement, so him gawking at Natasha shouldn’t have bothered me. But it did, and it annoyed me to no end. I was a highly trained agent, I should be able to block out emotions such as these. I knew Bucky wouldn't act on his feelings, it wasn't in his nature. However the looks he gave her didn't go unnoticed.

"Buck, hate to break it to you but you're a married man." Steve joked. It was a running joke with everybody actually.

"Not by choice." he said back, though there was no joking tone in his voice.

Steve sensed how that had annoyed me."Still, you and Widow? That's an odd pairing, I must say."

"It's not like that."

I butted in."It's pretty obvious. You're losing your touch. Might want to keep the staring at a minimum."

"Look, nothing is going on."

"Yeah, we know."

I hadn't let that get to me during the mission. It was pathetic. What had happened to me? Why was I turning soft? Why was I suddenly having all these feelings?

Because of Bucky, that's why.

We had been through too much together to not even have a sturdy friendship. We had even gone to therapy together, trained our minds back to normal, built a new life. So why was he acting like I was just someone to go on missions with? We lived in the same building, we saw each other everyday! I had to stop attaching myself to him, pretending that he actually cared for me.

After the successful mission, I was the first off the jet, wanting to get far away from Bucky, focus my mind on something else. However, Steve had other ideas, following me as I scurried away from everyone.

"(Y/N), I want to talk to you." Steve said.

"Sorry Steve, can it wait? I'm really tired after that mission."

"No. It has to happen now."

I groaned, stopping in my tracks to turn around. He nodded his head towards an empty conference room, and I followed him inside. Neither of us sat down, standing opposite each other.

"What's going on with you and Bucky? It seems...tense."

"I mean nothing, as usual."

"I'm not an idiot (Y/N), I know you have feelings for him."

"Yeah but I shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't feel the same. Plus I've come to the conclusion that I only feel that way because I only have things in common with him out of everyone."

"That's not true."

I sighed."I know, but that's how I'm justifying it."

"He's still recovering-"

"So am I! Do you know how much they tortured me when Bucky escaped? They thought I had something to do with it!"

"OK, OK, calm down."

"I've attached myself to these ideas of our marriage when it's not even real, like as a comfort blanket."

"It's understandable, you were there for each other when you first came here."

"But he treats me like a work colleague! We don't even chat in passing, sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a polite nod."

"He's just...he's just reclusive."

"Bullshit. We used to open up to each other about everything. But as soon as we were cleared from therapy and were allowed on the team he changed. He fawns over Natasha all the time, and I shouldn't be jealous but I am."

"Have you talked to him about this?"

"Didn't I just say that we never talk?"

"Well make him. Tell him how you feel."

"I'm not good at that stuff Steve."

"No one else can tell him what you're feeling. Get it done soon otherwise it'll stay bottled up forever."

I hated to admit that Steve was right. I also hated that it was obvious to the others. How embarrassing for everyone to see that you're falling for someone who doesn't feel the same even though you're married. God, was I in a telenovela?

I went on the hunt for Bucky, going to his room first. When he wasn't there, I searched the corridors as I headed to the living room. Nope, not here. As I neared the kitchen, I could hear his voice, along with Natasha's. Why did it have to be her? Not only could I compete with her, but I actually liked Nat. The jealousy towards her felt even worse. I listened in, hoping that they wouldn't catch me.

"You were great out there today." he complimented her.

"Thanks. You and (Y/N) are a great asset to the team."

He hesitated with his next sentence.“Yeah well, we were forced to train together.”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing. You two are practically impossible to beat. And (Y/N)’s a great partner.”

When he didn’t answer, she spoke again.

“So, I know you two aren’t married on your own accords, but how come you’ve never filed for a divorce?”

Divorce? Why was that so hard for me to hear? I had considered it before. When I finally thought I was stable, thoughts like this came into mind. Perhaps I could find someone who actually wanted me, someone who saw me for who I was, who didn’t treat me differently to everyone else. However, when I thought more and more into it, the more off putting the idea was.

“Uh...I guess we just never got round to it.”

“Really?”

“Actually, I’ve never put much thought into it.”

“I think there’s a reason for that. Might want to mull it over instead of making advances at me. Mind you, I am flattered.”

Natasha was making her way towards me, and I quietly took a few steps back to make it look like I was only just arriving. We smiled at each other as we passed, mine vanishing as soon as she was gone. Good, she didn’t reciprocate the feelings. Walking into the kitchen, my confidence was at a maximum level, soon dropping when my eyes met Bucky’s. No, I couldn’t do it. I made my way to fridge, pulling out two bottles of water before leaving. Nothing was said, nothing was done.

And that’s how it stayed for the next month.

We literally didn’t have any conversations, not even a ‘hello’. Steve’s words were playing on my mind, and Natasha’s words were playing on his. Neither of us acted upon them. We were both scared, unsure and didn’t know how to deal with the situation; something us super soldiers weren’t used to. But as I was bottling it up inside, not explaining it to anyone, these stressful thoughts made their way into my dreams, and the sleepless nights returned.

My body had been tossing and turning, the bed sheets tangled up around my body that was covered in sweat. I could feel everything I used to feel, the pain, the suffering, the imprisonment. I shot upright as I screamed out, fighting off whoever had a hold of me. They knew how to defend themselves, holding down my arms to stop the punches. As I realised that I was in my bed and not back with HYDRA, I stopped the yelling and fighting.

“(Y/N), (Y/N), it’s me. It’s Bucky, you’re safe, you’re at the Avengers base.” he said soothingly, holding my face in his hands so that I looked him in the eye.

“I’m....I-I’m safe, I’m safe.” I breathed out as I sobbed.

“Yes, you’re safe, you’re with me.”

“Did I wake you?”

“You know I don’t sleep much.”

“Was I screaming?”

“Yeah. I rushed down here the second I heard it.”

I sighed, crying out.“Oh god, what if they all come back?”

Bucky pulled me into his chest, hugging me tight.“It might just be a one off. Something has just triggered it. Do you know what it could be?”

“I...a month ago I heard you and Nat talking, and she asked why you hadn’t divorced me. And for some reason, it really upset me, even though we never even dated.”

“That’s what set this off?”

“I guess so. I think it’s cause this is the only connection I’ve had with someone, even if it is fake. And I’ve gotten so used to it, but I know it’s stupid.”

“You know, I felt the same when she mentioned it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. It’s like you said, I got used to the label.”

The conversation wasn’t going anywhere, neither of us expressing what we really wanted to stay. Though maybe neither of us were sure yet. I certainly wasn’t, not definitely.

“You want me to stay tonight?” he offered, causing butterflies to erupt in my stomach.

“You don’t have to-”

“I want to. We know what these sleepless nights get like.”

I smiled and nodded, moving aside for him to lie down next to me. He casually slipped under the covers, still holding onto one of my hands. I tried to remain calm, hoping that I wouldn’t look like an idiot in front of him. We were facing each other, his eyes already closed as he mumbled out goodnight. I repeated it back, unable to force myself to sleep. He was acting so normal about this, we were laying here together...like a married couple.

“(Y/N)?” Bucky whispered, slowly opening his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna start training together again? Go for those jogs round that nice park?”

“Don’t you want to train with Nat and Steve?”

“No, their regime is too easy.”

I giggled.“I hope you can keep up with me. It could take some time for you to get used to it.”

