#backward class data

[iyemarathichiyenagari1971]

जातनिहाय जनगणना, एक गेमचेंजर…

जातनिहाय गणना करण्यासाठी मोदी अचानक तयार कसे झाले ? जातनिहाय गणनेपासून दूर राहण्यासाठी केंद्र सरकारने सर्वोच्च न्यायालयापुढे आजवर विविध कारणे सांगितली होती. बिहारमधे झालेल्या जातनिहाय गणनेला भाजपने उघड विरोध केला होता. बिहारचे मुख्यमंत्री नितिश कुमार यांनी पुढाकार घेऊन राज्यात जातनिहाय सर्वेक्षण केले. त्यानंतरही नितिश कुमार एनडीएमध्ये भाजपाबरोबर आहेत. राज्यातील जातनिहाय सर्वेक्षणानंतर बिहारला…

[daylighted]

all i can think about is frat boy dean whos dating his nerdy little girlfriend and comes over to her dorm when shes studying and shes like struggling but dean tries to help her study even though he doesnt know shit😭 and then hes like “yeah i have no idea what im even saying” while hes trying to explain random crap

anyways ur theme is so cute!!

all of the classes dean was in, she was in the advanced placements for, pretty much an entire year above him. she was so damn smart that dean sometimes felt like she was humbling herself being around him and choosing him, especially in instances like this, where she'd asked him to study with her, and he realized quickly he does not know how to study properly.

"well, see," he's half leaned over her shoulder, chin resting in the little notch between her neck and arm, "the data's gotta have the answer. wouldn't be part of the question if it didn't."

dean did not have a clue what he was looking at. a table chart with so many numbers. a paragraph above it explaining the numbers and adding additional data. the practice question wasn't even multiple choice; who did that?

her smile is slow, and dean knows that again, he's said the wrong thing. but if there's one thing dean does know how to do, is dig his own grave. "like, math, right?" it was science. chemistry. whatever. "take all the numbers, add 'em up, get the average..."

well, now her eye was twitching, like a parent barely refraining from taking the pen and doing the problem themselves. dean's starting to stutter over his explanation. technically, she did ask for this, asking him for assistance, so... "then multiply the average by the number of sections on the chart. with all those steps, it's gotta be the way, baby, trust."

his beautiful, intelligent, quiet girlfriend did not say a word to argue. instead, she did something worse, and took her pretty pen out of his hand and moved the paper in front of her again. the silence was overbearing. now dean had completely abandoned his books and wanted to see this damn problem through, just out of his own disbelief. they made questions like this? without multiple choice? and all these numbers?

he, in fact, does not shut up, even as she's writing numbers and scribbling them out and repeating. "yeah, babe, to be honest? don't know what the fuck i'm saying."

"i know." two words, and she'd managed to dismantle the fragile confidence he had in chemistry-related things. "but thank you for trying to help in your own way."

she might as well have just stabbed him. "just doin' my job, pretty lady," dean saluted her, tipping his baseball cap at her before plucking it off his head and spinning it around. front facing meant business, backwards meant party. he deserved a party after the couple of braincells in his head had sparked and fizzled out. "hey, how 'bout this," the mischief in his smile is absolutely diabolical considering he was really just starting to hinder you more than anything, "every question either of us get right, we take somethin' off?"

her eyebrows raise. "you're gonna be fully clothed and i'm gonna be naked if we do that."

dean leans in to steal a kiss, that devilish grin still on his mouth. "that's precisely the point. get t'solvin', pretty lady."

she wasn't going to argue. especially not when he used precisely right in a sentence.

[slattlicker]

college age schlatt i beg 🙏 like the proper nerdy computer science college student everyone seems to forget he was

╭﹐✦˚₊· 𖤐 * no recursion without return ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ ╮ imagine: hot engineering nerd meets cute cs nerd. she needs help passing a required class. he needs someone who actually listens. one tutoring session turns into two... and then they build something together. ╰﹒♡₊˚๑ *✧﹒✦ ࣪ ˖ ┊

﹒₊✦ a/n: college schlatt is real, actually. nerds deserve romance too. i'm so so sorry if this is inaccurate,,, i am an english writing major (who used to be in biochem) so take everything stem-talk in this with the biggest grain of salt ♡

warnings: academic setting · lots of stem talk (cs + engineering) · mutual nerd crushes · slow-burn vibes · tutoring sessions · project bonding · lab flirting · light insecurity · soft & earned first kisses

✧✧✧

it starts with a room that smells like dry-erase markers and burnt coffee.

tuesday afternoon, 3:15 pm. you’re ten minutes early to the cs building’s third-floor lab—mostly because the alternative was sitting through another insufferably slow dining hall lunch, and partly because you weren’t sure if you’d find the place at all.

the whiteboard has a half-erased doodle of a mushroom in glasses. someone’s labeled it fungi with a minor in comp sci.

you snort, drop your bag onto the table, and slide into the nearest swivel chair.

you're not exactly struggling in the class—but you're also not thriving. cs230: data structures and algorithms. it’s mandatory for your minor, and you’ve been putting it off for two semesters too long.

the professor announced last week that office hours would be staffed by the department’s “stem peer guides.” you hadn’t planned on going.

but then the last lab nearly made you cry in the library bathroom.

so here you are.

you’re still tugging your laptop out of your bag when the door creaks.

he walks in backwards—wearing a hoodie that probably cost too much and socks with cartoon ducks on them, juggling two coffees and a laptop under one arm.

“hey—sorry,” he says, turning around and freezing when he spots you. “didn’t think anyone was gonna show up.”

he sets the coffees down. his glasses slide a little down his nose when he tilts his head.

“you here for cs230?”

you nod. “yeah.”

he blinks. then smiles—just a little. you catch the beginnings of smile lines.

“i’m schlatt,” he says. “stem guide. i did the class last year.”

you raise an eyebrow. “and survived?”

“barely.” he slides into the chair across from you and cracks open his laptop. “what are we working on?”

you pause. he’s surprisingly cute for someone who clearly color-codes his life. his keyboard has custom caps. his notes—when he turns the screen to show you—are annotated with little pixel cats.

you try not to show your amusement. “i think i broke my brain trying to write a recursive function.”

schlatt huffs a laugh. “you and everyone else.”

he takes a sip of his coffee, then pushes the other cup toward you.

“extra,” he says. “in case you need brain fuel. also because i got nervous and ordered two by accident and i couldn't tell them i didn't want the other one.”

you accept it without thinking. warm. lightly sweet. you usually take yours iced, but it's cold in this room, so you'll take it.

“thanks,” you murmur.

“no problem,” he says, already pulling up the assignment prompt on his screen. “let’s untangle some loops.”

✧✧✧

you’re twenty minutes in and already rethinking your life choices.

not because schlatt’s bad at explaining things. actually, the opposite.

he’s good. really good.

he’s got the kind of brain that makes metaphors on the fly—comparing recursive functions to russian nesting dolls, stack overflows to a laundry chair that’s reached critical mass, and call stacks to cabinets held open in sequence.

