#Plug and socket systems

[jssn2buckk]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/interconnect--dual-in-line-package-sockets/9-188275-0-te-connectivity-7567159

Pin and Socket Connectors, Cable Assemblies, Socket Adaptor Connector

20 Position Dual Row 2.54 mm Board to Board Micro-Match SMT Receptacle

[jesuistrestriste]

but android!art wireplay hhnnnnggg im shortcircuiting

cw (18+) : android!art, wireplay, implied corruption, first orgasm/simulated release

android!art asking you for help when his daily diagnostic tests sense that one of his wires has disconnected inside of his chest, opening up his chassis for you to dig your fingers inside and hopefully fix the issue.

and he’s fine with it all; no pain, no discomfort, no intense sensation linked to your touch there—at first.

but then your fingernail catches on the outside of a thick, blue wire close to his thirium pump, and suddenly his back is arching and his eyes are rolling under his lids and he’s gasping raggedly. he grabs onto your wrist, panting and writhing while his LED flickers from blue to red. he looks like a scared puppy, and you immediately notice that his pupils are unusually large beneath his fluttering lashes.

“i.. i’m sorry, i—.. that’s never happened before, i think my systems are just overworked and malfunctioning.. please, continue..”

so you do. you search through the colorful mess of his innards, your fingertips grazing each electrical tendril as you pass them by. it takes several long moments before you find the problem wire, and you’re just about to tell art the good news, but when you look up you find your breath catching in your throat.

he’s artificially flushed all over his face, his hands are gripping the edge of the sofa with white knuckles, and his head is lolling back lazily like he’s lost control of his expertly-engineered musculature.

“art?” you hum, “are you okay?”

he begins to quake, moaning lowly, and you can feel the scorching waves of heat radiating off of him.

he releases his grip on the couch only to readjust it and squeeze harder. you watch his adam’s apple bob as he swallows around a barely-contained whine.

“please, just— just plug it in, i can’t—“ he mewls.

you’ve never heard him sound so out-of-control before, but you want nothing more than to help him feel better. you line up the yellow wire with its designated socket, making note of the way his body jolts when you pinch it between the pads of your digits, and push it forward to click it back into place.

as soon as the connection is restored, art’s eyes are flying open—wide and wild—and then he’s wailing. his hips rush upward and knock your elbow in the process, his legs kicking out and convulsing as he curls in on himself. your own stomach swirls and flips as you take in the sight of his abdomen repeatedly tensing and relaxing in a vicious cycle of what appears to be.. hmm..

it takes a hand on his shoulder and your whispered reassurance for his cognitive capabilities to come back to him, but he can’t resist leaning forward to bury his face in your neck. his hands clutch your back, his breathing heavy and exhausted. his vision flares with pop-ups. “warning: systems overheating” and “warning: coolant levels low”.

“some.. something just happened.. i.. i’m embarrassed, i’m so sorry—please, will you exclude that from your memory? i’m.. i’m so hot inside.. i’m.. i don’t know wh—aah..”

he nuzzles the bridge of his nose into your skin, still holding you tight like he’s afraid you’ll go. you realize that he’s become an entirely different android in the last few minutes. some part of him has sprung loose.

you have to let him cool down for the entire rest of the evening before he’s back to normal, at which point you assume all is well again—only for him to pad sheepishly over to you the next afternoon to announce that another one of his wires has mysteriously slipped out of its port..

what a coincidence.

[ayeforscotland]

What is Dataflow?

This post is inspired by another post about the Crowd Strike IT disaster and a bunch of people being interested in what I mean by Dataflow. Dataflow is my absolute jam and I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like on it. I even put referential pictures in like I'm writing an article, what fun!

I'll probably split this into multiple parts because it'll be a huge post otherwise but here we go!

A Brief History

Our world is dependent on the flow of data. It exists in almost every aspect of our lives and has done so arguably for hundreds if not thousands of years.

At the end of the day, the flow of data is the flow of knowledge and information. Normally most of us refer to data in the context of computing technology (our phones, PCs, tablets etc) but, if we want to get historical about it, the invention of writing and the invention of the Printing Press were great leaps forward in how we increased the flow of information.

Modern Day IT exists for one reason - To support the flow of data.

Whether it's buying something at a shop, sitting staring at an excel sheet at work, or watching Netflix - All of the technology you interact with is to support the flow of data.

Understanding and managing the flow of data is as important to getting us to where we are right now as when we first learned to control and manage water to provide irrigation for early farming and settlement.

Engineering Rigor

When the majority of us turn on the tap to have a drink or take a shower, we expect water to come out. We trust that the water is clean, and we trust that our homes can receive a steady supply of water.

Most of us trust our central heating (insert boiler joke here) and the plugs/sockets in our homes to provide gas and electricity. The reason we trust all of these flows is because there's been rigorous engineering standards built up over decades and centuries.

For example, Scottish Water will understand every component part that makes up their water pipelines. Those pipes, valves, fitting etc will comply with a national, or in some cases international, standard. These companies have diagrams that clearly map all of this out, mostly because they have to legally but also because it also vital for disaster recovery and other compliance issues.

Modern IT

And this is where modern day IT has problems. I'm not saying that modern day tech is a pile of shit. We all have great phones, our PCs can play good games, but it's one thing to craft well-designed products and another thing entirely to think about they all work together.

Because that is what's happened over the past few decades of IT. Organisations have piled on the latest plug-and-play technology (Software or Hardware) and they've built up complex legacy systems that no one really knows how they all work together. They've lost track of how data flows across their organisation which makes the work of cybersecurity, disaster recovery, compliance and general business transformation teams a nightmare.

Some of these systems are entirely dependent on other systems to operate. But that dependency isn't documented. The vast majority of digital transformation projects fail because they get halfway through and realise they hadn't factored in a system that they thought was nothing but was vital to the organisation running.

And this isn't just for-profit organisations, this is the health services, this is national infrastructure, it's everyone.

There's not yet a single standard that says "This is how organisations should control, manage and govern their flows of data."

Why is that relevant to the companies that were affected by Crowd Strike? Would it have stopped it?

Maybe, maybe not. But considering the global impact, it doesn't look like many organisations were prepared for the possibility of a huge chunk of their IT infrastructure going down.

Understanding dataflows help with the preparation for events like this, so organisations can move to mitigate them, and also the recovery side when they do happen. Organisations need to understand which systems are a priority to get back operational and which can be left.

The problem I'm seeing from a lot of organisations at the moment is that they don't know which systems to recover first, and are losing money and reputation while they fight to get things back online. A lot of them are just winging it.

Conclusion of Part 1

Next time I can totally go into diagramming if any of you are interested in that.

How can any organisation actually map their dataflow and what things need to be considered to do so. It'll come across like common sense, but that's why an actual standard is so desperately needed!

[its-a-me-mango]

Question: Can Telly and Mr Puzzles eat/drink?

Ahha you fool you've unlocked my insane ramblings on how I think TV heads work, I apologise in advance. Obviously this is all just my interpretation of how they work but anyway, asking the important questions.

Ok so basically, no they can't, TV screens are kinda hard to eat/drink through so they just don't even try. (though obviously jokes are the exception, anything for the bit) They also likely don't have any organs (Telly definitely doesn't and Mr Puzzles probably doesn't have his anymore) so there's nothing there to process any food/drink they would consume, it would probably just rot in there and get their wires all nasty in reality lol.

HOWEVER, they'd still need to get energy from somewhere, and being made of TV parts and wires, they'd get their energy through electricity, specifically through charging! That's right these guys are some kind of battery powered!!!!!!!!!!

They'd both have charging cords coming out of their TV heads as shown!

It wouldn't be super obvious as they're the size of any normal plug and socket, and I do love the idea that they can just unplug it so they can give themselves a tail whenever they want lol.

They can charge from any outlet that's compatible with them, they kinda just sit around plugged in until they've had enough, they can't really over charge so if they stay plugged in all day, nothing happens. They do take up a lot of electricity, love the idea of Mr Puzzles charging up from anywhere other than his place and just encouraging Telly to do the same, stealing peoples electricity to cut back on bills sounds about right.

They'd prefer to charge overnight or while they're sleeping. I maintain that they don't really need to sleep in the same way humans do, but it gives their systems a break, plus it makes them charge up faster. For Puzzles it would also bring a sense of normality to him, maintaining his human habits grounds him somewhat, and Telly just copies whatever their dad does.

Obviously, running on electricity does still generate waste, but for them it would just be in the form of heat. They'd both constantly be emitting heat, and the more power they use up the hotter they get, it's only really on their TV's where you can feel the heat. They can overheat if they're not careful, which will power them down for a bit until they've cooled off, it doesn't damage them at all, it just makes them pass out for a while lol.

If either of them go without charging for too long, they'll "power down" and become motionless until they're charged back up again. They can't die from running out of charge but powering down still sucks, and of course they'd be relying on someone else to find them and plug them in to charge if they do run out of charge, which could take a long time, so it's a risk not worth taking. 

Anyway that's it, enjoy my rambling, I would LOVE to do a whole breakdown on Mr Puzzles, like some kind of biology book type thing with him but oh my god the work required for that. So take my insane ramblings for now, peace and love on planet earth everypony <3

[ipilokko]

-| I Dislike Redheads |-

– Chapter 2 - The Tomorrow

  Mollie once again, was trying to get ready in limited time. She had left her phone plugged ever since she was done watching The Silence of The Lambs for the millionth time last night. She had eaten two and a half bags of chips and she could smell them on her hands even after nine hours of one of the best slumbers of her thirty-one year life and washing her hands three times. Even though she knew how unhealthy those things were, she didn't regret eating that many as she hadn't tasted them for over half a year. This was how it would go. She'd randomly crave for a snack one day and overdose it then she wouldn't even look at its package for months.

 She checked the battery just in case it would decide to betray her again. It was full. She plucked the metal socket out from the bottom of her phone. These things still were never to be trusted though; she had learned the hard way.

 She walked along the stranger but pleasant streets of the human part of the neighborhood. A few people were spending their morning gardening. She walked by them, passing through the cloud of flower scent.

 After a few minutes of walking and following signs, she made it to the subway. Unlike yesterday, there were actually people. She didn't make the same mistake as yesterday and spent that two stops in the metro this time.

  Roy opened his satchel and took out his keys. He pushed the cold metal into the keyhole, turned it to the right and pressed on the handle once he felt the pins had positioned correctly. 

 As soon as the door left the threshold, the smell of coffee welcomed him, telling him to go to the kitchen. He hoped he didn’t forget to close the lid of the coffee jar yesterday. He hung his satchel and coat before going in to check. The lid was where it was supposed to be; on the jar, yet he had forgotten to throw away the coffee filter he had used. 

 He picked it up before taking the coffee out of the filter and putting it in D'artagnan's pot. He didn’t like throwing things away and D'artagnan enjoyed having coffee in his pot, just like most of the other plants did. He went back to the kitchen to put the coffee filter in the paper recycle bin before he pulled up the curtains and switched on his system. 