“I’m not thinking about going anywhere else.”

“Alright, we’ll start in the morning. Goodnight Bucky.”

“Goodnight (Y/N).”

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rilenerocks · 4 years

Text

Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long. Like living in a wind tunnel, you’d say. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that nothing’s changed. I climb into our bed, each night, still on my side, yours untouched, with the dull roar of all my cooling machines as my companions. The thin sheet quivers in the breeze. You’d hate it. I’m physically comfortable and I lie there, thinking. Look at this headline from an article I read this evening.

Scientists Have ‘Woken Up’ Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years

I mean, really? While I was trying to wrap my mind around the impossibility of those numbers and the subsequent life options they revealed, I suddenly hoped that meant we had a chance of reuniting somewhere in this mystifying universe. Certainly our collective and relatively young microbes have just as good a chance at survival as those ancient ones. I’m positive that your microbes are all over our house, our garden and in the few personal items of yours which I’ve stashed away. There might be a few hairs in your brush. I wouldn’t care which version of us we’d be, young or old. Ish.

So then I was thinking about all the tiny details of life I’d normally tell you every day when you were still here in the flesh. I mean, I like your constant cosmic presence, but I usually turn to that with just the most important stuff. I’ve been dying to share with you all these strange little nothing thoughts that cross my mind. Mostly, no one has ever been able to put up with the endless stream of seemingly random, disconnected thoughts that pour out of me. My sister, Cheryl is probably the next best listener after you. As my younger sibling, she was well trained in the absorption of my peculiar brain workings. I’m lucky she’s still here. But there’s just nothing like you for that bottomless reservoir of acceptance which you provided for me. Isn’t it ironic that we both know you’d be appalled by me releasing all this private information into the faceless universe? I mean, I know some people who read my blog but mostly, they’re strangers. Honestly, except for a few private spaces in myself that defy language, most of the rest is just irrelevant in the long run. What impact do our little quirky selves have? I know you’d disagree but I need to survive now, in my own way. So here are a few random thoughts that beset me as I lie in our bedroom, my favorite space, while my mind wanders in the wee hours after I’m done reading, wishing I could talk to you above the whir of the fan blades spinning around me.

You’re the only person who knew that while I was listening to WLS radio during my pubescent and teen years in Chicago, I wasn’t just a rock and roll/rhythm and blues kid. I also liked gospel, jazz and classical music. I still remember that when you were working at the Record Service, you kept track of my favorites and made sure I always those albums in my stash. And then, you updated them to CD’s so I didn’t have to wear out my vinyl. I’m still listening to lots of different genres every day. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this bizarre pandemic time without it.

Here’s another weird thing I’ve noticed lately. I don’t watch much television during the day. I turn it on for a few minutes when I get up in the morning, mostly a defensive move to make sure nothing impossibly earth-shattering happened overnight. That’s how things are right now – every day seems to bring a story that’s incomprehensible. Today the story was that after the worst economic quarter ever reported since they started measuring these things, Trump suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t hold an election this fall. This guy will sling any idea that he thinks will get him a second term. As an historian, you just wouldn’t believe how this country has devolved since you’ve been gone. Anyway. When evening rolls around, I’m tired from being outside most of the day. After dinner, I watch the news and then scroll through the tv guide, looking for anything that might distract me, amuse me or otherwise edify me in some way. Lately, I’ve realized that virtually every day, The Godfather, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Gladiator is playing. Often they’re on at the same time, while other times, they’re staggered. It’s so peculiar. Usually I watch bits of all of them. By the end of the week I’ve seen them in their entirety, albeit out of order. I’ll also pause for Sense and Sensibility, The Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice or any Errol Flynn movie. Makes me laugh. If you were here, you’d be doing the same thing with The American President, To Have and to Have Not, You’ve Got Mail or The Maltese Falcon. Also Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, or Stand by Me. I’m working my way through a decent number of tv series that I missed when we were too busy to watch them. But recently, I’m needing revolution. I’ve got “Z” and Battle of Algiers on my DVR. I probably don’t need to get more cranked up than I am these days, but I guess that’s too bad. Watching them anyway. I wonder how any new shows will be made for the fall? Better not go down that rabbit hole. They’re probably not going to happen.

I want you to know that in your honor, I have loyally kept up with a smaller version of your food garden. Not just the perennial herbs that still marvelously appear and make me feel that it’s you who’s emerging through our rich dirt. That’s kind of absurd because your ashes are sitting in a beautiful box in the house waiting to some day being mingled with mine. Then we can be in the garden together. That aside, I’ve also been diligently planting and nurturing the annual herbs and vegetables, although at the moment, I’m losing the vegetable battle with the squirrels and rabbits. I’ve managed to get about two dozen cherry tomatoes off the vines while I try to ignore the smushed ones on the ground with one bite mark taken before abandonment. All the low-hanging large tomatoes have been filched along with the green peppers. I’m holding out hope for ones that are a little higher on the vines.

I’m really missing your cooking, though. Yesterday, I started ferreting around your recipe folders and dug out the one for pesto which, by the way, wasn’t labeled. I’m going to make it. I don’t have as much basil as you would plant so I don’t expect to be spooning the mixture into ice cube trays that we could pop out of the freezer for pastas and pizzas. But I’m going to get it done. You really spoiled me. The good news is that I knew it and let you know. So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I’m being really mindful about enjoying every bloom in my flower world. I wait impatiently to make sure that my perennials return and get so happy when they show up. Then I try not to get sad because soon they’ll be gone. That’s something I have to work on – if I’ve learned anything, I know I need to stay in the present. So I’m out there a lot, with the butterflies and the birds, chasing them around with my phone to get good photos that I hope will be comforting in what I expect will be a socially distanced winter.

Regarding the birds. So far, since spring, there’ve been 50 species in the yard. I don’t know if you’d recall that I started drawing them and filing them in a binder called The Yardbirds. I know you’d get the music reference. Anyway, my renderings are improving. If I practice, I’ll get better. Here are a couple of my recent ones.

I’m really happy that I’ve created a great bird habitat in the yard. I’m learning a lot about their behavior. I love watching the hummingbirds and the house wrens. Tiny, but mighty. I’ve grown fond of catbirds which are showing up regularly at the feeders. They’re perky and curious and pretty brave.

I’ve done something pretty dumb, as getting attached to wild animals doesn’t bode well for a happy emotional outcome. But I’m very fond of the cardinal pair that lives here year-round. After a rousing rescue of one of their fledglings last week, I felt so familial with them that I decided to name the strikingly beautiful female who comes for here daily for a dip in the birdbath. I’m calling her Pumpkin. Now, how absurd is that? I like her boyfriend too.

Another thing I did after a good deal of thought was sell your beloved bike. That was hard for me. I know it was just a thing but you loved it so much. I heard your voice in my head saying, “don’t be ridiculous – it’s just sitting there being wasted. Get yourself some extra cash.” So I did. But I took photos first. All these things I have to do. When I lie in bed in the night, I think about how much easier it is to share the loads of life. I miss that a lot although I’m glad I have what it takes to manage on my own. I think back to my mom after my dad died. By the time she was my age, she’d been dependent on me for almost 5 years. Makes me shudder.