“okay,” he says, spinning the whiteboard toward you, “so imagine you're opening those russian dolls—you know, the ones that keep getting smaller?”

you nod, watching as he draws a series of half-circles nestled inside each other.

“each function call is like opening another doll. every time the function calls itself, it goes one layer deeper. but the only way to start returning values—to actually finish—is to reach the smallest one.”

“the base case,” you murmur, tapping the smallest doll he’s drawn.

his smile quirks. “exactly. once you hit that, you start putting them all back together. one by one, returning values up the chain.”

you tilt your head. “so recursion’s not about jumping around—it's about going in and then back out in the same order.”

“bingo.”

he pivots to his laptop and pulls up a short recursive function on the screen. you lean in.

“okay, next part—this,” he gestures at the lines of indented code, “is the call stack. think of it like trying to put dishes away.”

“…dishes?”

he nods, animated now. “you open a cabinet to put a plate in. then you grab another plate, but instead of closing the first cabinet, you open a second one. and a third. and a fourth. you keep opening cabinets without shutting the old ones.”

you raise an eyebrow. “sounds like how my roommate loads the dishwasher.”

he grins. “right? but the point is, each open cabinet is a function waiting to finish. they can’t finish until the one they just called returns. so when you hit your base case, you finally start closing those cabinets, in reverse order.”

you stare at the screen, tracing the indents with your eyes.

“so,” you start slowly, “the top function keeps waiting—holding its cabinet door open—until the one it just called is done. and that one’s waiting for the one it called. like a long hallway of open doors.”

“yes!” schlatt nearly bounces in his chair. “and that hallway is your stack. it fills from the bottom up—every time you go deeper. but if there’s no base case—or it’s too far down?”

“then the hallway gets too crowded.”

you glance up at him. “and the stack… overflows?”

he throws both hands up, mock-dramatic. “you get it!”

you laugh—really laugh—and shake your head. “it actually makes sense. which is annoying. because i was ready to just declare defeat and become a barista.”

he nudges his coffee toward you. “nah. baristas don’t use call stacks.”

you take a sip, smiling into the lid. “honestly? if you’d used metaphors in the lab handout, i might’ve passed the last quiz.”

“metaphors are how i survive,” he says, then lowers his voice in mock-conspiracy. “they trick your brain into thinking you’re doing storytelling, not math.”

you grin. “you are such a dork.”

“thank you,” he says, deadpan. “that’s the highest compliment in this lab.”

you roll your eyes—but you’re still smiling.

✧✧✧

you hadn’t meant to invite him.

it just slipped out—somewhere between scribbling return values and teasing him for his handwriting—your mouth said, “hey, i’m grabbing food after this. you want to come?” like it was the most normal thing in the world.

he blinked. just once.

then shrugged and said, “sure,” like he wasn’t surprised either.

now you’re sitting across from him at a corner table in the dining hall. your tray’s got a slice of pizza and a sad salad. his has a sandwich, two cookies, and three chocolate milks.

“you know,” you say, chewing thoughtfully, “for someone who talks like a grad student, you eat like a middle schooler.”

he takes a sip of one of the chocolate milks. “middle schoolers are onto something.”

you snort. then pause. then blurt it out—because you’ve been thinking about it since the cs homework started, and he feels safe, in a quiet, weird way:

“okay, don’t judge me, but i’ve been working on this stupid little side project where i’m trying to build a low-power prosthetic hand using recycled printer motors.”

schlatt looks up, mid-bite. “wait. seriously?”

you nod. “yeah, i’ve been salvaging parts from the e-waste lab and retrofitting them. it’s dumb and janky and probably not functional, but—”

“that’s so sick,” he says, with total sincerity. “like—you’re making that from scratch?”

you sit up a little straighter. “well, not the whole thing. i’m using an arduino as the controller right now, because i suck at microprocessors and writing drivers from zero is hell. but i’ve been wiring it to flex sensors, and i’m experimenting with these homebrew 3d-printed phalanges—”

you don’t stop.

not once you get going.

you talk with your hands, gesturing wildly, pulling up half-broken images on your phone, sketching quick shapes on your napkin with a pen in the side-pocket of your backpack.

and the whole time? schlatt just watches.

listens.

not just politely—but engaged. interested. like he wants to hear it all. like you’re not over-explaining, or rambling, or going on too long about a niche thing that keeps your brain lit up at 3am.

you pause somewhere around “wrist articulation via recycled watch gears” and finally look up.

his eyes are warm.

“you know,” he says, grinning, “i think you just activated my stem side quest.”

you blink. “what?”

“i wanna help,” he says. “i mean, if you’ll let me. i’ve never coded a servo system, but… i’m a fast learner. and i think it’s badass.”

you don’t say anything.

not right away.

because your chest feels kind of full. your face feels warm. and for once, your brain doesn’t immediately try to shrink you back down.

instead, you nod. just once. “okay.”

he smiles at you over his chocolate milk.

and you think, shit, maybe office hours weren’t the highlight of the week after all.

✧✧✧

the next few weeks settle into a rhythm.

it starts with tutoring.

once a week turns into twice. then three times. not because you’re struggling (anymore), but because he’s… kind of fun to talk to. at least when he’s not roasting your variable names or trying to explain recursion using empty cereal boxes.

he sits across from you at the library table, hoodie sleeves pushed up, laptop screen smudged from how often he drags his fingers across it to point something out. sometimes he forgets to eat. you learn to pack granola bars in your pencil pouch. he never says thank you—just steals one with a smirk and keeps talking.

you start getting better. grades creeping up. error logs shrinking. you don’t dread opening your ide anymore. the code starts making sense—not just his, but yours.

one afternoon, you casually mention a project idea you’d been playing with—something stupid, just for fun. something to do with hardware integration. you expect him to laugh.

he doesn’t.

he spins his laptop around and starts mapping out a database schema like he’s been waiting for you to say it.

that’s how the side project starts.

lunches get longer. office hours get later. one day you bring your soldering kit to the library, and he lights up like you just handed him a rare pokémon card. the whole table smells like burnt plastic for an hour. no one complains. but no one sits near you either.

you nerd out hard. unapologetically. you find yourself going on tangents—about conductive thread, or how weird the i2c protocol is—and instead of zoning out, he asks questions. good ones. thoughtful ones. he doesn’t just tolerate your rants; he builds on them.

and okay, maybe you start noticing things.

like how he mumbles to himself when he’s focused. or how his hands are always warm. or how he smiles at you—not in a big, charming way, but in a quiet, earned one. like you’re the only one who gets to see this side of him.

it’s nothing serious. just… a shift.

you brush it off.

but your code’s never looked cleaner.

and your heart’s never beat louder.