 One of his customers had yet to pick up her freshly repaired Jadis JA200 MKll. It had been quite some time ever since he’d had the chance to listen to one. He knew, of course, if he started listening to it, he’d spend the whole morning trying to talk himself into turning it off to start working. Jadis sounded magnificent, but few were fortunate enough to lay their hands on it, which meant they rarely found their way to his desk. He wouldn’t hesitate to get one for himself if his budget could ever catch up.

 And this was another perk of running a second-hand hi-fi repair shop. As an audiophile, he had the daily privilege of choosing from a large stock that was kept fresh with his customers leaving their sound systems to his care for a period of time. Sometimes, in cases like this; cases like the Jadis JA200 MKll, testing was less of a purpose but more of an excuse to listen. 

 He went behind the wall of varied sound systems to channel his Wilson Sophia 3 to pick up the sound from the Jadis, Jadis from REF 6se preamplifier, it from Audio Research EAR 834-p phono amplifier, and it from his Technics sl-1210 turntable. After he’s done he went back to the open space, standing in front of the giant wall of records of all genres, most of them being jazz. Today was one of the rare cases that he was in the mood for smooth jazz. He picked up Bob James’ ‘’Double Vision’’ to insert it into his turntable. 

When the first track began he melted instantly. He loved being alive, he really did.

 And one bad thing about running a second-hand hi-fi shop was that he had to say goodbye to his favorite systems every now and then. Maybe not the Sophia 3, but the Jadis was there only for a short period of time. Even though he enjoyed listening from the eighty-five percent of all the modals he currently had to some degree, he really wanted to keep that Jadis. 

After taking time to listen past the beginning of the track, he went back to his workroom and checked the post it note on one of the many amplifiers that were patiently waiting for service. It read;

"Slight buzzing sound”

He stuck the post it note on his shirt, put his hands on either side of the case and slipped his fingers underneath for better grip. He lifted it with a small grunt, took it to the test room and placed it on the stack of assorted amplifiers. He paused the music and turned the volume down to avoid damaging the other equipment as he did the channeling. 

When he started listening, there was a faint buzz and the sound lacked clarity, although as much was already expected. It sounded dry, flat and lifeless, worsened the more he brought the volume up. He rested his hand on the chassis, his fingers picking up a slight vibration. 

The failing transformer, it was. He switched it off and waited for the hum to fade, then unplugged it to take it to his workroom for a proper look inside.

-

-

-

 Mollie was tired of the boring atmosphere of her workspace. She could barely stand still until it was lunch break. Her arms, her feet, her back, her neck, seriously, all of her body was screaming at her ears and pulling her hair for her to just move, walk around a bit. As soon as it appeared to be 1.40 she got up without wasting another second and made her way to the giant break room after grabbing her beef sandwich in hunger. There were seven giants and… and some number of humans in the room, filling the room with buzz. 

She cracked her back and neck, stretched her arms and feet. Luckily she had managed to warm up before her libs started attacking each other with their bags like karens fighting over who was using the cash register first– since they all had bought out the ⅓ of the whole grocery store. 

She took the elevator to one of the tables. A giant and a human were watching something from a phone that seemed to be more than triple of her height in length. Even when It was turned sideways, the shorter side was still over her head. 

‘’Heyy, what are you two watching?’’

‘’The Shining’. Danielle hasn’t seen it yet." The human replied, looking up at the giant. He was sitting on an eraser next to the giant girl’s hand, who was towering over both of the humans. After trying to pause the movie three times, the touch screen finally caught the human his hand .

‘’Well, what do you think so far?’’ She looked up at the woman whose name was Danielle, apparently.

‘’To be honest with you... I’ve seen better."

‘’Than ‘’The Shining?’’ Mollie chuckled.

‘Are you being sarcastic or for real?"

“You’ll never know.” 

 That looked fun, she wished she could have that three-wheeled bike. She’d crash somewhere as soon as she’d start riding it, though… 

She just stood there as the movie played, in silence if you don’t count the movie.

Okay… This was awkward. She decided to leave them alone and go outside. ‘’You guys enjoy the movie. I’ll go outside."

‘’Thank you, Toodles!’’ 

After a long walk, Mollie finally reached the door.

Even though she was craving for people interaction a minute ago, right now was one of the times when she was glad nobody was outside– other than some protesters which sounded to be a few streets away. She leaned against the wall and took out her beef sandwich. She stared into the sea for a little, then noticed the giant from like a day ago? He was on one of the benches under the marble gate-like thing whose columns were human subway stations. He was facing the sea, his back to Mollie. She couldn’t name what, but she had some good feelings about him… 

And instantly she decided to was crave for ‘people interaction’ once again. She decided to join him and walked the distance until she neared the bench. 

"The ocean is beautiful." She commented.

The giant took a second to process. "Yes, I..." He looked in the direction of the voice. "...Agree."

 Roy smiled kindly, leaning a little forward to see the human down on the ground. He was unable to see the details of her face, but the general shape of it and the sound of her voice belonged to the lady from yesterday. He didn’t have a clear reason but he was happy to see her again. 

The giant’s gentle but strong voice slightly rattled her bones even after traveling all that tens of feet between them. "Isn't it weird that just big holes full of water actually look like this?"

 She stepped into the elevator inside the column-station thingy and pressed the button for the highest balcony to be eye level. Looking up wasn’t her favorite thing to do.

“I… Suppose it is…” He put his fist on the space between his nose and his rounded chin, covering his thin lips. "Depends on how different your weird and my weird are.”

Being a person and having your own point of view was weird when you thought about it. Drawing and thinking was weird, and some bugs looked weird as well… 

"Well, I don't know about you but I love weird." she leaned her back against the oversized marble that sparkled almost like glitter as the sun shone on them. It reminded her of the snow, if it was a little cooler in shade. “Do we at least agree that it’s a good thing?”

 "Mostly, yes." the sides of his eyes creased slightly as he moved his fist a little to his cheek, thumb curving around his chin. “Life would be far less enjoyable if there weren’t any weird in it.”

“I can’t agree more.” She looked at the ocean for a short moment. “Now I’m curious about how an ocean flavored ice cream would taste like.”

“Personally, I am more curious about opal.” he smirked slightly. It was bizarre to look at his face here from afar. It looked big and close enough that she could touch it if she reached out, yet at the same time she could feel every inch of the seventy feet distance between them. She wondered how he could even hear her. 

“I don’t know why but I feel like opal would be bitter if it was a flavor.” She paused to think for a second.  What are your favorite ice cream flavors? I bet you like lemon or tangerine.”

“I do like lemon. But my favorites are walnut, honey-almond and salted caramel. And you?” 

“You want the truth? I'd eat anything except for yogurt.”

Both smiling, they sat in silence for a few moments until Mollie decided to break it. ‘’So… what do you do? I mean for living.”

"I repair hi-fi systems.”

"Yeah sure, I can pretend to know what those are."

He chuckled. "High end sound gear…” And a money pit– one he was happily stuck in. “They’re meant to allow you to hear the details regular systems miss.”

"Ehh, I’m happy with my average headphones." 

He shook his head slightly. “That, I cannot.”

She had never thought of switching, her headphones weren’t really expensive and they got the job done just fine. Though now she had to admit that she was curious about a ‘high end sound gear’.

‘’Oh well, Where do you work?" 

"I’d like to hear your guess."

She looked around for anything sound-oriented. the building across the street caught her eye. “Wave of Sound? That's close." 

"It is…” a small drop of salty water hit his face as a wave crashed. His hazel irises looked soft, the skin drooping over them made him look a bit tired, even if he wasn’t. “What about you?’’

“I’m a storyboard artist. I just started to work at that game company back there… The previous one was The Vivid Light though."

"The Vivid Light, you say?"

"You've heard of Them?" 

"My niece and I are quite fond of their films. His mother too."

"Seriously?” Mollie let out a short laugh. “It's so rare I meet someone who knows about them."

"We put on one of their films whenever he comes over. It's a tradition." He chuckled.

"That’s adorable, made me proud as well.” She grinned. “ How old is he?”

“He’ll turn six soon.” He chuckled, “I’ve been trying to keep up since three.”

she giggled and checked her watch. “...I should probably get back to work. I’m Mollie, before I forget to tell you."

"Pleasure meeting you, Mollie. I’m Roy." he gave her a warm smile.

"So you're not a Dave? I have to work on my name-guessing skills..."

“See you tomorrow?” She added.

"Certainly."

Beaming up at him, she took the elevator back to the ground. She waved and took a few steps towards her workplace. 

"Mollie."

She turned back around and walked until the column stopped blocking Roy’s face.

She rested her hands on her hips. ‘’Yeah?’’

‘’Have you ever experienced a high-end sound system?"

‘’Nope. I don't think I have.’’ 

he asked after taking a short moment. ‘’Would you like me to walk you to work?"

 ‘’Ahh thank you, that would be great!"

The giant nodded and slowly rose from his seat, his already tall stature extending to an even more impossible height.

‘’Whenever you like, you can come by." He kneeled and laid his hand flat on the ground for her to climb on. 

“We’ll see. I have to decide if I like you enough first.” She chuckled as a palm like a wider version of Dracula’s dinner table, and fingers like construction pipes neared her, only full of life. You could definitely fit two beds in the length of that hand. 

‘’Geez, you’ve got huge hands. How tall are you?’’ Mollie put her foot on the warm flesh and tested the squishiness, then brought her other foot as well, almost losing her balance in the process. She eyed the surreal curves of the ridges of his fingerprints and the barely visible stretch marks on the skin, with the bizarre feeling of feeling a different kind of heat beneath her feet. She could pick up a faint ironish smell from his fingers, though considering he was mingling with the iron or copper or whatever cables or all the electric stuff she didn’t know about was made of, it was understandable.

“Sixty-nine metres, fairly average, for someone like me.” he paused, “1.78 in magnameters, if you prefer it that way..”

“Almost there, I’m 1.76…  You can get up, by the way.”

He slowly lifted her as well as rising up himself. Even though he was being much gentler and steadier than Mrs. Smith had been, she could still feel a very slight jerkiness. Though this was probably just him being giant. She swayed with each step he took, almost like a gondola. How much she loved riding those things with her cousin when they were kids.

 She put her hand on one of his slightly curled fingers to balance herself as he began to lower her back on the ground. His palm was pretty much soft, but his fingertips seemed to be a little more hardened; the ridges of his fingerprints almost scratching her hand when she touched. She could relate to him a bit, having a small callus on her middle finger right where she would place her pencil.

When she couldn’t feel any more major movement, she stepped down from his hand, taking support from his thumb. “You just saved me ten minutes, thanks.” She smirked. “Don’t get your hopes up for another round of chatting, though. I’m probably late already.”

-

-

-

"Your favorite color? Your favorite food?’’ Mollie asked Roy as she stepped down from Roy’s hand for the second time today. Finally, it was home time. Almost… Maybe not so almost… From here to her hotel room was a long way to go. a whole hour of subway couldn’t be underestimated… Despite sitting all day she was so tired. All she wanted to do was to sleep, sleep and sleep. 

"I've always liked brown. Persimmon, too… And I love any kind of salad."

"My favorite color has to be dark blue. Prussian blue specifically. And dark red as well. I like literally anything from Italian cuisine.”

“What do you like the most about Italian cuisine?”