How could I not tell you this most important thing? Our daughter, who went from working remotely to having to appear in person in a closed courtroom, found out the other day that a court clerk had tested positive for Covid19. She was asked to leave her office, get tested and do another 14 day quarantine. Then the judge in charge pf hearing her cases tested positive as well. Ugh. That meant that all the rest of our little family bubble had to be tested too. So far, she and our son got negative results. Our son-in-law, both grandsons and I await our results. I hope we’re all negative and can resume our little intimate enclave. The months ahead look daunting to me. The virus is traversing the country at will with no definitive treatments or vaccines. I dread flu season adding to the complexity of everything. Feels positively medieval.

In other news, I got an email from the park district informing us that the indoor pool was reopening immediately. The list of precautions and requirements is very long and detailed. I read it carefully while keenly aware of my longing to get back to swimming. In the end, I’ve decided against it. I just don’t think being in an indoor facility shared with high school students can be safe enough for someone like me, a member of what I call the “death group.” So I’ll just have to know that a block and a half from our house, people will be paddling away while I won’t. This adult decision-making of risk vs. reward is overrated.

In other news, I actually wish I was more like my mom in her widowhood. She used to talk a lot about how all she wished she could do was hold my dad’s hand one more time. Lucky her. I remain deeply interested in resuming our intimate life for another 30 years or so. I hope if this reaches you, you’ll be glad to know that some of our best things are strong enough to survive death.

So that’s all for tonight. By the way, I thought you should know that I just restlessly flipped on the television. There is Gladiator in the midst of the re-creation of the battle of Carthage. Round and round it goes, my dearest boy. Until next time.

A Message from the Wind Tunnel Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long.

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agilenano · 4 years

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Agilenano - News: What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

There’s a joke* being reshared on chat apps that takes the form of a multiple-choice question — asking who’s the leading force in workplace digital transformation? The red-lined punchline is not the CEO or CTO, but: C) COVID-19. There’s likely more than a grain of truth underpinning the quip. The novel coronavirus is pushing a lot of metaphorical buttons right now. “Pause” buttons for people and industries, as large swathes of the world’s population face quarantine conditions that can resemble house arrest. The majority of offline social and economic activities are suddenly off limits. Such major pauses in our modern lifestyle may even turn into a full reset, over time. The world as it was, where mobility of people has been all but taken for granted — regardless of the environmental costs of so much commuting and indulged wanderlust — may never return to “business as usual.” If global leadership rises to the occasion, then the coronavirus crisis offers an opportunity to rethink how we structure our societies and economies — to make a shift toward lower carbon alternatives. After all, how many physical meetings do you really need when digital connectivity is accessible and reliable? As millions more office workers log onto the day job from home, that number suddenly seems vanishingly small. COVID-19 is clearly strengthening the case for broadband to be a utility — as so much more activity is pushed online. Even social media seems to have a genuine community purpose during a moment of national crisis, when many people can only connect remotely, even with their nearest neighbours. Hence the reports of people stuck at home flocking back to Facebook to sound off in the digital town square. Now that the actual high street is off limits, the vintage social network is experiencing a late second wind. Facebook understands this sort of higher societal purpose already, of course. Which is why it’s been so proactive about building features that nudge users to “mark yourself safe” during extraordinary events like natural disasters, major accidents and terrorist attacks. (Or indeed, why it encouraged politicians to get into bed with its data platform in the first place — no matter the cost to democracy.) In less fraught times, Facebook’s “purpose” can be loosely summed to “killing time.” But with ever more sinkholes being drilled by the attention economy, that’s a function under ferocious and sustained attack. Over the years the tech giant has responded by engineering ways to rise back to the top of the social heap — including spying on and buying up competition, or directly cloning rival products. It’s been pulling off this trick, by hook or by crook, for over a decade. Albeit, this time Facebook can’t take any credit for the traffic uptick; a pandemic is nature’s dark pattern design. What’s most interesting about this virally disrupted moment is how much of the digital technology that’s been built out online over the past two decades could very well have been designed for living through just such a dystopia. Seen through this lens, VR should be having a major moment. A face computer that swaps out the stuff your eyes can actually see with a choose-your-own-digital-adventure of virtual worlds to explore, all from the comfort of your living room? What problem are you fixing, VR? Well, the conceptual limits of human lockdown in the face of a pandemic quarantine right now, actually… Virtual reality has never been a compelling proposition versus the rich and textured opportunity of real life, except within very narrow and niche bounds. Yet all of a sudden, here we all are — with our horizons drastically narrowed and real-life news that’s ceaselessly harrowing. So it might yet end up a wry punchline to another multiple choice joke: “My next vacation will be: A) Staycation, B) The spare room, C) VR escapism.” It’s videoconferencing that’s actually having the big moment, though. Turns out even a pandemic can’t make VR go viral. Instead, long-lapsed friendships are being rekindled over Zoom group chats or Google Hangouts. And Houseparty — a video chat app — has seen surging downloads as barflies seek out alternative night life with their usual watering-holes shuttered. Bored celebs are TikToking. Impromptu concerts are being live-streamed from living rooms via Instagram and Facebook Live. All sorts of folks are managing social distancing, and the stress of being stuck at home alone (or with family), by distant socializing: signing up to remote book clubs and discos; joining virtual dance parties and exercise sessions from bedrooms; taking a few classes together; the quiet pub night with friends has morphed seamlessly into a bring-your-own-bottle group video chat. This is not normal — but nor is it surprising. We’re living in the most extraordinary time. And it seems a very human response to mass disruption and physical separation (not to mention the trauma of an ongoing public health emergency that’s killing thousands of people a day) to reach for even a moving pixel of human comfort. Contactless human contact is better than none at all. Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society’s backbone. It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit. Back in the pre-COVID-19 era, a key concern being attached to social media was its ability to hook users and encourage passive feed consumption — replacing genuine human contact with voyeuristic screening of friends’ lives. Studies have linked the tech to loneliness and depression. Now that we’re literally unable to go out and meet friends, the loss of human contact is real and stark. So being popular online in a pandemic really isn’t any kind of success metric. Houseparty, for example, self-describes as a “face to face social network” — yet it’s quite the literal opposite; you’re foregoing face-to-face contact if you’re getting virtually together in app-wrapped form. The implication of Facebook’s COVID-19 traffic bump is that the company’s business model thrives on societal disruption and mainstream misery. Which, frankly, we knew already. Data-driven adtech is another way of saying it’s been engineered to spray you with ad-flavored dissatisfaction by spying on what you get up to. The coronavirus just hammers the point home. The fact we have so many high-tech tools on tap for forging digital connections might feel like amazing serendipity in this crisis — a freemium bonanza for coping with terrible global trauma. But such bounty points to a horrible flip side: It’s the attention economy that’s infectious and insidious. Before “normal life” plunged off a cliff, all this sticky tech was labelled “everyday use;” not “break out in a global emergency.” It’s never been clearer how these attention-hogging apps and services are designed to disrupt and monetize us; to embed themselves in our friendships and relationships in a way that’s subtly dehumanizing; re-routing emotion and connections; nudging us to swap in-person socializing for virtualized fuzz designed to be data-mined and monetized by the same middlemen who’ve inserted themselves unasked into our private and social lives. Captured and recompiled in this way, human connection is reduced to a series of dilute and/or meaningless transactions; the platforms deploying armies of engineers to knob-twiddle and pull strings to maximize ad opportunities, no matter the personal cost. It’s also no accident we’re seeing more of the vast and intrusive underpinnings of surveillance capitalism emerge, as the COVID-19 emergency rolls back some of the obfuscation that’s used to shield these business models from mainstream view in more normal times. The trackers are rushing to seize and colonize an opportunistic purpose. Tech and ad giants are falling over themselves to get involved with offering data or apps for COVID-19 tracking. They’re already in the mass surveillance business, so there’s likely never felt like a better moment than the present pandemic for the big data lobby to press the lie that individuals don’t care about privacy, as governments cry out for tools and resources to help save lives. First the people-tracking platforms dressed up attacks on human agency as “relevant ads.” Now the data industrial complex is spinning police-state levels of mass surveillance as pandemic-busting corporate social responsibility. How quick the wheel turns. But platforms should be careful what they wish for. Populations that find themselves under house arrest with their phones playing snitch might be just as quick to round on high-tech gaolers as they’ve been to sign up for a friendly video chat in these strange and unprecedented times. Oh, and Zoom (and others) — more people might actually read your “privacy policy” now they’ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk. Every day there's a fresh Zoom privacy/security horror story. Why now, all at once? It's simple: the problems aren't new but suddenly everyone is forced to use Zoom. That means more people discovering problems and also more frustration because opting out isn't an option. https://t.co/O9h8SHerok — Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020 *Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish #Apps #AdvertisingTech #Coronavirus #SocialMedia #COVID-19