✧✧✧

it happens by accident.

you’re heading toward the back patio of the student union, iced coffee in one hand, a stack of circuits notes in the other, when you spot him.

schlatt.

at one of the outdoor tables.

not alone.

there’s a group of students—three of them, maybe four—leaning in. cs majors, you recognize them. they’re the type who ask three questions per lecture and answer five more that weren’t theirs. big voices. bragging energy.

you can’t hear everything, but you don’t need to. the body language’s loud enough.

schlatt’s sitting off-center. not really in the circle. elbows tucked in, voice low, like he’s trying to contribute. like he wants to. but they’re talking over him. dismissing. one of them even laughs—not the good kind. the kind you’ve felt in your spine before.

and you watch it happen:

the way schlatt’s mouth tugs tight at the corner. the way he adjusts his sleeve, like it’ll make him smaller. the way he tries one more time to speak, then gives up halfway through the sentence and shrugs it off, pretending it didn’t matter.

they keep talking.

he goes quiet.

you’re frozen in place, coffee sweating through your fingers, because it clicks.

he’s like you.

he is you.

all that time you thought he was the confident one—the one who belonged. the one who was already part of something. but he’s not. not really. not when it comes to this. not when it comes to them.

he’s just better at hiding it.

better at laughing it off.

but the look in his eyes, right then—small and a little tired—that’s a look you know too well.

no one talks about what it feels like when your brain lights up for something and everyone else treats it like a joke.

no one talks about what it’s like to be too much in the wrong direction.

and suddenly, all your late-night rambling about microcontrollers and e-textiles feels different.

because he listened. not just because he was polite. but because he got it. you don't think you've ever felt so fully understood until him.

you take a step forward. you don’t know what you’re going to say.

but you’re not about to leave him sitting alone in a conversation that doesn’t want him.

not when you know what that feels like.

so you walk over.

“hey, there you are,” you say, nudging your knuckles gently against schlatt’s shoulder. “i was looking for you.”

he turns, surprised—then relieved. “oh—hey y/n.”

“sorry,” one of the students says, hesitant. “uh, are we… interrupting something?”

“nah,” you say, easy. “just didn’t want to miss my favorite stem guide.”

schlatt’s ears go a little pink.

you glance at the table—some kind of project group, you think. their laptops are open, notebooks out, but their conversation’s turned awkward now. the vibe’s off. not hostile—just… cliquey.

“you guys working on something for fundamentals?” you ask, glancing at their notes.

“uh, yeah,” one mutters. “trying to figure out the recursion stuff.”

you smile. “then you’re in luck. this guy’s a recursion whisperer.”

schlatt huffs a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

“i’m serious,” you say, looking at him now. “you explained it to me with like…those russian dolls. made it make sense in ten minutes.”

“you remember the russian dolls?”

“obviously,” you grin. “changed my life.”

he smiles, a little shy, but brighter now.

you turn to the group. “anyway, sorry to interrupt. i just wanted to steal him for a bit. we’re working on something together—well, more like, he’s doing the hard part and i’m nodding along and pretending to contribute.”

they chuckle. the tension eases.

“good luck, though,” you add, friendly. “you’ve got a good one here.”

you tap the back of his hand.

“ready, genius?”

he nods. stands up. follows you without question.

and once you’re a few steps away, you glance over and say, casually but soft:

“for the record? you’re way too smart to sit through that kind of conversation, with those kinds of people, and not say anything.”

his voice is quiet. “didn’t think they really wanted my advice…or any of my input, for that matter.”

"sucks for them," you bump his arm. “i do.”

he looks at you.

and smiles.

“you’re different,” he says.

you shrug. “nah. i just don’t have the patience for people who don’t know a good brain when they’re sitting next to one.”

he laughs under his breath—bashful, but warm.

“besides,” you add, nudging him again, “you’re the only guy on campus who’s ever made me care about code.”

“flattered,” he says, with a little bow of his head. “high praise.”

“it is,” you nod. “don’t let that go to your head, though.”

“too late.”

you both laugh.

and as you walk side-by-side down the hallway, something feels… lighter.

✧✧✧

the lab is mostly empty—just the hum of old fluorescents overhead and the rhythmic click of schlatt’s keyboard echoing off the cinderblock walls.

you’re both hunched over the prototype, wires splayed like spaghetti across the table, your laptop screen casting a pale blue glow over your notes. it’s late. not late-late, but late enough that you’ve lost track of time in that delicious, focus-hazed kind of way.

“okay,” you murmur, “i think that’s the last adjustment on the sensor matrix. wanna try running the loop again?”

schlatt doesn’t answer right away—he’s rereading your code, brows furrowed, mouth slightly open like he’s working through it out loud in his head.

you wait.

he presses enter.

the terminal blinks once more.

and then—

nothing.

the servo doesn’t twitch. the sensor reads null. everything is still.

you groan, letting your head thunk forward onto the table. “are you kidding me?”

“hang on,” schlatt mutters, already scrolling. “it’s not a full crash. there’s something—it’s just not hitting the output loop.”

“i swear,” you grumble, face still mashed into your notes, “if this is another semicolon issue, i’m throwing myself into a ditch.”

“nah,” he says, voice calm, reassuring. “it’s not your code.”

you lift your head just enough to side-eye him. “it’s not yours either, huh?”

he doesn’t answer right away.

instead, he reaches for the breadboard, fingers quick and precise as he repositions a single wire—green to yellow. it’s such a small shift you almost miss it.

“that,” he says, “was plugged into the wrong pin.”

you blink.

he presses enter again.

and this time, the prototype moves.

just a little—just a careful curl of synthetic fingers, one joint at a time, like a hesitant wave from a ghost hand.

your jaw drops.

schlatt stares too. for once, he’s quiet.

“…did we—?”

“yeah,” he breathes. “we did.”

you let out a half-laugh, half-squeak. “dude—”

you turn to him without thinking.

and he’s already looking at you.

and before your brain catches up with your body, you’re reaching out—arms around his shoulders, heart in your throat.

he stiffens for a second. then melts into it.

his arms curl around your waist, tentative at first, then tighter. his cheek brushes your temple.

“holy shit,” you whisper, still breathless. “we did it.”

“we really fucking did it.”

the hug lasts longer than it needs to. it shifts. softens. becomes something else.

your hands curl in the fabric of his hoodie. his thumb rubs slow circles at your back.

neither of you move to pull away.

but eventually—awkwardly—you both realize you probably should.

you shift first, just a little, arms loosening. schlatt mirrors you a second later, like he’s waiting for permission.

and then—

your foot bumps a loose cable under the table.

you stumble, just a half step, enough to make you grip his hoodie tighter out of instinct.

he catches you by the elbow—quick, steady—but in doing so, he knocks into the edge of the desk.

a pen clatters to the floor. your hip bangs against the chair. both of you freeze.

then, in perfect harmony:

“sorry—”

“sorry—”

you look at each other.

he’s flushed to the tips of his ears.

you’re no better.

his hand’s still on your elbow. yours is still in the front pocket of his hoodie. neither of you seems to know what to do with yourselves now.