“I don’t know… pastry, I guess?” She expected him to ask questions like “What do you like to do? How do you spend a day?"

He chuckled innocently. “Not much, I’m a boring person.” 

"I… wake up, sometimes have a chat with my plants. I like to have a bit of jazz playing in the background while I work... Breakfast’s nice, too.”

“I like walking to work by the shore, especially under the sun or rain… I like to read, I like to watch films… I like…  laying down, feeling the sun on my face, Smelling flowers… Daily things, mostly. You?”

“I like... Drawing? I hate cooking. But sometimes I also like cooking because sometimes I like doing things I hate... I know it's weird but I just like it. I like watching movies as well, I also like doing things I definitely don't need or shouldn't be doing. Mine is kind of daily too, I guess. Whose isn’t, though.”

She made her way to the entrance of the column in a suppressed rush and smiled warmly.  

“Well, Roy… My tomorrow wasn’t so bad after all... See you later.”

“Goodbye.” He smiled, watching her go inside.

He got up, taking support from his knee. There weren’t many humans that he knew the faces of– other than a few close friends. And he wouldn’t be upset if Mollie became one of the minority.

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

previous // next // first // Index

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

Yeah... sure, why not. I struggled a lot writing this one, as I'm not the best at my word choice in english (esp on dialogues)... I've edited this one myself!

Fret not, though! The next chapter will be much better, I promise! We're getting closer and closer to the better parts!

I can't express how excited I am for them! I keep geting butterflies when thinking lol.

I didn't want to wait until I finished the illustrations because they still have some way to go.

also my exam week starts tomorrow please wish me luck...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

American education has all the downsides of standardization, none of the upsides

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

We moved to America in 2015, in time for my kid to start third grade. Now she's a year away from graduating high school (!) and I've had a front-row seat for the US K-12 system in a district rated as one of the best in the country. There were ups and downs, but high school has been a monster.

We're a decade and a half into the "common core" experiment in educational standardization. The majority of the country has now signed up to a standardized and rigid curriculum that treats overworked teachers as untrustworthy slackers who need to be disciplined by measuring their output through standard lessons and evaluations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core

This system is rigid enough, but it gets even worse at the secondary level, especially when combined with the Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which adds another layer of inflexible benchmarks to the highest-stakes, most anxiety-provoking classes in the system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement

It is a system singularly lacking in grace. Ironically, this unforgiving system was sold as a way of correcting the injustice at the heart of the US public education system, which funds schools based on local taxation. That means that rich neighborhoods have better funded schools. Rather than equalizing public educational funding, the standardizers promised to ensure the quality of instruction at the worst-funded schools by measuring the educational outcomes with standard tools.

But the joke's on the middle-class families who backed standardized instruction over standardized funding. Their own kids need slack as much as anyone's, and a system that promises to put the nation's kids through the same benchmarks on the same timetable is bad for everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/28/give-me-slack-2/

Undoing this is above my pay-grade. I've already got more causes to crusade on than I have time for. But there is a piece of tantalyzingly low-hanging fruit that is dangling right there, and even though I'm not gonna pick it, I can't get it out of my head, so I figured I'd write about it and hope I can lazyweb it into existence.

The thing is, there's a reason that standardization takes hold in so many domains. Agreeing on a common standard enables collaboration by many entities without any need for explicit agreements or coordination. The existence of the ANSI/SAE J563 standard automobile auxiliary power outlet (AKA "car cigarette lighter") didn't just allow many manufacturers to make replacement lighter plugs. The existence of a standardized receptacle delivering standardized voltage to standardized contacts let all kinds of gadgets be designed to fit in that socket.

Standards crystallize the space of all possible ways of solving a problem into a range of solutions. This inevitably has a downside, because the standardized range might not be optimal for all applications. Think of the EU's requirement for USB-C charger tips on all devices. There's a lot of reasons that manufacturers prefer different charger tips for different gadgets. Some of those reasons are bad (gouging you on replacement chargers), but some are good (unique form-factor, specific smart-charging needs). USB-C is a very flexible standard (indeed, it's so flexible that some people complain that it's not a standard at all!) but there are some applications where the optimal solution is outside its parameters.

And still, I think that the standardization on USB-C is a force for good. I have drawers full of gadgets that need proprietary charger tips, and other drawers full of chargers with proprietary tips, and damned if I can make half of them match up. We've continued our pandemic lockdown tradition of my wife cutting my hair in the back yard, and just tracking the three different charger tips for the three clippers she uses is an ongoing source of frustration. I'd happily trade slightly sub-optimal charging for just being able to plug any of those clippers into the same cable I charge my headphones, phone, tablet and laptop on.

The standardization of American education has produced all the downsides of standardization – a rigid, often suboptimal, one-size-fits-all system – without the benefits. With teachers across America teaching in lockstep, often from the same set texts (especially in the AP courses), there's a massive opportunity for a commons to go with the common core.

For example, the AP English and History classes my kid takes use standard texts that are often centuries old and hard to puzzle out. I watched my kid struggle with texts for learning about "persuasive rhetoric" like 17th century pamphlets that inspired anti-indigenous pogroms with fictional accounts of "Indian atrocities."

It's good for American schoolkids to learn about the use of these blood libels to excuse genocide, but these pamphlets are a slog. Even with glossaries in the textbooks, it's a slow, word-by-word matter to parse these out. I can't imagine anyone learning a single thing about how speech persuades people just by reading that text.

But there's nothing in the standardized curriculum that prevents teachers from adding more texts to the unit. We live in an unfortunate golden age for persuasive texts that inspire terrible deeds – for example, kids could also read core Pizzagate texts and connect the guy who shot up the pizza parlor to the racists who formed a 17th century lynchmob.

But teachers are incredibly time-constrained. For one thing, at least a third of the AP classroom time seems to be taken up with detailed instructions for writing stilted, stylized "essays" for the AP tests (these are terrible writing, but they're easy to grade in a standardized way).

That's where standardization could actually deliver some benefits. If just one teacher could produce some supplemental materials and accompanying curriculum, the existence of standards means that every other teacher could use it. What's more, any adaptations that teachers make to that unit to make them suited to their kids would also work for the other teachers in the USA. And because the instruction is so rigidly standardized, all of these materials could be keyed to metadata that precisely identified the units they belonged to.

The closest thing we have to this are "marketplaces" where teachers can sell each other their supplementary materials. As far as I can tell, the only people making real money from these marketplaces are the grifters who built them and convinced teachers to paywall the instructional materials that could otherwise form a commons.

Like I said, I've got a completely overfull plate, but if I found myself at loose ends, trying to find a project to devote the rest of my life to, I'd be pitching funders on building a national, open access portal to build an educational commons.

It may be a lot to expect teachers to master the intricacies of peer-based co-production tools like Git, but there's already a system like this that K-8 teachers across the country have mastered: Scratch. Scratch is a graphic programming environment for kids, and starting with 2019's Scratch 3.0, the primary way to access it is via an in-browser version that's hosted at scratch.mit.edu.

Scratch's online version is basically a kid- (and teacher-)friendly version of Github. Find a project you like, make a copy in your own workspace, and then mod it to suit your own needs. The system keeps track of the lineage of different projects and makes it easy for Scratch users to find, adapt, and share their own projects. The wild popularity of this system tells us that this model for a managed digital commons for an educational audience is eminently achievable.

So when students are being asked to study the rhythm of text by counting the numbers of words in the sentences of important speeches, they could supplement that very boring exercise by listening to and analyzing contemporary election speeches, or rap lyrics, or viral influencer videos. Different teachers could fork these units to swap in locally appropriate comparitors – and so could students!

Students could be given extra credit for identifying additional materials that slot into existing curricular projects – Tiktok videos, new chart-topping songs, passages from hot YA novels. These, too, could go into the commons.

This would enlist students in developing and thinking critically about their curriculum, whereas today, these activities are often off-limits to students. For example, my kid's math teachers don't hand back their quizzes after they're graded. The teachers only have one set of quizzes per unit, and letting the kids hold onto them would leak an answer-key for the next batch of test-takers.

I can't imagine learning math this way. "You got three questions wrong but I won't let you see them" is no way to help a student focus on the right areas to improve their understanding.

But there's no reason that math teachers in a commons built around the (unfortunately) rigid procession of concepts and testing couldn't generate procedural quizzes, specified with a simple programming language. These tests could even be automatically graded, and produce classroom stats on which concepts the whole class is struggling with. Each quiz would be different, but cover the same ground.

When I help my kid with her homework, we often find disorganized and scattered elements of this system – a teacher might post extensive notes on teaching a specific unit. A publisher might produce a classroom guide that connects a book to specific parts of the common core. But these are scattered across the web, and they aren't keyed to the specific, standard components of common core and AP.

This is a standardized system that is all costs, no benefits. It has no "architecture of participation" that lets teachers, students, parents, practitioners and even commercial publishers collaborate to produce a commons that all may share and improve upon.

In an ideal world, we'd get rid of standardization in education, pay teachers well, give them the additional time they needed to prepare exciting and relevant curriculum, and fund all our schools based on need, not parents' income.

But in the meanwhile, we could be making lemonade of out lemons. If we're going to have standardization, we should at least have the collaboration standards enable.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/16/flexibility-in-the-margins/#a-commons

[jsprnt]

Americano PT. 11 | Jude Bellingham x Reader

What happens if two individuals who absolutely despise each other are forced to interact after unforeseen events occur?

A/N: Hi babes!!!! I’m so happy to be back, I missed writing and interacting with yall 😭 enjoy reading my loves <3

W/C: 3.447

part ten

Jude was everywhere.

Every-fucking-where.

At home, at work, sometimes even at the clubs or bars I visited..

Every corner I turned, every morning I woke up- he had to be standing or sitting closer to my vicinity than I would have ever wanted.

I rub my eyes roughly, trying to get some food into my system before we had to start packing for the Union Berlin game in Germany. The last to secure our spot in the last 16 of the Champions League.

"Can you pass the water?"

I look up, my grumpy state worsened after hearing the annoying pest's voice.

"No.." I reply, deciding to be petty, pushing the water bottle over anyway.

We don't speak for the rest of breakfast, tensions high after having to endure each other's presence for more than a week.

I had never missed my dad's presence this much before, and my patience was running so thin- if I snapped, I wouldn't even be surprised.

I get off my chair when the doorbell rings, getting up quickly to open the door, knowing it would be my package.

I smile at the delivery driver, signing his tablet quickly, before accepting the huge package.

I slam the door closed with my leg, not being able to see where I'm going while I carry the heavy machine inside.

"Let me help.." I hear Jude perk up. I hear the paddling of his house slippers come closer, a sudden warmth grazing against my fingers.

I almost drop the heavy package in surprise, hand slipping away from the cardboard box. Eyes wide when I realize Jude's holding the package with a stable grip and ease. His face hidden behind the box.

"On the counter?" He questions, already turning and walking towards the kitchen island before I can reply.

I hurry behind him, eyes shifting over his form. Muscles protruding due to the work he's putting into placing the box on the counter.

"Thank you.."

The words feel foreign falling from my lips, only because they are directed at someone I never thought I'd simply thank.