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Agilenano-News/~3/Vua6yAWx3e4/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-we-ve-built-1

0 notes

sheminecrafts · 4 years

Text

What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

There’s likely more than a grain of truth underpinning the quip. The novel coronavirus is pushing a lot of metaphorical buttons right now. “Pause” buttons for people and industries, as large swathes of the world’s population face quarantine conditions that can resemble house arrest. The majority of offline social and economic activities are suddenly off limits.

Such major pauses in our modern lifestyle may even turn into a full reset, over time. The world as it was, where mobility of people has been all but taken for granted — regardless of the environmental costs of so much commuting and indulged wanderlust — may never return to “business as usual.”

If global leadership rises to the occasion, then the coronavirus crisis offers an opportunity to rethink how we structure our societies and economies — to make a shift toward lower carbon alternatives. After all, how many physical meetings do you really need when digital connectivity is accessible and reliable? As millions more office workers log onto the day job from home, that number suddenly seems vanishingly small.

COVID-19 is clearly strengthening the case for broadband to be a utility — as so much more activity is pushed online. Even social media seems to have a genuine community purpose during a moment of national crisis, when many people can only connect remotely, even with their nearest neighbours.

Hence the reports of people stuck at home flocking back to Facebook to sound off in the digital town square. Now that the actual high street is off limits, the vintage social network is experiencing a late second wind.

Facebook understands this sort of higher societal purpose already, of course. Which is why it’s been so proactive about building features that nudge users to “mark yourself safe” during extraordinary events like natural disasters, major accidents and terrorist attacks. (Or indeed, why it encouraged politicians to get into bed with its data platform in the first place — no matter the cost to democracy.)

In less fraught times, Facebook’s “purpose” can be loosely summed to “killing time.” But with ever more sinkholes being drilled by the attention economy, that’s a function under ferocious and sustained attack.

Over the years the tech giant has responded by engineering ways to rise back to the top of the social heap — including spying on and buying up competition, or directly cloning rival products. It’s been pulling off this trick, by hook or by crook, for over a decade. Albeit, this time Facebook can’t take any credit for the traffic uptick; a pandemic is nature’s dark pattern design.

What’s most interesting about this virally disrupted moment is how much of the digital technology that’s been built out online over the past two decades could very well have been designed for living through just such a dystopia.

Seen through this lens, VR should be having a major moment. A face computer that swaps out the stuff your eyes can actually see with a choose-your-own-digital-adventure of virtual worlds to explore, all from the comfort of your living room? What problem are you fixing, VR? Well, the conceptual limits of human lockdown in the face of a pandemic quarantine right now, actually…

Virtual reality has never been a compelling proposition versus the rich and textured opportunity of real life, except within very narrow and niche bounds. Yet all of a sudden, here we all are — with our horizons drastically narrowed and real-life news that’s ceaselessly harrowing. So it might yet end up a wry punchline to another multiple choice joke: “My next vacation will be: A) Staycation, B) The spare room, C) VR escapism.”

It’s videoconferencing that’s actually having the big moment, though. Turns out even a pandemic can’t make VR go viral. Instead, long-lapsed friendships are being rekindled over Zoom group chats or Google Hangouts. And Houseparty — a video chat app — has seen surging downloads as barflies seek out alternative night life with their usual watering-holes shuttered.

Bored celebs are TikToking. Impromptu concerts are being live-streamed from living rooms via Instagram and Facebook Live. All sorts of folks are managing social distancing, and the stress of being stuck at home alone (or with family), by distant socializing: signing up to remote book clubs and discos; joining virtual dance parties and exercise sessions from bedrooms; taking a few classes together; the quiet pub night with friends has morphed seamlessly into a bring-your-own-bottle group video chat.

This is not normal — but nor is it surprising. We’re living in the most extraordinary time. And it seems a very human response to mass disruption and physical separation (not to mention the trauma of an ongoing public health emergency that’s killing thousands of people a day) to reach for even a moving pixel of human comfort. Contactless human contact is better than none at all.

Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society’s backbone.

It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit.

Back in the pre-COVID-19 era, a key concern being attached to social media was its ability to hook users and encourage passive feed consumption — replacing genuine human contact with voyeuristic screening of friends’ lives. Studies have linked the tech to loneliness and depression. Now that we’re literally unable to go out and meet friends, the loss of human contact is real and stark. So being popular online in a pandemic really isn’t any kind of success metric.

Houseparty, for example, self-describes as a “face to face social network” — yet it’s quite the literal opposite; you’re foregoing face-to-face contact if you’re getting virtually together in app-wrapped form.

The implication of Facebook’s COVID-19 traffic bump is that the company’s business model thrives on societal disruption and mainstream misery. Which, frankly, we knew already. Data-driven adtech is another way of saying it’s been engineered to spray you with ad-flavored dissatisfaction by spying on what you get up to. The coronavirus just hammers the point home.

The fact we have so many high-tech tools on tap for forging digital connections might feel like amazing serendipity in this crisis — a freemium bonanza for coping with terrible global trauma. But such bounty points to a horrible flip side: It’s the attention economy that’s infectious and insidious. Before “normal life” plunged off a cliff, all this sticky tech was labelled “everyday use;” not “break out in a global emergency.”

It’s never been clearer how these attention-hogging apps and services are designed to disrupt and monetize us; to embed themselves in our friendships and relationships in a way that’s subtly dehumanizing; re-routing emotion and connections; nudging us to swap in-person socializing for virtualized fuzz designed to be data-mined and monetized by the same middlemen who’ve inserted themselves unasked into our private and social lives.

Captured and recompiled in this way, human connection is reduced to a series of dilute and/or meaningless transactions; the platforms deploying armies of engineers to knob-twiddle and pull strings to maximize ad opportunities, no matter the personal cost.

It’s also no accident we’re seeing more of the vast and intrusive underpinnings of surveillance capitalism emerge, as the COVID-19 emergency rolls back some of the obfuscation that’s used to shield these business models from mainstream view in more normal times. The trackers are rushing to seize and colonize an opportunistic purpose.