“…so,” you say, trying to laugh it off, “we’re, uh—officially engineers now, right? or, mad scientists? mad engineers? built something that works and almost died doing it.”

“sounds about right,” he mumbles, eyes not quite meeting yours.

you step back fully, brushing imaginary lint off your sleeves. he clears his throat and bends to pick up the pen—just a little too quickly.

“we should, uh…” he gestures vaguely at the wires. “log this. before we forget what we changed.”

“yeah,” you nod. “documentation. good. yep. very sexy.”

he snorts.

and the tension cracks just enough for both of you to breathe again.

✧✧✧

friday lunch.

same table.

you’re there first, as usual—tray to the left, elbow room cleared, and your little “project napkin” tucked just out of sight beneath your phone.

it’s not schematics, not exactly. more like an outline of “natural” movements. lean angles. average post-meal proximity. potential trigger phrases that could ease the moment into something more than just eye contact and banter.

it’s stupid. it’s excessive. it’s so you.

but it’s not like you’ve kissed him yet.

and it’s not like you haven’t thought about it. a lot.

he slides into the seat across from you—slightly out of breath, hoodie slightly askew.

“hey,” he says. “sorry, i ran into a professor who wouldn’t stop talking about his cat’s gut biome.”

you snort. “sounds riveting.”

“almost kissed him out of pity.”

you choke on a bite of salad. “what?”

“nothing,” he mumbles, sipping chocolate milk. “just—brain fried. bad sleep. lots of… thinking.”

you nod. you get that.

you were up half the night replaying yesterday’s hug on a loop. you hadn’t meant to squeeze him that tight. hadn’t meant to say “good job, genius” like that. hadn’t meant for your fingers to linger on his hoodie hem when you stepped back.

but he hadn’t pulled away.

so.

so.

you both eat in silence for a minute. your foot brushes his under the table. once. twice.

neither of you moves.

finally, you say it. quiet. almost like a confession.

“i, uh… may have tried to engineer a perfect kiss scenario today.”

he freezes, sandwich halfway to his mouth.

“...engineer?”

you nod, cheeks warm. “like… ran a few simulations in my head. built a model. set parameters. i was…probably gonna initiate if you laughed three or more times by the end of lunch.”

his jaw drops. “are you serious?”

“extremely.”

he blinks. “because i wrote a whole conditional loop for this.”

“…what?”

he fumbles in his hoodie pocket and pulls out a sticky note. it reads:

python: if eyes_hold >= 3.5 and cafeteria_noise == low: lean_in()

you stare at it.

then back at him.

and burst out laughing. “we’re so stupid.”

“no,” he says, laughing too. “we’re scientists.”

“why can’t we just communicate like normal people?”

“who needs normal?”

he’s still smiling.

you are too.

and this time?

there’s no plan. no diagram. no if/then logic.

you just… lean in. and he meets you halfway.

your noses bump. just slightly. your knees knock beneath the table. it’s clumsy at first—uncoordinated, like every group project you’ve ever had to rescue last-minute.

but then his hand grazes your wrist. your mouth fits against his like it already knew how. like maybe, all along, this wasn’t something to calculate.

it just needed to happen.

and suddenly, none of it feels theoretical. not the way his lips press softly, then more certainly. not the quiet exhale he lets out when you shift just a little closer. not the way your fingers curl in the fabric of his hoodie like you’ve done it a hundred times.

no flowchart could’ve planned this.

it’s instinct. it’s connection. it's human.

it’s easy.

you pull back first. slow. breath caught somewhere behind your grin.

but before you can say anything—

he leans back in. less hesitant this time.

his hand cradles the side of your neck, thumb brushing just beneath your jaw. his mouth meets yours like a spark catching on dry kindling—familiar, but heady. deliberate. like he’s trying to commit it to memory. like he’s making up for every time he could’ve kissed you and didn’t.

your heart stutters. your fingers grip the edge of the table.

he tastes like chocolate milk and lip balm and something stupidly addictive.

when you part again—barely—you stay close, noses brushing, breath mingling.

“you’re gonna break my brain,” he whispers.

you grin. “then i guess i'll be the one to tutor you.”

his laugh is low and warm and very, very fond.

“deal.”

[zozowrites]

The Three Times Steve Put Exactly What You Wanted in Your Hands and the One Time He Didn't

I'm reposting some old works from AO3 on here, this is a

Steve Rogers x avengers!fem!reader

Words: 3.8k

TW: mentions of past trauma/descriptions (surgical), angsty-ish

“Ready for the jump?” Steve yelled at you in the back of quinjet. He would never yell at you except if absolutely necessary, and in this scenario it was. Over the roar of both the wind and the engine, only words spoken at an ungodly decibel could reach your ears. You nodded. 

Nothing is as fun as the jump. You used to think it was the debrief, which meant it was all over, but you quickly learned that missions stay with you far, far after the debrief. And the missions themselves slowly gained your amusement. Gradually it became more and more fun to jump into a forest in Germany with a few other agents and walk to the base, break in, take their data and log the men, and take the tunnels back for rescue. 

On the ground, the walking was the most boring part. When you were on missions with Nat, you would play I spy. With Peter you’d help explain concepts for his science classes, and with Bruce you’d debate different new occurrences in the science world. And theoretical physics, but that's besides the point. You’d only been on missions with Steve with other people. Never alone. 

The sticks crunched as quiet as possible as you kept walking. Left at the tree, right at the creek, and stop when you get to the rocks or the forcefield will stop you first. You couldn’t help but memorize every mission plan you got, because if anything went wrong it wasn’t just your life on the line. It was Steves and any other name that managed to squeeze out of you if you got captured, because they weren’t about to kill Captain America and SHIELD’s best agent before they spilled their guts under mind control, poison, or truth serum (the last one was a rumor). You pretended not to notice when Steve was looking at you in the moonlight but you kept close track so that when he wasn’t you could look back. The feeling of him looking at your swishing ponytail and side profile made you kind of nauseous. First off, the ponytail was certainly incredibly messy due to the drop and the hike. And secondly, you weren’t really a fan of your side profile. It wasn’t your least favorite quality, but when you thought about things you loved about yourself, it didn’t show up (but don’t worry, the list was quite long). 

You held your arm out to stop him once you had gotten to the rocks. Once you bent down to pick up some dirt from the ground, you stood up again and lazily tossed it at where the forcefield should be. It floated until it lit up a fence shape and disintegrated. 

“Well at least we know where the fence stops,” Steve said and sighed, putting his hands on his hips. Old boomer man was too slow to keep up with you. “Whats-”  He looked up at you, already halfway up the nearest tree. 