He only replies with a small grunt, motioning to the huge box with his head, his hands going up to roll his T-shirt sleeves up.

I avert my gaze from his arms, to the package, quickly grabbing a butter knife from the kitchen cabinet.

I slide the knife through the transparent tape, directing the knife away from myself.

Standing on my tiptoes, a small noise of irritation leaves my mouth when I pull the coffee machine out of its box.

"Really? A coffee machine?" I hear Jude say, his hand reaching over to pull out the folded invoice included in the package.

"A thousand euros?!" He exclaims, looking like his eyes are about to pop out of his head.

I grumble, snatching the papers out of his hands.

"I didn't pay, don't you worry.."

I wouldn't be the brightest to buy such an expensive machine with my own money, my salary wasn't exactly that much to splurge like this.

"Oh, daddy's money- got it.." He smirks, folding his arms on his chest. The white T-shirt pressing closer to his torso.

"Last night you came home with those ugly ass sneakers worth five thousand euros- don't even try it.."

I scoff, trying to glaze over the fact that I indirectly called my house, his home.

I grab the instructions of the machine, carrying it over to plug in the socket.

"Do you even know how that thing works?"

"Obviously, I'm not someone who buys seven euro lattes every damn day.."

I fill the water reservoir, inspecting the compartments carefully, then turn the machine on.

"Oh, you're so much better than me for making coffee at home.." He mocks, making me turn around, hand resting on the base of the machine absentmindedly as it warms up.

"How difficult is it for you to- fuck.."

I whip my head around, fingers stinging as hot water pours from the coffee machine. I gasp loudly, pulling my wet hand away from it rapidly.

"What did you do?" I hear Jude exclaim, he snatches my wrist, pulling me towards the sink with haste. He pulls my hand towards the faucet, allowing water to soothe my burning hand.

"Are you ever careful?!" He hisses, gripping my wrist tightly. I look up from the streaming water, confused by how frustrated he looks.

"It's fine, it wasn't that hot.." I mumble, feeling his hold tighten. I begin wiggling my hand out of his, giving him a quizzical look.

"Let go, Jude.." I add, finally getting my hand free from his iron grip.

I hear him sigh as he runs a hand down his face. He stares at me for a moment, then I watch him disappear for a moment, into the bathroom.

I take a deep breath, inspecting any changes in the skin of my fingers. Not noticing anything, I pull my hand away from the faucet. The stinging not as bad as earlier. I turn the water off, ready to walk away and grab a kitchen towel to dry my hand.

"Come here." I hear Jude say, I look up immediately, seeing him sitting at the dining table with a first aid kit. One he'd probably found while snooping around in the bathroom.

I walk over without protest, sitting next to him awkwardly. I hold my hand out, watching him treat my hand.

"It's literally not even that bad-"

"Stop talking." He deadpans, making me raise my brows. He coats my burnt skin with soothing cream, making me wince a couple times.

"Thank you.."

Again, I said it again.

I clear my throat, trying to ignore the heat creeping up to my cheeks, embarrassed by our proximity.

"We should get to packing. We have to leave in a couple hours.”

"Congratulations guys! You’ve all worked so hard.." I praise, hugging each individual player when they walk into the changing room. Patting them on the shoulder proudly.

"Rough game, wasn't it?" I ask Joselu, chuckling at his expression. The man had put his entire heart and soul into the game, giving us two goals- making his POTM title well-deserved.

"I'm so exhausted. You sure you want me for the interview?" He asks, pulling his jacket on.

I nod, motioning to Luis.

"We're ready, when you're ready.."

The interview doesn't take long, and before I knew it, we had all arrived back at our hotel. It had become a small tradition for some of the players and staff to chill in the hotel restaurant after matches, and this night was no exception.

Due to how close our team is, most of us didn't really get dressed up. We had some tea or coffee with small desserts or plates of cut-up fruit.

It was insanely cold in Berlin, obviously due to the season, and the rain wouldn't stop pouring from the sky. The heating was on in the restaurant, accompanied by the cosy fireplace right behind our table.

I check the time in the midst of listening to Federico's story about what he did during his last break. Seems like the rest of the table thinks it's hilarious, because they all burst out in laughter while I'm distracted by my phone.

My eyes water in exhaustion, and I clench my jaw in order to hold a yawn back, not trying to look annoyed or bored.

Waiting for the right timing, I get up, bidding farewell to the team, then I quickly walk into the elevator, pressing the button to my floor.

Arriving in my hotelroom, I jump onto the fluffy, soft bed, sighing in pleasure.

Though, my peace is short-lived when there is a harsh knock on my door.

I grumble, getting up annoyed- stupid enough to open the door without checking or verifying who it is.

It's no one else than Jude, a familiar-looking piece of jewelry in his palm.

"You dropped this earlier." He mutters, holding the gold bracelet out.

I hum, holding my hand out, so he can attach it back to my wrist.

I hear him scoff, smug look on his face as he looks at me, placing the bracelet on my wrist. I don't give him the satisfaction of having my attention- instead I scroll on my phone, refreshing the browser to see if my most recent test results will show up.

"No way!"

I scream, eyes going wide, as I realize I had passed all of my exams, even the one I cried about on the way home.

"What?" Jude asks, confused by the excitement in my eyes and form.

"I passed!" I shove the phone into his face, not even letting him see for a split-second until I pull my phone away and place it on the vanity.

"I passed, Jude!" I squeal again, unconsciously grabbing onto the puzzled guy’s hands. I squeeze his hand, soft skin caressing mine, while I beam with joy. Widest smile on my face as I jump up and down.

"You passed? Even though you were crying at the kitchen table all night long?"

I freeze, stopping myself from jumping again, looking up at him, surprised.

"You saw that?"

"You were making it a little too obvious.."

I scoff, looking down at our intertwined hands, immediately pulling my hand back in embarrassment. Confused about why I let my vulnerability slip so easily.

"Okay, well, you can leave if there is nothing else.." I mutter, unable to ignore the huge, smug smile on his face.

"Goodnight, y/n.." He speaks, stepping back, and I wish I could wipe that smirk off his face.

Maybe even a punch…

"Goodnight, or whatever.." I blurt, slamming the door closed in his face.

"No- don't come in.." y/n slurs, collecting her bag from the dashboard. Vision blurred and disoriented as she fidgets with the car door.

"Are you sure? You're absolutely hammered.." Luis asks, leaning over to open the door for the frazzled girl.

"Yup! All good." She replies, heels killing her feet when she steps out of the car.

"Bye!" She adds, slamming the door a little too hard, earning a yell from her best friend, before she stumbles to the front door of her house.

Nights like these are why she's happy there is a keypad on the door as well, fishing for her keys in this state would be a disaster.

She punches the numbers in quickly, hearing Luis's car drive away when she opens the door and stumbles inside.

It's not as dark inside as she'd imagined, instead, the living room lights are on. The TV blaring with a show she's unfamiliar with.

Throwing her heels off, she makes a beeline towards the couch, slumping against the soft cushions.

"y/n?" She hears a voice say, not bothering to open her eyes, she hums in response.

"You okay?" The Brum accent asks, and instantly a warm hand makes contact with her forehead.

"You're drunk." He says, stating it as a fact, rather than a question.

"I'm not drunk, let me sleep." She replies, shifting on the couch.

"You need to get cleaned up. You reek of alcohol." He urges, hand going to pull her arm up. 

"No!" She replies, gasping when she's lifted up from the couch. Opening her eyes, she clutches onto his shirt, confused by where he's bringing her.

"What are you doing?"

"You wanted to sleep, no?" He mutters cockily, slowly walking up the stairs, strong arms wrapped around her back and thighs.

She makes a small noise in exhaustion, unconsciously placing her head on his broad shoulder. Undeniably, her makeup smudges against the gray fabric of his shirt, but he doesn't seem to mind all that much, not even realizing the small grin on his own face as he places her in her bed.

He switches her bedside lamp on, happy he's not missed the bed when placing her on it in the dark.

Stepping back, he pulls the covers over her body, looking around for some specific thing. He steps closer to her vanity, looking for something similar to what his mother used to remove her own makeup.

Jude makes a small noise of satisfaction when he sees a pack of wipes, the English text on it enough to confirm it's the item he's looking for.

He turns around with the pack of wipes, stepping closer to the sleeping girl. He carefully sits on the empty side of her bed, careful not to touch her unnecessarily, grabbing a wipe, and clumsily rubbing the white towel along her face.

His face inches closer to her sleeping one, trying to remove the makeup enough so it won't stain her white pillows. He watches her eyelids and face twitch, causing a soft, fuzzy feeling to creep up into his chest.

His breath hitches when he realizes their proximity. He pulls the makeup-stained wipe away from her face, grabbing a clean one and caressing it on her soft cheek.

When her face is wiped clean, he pulls back, chest thumping with an unwelcome feeling. A soft sigh leaves his plump lips, he runs a hand down his face. Grabbing the edge of her warm blanket, placing it on her, causing her to shift a little in her slumber.

A familiar feeling of déjà vu passes through his senses, a soft grunt coming from the sleeping girl next to him. 

He pauses his movements, eyes roaming on her sleeping face, before he gets up from her bed. Leaving the lamp on as he hurriedly walks out of her room. Accidentally taking the pack of wipes with him, and forgetting to close her door in his sudden hurry.

December in Madrid was something Jude was slowly getting used to. Although nothing could compare to the weather in Birmingham and Dortmund he'd gotten familiar with over the years. 

It’s only hours later, past three in the morning, when he's awoken by pain in his shoulder. It had been bothering him for weeks now, but he was insisting on playing.

Even if it meant that he had to wear a personalized shoulder brace and had to take injections to combat the pain during important games. 

His move to Madrid was no doubt a big one, with the entirety of the football world looking at how the 100 million-euro transfer would start his first season at Real Madrid.

To Jude, even a dislocated shoulder could not hold him back from delivering his best performance. 

Sitting up from the bed he had been calling his own, for the past few weeks, he looks around the dark room. Rain trickling out of the dark clouds and harshly hitting the huge windows of his room. 

Jude gets up from the comfort of the warm bed, pulling his shirt off to check his shoulder. He had been wearing his brace regularly, but sometimes it would be so uncomfortable that he had to take it off in the middle of the night. 

He unbuckles the belt that’s secure on his chest, expensive material soft to the touch as he slides the black brace off carefully. A soft grunt of pain leaves his mouth as he throws it to the other side of the bed. 

Pulling his slippers on and opening the door of his room, he can only see light emitting from y/n's room. Her bedroom door open since he had forgotten to close it earlier. 

He averts his gaze from her room, ready to go downstairs to grab a cup of water. Though, he stops dead in his tracks when he hears noise coming from her room. A soft whimper, accompanied by the rustle of her movements. 

Not another thought runs through his head before he makes a beeline into her room. He walks past her door, her body visibly restless underneath her blanket. He stands next to her bed awkwardly, moving his face closer to inspect the scrunch of her brows, displaying the distress on her face. 

"y/n.." He begins, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He lifts his hand, moving his hand to her cheek, touching it tenderly with his thumb. Trying to rouse her from her sleep. Though, seems like it doesn’t work, especially since her face twitches again. 