Tech and ad giants are falling over themselves to get involved with offering data or apps for COVID-19 tracking. They’re already in the mass surveillance business, so there’s likely never felt like a better moment than the present pandemic for the big data lobby to press the lie that individuals don’t care about privacy, as governments cry out for tools and resources to help save lives.

First the people-tracking platforms dressed up attacks on human agency as “relevant ads.” Now the data industrial complex is spinning police-state levels of mass surveillance as pandemic-busting corporate social responsibility. How quick the wheel turns.

But platforms should be careful what they wish for. Populations that find themselves under house arrest with their phones playing snitch might be just as quick to round on high-tech gaolers as they’ve been to sign up for a friendly video chat in these strange and unprecedented times.

Oh, and Zoom (and others) — more people might actually read your “privacy policy” now they’ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk.

Every day there's a fresh Zoom privacy/security horror story. Why now, all at once?

It's simple: the problems aren't new but suddenly everyone is forced to use Zoom. That means more people discovering problems and also more frustration because opting out isn't an option. https://t.co/O9h8SHerok

— Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020

*Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2JuePIh via IFTTT

#IFTTT #iraidajzsmmwtv

0 notes

magzoso-tech · 4 years

Text

What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-weve-built/

What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society’s backbone.

It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit.

Oh, and Zoom (and others) — more people might actually read your “privacy policy” now they’ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk.

Every day there’s a fresh Zoom privacy/security horror story. Why now, all at once?

It’s simple: the problems aren’t new but suddenly everyone is forced to use Zoom. That means more people discovering problems and also more frustration because opting out isn’t an option. https://t.co/O9h8SHerok

— Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020

*Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish

#Miscellaneous

0 notes

thistexanlife · 5 years

Text

Crossing Over.

Every October, I make a pilgrimage back to Boston. Even as most of the people I met and loved here have also since left and started new chapters in different places, even as it’s been most of a decade since I last called it home, it’s still one of my favorite traditions; it’s as much an excuse to see old great friends as one to compare how it feels now to how it felt then, to stand against the metaphorical doorframe, mark my height in the paint, and then turn around and see how much I’ve grown in the past year.

Each year, I think about the version of me that lived here, the version of me I left behind in time. I feel so close to him walking the streets of this ancient city, like we’re on two different portions of the Jeremy Bearimy timeline and for a brief moment our timelines are intersecting. I imagine the membrane between us to be thinner than ever, gauzy and easily parted, and that it would take nothing at all for me to step sideways two feet in space but a decade backward in time. So I walk these red brick sidewalks, and with each step I find myself hoping to cross over, like I’m eleven and it’s July and I’m waiting for my letter from Hogwarts, knowing it’s not coming but trying to will it into existence anyway, and I start thinking about my past here.

I think about the first time I came back when I wasn’t used to not living here. I think about the second time when I wasn’t used to being used to it. I think of each successive time, a bit less a return home and a bit more a vacation. I try to count if this is the fifth, or sixth or seventh time, but the memories mix together and I lose track.

I think about how I used to take that bus to work, how I’d wait to step outside Dunkin until I saw it coming up the street. But where did it drop me off? Maybe I took the other one. All the double digit marquees and squares that aren’t square seem a little less distinct than they used to.

I think about how that bakery is now an urgent care center. I think about how that convenience store is also now an urgent care center. I wonder if care is now needed more urgently here.

I think about a boy I kissed who lived there. A man I kissed? A man now, at least; a boy then. Maybe always a man. I think about a time in my life when I was still young enough to un-self-consciously call them boys. I realize that, at 30, maybe I’m not young enough to call them boys anymore no matter what adverbs I attach to it.

I think about the nights I walked home from bad dates and listened to Dancing On My Own or King of Anything, or the nights I walked home from good dates and listened to Teenage Dream, or the nights we stayed in and danced to Phoenix, or the entire winter when it seemed all I ever did was get too drunk and listen to We Found Love. (I still get chills every time I hear that song, and never know whether they’re emotional chills or just a physical memory of that frigid Boston January.)

I think about The Outs, the wintry and sardonic series that appeared at a wintry and sardonic time in my life, and I wonder how much of the reason it matched my life is because my life started to mirror it. “I’m just going through a slutty phase.” “Don’t say charäde.” Life imitating art imitating life. I think about when I tried to watch the O.C. as an adult and realized how much of my teenage years were the same.

I think about how I used to think I was doomed to always be a sad person, when really all I needed was a little more self-esteem and a little more vitamin D.

I think about how so many of these things that I used to love now just give me (e)motion(al) sickness, and I feel the familiar Alice in Wonderland syndrome of my childhood, the sense that all these things are six inches from my face and thousands of miles away at the same time. It’s strange to have things in your past that you look back on so fondly, that you loved so much, that you missed dearly when they ended, and realize how little you now want those things back. I start to wonder how I ever wanted this stuff. I start to wonder if I ever wanted this stuff. I didn’t even choose a lot of it, not really – the college I went to, the city I called home, the places where I worked, all of those things mostly chose me. I wonder if life is really about figuring out what I want at all, or if it’s just about figuring out how to want what I have.

Then I think: nah, that’s reductive, man. I wanted these things while I had them, and I want different things now, and that’s just life. Or maybe it’s growth. I realize this isn’t exactly a novel concept, but I’ve only ever claimed to be a good writer, not an original one.

My vision re-focuses on what’s in front of me; I’ve reached my destination, or at least my destination for now. I’m rooted, physically and temporally, in the present – it seems the curtain between us was a bit thicker than I thought, or maybe (and far more likely) our timelines never loop back and allow us to jump back and forth. Anyway, it’s easier to only have one direction to worry about moving: forward.

Clear eyes, full heart, et al,

0 notes

technicalsolutions88 · 4 years

Link

There’s a joke* being reshared on chat apps that takes the form of a multiple choice question — asking who’s the leading force in workplace digital transformation? The red-lined punchline is not the CEO or CTO but: C) COVID-19.

There’s likely more than a grain of truth underpinning the quip. The novel coronavirus is pushing a lot of metaphorical buttons right now. ‘Pause’ buttons for people and industries, as large swathes of the world’s population face quarantine conditions that can resemble house arrest. The majority of offline social and economic activities are suddenly off limits.

If global leadership rises to the occasional then the coronavirus crisis offers an opportunity to rethink how we structure our societies and economies — to make a shift towards lower carbon alternatives. After all, how many physical meetings do you really need when digital connectivity is accessible and reliable? As millions more office workers log onto the day job from home that number suddenly seems vanishingly small.

COVID-19 is clearly strengthening the case for broadband to be a utility — as so much more activity is pushed online. Even social media seems to have a genuine community purpose during a moment of national crisis when many people can only connect remotely, even with their nearest neighbours.

Hence the reports of people stuck at home flocking back to Facebook to sound off in the digital town square. Now the actual high street is off limits the vintage social network is experiencing a late second wind.

Facebook understands this sort of higher societal purpose already, of course. Which is why it’s been so proactive about building features that nudge users to ‘mark yourself safe’ during extraordinary events like natural disasters, major accidents and terrorist attacks. (Or indeed why it encouraged politicians to get into bed with its data platform in the first place — no matter the cost to democracy.)

In less fraught times, Facebook’s ‘purpose’ can be loosely summed to ‘killing time’. But with ever more sinkholes being drilled by the attention economy that’s a function under ferocious and sustained attack.