“The lowest branch is fifteen feet up, Y/N, how did you get up there already?” You responded by silently pointing to the rope that was still hanging on said lowest branch with your foot before you continued climbing. After you had made it to sit on the same branch a good thirty feet up in the air, you spat out the dirt you had been keeping in your mouth. You watched it fall over the forcefield fence, lighting up the extent of the barrier. 

“When Nat said you were unconventional, this is not what I had in mind.” He said and shook his head at himself. What had he had in mind? 

“Ok Captain, we still have a mission to do,” You told him and slipped the goggles off where they rested on your forehead to cover your eyes. You turned yourself backwards and took a deep breath, puffing your cheeks and holding your nose closed before falling in backwards as if scuba diving. 

On the ground, you walked faster in the shadows of the night and talked in quieter whispers. 

“That's not a move they teach at the Academy.” He said, amused. 

“No, but they do at scuba certification in the Maldives.” You responded. He held in a snort. “What? Does that not fit into your Unconventional box?” He didn’t have the time to shake his head in fake disgrace before you peeled back the closure of a vent and slithered in like a snake. He followed. 

The layout of all the remote Hydra bases are slightly different, but nothing too drastic. It's like stepping into the Target two miles from your house and not the one three blocks over. Everything is practically the same, you just came in the hopes this store isn’t out of pretzels like the other always is. 

Well, this Target was one with pretzels if you had ever seen one. You had done dozens of these missions but never actually encountered a real, live agent of the other side on one. There were two at the door to the lab that you shot with your stunning pistol before you called clear and Steve joined you. Through the locked doors of the lab you watched three or four scientists with steaming test tubes pacing back and forth, but not actually doing anything. 

“This has to be it!” You whisper yelled at Steve, finally excited. 

“But they aren’t actually doing anything, it has to be a hoax or a trap.” He rebutted. 

“Everything is a trap if you think about it too long. That's how capitalism gets you!” You said. “Pick up one of the soldiers hands and scan the door. Fifty bucks says those scientists aren’t even real people.” 

He did as he was told. But this time you were wrong. They were real people. Real mad people, too. Steve took them all out with one throw of his glorified frisbee. You put in the tiny USB shaped like the Eiffel tower and walked around the room. It was different from the others. It was brighter, with the light coming up through the white floorboards. They felt as if they were on the verge of breaking away and dropping you into the depths of nothingness. 

“Y/N” Steve called as the nearest scientist starter to stir awake. You pointed your gun at his shoulder and shot him down again. Without noticing how light your gun felt, you put it back into your waist holster and yanked the USB out, knocking over a bottle of blue substance off the counter. 

“Lets go,” You said and motioned him back to the door. But getting out was much, much harder than getting in. Pairs of soldiers came running after you as soon as the doors closed, shooting like their lives depended on it. For everything you knew about Hydra, it would be a safe bet to say it did. You sprinted around the next corner and shot back at the men before your gun clicked empty. Cap was standing right next to you, anticipating the next catch of his shield, but still made time to effortlessly slip one of his guns out of his holsters and place it in your empty hand, rendered useless without a weapon by your side. 

“Thanks” You shouted back at him and left the place back to back.

As soon as the doors to the Quinjet closed, you took off all your equipment. You unsnapped the parachute that had been on your back all this time and flung the utility belt full of resources to the ground. It skidded across the metal floors before coming to a rest under the line of seats. 

“What's the rush, Agent Y/L/N?” Steve asked you in a way that was intended to be flirty (hopefully) but it really wasn’t the right time. Before you could respond, you reached into your mission bag and found exactly what you were looking for. You popped the cap of the lipstick tube and quickly used the knife inside to cut off your pants. Why was this a jumpsuit in the first place? It's difficult to take off enough as it is. 

“Are you alright, Y/N?” He changed his question. No, you obviously weren't alright. The blue liquid you had spilled in the lab had gotten on your suit had soaked through the suit so it could burn your thigh. You slid against the cold back of the Quinjet and sat down, surrendering to the increasing pain. You didn’t care anymore that you were sitting in your underwear with your suit pants down by your ankles in front of Steve. You just wanted the pain to stop. He poured a bottle of emergency pure water over the hand-sized burn on your thigh. You liked to watch the water roll off your skin and turn on the floor with the movement of the Quinjet. What you didn’t like about the water, however, was how much more it made your leg burn. 

You closed your eyes to hold the tears back and let a long, slow, (accidentally loud), breath escape from your lips. This wasn't the worst pain you've ever been in. Not by a long shot. But it still made you feel like you could taste colors and hears smells. 

“Good? Bad?” He asked, concerned. 

“Bad, really really really bad” You said so fast. Immediately, he stopped the slow pour. He tightened the cap on it and put it back in the emergency kit. He stood up from his seemingly extremely uncomfortable position on the floor and over to the comm center. 

“We’ll need med on site when we land.” He said with as much control in his voice that he could muster before coming back to sit with you. 

While he was up, you debated whether or not it would be an appropriate thing to ask him. But the water was reacting with the acid in your skin and starting to bubble and boil and fizz. He was looking at you, right in the eyes, asking what you needed without actually using words. 

“Steve, will you-” You started to ask and held out your hands. Somehow, he knew exactly what you were asking him to do. He put his hand in yours and pulled you out from the little crevice you had nested yourself in and slid in behind you. Then he wrapped his hands around yours and used them to wrap both your and his arms around you and pulled you into him. You sighed and leaned back against his strong chest, matching your breathing with what you could hear of his. 

“I think I’m gonna go to sleep,” You said, tired of fighting to stay awake. The sun was just starting to rise, rays of sunlight penetrating through the windshield and reflecting contorted shadows of reality onto the back wall. 

“No, Y/N, I need you to stay awake for me.” He said in the calmest voice but it was already too late. You had given in to the pain.

It had been almost a year since your last mission. And it had taken almost as long to recover. But now you were fine. They figured out that the substance was the most aggressive form of acid, and it broke down every substance they tested it on except for your suit material. That included a sample of a civilian cadavers leg (don’t ask how they got that because you do not want to know). The new running theory was that you were superhuman. Anytime someone asked what you think about that theory, you responded “I will neither confirm nor deny that information” with a stern, monotone voice. Sometimes it was fun to play robot. 

Tony had decided to host another party on a whim, and you had decided to actually attend this one. For the last year you had been avoiding people like they were a virus to avoid their questions and stares about why you were always wearing some form of pajama shorts. The answer was because tight pants (the only type of pants you had) were too painful the first time you tried them on a couple months ago, so you just went back to Amazon and bought more pajama pants. But today you decided, would be different. You were finally ready to tell the world that a little unknown acid eating the skin and some of the muscle in your leg wouldn’t get you down. So you put on real jean shorts to prepare yourself to open your closet. 