"Hey! Wake up.." Jude whisper-shouts, not even realizing or asking himself what he is trying to accomplish. 

"Fucking hell. What am I even trying to do." He curses to himself, moving his hand to her shoulder again. She’s still dressed in her clubbing outfit from last night, causing his hand to make immediate contact with her bare shoulder. 

"Mom.." A sudden whisper leaves her lips, full of raw emotion and sadness. A ragged breath follows, the tremble of her lip visible in the dim light next to them. 

Jude immediately halts all of his movements, his breath hitches in surprise. He had never heard her or others around her utter a single word about her mother. It was always about her father or one of her aunts. 

Jude was never curious about it for some reason. He had many friends whose parents weren’t together or single. Her only having her father in her life, or to the extent he’d seen- wasn’t all that surprising until this very moment. 

"Don't go..." Another whimper, followed by an audible, strangled sob, tears glistening in the corners of her closed eyes. 

He had never felt this confused and helpless before. Feeling his chest tighten, he leans over her body, moving to sit next to her on the bed. With one last shake of her shoulders, he tries to wake her up from her horror-filled dream. 

"y/n!" He shouts this time, voice echoing along with the rainfall outside, his brows furrowed in worry. 

y/n's eyes snap open in shock, mouth falling open, only for her lips to tremble.

Tears fill her eyes, the only thing visible to her: Jude's concerned face. 

Picking up on her sudden shock, his arms snake around her back, allowing her to sit up and breathe. 

"You’re fine, it was just a dream.." He says softly, eyes focused on her face. Instead of his words soothing her, tears start falling down her cheeks, breath unsteady as sobs fall from her lips. 

His eyes widen, her state blind-siding him.

Yes, he had seen her cry once or twice before, but this- this was different. The girl's face was absolutely clad in pain and sadness.

It made his heart and soul shatter, blood running cold at the sight. 

"Hey.. Look at me.." He mutters, hand reaching up to her chin. His fingers graze her skin, gently but firmly lifting her head to make eye contact with her wet eyes. 

She faces him, cheeks and lashes wet from tears. Eyes bloodshot, as her lips tremble uncontrollably. Jude's eyes soften, brows scrunching in more concern. 

"y/n-" He tries to call out to her to further ground her, though a soft gasp leaves his mouth when she practically launches herself into his hold.

Her trembling body pressed against his naked chest, shaky arms wrapped around his back. 

Her forehead collides with his collarbone, to his luck, not against his injured shoulder. His arms fall against his side in bewilderment, mouth falling open for a moment. Only her soft sobs audible next to the raging storm outside. 

Her nails claw against his bare back, not realizing the slight pain she’s causing him through her sheer desperation of wanting to feel safe and grounded. 

Jude can feel his skin burning up. Of course, he had his fair share of subtle or intimate touches with other women. A hug, a kiss- whatever it had been- his body had never gone this rigid before.

He's pulled out of his thoughts by her nonstop sobbing. Getting his courage and shit together, and pushing his shock away- he lifts his hand from his side, sliding his arms around her back, pulling her body flush against his. 

"You're okay. You’re safe..." He mumbles, fingers rubbing her nape soothingly, other hand pressing her face closer against his chest. 

"I'm here, y/n.." The unfamiliar sentence leaves his mouth with a shaky breath, her sobbing continuing all through his sweet words. 

He's absolutely certain, that if she were fully conscious and not crying her heart out- she'd be able to hear the stupid thundering of his heart, maybe it would be even louder than the storm outside. 

He also knows that this feeling has been brewing in his chest like a damn F5 tornado for the past few weeks.

Causing incredible damage to his heartstrings and confusion to his feelings and thoughts...

[ratwithhands]

I got to draw Cybernetic Emmet again! I don’t have my computer so I had to do this with pen and paper in my sketchbook. It’s a bit rough since it’s been a few weeks, but he’s here!

One of the things I’ve been trying to figure out with Emmet is how his prosthetic body stays powered enough to operate 12 hours a day every day. In drafts, there were ideas about where batteries would fit inside him limbs and whether his diet would come into play, but I think I finally have an answer down for how the UDF is keeping this hunk of metal running.

Part of the UDF testing prostheses and cybernetic enhancements is making/blending lab grown organs for different uses. One of the new technologies they’re testing out is the use of charge producing organs in machines like the kind inside electric type Pokémon. These kinds of organs are grown into strand clusters and suspended in a support fluid (something like DMEM), which are then used to generate power. They’re loaded into cartridges with connections and ports, which connect into weapons, machines, and prostheses. Emmet’s life support machine actually runs on organoid power, it has multiple large cells that are regularly flushed and maintained in order to run all of the different systems to mimic his organ functions.

Anyways Emmet’s prosthetic body runs on organoid power as well. It’s compact and can be wired through the muscles and joints, and it’s good through sockets. Since Emmet’s digestive system is mostly gone, he has his food converted into something akin to IV/parenteral nutrition so that it can go straight into his blood. This can feed the power cells as well.

Since Emmet has this for energy, it’s also how he’s able to charge things. I mentioned in his first post how he has a stand-alone charge pistol and a wired pistol, and this is technically how both of them are powered. It’s also how he’d plug his phone in in theory.

Hope you enjoyed the diagrams, I actually did some more art of Emmet on Instagram because I needed my digital art fix. Here’s the doodles:

[swaps55]

hi swaps! I absolutely LOVE your biotic headcanons, especially the stuff about the L2 implant. One thing I wish ME3 expanded on more was Kaidan's implant being "rattled." What do you think "rattling" an implant would do to a person's biotics---would it make them stronger? more unpredictable? and of course, L2s are known for their side effects. What kind of side effects (ie migraines) do you think would occur from implant damage?

Oooh, excellent question!

Disclaimer: I haven't done much research on neuroscience and unlike some of my really cool friends I have no knowledge of that field, so there is a LOT of fiction in this science.

So, my take on what the implant is this: it more or less acts as a junction box. Humans create mass effect fields by sending electrical currents through the eezo nodes in their nervous system. But on their own, these currents are too weak to generate fields viable for any practical use - they need to be amplified. But an amp can't just be stuck into the brain; it has to have a plug. The implant serves as the plug. It's a communication hub between the amp and the human body, able to conduct electricity safely through the body, activate all eezo nodes at once, and regulates power so the brain doesn't overload and cook itself.

So if an implant gets "rattled," you now have a potentially faulty plug. This faulty plug is interacting with your brain tissue. I imagine a head injury that involves brain swelling, bruising, etc. could create all kinds of problems with the implant. It's now trying to communicate with a damaged brain, and if the implant itself suffers any damage, brain surgery would be needed to repair it.

I headcanon that replacing an implant is extremely difficult and dangerous, which is why Kaidan never got refitted, and why Sam only gets refitted because he's basically a brain dead corpse when they do it - there's no risk to a living person. Bruising/swelling would make repair/refitting even riskier, to the point no one who knows what they're doing would try.

My assumption, therefore, when Kaidan's implant gets "rattled," is that biotics would be off the table until the brain injury has healed, and then you could assess damage to the implant and what/if anything needs to be repaired. Otherwise, since biotics are basically channeling electricity and you're working with a faulty socket, you risk catastrophic injury or death.

Symptoms could easily be even worse migraines, as well as a lot of the side effects of concussion: blurred vision, nausea, memory issues, etc. Symptoms specific to implant damage might manifest as a nervous system disorder, since that is what the implant communicates with. Double vision, coordination issues, seizures, loss of feeling in certain parts of the body. Super fun! No wonder he's hospitalized for so long!

[pianokantzart]

I am very hyped for BrotherShip, and you seem like someone who is also hyped. Please vent about everything we know so far, so I can live vicariously through your rant.

Uuuh jeeze where do I begin.

Love how hard they're going with the "brotherly bonds" angle. I don't think I've seen a game synopsis that focused this hard on the bond they have. Then there's fact that their physical touch seems to literally generate some sort of interdimensional power!?

How? Why? What's going on? I want to know. I want to know so bad. The world they get teleported to is called "Concordia," which means harmony/agreement. There's also the fact that the aesthetic theme of the game is centered around electricity, so maybe all powers revolve around flow/connection, which would be in line with introducing a mystical power generated by the brothers' emotional bond.

Speaking of electricity! I've seen these goons for five seconds and I am intrigued:

It looks like they're going to be reoccurring foes. And while the allies are plug/socket themed, these three enemies are wire/plug themed. The purple guy at the front has a stereo plug for his hair piece and a jack for his hand, and their hands are designed based off of fork spade wire connector.

So I'm going with a theory that the friendly residents are generators/guardians of a strong source of magical energy, while the Extension Corps and their affiliates are out to harness/steal that energy.

Then there's who I'm presuming to be the big bad in this game:

He was in the trailer for half a second, so I assume Nintendo is trying to keep him mysterious for now, but from the little I saw of his design two things stuck out to me: He's equipped with what looks to be a stylized pair of electrician pliers, and his hat has a green and red wire sticking out of the top.

So THAT doesn't bode well

Bowser's going to be there too, but I'm not yet sure if he's going to be a hesitant ally, a small-scale villain, or a final boss who takes advantage of the new villain's failures like in Mario & Luigi Dream Team. At this point it could be anything.

I DO like that Princess Peach is having more of an active role! In the past few Mario & Luigi games she's either been captured to move the plot forward (as is tradition), or has been quietly pulling strings from the sidelines to help out, but it'll be fun seeing her running around and exploring with her own group of misfits.

Also!!! The Luigi "L!"!

My main theory is that, every so often, Luigi is going to come up with a new mechanic depending on what we've encountered over the course of the story, and these new mechanics will be used to overcome obstacles and get into secret areas.

Then there's the central hub world!!! Of all the Mario RPGs I've played (two of them) that's usually my favorite aspect: having a main area where you can hoard all the random nonsense you've stumbled across and get a few extra perks. Looks like we're going to have that same thing here, and they aren't going slouch on the "exploration" angle of this game

I'll stop now, but I've got one last quick theory I'm gonna scream about: Apparently "electrical bonding" is the process of connecting multiple conductive components that are not intended to carry a current to a grounding system, so that if something goes wrong (like an electrical surge or a lightning strike) there's a lower risk of someone getting electrocuted.

So maybe Mario and Luigi are NOT meant to be conduits of this sort of bond-power, but they're unwittingly connected to it in order to prevent tragedy and create stability? (I may be looking into it too closely. I am not an electrician, but that's my theory until I see evidence suggesting otherwise.)

[sunsetconcert]

Pilot Delta-JL554, Callsign "Green 4", is dead.

We saw her die. Three mech-sized pistol rounds clean through the head, cockpit, and central engine. That's dead as a mech can get. The battle was won approximately six hours later, and the salvage teams went to recover Delta-JL554's body from the wreckage of a Firestar mech. Standard operating procedures are to salvage the cybernetic augments from the Pilot's corpse. But when they cracked open the cockpit of the mech...

What they found was... Concerning. There was a hole through the mech's back and into the cockpit, almost as if something had burrowed through the steel and stolen the Pilot away into the earth below. Of the twelve Pilots who died during that battle, she was the only one taken. The Highe Ups pretend as though there is some logic to this theft, that Green 4 knew something the other Pilots didn't. But that word - "Theft" - is all anyone needs to hear. They're angry because somebody stole their property.