Seen through this lens, VR should be having a major moment. A face computer that swaps out the stuff your eyes can actually see with a choose-your-own-digital-adventure of virtual worlds to explore, all from the comfort of your living room? What problem are you fixing VR? Well, the conceptual limits of human lockdown in the face of a pandemic quarantine right now, actually…

Virtual reality has never been a compelling proposition vs the rich and textured opportunity of real life, except within very narrow and niche bounds. Yet all of a sudden here we all are — with our horizons drastically narrowed and real-life news that’s ceaselessly harrowing. So it might yet end up wry punchline to another multiple choice joke: ‘My next vacation will be: A) Staycation, B) The spare room, C) VR escapism.’

It’s videoconferencing that’s actually having the big moment, though. Turns out even a pandemic can’t make VR go viral. Instead, long lapsed friendships are being rekindled over Zoom group chats or Google Hangouts. And Houseparty — a video chat app — has seen surging downloads as barflies seek out alternative night life with their usual watering-holes shuttered.

Bored celebs are TikToking. Impromptu concerts are being livestreamed from living rooms via Instagram and Facebook Live. All sorts of folks are managing social distancing and the stress of being stuck at home alone (or with family) by distant socializing — signing up to remote book clubs and discos; joining virtual dance parties and exercise sessions from bedrooms. Taking a few classes together. The quiet pub night with friends has morphed seamlessly into a bring-your-own-bottle group video chat.

Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society’s backbone.

It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit.

Back in the pre-COVID-19 era, a key concern being attached to social media was its ability to hook users and encourage passive feed consumption — replacing genuine human contact with voyeuristic screening of friends’ lives. Studies have linked the tech to loneliness and depression. Now we’re literally unable to go out and meet friends the loss of human contact is real and stark. So being popular online in a pandemic really isn’t any kind of success metric.

While the implication of Facebook’s COVID-19 traffic bump is that the company’s business model thrives on societal disruption and mainstream misery. Which, frankly, we knew already. Data-driven adtech is another way of saying it’s been engineered to spray you with ad-flavored dissatisfaction by spying on what you get up to. The coronavirus just hammers the point home.

The fact we have so many high-tech tools on tap for forging digital connections might feel like amazing serendipity in this crisis — a freemium bonanza for coping with terrible global trauma. But such bounty points to a horrible flip side: It’s the attention economy that’s infectious and insidious. Before ‘normal life’ plunged off a cliff all this sticky tech was labelled ‘everyday use’; not ‘break out in a global emergency’.

It’s never been clearer how these attention-hogging apps and services are designed to disrupt and monetize us; to embed themselves in our friendships and relationships in a way that’s subtly dehumanizing; re-routing emotion and connections; nudging us to swap in-person socializing for virtualized fuzz that designed to be data-mined and monetized by the same middlemen who’ve inserted themselves unasked into our private and social lives.

Captured and recompiled in this way, human connection is reduced to a series of dilute and/or meaningless transactions. The platforms deploying armies of engineers to knob-twiddle and pull strings to maximize ad opportunities, no matter the personal cost.

It’s also no accident we’re also seeing more of the vast and intrusive underpinnings of surveillance capitalism emerge, as the COVID-19 emergency rolls back some of the obfuscation that’s used to shield these business models from mainstream view in more normal times. The trackers are rushing to seize and colonize an opportunistic purpose.

Tech and ad giants are falling over themselves to get involved with offering data or apps for COVID-19 tracking. They’re already in the mass surveillance business so there’s likely never felt like a better moment than the present pandemic for the big data lobby to press the lie that individuals don’t care about privacy, as governments cry out for tools and resources to help save lives.

First the people-tracking platforms dressed up attacks on human agency as ‘relevant ads’. Now the data industrial complex is spinning police-state levels of mass surveillance as pandemic-busting corporate social responsibility. How quick the wheel turns.

But platforms should be careful what they wish for. Populations that find themselves under house arrest with their phones playing snitch might be just as quick to round on high tech gaolers as they’ve been to sign up for a friendly video chat in these strange and unprecedented times.

Oh and Zoom (and others) — more people might actually read your ‘privacy policy‘ now they’ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk.

Every day there's a fresh Zoom privacy/security horror story. Why now, all at once?

— Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020

*Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2JuePIh Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

#Technical Solutions #SEO #Online Earning #Youtube Marketing #Android Developer

0 notes

entergamingxp · 5 years

Text

Hunt: Showdown review – a sweaty, stinking, cat-and-mouse masterpiece • Eurogamer.net

A rough beast indeed, Hunt: Showdown, slouching toward the daylight after a couple of years in Early Access. A peculiar chimera of genres – survival horror, battle royale, boss rush shooter, insect, demon, human being. It resembles Far Cry 2 at a glance, all flammable shades of brown, but it moves more like PUBG, shunning the clear ground, ears pricked for proximity chat. It has the vivid markings of a Monster Hunter, but those patterns are really just for show, like the eye-whites of a killer whale – masking the gunsights protruding from its abdomen. You certainly wouldn’t call it handsome, but you can’t seem to drag your gaze away. How did something so… multiple ever survive the evolutionary process? But alas, you’ve looked for too long. It knows you’re there now. No, don’t try to run! The creature’s girth is deceptive. We’ll have to see if we can bring it down.

If Hunt: Showdown’s unusual – and, as it turns out, fantastically exhilarating and engrossing – mixture of inspirations has a single guiding principle, it’s that predators become prey. It’s a game in which stepping on a twig while backstabbing a zombie can get you shot from a hundred yards off, and the ceremony of a bossfight offers zero defence against the player lobbing dynamite through a window.

In Hunt, you play patron to a “Bloodline” of bounty hunters, all seeking their fortune amid the rot of a 19th century Louisiana that has been overrun by demons. Your task, in the main bounty-hunting mode, is to find the lair of a legendary monster within one of two festering open world maps, using your sorcerous Dark Vision to chase swirling blue sparks to clues that narrow down the search area. Having slain and exorcised the abomination, you must collect a bounty and head to a map exit to complete the match. Along the way you’ll fight or avoid myriad lesser horrors – from vanilla zombies who can be treated as speed bumps, providing you don’t overlook the ones waving cleavers or torches, to chunkier threats such as the Meathead, a one-armed juggernaut that sees by way of a slithering entourage of leeches.

Hunt: Showdown

Developers: Crytek

Publisher: Crytek

Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4 (reviewed on Xbox One)

Availability: 18th February 2020

You’ll earn both character XP and coin for slaying these minor foes, but every bullet or firebomb wasted on a demon dog (and every bandage applied to your shredded flesh after discovering that the dog has friends) is one less to pit against the boss itself. There are three of them, right now – you never know which you’re up against before starting a match, so it’s wise not to specialise too much when equipping guns and consumables. The Butcher is the soft option, for all its bulk: a porcine bully armed with a flaming hook, easily slaughtered providing you keep your distance. The knife-wielding Assassin is wilier, dissolving itself into a cloud of flies in order to course through the crevices of barns and windmills; it can even clone itself to distract you, like a lizard discarding its tail. Worst of all, though, is the Spider, a viciously nimble wall-crawler that always seems to be behind or above you, its rattling feet setting your hairs on end. Many hours after first killing one, I still feel the urge to stand on a chair while fighting it.