The three racks of clothes stared back at you blankly. This was a lot. You wanted to wear a dress because Tony’s parties were black tie only (and that rule was strictly enforced). You tossed a couple cute dresses you rarely wore anymore onto your bed. There was the red one with the open back and gold collar, the pink one with the lace and sweetheart neckline, and the black one that clung to your body like wet dog smell. 

Once the party had died down, Tony had decided it was the right time to take out the really nice vodka. You didn’t much care for alcohol but after standing in insufferable gold heels and talking to insufferable people who asked about your leg and made sad faces at you for a couple hours made anything alcoholic sound like liquid heaven. Gathered into the stiff couches of the living room on the party floor (the living room you only sat in after parties, that is), Tony announced the game. 

“We’re playing strip truth or dare. If you don’t want to answer or do, you take off an item of clothing of your choice” He said. Then he turned to Peter, “So kid, that means you gotta go.”

You took off your gold shoes and tossed them at Peter, who wrapped them in webbing and tossed them back at you laughing. He was the only one who never asked about what happened. Well, besides Steve. At first he asked if you were okay every time you moved to stand up or sit down but you shot him daggers each time and conditioned him to stop bringing it up. It was embarrassing enough that you passed out in his arms and took your pants off like that in front of him that you never wanted to talk about that night again. 

“I choose Bruce,” Tony said and proceeded to tell him a dare, despite Bruce’s request for a truth. “I dare you to turn into the Hulk right now” 

“Tony, no” Literally everyone besides Tony in the circle said. Instead, Bruce took off his shoe. He tossed it onto the center of the “living room” table and the clothes of rejected truths and dares started to turn up there. 

It was Carol’s turn to pose a truth or dare and she chose Steve. 

“Dare.” 

“I dare you to kiss someone in this circle.” She said with smug arrogance on her face. This would surely get him to strip, right? 

“Wow Carol was not the person I would’ve pegged as the pervert of this group.” Vision stated plainly. 

“And who would that be?” Tony asked. 

“Why, you, Mr. Stark” He said back and we all snickered like we were in middle school and he just laid a sad burn on the teacher. 

“It’s not a perverted dare to pose, it's like the most common in truth or dare, frankly I’m surprised it hasn’t already come up” She said, defending herself.  Regardless, Steve put his finger to his temple to feign thinking and Tony groaned. “Stop pretending it's hard to choose, we all know you want to kiss me.” 

This one got an eye roll out of everyone this time. Steve just stood up from his spot on the loveseat next to your sofa and leaned down to whisper something in your ear. 

“Is it alright if I kiss you?” He asked in a gentle voice. You nodded. He cupped the back of your head before he brought his face away so he could bring it back. The kiss was short and sweet, just once with no tongue, but it wasn’t entirely impossible to imagine what it would be like with it. It would be like home. You knew that now. 

He pulled back and you couldn’t help but blush a little, no matter how hard you didn’t want to. Tony wolf whistled and a few others joined them. Another round of truths and dares went around before you were asked the inevitable. 

“Y/N, tell us about your supernatural family history.” Tony asked. You had chosen truth despite knowing this would be it. You didn’t want your next kiss with Steve to be another dare. 

You weren’t going to answer this, but you could entertain them. You held your hand out in Steve's direction. He handed you the bottle of vodka and you took a long sip. You extended the amount you downed by breathing through your nose. You set the bottle down and stood up. “Nat unzip me” 

She stood up too and gently tugged the golden zipper from the top collar of your tight, black dress down to your lower back where it ended. You slipped it off your shoulders and stepped out of the circle of fabric it left on the floor before bending to pick it up and toss it on the pile. You sat down with a satisfied smile on your face. You knew you had to drink that much to take off your dress. When this party had started you didn’t want to show your scars, but now you’d do anything to make it feel normal. So, you thought to yourself “what would you do if you hadn’t got that scar and were asked this question?” and the answer was take off your dress.  It was one of the good days for Moana -- the name you had given your scar after careful consideration and one watch of the movie -- because it wasn’t very puffy or painful, it was just a faded yet vibrant red. You felt fine and confident about the rest of your body. Surprisingly, it hadn’t changed much through the months of recovery. As long as no one asked about your first scar, Gennadon -- named as tribute to your past self, you would be fine. It was hard to ignore a large scar running up the left side of your stomach from a few inches below your bra to a few above your underwear. You hoped a copious amount of cleavage was enough to distract them. 

Most people in the circle were watching and whistling as you showed yourself off and sat down again. Most people excluded Steve Rogers.  “It's okay to look, Steve,” You told him. Besides you, every other person in the circle had noticed how he tried very hard to do his very best to respectfully not look at you almost naked. He allowed himself to meet your eyes and you smirked when they fluttered down to the rest of you.

"Scalpel,” The lead surgeon on the team asked the scrub nurse in a commanding tone. 

“Scalpel,” She echoed as she placed one in his hand. You were awake on the table, and no one noticed. But that was the point. All of their last attempts had resulted in a dead “volunteer”, so this time they tried to transplant the very same foreign organ with you awake. 

After a few hours, an intern bumped into the part with your head and moved the drape covering your face. She saw you blink and screamed. 

“She's awake!” She yelled. “This is inhumane!” She huffed and left. She didn’t bother to cover your face again. After that basically everyone else in the operating room left too. They said it was inhumane but no one ever came to save you. No one reported it to the hospital that an illegal organ transplant was taking place right under their nose because that meant they were involved in such a thing. 

So when the lead surgeon finally needed an assist again, the only one left was you. He set up a mirror so you could see the reflection of your abdomen in it. He gloved your hands and looked at you. You held your hand out for a scalpel and he placed one in your hand. Slowly the surgery came to a close. Well, he had you close. And he left you the bad suture string for you to close with. He gave you the type that left ugly scars. 

He reversed the anesthesia with another illegal drug. “I always knew you’d make a good surgeon, Dr. Gennadon.” He said with an antagonizing smile. 

You glared back at him. 

You woke up in a cold sweat and gasped for air. You tried in vain to throw the blankets off of you and run into the bathroom like you normally did, but it led to no avail. Steve had a steel grip on you even in his sleep. His face was sweetly nestled into the soft spot of your neck between your shoulder and face, but it couldn’t stay there. You needed to breathe. You did the only thing you could think of, and frantically ran your hands through the sheets feeling for anything fleshy and not yours. You finally grabbed something and yanked, not realizing what you had done. 

“YOW!” Steve awoke with a jolt. 

“Sorry sorry sorry I’m so sorry Steve that was not what I wanted to grab! Are you okay, honey?” You asked him, sitting you both up. You tilted his face so that he’d look at you. 

“Yup I’m fine” he said through gritted teeth and a forced smile. That means he must’ve seen the involuntary tears running down your face that, unfortunately, always accompanied the dreams. Now he was focused on you, using his simultaneously soft and calloused fingers to lovingly wipe the tears from your cheeks. “Want to tell me?” 

You shook your head, you never did. 