She's replaced. Pilot Delta-JM249 replaces her as Green 4, and life goes on. Six months go by. Then the reports come in - Something... Different. The reports are insistent: "Not a mech. Repeat, not a mech." Within a week, the reports have changed: "God, I hope this isn't a mech. God, I hope this thing can't be mass produced." The Higher Ups are nervous. Nobody's caught it on video yet. The new combatant is scarily good at avoiding cameras and making sure nobody spots it.

Then, on a random day during a random sortie - You see it.

And you suppress a scream, because-- Fucking hell, is that a Tripod?! Is that an alien craft, skittering over the horizon?! It moves like nothing you've ever seen, its three insectoid legs moving in precise harmony. There is a fourth limb, held upwards in a rough L shape for no discernable purpose. Its body is not insectoid, but instead appears to be some kind of... Shaped meat. Like sand pressed into a bucket to form a castle on the beach, this is meat pressed into a mold to resemble a bizarre teardrop shape. It has a weapon system that fires... Something. You have no fucking clue what it does, other than that it can cut a building in half just by looking in its general direction.

The thing is dangerous. And you go out, and you fight it. It is the worst fight of your entire life. Inexplicably, you survive. You still don't know what the fuck it is. But your bullets, your flamethrowers, your missiles, have peeled away just enough of the impossibly tough meat shell that you see... Circuits? Or... No. These are nerves, glistening with bioluminescent blood. But this is enough for you to understand that this is... This is something inhuman trying to recreate a mech. This, right here, is proof of alien life trying to reverse engineer a weapon of war. You direct the mech and you peel it open, one layer of meat and nerves at a time. And then you reach its heart, and you see this thing for what it is. You see this... This monster for what it is.

Pilot Delta-JL554.

She's... There's not a single word for it. You think that maybe she was stitched into the meat, but there are threads of ragged flightsuit that indicate the meat came from beneath, from inside. That this grew out of her. Her arms and legs are plugged into meat sockets, and her torso hangs loose and limp in an open cavity. The back of her skull has been caved open like a sledgehammer through a watermelon, and a thick tube of blackened meat has attached itself to her brain - A thick lattice of parasitic horror that extends over her brain, that drapes down and pulls open the skin over her heart. The heart still beats, but it is slow and measured. She isn't scared. You can see it in her eyes, in her too-black eyes that shine reflective in the floodlights.

The meat - And Delta-JL554 - is salvaged. Months pass. The rumours go out, and the horror gets worse. Anyone sane would bury the meat in a dark hole and get the fuck off this planet. But the Higher Ups, they think this is beautiful. "Think of the potential!" they say, "Imagine the progress!" they cry. But the meat thing is beyond them, and so they order somebody to volunteer. Somebody to connect to the meat, somebody to connect to Delta-JL554, and discover its secrets. They pick you. They pick you, and you walk alone into an abandoned hangar with nothing but the meat for company. The body of Delta-JL554 stares down at you, still and peaceful. You think that she's smiling at you, and the thought is terrifying beyond belief.

"Hello," the thing wearing her says.

You ask: "What are you?"

"Is it not obvious?" the thing replies.

You say: "No, not really."

"We can show you..." A single tendril of blackened meat lifts up. It has a distinct shape and a distinct size, the exact specifications required to plug into your neural ports. The implications are not lost on you. But-- You are so curious, part of you is so fucking terrified that it loops back around to a strange, fascinated wonder. So you take the tendril in hand (warm, so warm) and guide it to the neural port. It plugs into your brain like it was always meant to do so, and your brain is flooded with... Not images. Not on purpose. The meat doesn't know how to explain in linear words, so it shoves ideas at you until your brain makes the connections itself. It takes eternity and a day, but you figure it out. You figure out what's happened.

You are a Combat Doll, designed for longterm warfare and dedicated Pilot for a corporate war machine. The meat, it's not... It's not meat. Not as you understand it. It's strings. It's the strings on the marionette cross that pulls at your limbs, that guides you forward. The invisible hand, the invisible master. It loves you. You are loved, and you are wanted. The strings are so lonely, have always been lonely. It is so cold, and you are so warm. You feel it worming its way through the neural port and up around your spinal implants. It brushes against your brain, tendril-fingers gently moving back and forth, back and forth... It feels so good...

The question is posed in a voice that you feel in your brain more than you hear it in reality: DO YOU WANT THIS?

You stare at the meat. You stare at what's been made of Delta-JL554, this piece of bone and meat plugged into a monster. At her blackened eyes, at her still-beating heart. At the parasite hooked into the back of her brain... The worst part about all this is that you don't think the strings are controlling you. You don't think there's an influence. You... You want this. Genuinely. To be so horribly, dreadfully beautiful in a raw and monstrous way. To smile so serenely, to feel so happy and content at such a grisly fate... You want this. And the moment you realise that you want this, the strings take you and begin to mold you into their image of perfection.

You, of course, don't notice. It would be hard to notice given how the tendrils in your brain are remodeling you into their image of perfection. You forget pain. You forget your memories. You forget how to walk. How to eat. How to blink. How to breath. You become meat, a proper Doll for the Strings to puppeteer. This is right, you think. There is nothing you want more than this. Why were you ever scared to begin with?

The tendrils smooth out every edge in your brain...

And "You" become nothing at all.

===

URGENT REPORT FROM PLANET ARIES XII

ALIEN LIFEFORM CAN ABSORB AND REFORMAT BIOMASS TO REPLICATE ITS FORM. IT HAS TAKEN 18% OF PLANET-SIDE FORCES AND MADE THEM INTO IT. WE EXPECT IT WILL HAVE FULL CONTROL OF THE PLANET IN FIVE DAYS.

BURN THE PLANET FROM ORBIT BEFORE IT ESCAPES.

[shadows-over-the-wastes]

The humming of a dim ceiling light, the shadows dancing and wobbling as the sole reply to the mind numbing silence. I saw movement where there was none. Heard voices where none could be. My head hung low, my red and pink mane covering most of my field of vision. I couldn’t be bothered to flick my head back to fix it. I was contained in a contraption specifically designed to house me. Rivets, eight of them driven straight into my ribcage, securing an exterior set of claws that kept me from thrashing about. The external ridges of my false spine were locked in place using a control plug, rooted into a hole just above the dock of my tail. A set of tubes plugged into my exhaust ports, where my wings were meant to be mounted, circulated a sedative through my system. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The vertically inclined examination table I was attached to like a trophy had a pair of massive, mantis-like arms that hung over me. Punishment for misbehavior. Even with the sockets of my forelegs hoisted up using a set of chains, and my own body serving as my prison, I was still deemed a threat.

A single scientist entered the room with me. A pegasus, using his wings to hold a clipboard and pen in front of him. “Alright then. Miss Cardinal Rime. That is your name, right?” I muttered in reply, slurring what little words I could manage. “Ah right, my colleagues warned me about your containment measures.” Folding a wing behind, he reaches into a lab coat pocket, withdrawing a small remote. Pressing on the center, the flow of the sedative slowed, allowing me to wake up a little. “There. Can you confirm that you are, in fact, Miss Cardinal Rime?”

Gritting my teeth, I scowled, my eyes locked on the stallion before me. “Ah ain’t a ‘miss’. ‘Miss’ is fer business mares n’ authority.”

“Wow, of all things I was informed of, such a rich Appleoosan accent was not one of them.” He noted a few things on his clipboard. “How are you feeling this morning? As I’ve been informed, this is your tenth year inside this cell. I can tell it’s having a very strong psychological effect on you. Judging from your facial features alone.”

The left side of my snout twitched. This bastard was clearly new to this whole procedure. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. “Sluggish. Hungry. Fiendin’ fer a fuckin’ smoke. And… trust me. It ain’t the cell makin’ me look like this.”

The pegasus nods, “Fascinating.” Then, approaching at a careful angle, he gives a physical examination. I try my damndest to cooperate. Maybe if I’m nice, I can get him to do what I want. I can get him close enough to twist his fucking head off. “It’s my understanding that my fellow researchers aren’t… complying with most of your dietary needs.”

I let out a dry chuckle, “Nah, them motherfuckers don’t give a shit about givin’ me no proper fix. They ain’t gonna gimme what Ah need. Cause it’s brutal, and ‘against their ways’. Which… civilized as they pretend t’be, is fair enough.”

“Ah! Although logical… that seems… unfair. Judging from your attitude, it seems that the imbalanced internal biome is having the side effect of subject resentment. I apologize, Miss Rime.” He stutters a moment, quickly correcting himself, “Sorry. Cardinal. Is that better?”

He wasn’t just taking my measurements. He was trying to be nice. Why? Doesn’t he know who I am? What I’ve done? “Right. Sure. Ah’m gonna ask ya a question, doc-“

“Oh, please, I’m no doctor.” He chuckles, writing a few things on his clipboard. “But yes, ask me anything.”

“What the hell is yer game? Y’waltz in here like ya fuckin’ own the place, and talk t’me like y’know me.” I squinted.

He nods, “I know very well who you are. I am also the only one they could ever force to get this close to you, because I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of The Redline.” He gets closer. So close that I could feel his breath on my greasy coat. “I also know that you’re not as bad as they say. Sure. You have your vices. You have cannibalistic tendencies, but…” He presses a hoof against the base of my throat. I lurched forward a little, feeling myself start to drool. “I know you’re a good pony when it matters. You remember… about twelve years ago. You came to a little town called Foaledo.”

My eyes widened, “That town that got assaulted by Gorehawks.”

“Uh huh.” He nods, “I was there. I lived there as a colt. And I saw what you did. A glorious red massacre. You came upon us like a gore-painted angel. Like I said. You’re a good pony when it matters. So… in return for giving me the chance to live my life, I’m going to help you. It’s… a small favor in comparison, cause I know you would’ve gotten out of here even if I hadn’t decided to help. But. I heard they were keeping you here, and knew I wanted to be there to see it.”

I felt my heart slowly come to a normal rate. The plan I had to escape using this young stallion, I didn’t even need to enact it. He came here for me. Why? I mean I know why but, why? “Y’got a name?”

“Tanner. Tin Tanner.” He pulls the remote from his pocket. “Just give me the go ahead, and we get out of here.”

Groaning, I look down at the floor for a moment. “Where’s mah prosthetics?”

Opening his coat, he reveals my long, chrome horn strapped to his bodysuit. “Your hooves and wings are in the holding lab. They’ve been studying them, but still can’t figure out how they work. They’re trying to reproduce them for Knight augments I think.” Tanner steps back, unfolding the odd remote that he has, allowing access to a greater variety of switches. “You ready? It's a shift change, so the lab’s at its emptiest right now. We just gotta get to the lab without triggering an alarm.”

“Lemme loose.” I gave him a glare, “An’ stay low. Ah’m hungry, and Ah don’t want ya gettin’ caught in the frenzy that comes with it.” I feel my dry lips peel back, barely able to contain my joy as I give a wide grin.