Thankfully, bosses never leave their lairs, so you can always hurry outside to patch yourself up, scrounge some ammo or take potshots at your quarry through a gap in the boards. Except that you can’t, actually, because the sting in Hunt’s tail is that it’s a competitive affair. There may be other players in the vicinity – as many as a dozen per match, questing in groups of up to three. Enemy players aren’t marked on the HUD or map screen to begin with, but it’s easy to give yourself away while thinning the NPC herd, and as in Turtle Rock’s sadly forgotten Evolve, each map is awash with nefarious ambient warning systems such as patches of broken glass, clattering chains and flocks of tetchy crows. The bossfights, naturally, tend to involve a lot of telltale screaming and explosions, and once you’ve killed the boss, you must banish it to obtain the bounty – a two-minute exorcism ritual that flags your position on the map, giving rivals all the time they need to close in and set up a perimeter. Bounties themselves are visible on the HUD along with their carriers, which often makes exfiltration the most arduous part of the match.

It’s a recipe, all told, for two kinds of dread. On the one hand, there’s the revulsion you feel toward creatures who used to be regular folks and animals: the women whose chests have split to reveal mosquito hives, grimacing at you sideways; the men who resemble giant, groaning lumps of decaying coral. This is a fear that abates as you play match after match, memorising AI aggro ranges and unlocking new gear and skills such as blunt impact resistance or faster crossbow reloads. Beyond the first 10 Bloodline levels, hunters and their gear are lost forever when slain but, as in they are just as swiftly replaced, with one free greenhorn recruit available on the roster screen between matches (you can also buy “Legendary” hunters with real money, but the perks are strictly cosmetic). You learn not to grow too attached, though you can always extract from a round early if you feel totally outgunned.

Which means that it’s all about the second kind of dread, the all-pervading, remorseless awareness that at any given moment, somebody could be aiming a gun at you, somewhere out there in the sweaty blur of undergrowth, reading your position and direction in birdsign, the splashing of your feet (why on earth did you take that shortcut through the swamp?) and the hungry twitching of nearby zombies. It’s a horror I can only liken to horror of an omniscient god – and it’s alleviated only by the sheer malice you feel when you hear a cough, turn slowly and spy another player galloping through a cornfield with their microphone on.

You may have felt similar emotions while playing venerable MMO shooter DayZ – Hunt’s achievement, perhaps, is to take that game’s ethos of treachery and paranoia and pack it into rounds of 30-40 minutes apiece, with a clear, overarching rhythm of exploration, battle and escape. That’s 30-40 minutes at the outside: if there are 12 players in the field, it’s not uncommon to bump into rivals within the first few minutes. If you’re luckier, you might be the one player who doesn’t bumble into that gunfight and wind up all on your lonesome, farming the map’s denizens at your leisure. But of course, you can never guarantee that you’re the last person standing. If you plan on going loud it’s safest to pair up, as hunters can revive one another at the cost of the permanent loss of a health bar segment.

That fear of being watched teaches you to savour the devious intricacy of Hunt’s environment design. Every feature of this benighted landscape is the basis for some kind of tactical dilemma. Buildings harbour ammo or health refills, but that also means you’re more likely to encounter other players there. Randomly applied misty or night time conditions lessen the anxiety when breaking cover, but dial it up again when defending a lair during the banishment – it’s wise to douse the lanterns before risking a peek out the window. There are times when you might want to create a noise, perhaps tripping a generator to drown out any sounds you make while sneaking up on a camper.

Boss lairs, especially, assume a twofold existence in your mind. There’s the trepidation of invading them, particularly when battling the Spider, whose form – like the Xenomorph – is hard to make out against thickets of rusting farm tools and the entangled shadows of beams. And then there’s the process of defending them during or after a banishment, whereupon you become the lurking terror, reading the minds of invaders. A woman’s yell downstairs indicates that one nearby player has roused a zombie’s wrath. A creak above suggests that another – allied to the first? – is tip-toeing across the tiles. A distant burst of cawing reveals that a third is approaching from the north. If the dice fall your way, they might take out the one on the roof while you pounce on the first player below. But you’re not really worrying about players 1, 2 and 3. The player you’re worried about is player 4, the one you haven’t detected yet, the one you must always assume is there.

I’m not sure I’ve played a multiplayer game that breeds such tension since Rainbow Six: Siege. Hunt’s drawback, if you can call it that, is that it doesn’t offer much alternative to that tension. You can’t solo the game’s maps, and while there’s a boss-less Quickplay option, this isn’t quite the emergency release valve for pent-up jitters it sounds like. Rather, it’s a very nifty extension of the character levelling system.

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In Quickplay, you’re handed a random, cursed hunter and must track down three energy sources in order to activate a mystic wellspring and escape the map. Where in bounty hunt, new guns can only be looted from dead hunters, in Quickplay you’ll find exotic weapons dotted all over. You’ll also acquire a random skill for every energy source you tap. The result is a custom-created hero, endowed with choice gear and abilities that might be beyond your current Bloodline rank. Survive the ordeal, and you can recruit that character to your roster. The catch is that only one hunter can activate the wellspring and escape – and there’s nothing like the rage when you’ve cobbled together your very own Van Helsing and somebody yanks the rug away with an exploding crossbow bolt.

Long in the brewing – it began life at Crytek USA as a kind of Grimm fairytales spin on Left 4 Dead – Hunt: Showdown cuts a strange, skulking figure alongside the multiplayer shooters that dominate discussion today. It’s resolutely one-note, though each bounty hunt throws up a variety of deadly surprises, and profoundly unforgiving. Beyond that 10 level grace period it has no real interest in making you feel at home. That sheer impassivity, however, stokes emotions you simply won’t find in most multiplayer games. The way your pulse jumps when you catch the echo of gunfire. The bile in your throat as you read the Spider’s motions through the woodwork of a barn. And above all, the horrible triumph when a flock of birds take off nearby, and you aim your shotgun just as somebody peers around a wall.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/hunt-showdown-review-a-sweaty-stinking-cat-and-mouse-masterpiece-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hunt-showdown-review-a-sweaty-stinking-cat-and-mouse-masterpiece-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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sarahaltmanposts · 6 years

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Time To Get Filled

July 24, 2018

I’m not talking about going to fill up my car with gas. Or being filled with emotion. Or being full from a meal. Nope, now when I’m talking about getting filled these days, I’m referring to my boobs!

Sometimes I forget that this whole cancer thing started with a lump in my breast. Since the initial find and surgery, my cancer journey has had little do to with my breasts. True, I felt tremendous sadness and there was definitely a mourning period after learning I’d lose my breasts. But medically and physically speaking, compared to chemo, this part of the journey has been a breeze.

From the beginning, I was grateful for some of the humorous experiences I encountered along the way. Fair warning, some of this blog does get a bit graphic.

One of the first things I had to do after learning I’d be undergoing a bi-lateral mastectomy was to choose a Plastic Surgeon. My Surgical Oncologist referred me to two different doctors that she regularly works with because as it turns out, this is a highly collaborative process between the two doctors. After meeting with both choices, our decision was clear.

The seven hour procedure started with the Surgical Oncologist. She made an almost semi-circle incision tracing my nipple and across my breast towards my armpit. She then removed all the breast tissue. I was lucky because my cancer was located in a position that would allow for ‘nipple sparing’- meaning I’d get to keep my nipples. Yay? Hadn’t even thought about the fact that I wouldn’t have nipples, but yeh, many women going through this process can’t keep their nipples and end up either going without a nipple or using a tattoo artist that creates a fierce looking three dimensional nipple. But yes, YAY, I would get to keep mine. So in addition to removing the breast tissue, my nipples are removed, scraped clean to make sure there are no cancer cells and placed to the side for the next step. She also removed two lymph nodes to check if the cancer had spread.