“Well, it's just a nightmare, right?” Steve asked you, searching on your face for some sign of fake reassurance. Both you and him knew very well that that was a blatant lie. “Well it's over now. You’re here now.” 

He wrapped his arms around you in an attempt to draw you back into bed so you could sleep but that didn’t help. It activated your stupid fight or flight response and you slapped him across the face when his hug intensified. 

“I’m so so so so sorry, Steve” You said again. It seems you couldn’t stop hurting him. But he stayed. 

“It's totally fine.” He said and rolled over to fall asleep. 

“It's just a nightmare” You repeated his words to yourself as if they would make it true. You both knew it was a lie. Those were memories.

[moiraimyths]

An Announcement on The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe)'s Route Order

Happy Saturday, fateful friends! We hope you're enjoying the update, if you've had a chance to play!

Some folks have asked us, both now and in the weeks leading up to Shae and Maeve's routes, what the overall route update order will be for the rest of NDM.

We're going to answer that question today, much too rigorously 👇

Initially, we'd planned to keep the route order a semi-secret in order to hype up the reveal for the next batch of characters, but after some thought/observation, the Moirai Myths team now thinks that revealing the order, and further explaining the order, would be more holistically useful to our players.

First things first: We are most likely always going to do route updates in two half-batches, instead of releasing the full route for one character at once. Two halves of two routes is roughly equivalent to one full route, so we could release each route one at a time, but this decreases the odds of us having an update that interests you if you're only presently interested in a few members of the cast. With this in mind, we've purposefully plotted out the routes so that the midway point for all routes will end on a cliffhanger or point of intrigue to encourage discussion/speculation regarding "what could come next," etc. If you've played Shae and Maeve's routes thus far, you'll know exactly what we mean by that. 😄

On that note: Why are Shae and Maeve's routes first? A small part of it is logistical. While they're not our most popular characters, most people like Shae and Maeve well enough coming out of the demo (Vol. 1), which gives them a decently broad appeal-potentiality. Preliminary data of ours also suggests that the average person's interest in these characters increases following the update. *wink* However, the second and larger reason is because of NDM's overarching story. While each route, as with other dating sims, explores the specific character arcs and personal struggles of their namesakes, these things are not the sole focus of the routes. NDM's story begins in a cold war scenario that could very well turn into a hot war scenario under the wrong set of circumstances. These plot points are persistent across the game, but certain elements are looked at more closely in some routes than in others.

Shae and Maeve basically serve as the introductory characters for our world beyond Vol. 1. Their routes explain essential concepts, such as the class dynamics of Tír na nÓg, the nature of the War of the Courts, etc., and they get some pretty big backstory questions answered and out of the way early on. This allows future routes to focus on other, similarly critical subjects, unimpeded by the need to go over previously-revealed information from the other routes in the same amount of detail. To that end, since major reveals in Shae and Maeve's routes may be comparatively understated in the next batch of routes, this begs the question...

✨ Is there an official recommended reading order? ✨

Yes. And some of our players have already guessed it:

Book of the Traveller (Vol. 1) is the "inciting incident" content for the game and must be read first. After that, you should play Shae's route (Book of the Soldier, Vol. 2), then Maeve's route (Book of the Warrior, Vol. 3). This means, according to the numbering: The next route batch will be Flannán and Aífe. Following them, Robin and Keagan.

We understand that in a lot of visual novels, routes can be read in any order without much impact to the story or experience. This is not so much the case with The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe), for the reasons we have previously explained. While we would not say the game would necessarily be ruined if players chose to, say, start with Keagan's route and work their way backwards, it would nevertheless be a less satisfying experience because you won't be getting the gradual build up of certain concepts and plot points in the prior volumes. In a sense, it would be somewhat similar to reading an actual book series out of order: You could probably read The Two Towers ahead of The Fellowship of the Ring and still have an enjoyable time, but you might find yourself asking, "Hm, why are they sending Hobbits on an important task like this? Sort of odd that an elf or human wasn't given this duty instead."

We hope this post is clarifying as to our artistic intent and general plans, and remember: Your favourite characters will appear in major ways across multiple routes, and we will be releasing side story DLCs featuring the other characters in between updates. 😊

Slán go foill! (Bye for now!)

-The Moirai Myths Team

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

Actually I had one other Edward thought and it's related to what the Classic Series did with his character. It's sort of two-fold:

They sort of made his thing "creative problem solving."

They gave him his storytelling and brass-band-loving traits, sort of gave him a bit of (midbrow) culture.

Now #1 I don't take too seriously, it was just Britt Allcroft's favorite trait. It's like that meme pinning a ribbon with X as "the highest honor I can bestow." I like it for Rusty. I don't dislike it for Edward, I wouldn't want his character to be utterly remade in its image. That being said it makes sense that "initiative" and an ability to make-do in awkward circumstances are qualities that helped him prove his value in the 1920s. Also it is a seed that later sprouted into "P.A. Problems" and "Hunt the Truck" so I can't possibly be mad about it.

I actively love #2, though — it's such a good development of his character that (much like Henry loving trees, or Duck loving to imagine sea travel) it can be hard to remember it's not actually canon to the RWS. But it works super well, and it really nails what I see in RWS Edward in a way almost no other portrayal ever has. He likes stories and thrills and pleasure.

This is also 100% a reason that there's a lot of both story and song referenced in Bird at Barrow Central. Like, when I extrapolate backwards from the one (1) data point of Edward then it seems necessary that Furness rail culture instilled an abiding love for these things in him.

I also think this love of arts-related stuff is an interesting way to characterize Edward as this distinct era that gets supplanted by an era represented by Gordon, Henry, and James (James's original class of course date from like 1913 but, c'mon. He's the most Roaring 20s-coded character ever, short of maybe Gordon himself. 'S'why his theme in the TVS is jazz!) Because during and after the Great War there was a focus on efficiency, power, innovation, money, excitement. It really fits that Edward is a throwback to the era before, though. Obviously the Edwardian era was industrialized but it was also an age characterized by romanticism and a much higher regard for art and story and sentiment. La Belle Epoque and all'at.

[dukeofankh]

Almost everybody has at least a *little* bit of a point.

Yeah. Even them. And being wrong about everything else doesn't actually change that. They might not know how that point should actually be interpreted, they might come to foolish or even actively harmful conclusions from that point. They might radically overstate how prevalent or important the point is. But don't fall into the trap of refusing to acknowledge things that are true just because a bad person says them.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen someone from a group I belong to dunking on someone from some outgroup, even a very harmful outgroup, and in doing so, denying basically true things that we would absolutely agree with if we were talking about them in private.

I dunno. Maybe it bugs me for neurodivergent reasons. Maybe I'm a pedantic ass.

The other day I got into a massive fight online with a guy in a feminist group because he was squabbling with a bit of a dipshit who pointed out that men are under a lot of pressure to become financially successful, and that's why they do stupid shit like get into crypto.