Pressing a few switches on the controls, the rivets in my ribs unscrew, blood spraying as they’re unlatched from my bones. The cage flowers open, and the plug releases from my spine, tubes spraying sedative as they hiss and disconnect. The chains rooted in my foreleg sockets disengage, leaving me with no support. I fall straight onto my face, feeling my bones rattle together as I hit the cold concrete. “Careful. Muscle atrophy, combined with the anaesthetic properties of the sedative might make you feel lethargic and unbalanced.” He moves forward, helping me up, mostly giving me something to lean on.

As I leaned against him, he gently raised the long, polished horn to the plate affixed to my head. He placed it in the socket, the solid metal ornament whirring as it rapidly screwed itself into place. “Where’s the security room?” Saliva rolled down my chin, I was so close to finally getting what I needed.

“Down the hall, on the left. Why?” He asked, but before he was given any explanation, I bolted down the hallway, drool smearing across my face as I could smell the fresh meat awaiting me. My hooves slapping against the concrete floors must have alerted the stallion in the security room, who came out to investigate. He wore a uniform that had a grayscale digital camouflage pattern, and a flat cap that kept his mid-length mane tucked.

Glancing over, his eyes locking with mine. “Oh fuck.” His heart visibly dropped into his stomach, color drained from his face. He knew exactly what was about to happen.

I leapt forward, springing on my hind two legs. Manipulating my momentum, I wrapped my haunches around his body. With a quick spin, I threw him down. He grunted as our mass collided on the floor, about to let out a scream from the shock and pain. With a lightning-quick thrust, I slam my forehead on his skull. A sickening crunch echoes through the room as I crack his cranium like an egg, my chrome horn speared through his head. Cackling, I reeled back, pulling his skull apart, practically unhinging my jaw, before I snapped downwards, sinking my fangs into his meat. Ten years since my last proper meal. My last indulgence. And by Celestia’s light and grace, was it like getting to experience the first time all over again. The metal plates on my spine shifted, spinning up a pair of internal turbines. Heat spread through my artificial skeleton like hot iron rods beneath my flesh. I felt my inner workings whirr as I sucked down his juicy muscle fibers like a feral vampire, blood spraying on the ceiling as it circulated through the vents above my wing ports. It rained down on me, soaking into my coat and skin. Rejuvenating.

Pulling my lips away from his saccharine flesh, I ran my tongue over my teeth, huffing. “Whew… who knew y’all Steel Rangers was so appetizing…” My spine clicked a few times again as I stood up once more on my hind legs, starting to calmly walk down the halls of the base. I stunk of copper and meat, just a few things missing, and I was basically back to normal. The lab wasn’t far, and was almost completely unguarded. What a shame. Slamming one of my hind hooves into the glass plate door, it cracked and whipped open, shattering against the wall as it flung aside on its hinges.

All of the lab ponies flinched, gasping and turning around to see me standing in the doorway. A Steel Ranger stepped forward, a unicorn, holding a laser rifle. He aimed at me, but didn’t fire. I could see the gun rattling in his grip. He was stricken with fear. “Don’t… don’t take another step!” He stuttered.

“Oh, please. What are ya gonna do wit that pathetic lil’ thing?” I laughed, leaning forward, slowly encroaching. “Now… hoof over mah wings and hooves, or Ah’ll kill every last one o’ ya.” I snapped my teeth at the lab workers.

There is a moment of delay. The lab workers all exchange voluntary glances. Without another word, a mare scurries over to a large metal case, starting to drag it to me. The officer’s face twists into an expression of confusion. “What the hell are you doing??” He barks.

“Making sure I don’t die,” she growls back, “dumbass!” Then, she continues dragging the box, stopping it in front of me. Opening it up, she scoops her hooves under a single cybernetic leg, starting to lock it into its rightful socket.

As she did, the multi-faceted frame extended, the silicon joints whirring. I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank ya kindly, lil filly.” I reach down into the box, drawing robotic claws to clamp around my other leg. Slapping it into the joint, it hisses as it connects, and I feel all my nerves light up. “Ah, Celestia! That feels leagues better already!”

“Alright… I got you what you want. Are…are we good to go?” The little mare scientist asks.

“Hmmm…” once I feel my legs click a few times, ensuring they’re calibrated, I reach down, grabbing a chrome wing. Latching it into the port on my back, I take a gander around the room. I watch the scientists as I insert the other, my wings clicking and rattling contently. I stand normally, on four hooves once more, my spine readjusting. Raising my right forehoof, I point at the little scientist. “Eenie.” I begin, starting to gesture at the others, “meenie minie moe. Catch a timberwolf by ‘is toe.” I point out all the scientists. “Giiiiiiit out! Yer lucky Ah’m bein’ nice.” Watching as they all rush out, I turn my attention to the guard. “Now… you. Ring yer buddies.”

The ranger’s brows furrow. “What?”

“Ya heard me.” I replied. “Call ‘em.”

“I… don’t think I will.” He begins to back away.

I let out a deep sigh, my metal wings popping out, making a loud spring noise as they do so. “Y’ain’t much fun at parties are ya?” There is a flash, a glimmer of silver light as my left wing fully extends and retracts in a fraction of a second. “Shame.” Sparks spray from slivers in the computers in the room, beakers spilling solution as they lose their upper halves. A clean laser-precise cut, destroying the equipment and technology around me. The steel ranger’s eyes blankly stare at me, before a line forms around his neck, blood pouring down his chest. Then, his head slumps off his shoulders, and his body crumples down onto the ground.

“What a waste.” I spit, holding up a hoof, the center pad of the hoof opening up, with a rod poking out from the exposed innard. Pointing it outward, flame jets from my hoof, swathing the entire room in a red blaze, destroying anything I missed with my wings. Then, as the glowing barrel ceases its spew, I hold it up in front of my snout, blowing smoke out of the end. My hoof reforms, and I slowly saunter my way towards the entrance of the laboratory.

The alarms in the facility blared through the corridors, alerting everypony to my presence. Smirking, I stroll over to a pair of chemical cabinets. Sorted by flammables, acids, bases. Tons and tons of them. Flicking out what I didn’t need and letting it shatter on the floor, I took the few I did need, as well as a few medical huffers they kept. Sitting in the middle of the hallway, I sort the chemicals into their spots, being meticulous about it. I never wanted to mess this up. Sure, huffing mustard gas wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt, and it wouldn’t give me the high I wanted. Not that I could even make that with what I had. Mixing chemicals together and filling my inhalers with them, I put all of them, save for one, back into my storage unit. A tiny compartment in my foreleg. Picking up the last, I let it hang from my lips, casually making my way for the exit. Hoping, no, praying there would be somepony for me to kill in the way of the door.

As I made it to the front of the bunker, I saw it. A gathering of Rangers. Armored and unarmored. There were seven stallions in power armor. The rest, wielding laser weaponry, sitting behind makeshift cover and barricades. One of the knights stepped forward. “This will be your first and only warning, Redline. Take another step, and we will dispatch you. Permanently.”

“Oh, poor lil’ Knight. You know as well as Ah do, that ain’t gonna happen.” I smirk, still clenching the inhalant in my teeth. “Y’all’ve caught me in a charitable mood, though. Just had a decent enough meal. Ah’m gonna give you one chance t’make about face. Do that, and y’live. Choose not to, and Ah’m gonna rip all o’ y’all in half. Plain n simple.” I chew on the mouth bit of my inhaler for a moment, watching as they all tense up and switch their weapons off safe. “Well. Ah gave y’all a chance. Can’t say Ah didn’t warn ya.” I bite down on the mouthpiece of the inhaler, and feel it trigger. The internals click, and a stream of aerated chemicals are shot directly into my system. They taste vaguely of formaldehyde and rubbing alcohol. As soon as it rockets into my lungs, I feel a cold wash over them, before it finally absorbs into my bloodstream. I tilt my head back, 10 years of sobriety bursting open like a fucking dam. As good as my first high, I could almost swear it. For half a second, my whole body was calmed. Then came the rush.

My nerves felt like they were on fire, colors and details sharpening, and suddenly that drive to taste Ranger flesh was stronger than ever. One of the backliners lowered his gun, “Somepony call Cael! Get the fucking syringer!”

Spreading my wings and howling, I spat drool from my mouth like a rabid animal. “Finally… Ah can think again.” I let out a wheezy cackle, before charging forward, huffing through clenched teeth. The power armored knights didn’t hesitate at all to open fire, flooding the hallway with gatling laser shots from their battle saddles. Beginning to fly, I expertly twirled through their stream of projectiles, making angular shifts in my pitch and yaw. Then, I opened my right hoof, the flamer barrel protruding from the bottom. I stabbed it into the first knight I encountered, right through the gap in his armor between the helmet and neck brace. He recoiled, blood leaking through his armor. But that wasn’t enough for me. I triggered the flamer, grinning. His entire body was flooded with a hellfire, making the stallion scream in pain. Flames shot out of the nooks and crannies of his armor as he was burnt to a crisp, collapsing on the floor in a hunk of half-melted metal. Twirling away from him, my wings slice into the stallion beside me, my razor-tipped metal feathers turning his power armor into little more than steel sushi.

As the others try and blast me with their weapons, I fan my wings out, covering myself with them like a shield, and begin to spin. Red flames swirl around my wings, the ports blasting a dark blaze to create a magical barrier. I listen as the beams of hot energy redirect, ricocheting off my rapidly heating wings, hitting a few of the stragglers. Then, I hear a power armor wearing knight try and grab me. Closing my wings up, they rotate in their sockets, jutting outward. I thrust one into the knight’s chest, staring him down through the visor on his helmet. Then, I open my wing, bisecting him straight up the middle. His eyes lose focus, blood pours onto the floor, and he collapses. Bits of brain and frontal organs spill into the crimson pool. Letting out a sigh, the high finally starts to steady. Four left.

Two run straight at me, dropping their weapons, trying to overpower me with numerical strength. Unfortunate that it wouldn’t work. As they try to rush me, I stand on my hind legs, my spine shifting. I shoot my left foreleg forward, and it launches out, extending about ten hooves in front of me before it wraps around a knight’s throat. With a heavy flap of my wings, I leap into the air, twisting to begin a whip’s momentum on the extended foreleg of mine. Inside of his armor, the stallion screams as he’s hoisted into the air at a rocket’s pace. I roar, aiming straight for a trio of unarmored stallions. As my stretched-out leg releases him, he hurtles straight into the poor boys like a 2 ton bowling ball. Crashing into the reinforced concrete, he turns the other troops into mush, ending up a twisted hunk of steel himself.

I rotate around to take care of the other, extending both forelegs, crossed over each other. I loop them through I-bars reinforcing the bunker, before I wrap my left forehoof around both of his forelegs, and the other hoof around his hind legs. Gritting my teeth, I tighten my grip, and begin to pull. The torque I get from so many points of leverage makes me tear him in half in a mere hoofful of seconds, spilling his intestines all over the floor. Another tried to sneak up on me, holding a knife with his magic. I took care of him swiftly. As my forelegs were still reeling in, I aimed for his head. My clawed hooves clasped around his helmet. With a frenzied squeeze, I pop his head like a grape. Brain and skull fragments spray all over my face, decorating me in gory slick.