After the Surgical Oncologist is done, she hands the surgery over to my Plastic Surgeon, who places expanders in my breasts. Expanders are kinda like little balloons or pockets that, well, expand when fluid is put in them. They have a valve where saline solution can be inserted to expand the pocket and create a space where the implant will eventually be placed. At the time of the surgery, the plastic surgeon places a small amount of saline in the expanders, so I actually left the hospital only a little smaller than I had entered. But over time, the expanders could be filled further.

A little fun/ weird fact: the expanders are covered with cadaver skin so the body doesn’t reject them. That kinda grossed me out for a second, but it quickly turned to gratitude for the people who donated their skin so that I could have a successful recovery.

The Plastic Surgeon completes the surgery by replacing my nipples, placing drains in to make sure I don’t accumulate fluids, and stitching me back together. I was surprised when I learned that I wouldn’t be wrapped or bound at all after the surgery. Instead, there was a very thin adhesive placed over my entire chest that held everything in place.

Seeing my chest for the first time afterwards wasn’t really shocking at all. There were lots of sutures and my left arm was more sore from where the lymph nodes had been removed. But honestly, my breasts didn’t look a whole lot different than before surgery.

The worst part of the whole recovery for me, hands down, was the drains. I had four drains, emptying fluid into these little bulbs, and they were very uncomfortable and cumbersome. And because of these drains, I was unable to shower for a couple weeks. Ewwwww! I’m a shower lover, so taking that away was not good.

Emptying the drains was not the most pleasant experience, but my younger son really got into it. He’d empty and measure every morning and track my progress. Two drains came out one week post surgery. And when the other two drains were removed a week later, I felt free! It was wonderful.

The rest of recovery was very manageable. The expanders were uncomfortable at first, feeling like they were wedging into one of my rib bones, but after a while, that subsided. By four weeks after the surgery I was able to use my arms and get back to driving again.

So let me get to some of the amusing experiences! I’d assumed I’d have to wear something binding after surgery, so when my Plastic Surgeon told me I couldn’t wear a bra, I was surprised. I’ve always worn a bra. Always. Hmmm….ok. But to ensure the nipples stay where she placed them, the doctor said I shouldn’t have any pressure on my chest. OK, so no bra. I’m happy to report that several months later, I’ve come to really enjoy the braless experience. In fact, when this is all done, I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy going back to being bound up!

The other thing that I found surprising was when I realized my nipples will always be nippy! All. The. Time. I’m not sure why the doctor never thought to mention this little tidbit of information. I mean, I guess because they were removed and placed back on me without being attached to any muscles or nerves, I should’ve known it, but a little head’s up would’ve been nice! So it’s kinda weird to look down and always find them nice and nippy. And since I can’t wear a bra, the rest of the world can see that too. I’ve managed to get around it a bit by wearing t-shirts with a lot of designs on them. My doctor said if it bothered me (Am I the only one who is self-conscious when my nips are nippy?), I could either wear a shelf bra, (No, thank you. In the heat of the LA summer, adding another layer is not an option.) or pasties. Tried the pasty once, left a rash on my skin- so that’s out. Ok, I guess I’ll deal with the nippy thing.

Also, I have absolutely no sensation in my breasts or nipples; I can’t feel when I touch them at all. I thought to ask about this before surgery, so it wasn’t such a surprise afterwards. My husband and I both had a bit or a mourning period about the loss of what had been a very pleasurable part of my sexual experience. I guess it’s just one of the casualties of this cancer. But it’s a strange sensation for sure, to give someone a hug and feel something between us, only to realize it’s my breasts! Or to try to lay on my stomach and feel like I’m being supported by a foreign object!

But so far, the most fun part of the process has been getting filled! I’ve returned to the doctor’s office twice to be filled. The second time I brought my husband so he could have a good laugh too. First the nurse places a magnet on my breast to find the valve in the expander and marks it. Then she takes this big ‘ole syringe filled with saline and a big ‘ole needle on the end and inserts it right through my skin into the valve in the expander. It is REALLY weird to see a big ‘ole needle stuck into you and feel NOTHING! And here’s the best part- the nurse begins to inject the saline and I can actually see my breast enlarging! It’s so cool!

The first time I had it done I was immediately aware of the additional weight I was now carrying in my breasts. It felt like they were weighing me down and causing me to lean me forward. (They probably weren’t really, but it felt that way!) And because it was so warm out and the saline was cool from the doctor’s office, I felt the coolness in my chest. Just so amazing!

At the second filling, I was unsure about using the full syringe of saline to fill me because I was thinking it would make my breasts too large. So the nurse filled me up half way, giving my husband and I time to look and see how we’d each feel about the possibilities of going larger. There’s a strange irony in deciding the size of my breasts after all of this. The nurse shared that this is the one part of the cancer journey that most women really appreciate because WE get to control the outcome. We get to decide what size we’re going to be. Bigger? Same size as before? Smaller? I get to choose! In the end, I didn’t go larger than that half syringe. I felt I was already pretty full!

My younger son is just in awe of all of this. He jokes that I should go Dolly Parton big. But I’m actually enjoying having breasts that are full again. After breast feeding both boys, my breasts had deflated dramatically and now that is remedied.

At the beginning, I’d wake in the middle of the night feeling something getting in my way only to realize it was my breasts. They stay up even when I’m down! I guess that’ll just take some time to get used to!

So this part of the process is done. The next time I see the Plastic Surgeon will be a pre-op appointment to discuss the last phase of my reconstruction, when the expanders are removed and the implants are placed. I learned there’s another bonus to this phase because in order to make the implants look more natural, the doctor will take fat from another part of my body- most likely my stomach- through liposuction. At first I was adverse to this idea because it will add to my recovery time. But I was told that choosing to do this really does make a difference aesthetically and as my husband reminded me, it will allow me the freedom to gain a little weight during my next phase of chemo guilt free.

But because nothing can happen until chemo is done, the final stage of this cancer journey will happen around Christmas when my new breasts will be complete.

For now, I’m enjoying having these liquid filled expanders. My boobs are squishy in a way they never were before, kinda like having little water beds in my chest. The scars are starting to fade. And soon, this will all be just a perky memory.

In loving,

Sarah

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agilenano · 4 years

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Agilenano - News: What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-we-ve-built-1

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agilenano · 4 years

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Agilenano - News: What does a pandemic say about the tech we’ve built?

Yet the fact all these tools are already out there, ready and waiting for us to log on and start streaming, should send a dehumanizing chill down society’s backbone.

It underlines quite how much consumer technology is being designed to reprogram how we connect with each other, individually and in groups, in order that uninvited third parties can cut a profit.

Oh, and Zoom (and others) — more people might actually read your “privacy policy” now they’ve got so much time to mess about online. And that really is a risk.

Every day there's a fresh Zoom privacy/security horror story. Why now, all at once?

— Arvind Narayanan (@random_walker) March 31, 2020

*Source is a private Twitter account called @MBA_ish

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/what-does-a-pandemic-say-about-the-tech-we-ve-built

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