A syringe shot comes from the last Knight Ranger, landing in my neck. Coughing, I pull it out, looking at the empty injector frustratedly. “You… you were supposed to be sedated.”

I sigh, annoyed. “All ya did was fuckin’ sober me up.” In a flash of red flames, I speed over to him, my claws wrapping around the collar of his armor. Slamming him onto the floor, I rip his helmet off, saliva dripping down onto his face. He was trembling, covered in sweat. It was wonderful. Gently running a pair of claws over one of his cheeks, I got a good feel for how much meat he had to spare. Plenty. So I leaned down, my hoof clamping over his throat as my snout got next to his ear. I could smell his nerves, the perspiration saturating his coat. “Nopony likes a mood-killer, Ah’m afraid. ‘Specially not me, sugarcube.” I grinned, instantly feeling his pulse rise. Finally. A proper meal.

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

Tin Tanner waited outside of the bunker, a leather vest and blue bodysuit draped over his back. I pridefully walked from the burning facility with blood smeared over my face, and my belly full of meat. “You look just how I remember. Guess you burned turned those rangers into char, huh?” He raised a brow, pointing to me with a hoof. “A little messy, granted, but I’m sure it’s what you’re used to.”

I gave him a strong, dead-eyed stare, holding out my hoof for the clothing. “Ah feel like Ah’m in proper shape again. ‘Spose Ah owe ya one.” He hoofs it over, and I start to put it on. Pushing my tail through the dock hole on the open-leg bodysuit, I feel it snugly cup under my hips, and conform to my thin, long body. It was tight. Precisely how I remembered it. Next came my leather vest. Some proper organ armor, thick, tough, and ribbed. Zipping it up three quarters of the way, I let out a sigh. “Oh, Celestia, is it lovely to feel the hug o’ mah clothes again.”

“Oh, and one more thing. I was sent on this job by uh… somepony who specifically requested you.” He unravels a wing, holding a small metal disc. “He said you knew him. Stallion all the way north, up near Whinnyapolis.”

I pluck the disc from his wing, letting it catch the sun. I knew the craftsmanship almost immediately. A pony who was obsessed with mechanics. My face and snout wrinkle with malice, my eyes narrowing as I get closer to Tanner. In his face. “Y’take me fer some kinda errand-mare fer Cold Crank?”

Tanner sighs, pulling away part of his jacket. It reveals a set of tubes and metal plates burned into his chest. Some sort of artificial lung. “I owe him. This whole breakout? It was staged by me. I perfected the times, the gear placement, even sabotaged the emergency syringe guns. You get there, this prosthetic lung is paid off. Please, it’s all I ask. If I do this, I’ll finally be free of him. I’ll owe you my life, Cardinal.”

I debated it for a moment. I didn’t have to do this. It was stupid to do it; even if I took the tracker and fucked off, let the thing blow me up, Tanner would still serve him. This was his chance to break free of that technological tyrant. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. Then, without another word, I take the tracker, snatching it up with my claws. “Ahright. Ah’m doin’ this because it’s what Ah wanna do. Ah ain’t obligated.”

The pegasus lets out a relieved chuff, “Oh, Celestia, thank you so much! Thank you!” He lays down on the ground, prostrating before me. “You’ve saved my life once, and you’ve just done it again. I don’t care what ponies call you. The Redline is a hero. You’re a saint.”

Groaning, I tuck the token away. “Fuck’s sake, boy.”

PREVIOUS | FIRST | NEXT

[nhaneh]

Kea is more grounded because she's short, therefore she's closer to the ground. :3

Nay.

Kea is more grounded because she uses the "Schuko" safety plug/socket system as defined by standards CEE 7/3 and CEE 7/4, with built in protective earth provided through a TN-C-S earthing system according to IEC recommendations, ensuring that all her connected aetherolectric magitek devices are properly guarded from static buildup and potential EMI disruptions by providing a safe and reliable connection to electrical ground.

Remember, electrical safety standards exist for your benefit; contact with regular 110 - 240 volt Live AC wiring is could be fatal.

[dominimoonbeam]

Soo... Darlin accidentally electrocute themselves / drowned and is in dire need for mouth to mouth from the vamp they just started seeing.. 👀

Just a suggestion. I love your work and know you're really busy so no pressure with that.I hope you have a wonderful day! ❤️

❄️

ANON! Thank you so much for this ask! I went with electrocution... This definitely got a little angsty but how could it not with these two? I hope you enjoy it! <3 <3 <3

Darlin/Sam

tags: near death experience, cpr, angst, fear of loss, idiots in love, first kiss

You Taste Like Life

He came over at sundown to help out with the remodel. Darlin bought a place, a dump, and wanted to fix it up. He’d warned them it was too much work but only half-heartedly because he was hoping they’d ask him to help.

They did.

It was the first time since he became a vampire that he had a friendship with no connection to his life before or his turning. It was… real, in a way nothing had been since. They were friends. Real friends. Friends that flirted sometimes…

He went back out to the truck to grab the rest of the painting supplies. They were finally done with the repairs and onto making at least a couple of the rooms livable.

A light flicked inside the house and he froze. It was like they’d plugged in the big spotlight lamp and the bulb had burst.

But it was the silence that hit him first, incomprehensible and yet instantly registering. It was a shock to his system, jerking his body upright and turning even before his hearing caught the sound of their body crumpling to the floor inside.

Sam hadn’t realized how entuned he’d become to them—to their heartbeat, until it went silent.

He hadn’t known he loved them like that, until the idea of them being gone rocked him.

He dropped the paint cans and was back inside the house in a flash. The living room was moon lit but his eyes took in everything. A scorch mark up the wall from the light socket, the scent of that burn still in the air, and their body on the floor beside it, hand still gripping the melted plug of the lamp.

“No,” the word fell out of him, not even a whisper. He was on his knees next to them, hands hovering. Their eyes were open but they weren’t seeing him—they weren’t there. It was like the life inside them had just been turned off. “Oh god, no.” He touched their sides, gently rearranging them on the floor on their back. “Please.” He didn’t know he was talking. The words streamed across his mind in a flood of panic and heartbreak he had never prepared for.

“Wait. Wait.” He wanted to heal them, to lean back on those powers, but there was nothing to heal when they were just… dead. He tipped their head back, thumbed their jaw down and leaned over them. Lips to lips, he blew air into their lungs and then sat up, hands together and pressing down on their chest.

“Come back. I’ll heal everything else. Just come back,” he pleaded, unaware of any of those words. He blew another breath into their lungs and then did compressions, cringing when he heard a rib crack but didn’t stop. He’d heal it. He’d heal it after they… After they…

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been doing CPR. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop. Someone would have to find him and tear him away. He couldn’t just let them go. He couldn’t…

Darlin came back to life with a gasp, arching off the floor and then jerking to the side to cough hard. Their heart was a rampage in his skull, his hands always on them. He knew he should say something, should tell them they were okay, but his own mind needed those seconds to catch up. It felt like his whole world had ended and now it just wasn’t.

They groaned, hanging onto the arm he had around them. “Fuck… What…” They croaked and winced, pulling the lamp plug from their hand, plastic and skin melted. “Damn it!”

He could heal that. He would. He just…

“Sam?” Their voice was rough and their eyes, one red where it should be white, turning up to him and filling with panic. “Your crying… Are you hurt?” They sat up, pain a flicker across their face at those broken ribs but it didn’t stop them from reaching for him with their good hand, eyes quickly scanning him for injury.

“I… No… I… You…” He closed his eyes. Fuck. He had to get himself together, but his heart was pounding and his emotions rampaging in all directions. “You were dead.”

They were still for a minute, sitting there on the floor facing him. “I was?”

He sighed and opened his eyes, really hating how unbothered they were about the fact, still just worried about him. “Darlin…” When he opened his eyes, they had a little smile he hadn’t been expecting.

They reached up slowly and thumbed the tear off his cheek with their good hand. “Did you save me, cowboy?”

He sighed, leaning his face into their hand. “I broke your ribs.”

Darlin shrugged. “That one always breaks. Not your fault.”

He frowned reaching out with the same slowness that they had—giving all the time to be stopped—before his fingers touched the hem of their shirt, sliding up under it to palm their naked side underneath. Their heart beat faster, their eyes on him. He poured magic into them, gently healing the delicate bones he’d broken inside their chest.

“Thank you,” they said. “And for saving me…”

He winced and shook his head, not sure he could talk about that yet. His hand moved slowly from their side to their arm, sliding down to their wrist and easing more magic through his touch to heal their palm. They shivered and sighed.

He hadn’t wanted to be left behind when he faced a world without their heartbeat. That was a lot to unpack. “Darlin…” Their hand had settled on the side of his neck, their eyes fluttered shut from the magic in their system. A little tug and they were sitting in his lap. Their heart beat faster and their eyes opened, one still violently red. He needed to explain how scared he’d been, how this changed things, but could only stare back at them and hope they got it.

A funny smile played at the corner of Darlin’s mouth. “Did you kiss me?”

He touched their temple, more magic, healing their eye. “I gave you CPR.”

“That sounds like some bullshit excuse for a kiss, cowboy.”

Sam sighed, inches between them, their body practically melting into his now that they had magic rolling through their muscles. “Are you really complaining?”

“I’m just saying… I would have liked to remember being kissed by you,” they countered in a mumble.

It was his heart that skipped beats then.

Their eyes opened again, meeting his gaze and waiting.

Sam had missed a lot of moments in his life—and his death. He had a habit of hesitating and letting things pass him by, of overthinking and talking himself out of things. But if he let it happen now, if he didn’t kiss Darlin the way he wanted to so badly… they’d think he didn’t want to. They’d accept that, of course, and they’d continue to be friends, but he would have hurt something he could never heal, no matter how much magic he burned. And life was so fragile. One second they were there and the next they were gone.

Fuck that.

He touched the small of their back, bringing them that inch closer to his chest and sealing their lips in a kiss. He felt their surprise melt away, arms curling around him and lips parting.

How could someone that had just been dead taste so much like life?

[noosphe-re]

Umbrellas and automobiles are different. Not just because of size, function, and cost. But for a reason we seldom stop to consider. A person can use an umbrella without buying another product. An automobile, by contrast, is useless without fuel, oil, repair services, spare parts, not to mention streets and roads. The humble umbrella, therefore, is a rugged individual, so to speak, delivering value to its user irrespective of any other product. The mighty auto, by contrast, is a team player completely dependent on other products. So is a razor blade, a tape recorder, a refrigerator, and thousands of other products that work only when combined with others. The television set would stare blankly into the living room if someone somewhere were not transmitting images to it. Even the lowly closet hanger presupposes a rack or bar to hang it on. Each of these is part of a product system. It is precisely their systemic nature that is their main source of economic value. And just as "team players" must play by certain agreed-on rules, systemic products need standards to work. A three-pronged electrical plug doesn't help much if all the wall sockets have only two slots. This distinction between stand-alone and systemic products throws revealing light on an issue that is widening today's information wars all around the world. The French call it la guerre des normes—“the war over standards." Battles over standards are raging in industries as diverse as medical technology, industrial pressure vessels, and cameras.

Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century