And like... rather than say "yeah, men are still expected under hegemonic masculinity to be breadwinners, despite the advances of women into the workforce, the economy being in shambles and the middle class having been whittled to a toothpick at this point. We need to work as feminists to challenge that gendered expectation, and as leftists to rebuild the power of labour to allow everyone, both men and women, to have a living wage that can allow for a family and a dignified life." This other feminist guy decided instead that, since the concept of men being pressured to be economic providers was being used in a way that sounded like it was suggesting that women only want to date rich men, it was redpill propaganda and, therefore, fascist misinformation. He went with, "what are you talking about, Gen X killed the concept of corporate success as marker of personal worth, everyone agrees that being a workaholic is bad and unattractive now. The idea that you think you'll be judged for being poor is a lie spread by the right to radicalize you into hating women." He did not react well when I pointed out that he was just as wrong as the other guy was. More wrong, actually.

And like...you can build multiple arguments from the same data point. Some are well reasoned, some aren't. Someone can feel pressure and assume it's much more widespread than it is, or that it takes a much more extreme form than it really does. But if you're going to coherently argue against an idea, you have to honestly appraise the situation and figure out what grains of truth it has in it. You have to acknowledge that core root of truth and show them how it means something else.

If, instead of doing that, you just deny the true thing because the other person's argument is built on it and you want to stamp it out? Because, hey, they interpreted it wrong, it's not like they really believe something true? You act as though a fact used to support a lie is also a lie. And if you do that, and argue against the facts because their conclusions are stupid, you construct a little world where, in refusing to accept both their flawed argument AND the fact it's based on, you become more wrong than they are. And you make the deeply foolish choice of picking a fight in that world. And if it's on the internet, that little world can become pretty big. Tactically, it's about the dumbest thing you could do. It ensures that they will keep fighting you because...you're fucking obviously wrong? It radicalizes people, because suddenly the only people who will acknowledge the truth on this thing they care about are other terrible people. It makes your side look dogmatic and ignorant. And apart from all of that...it gets things completely backwards.

Your principles are what you want to use to change the world for the better. You believe them because you honestly believe that following your principles improves things, because they are based on a solid grasp of how the world works. Your beliefs follow from what is true. If you flip it so that whether something is true is based on whether it supports your beliefs...that's a bad road to go down.

[queenrizzardnthelizardscissored]

anyone else feel like all those analysis/video essays from 2014-2020 that deal with politics in media and philosophy and political debunking (think hbomberguy, shaun, skip intro, jack saint, big joel etc) feel so. idk. depressing now?

like they all try so hard to analyze this media and these events and these political movements, and they often have like. a LOT of effort put in. graphs, elaborate data, etc, and when i watched them then, it was like an antidote to all the far right bullshit that was spewed all over the place often by ppl laughing at it. highly entertaining and funny and also interesting and informative and a gateway for you to research more and think, and a lot of them help me develop my views on like. far right looneys from "they're just assholes" to "the large ones are motivated by capital, economics, and grifting, and the lower-class ones are reeling from economic shifts and tie cultural memory with economic memory (eg. I can't buy a house now, therefore the gays are what's wrong with the world since they showed up then.)" and these videos kind of have this hopeful tinge to them. like they all end with stuff like "well, if we build communities and organize labor and talk to these people, (and produce enough content to combat the far-right stream of disinfo) then maybe, maybe we can win. it will take a massive amount of change but we can do it, on a small scale first then a larger one." and then like none of that happened.

like the antidote was made and it was wonderful and it didnt matter for anyone except those healthy anyway. n like none of it happened. there wasnt mass community organizing (i tried but like. i was one teen), the ppl who were far right didnt stop being far right, and we like. went backwards. like there was a vid about how modern family or whatev normalized gay ppl and now its like we're going back. like far right assholes are in power n culturally important, the last election had right-wing talking points as the fulcrum of every discussion and trump WON by way way more than last time and most ppl i know either shifted right or were radicalized left but hopeless abt it. u see all these vids and they're like "well, heres a way we could fix this, here's the data to back this up, etc etc etc" or "here's how this media perpetuates negative beliefs about police" or whatever and then we didnt fix it and the media didnt change or still exists. all the hope they seem to have feels so fcking hollow when we are in the future they talk about and know everything still sucks.

[anonymousdandelion]

The Trolley Problem

Written for the @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt of the day…

Doctor Who, outsider POV.

It was Jillian’s own idea, to augment her final ethics essay by collecting her own data: asking random people on the street how they would handle the Trolley Problem. Her class has spent hours debating it. But how do people react to the question when actually put on the spot, without any time to consider their response?

Her current subject is a man she found standing outside one of those old-fashioned police boxes.

“So,” Jillian explains, “there are five people tied to the track, directly in the path of the oncoming train. If you don’t do anything, they all die. But if you pull the lever, you’ll save those five people, but instead cause the train to run over the person on the other track—“

“Why am I always the one forced to choose?” the man murmurs, and something in his tone makes her break off in her explanation, looking up from her notebook and back at his face.

That quickly, the stranger’s expression has changed from an amiable smile to some dark storm of several emotions that Jillian can’t begin to interpret.

She takes an involuntary step backwards.

“I hate these situations,” the man says. She can’t quite tell if he’s talking to her. “I really, really hate them. No matter what, I always lose.”

A beat of silence.

“I always lose,” he repeats, quieter.

Jillian swallows. “It’s just,” she says weakly, “philosophy. A thought experiment.”

“Yeah. Of course.” The man’s gaze refocuses on her, abruptly and unnervingly sharp. “Just a thought experiment. Right up until it isn’t.”

A long silence passes, while Jillian tries to think what to say to that.

Then the man shakes his head, and some of the horrible tension seems to break.

“Take my advice,” he says, lighter now. “Stop torturing yourself and other people with no-win thought experiments, and try using some of that energy to stop people getting tied onto train tracks in the first place. That’d be a nice change, don’t you think?”

“I…” He does have a point, Jillian supposes. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Good. Keep it in mind.”

He nods at her, then smiles — just a little too bright for comfort — and walks briskly away.

Jillian takes a deep breath, watching the man disappear around the corner and feeling somehow more shaken than she usually is by weird conversations with strangers.

Maybe she’s collected enough data for the day.

[spectrum-studios]

Dream [IaMD]

She? Them?

Distractor!

Semi hacker! (Actual harmless pranks)

Harpy!

[Passive: Loop loop loop on!] If she starts running in a loop, her stamina will start to drain extremely slowly.

[HEY LISTEN] She has a skill that overrides the killer's highlights (except for being mafi's), which is to be used when someone is being chased.

[Class passive: Backtrack] She can walk backward at the same speed as moving forward. Perfect for checking the killer(s)!

[I'M MAKING TRUMPET NOISES BUT MY STEALTH IS MAXIMUM] That ghostwalker aids Dream in the weirdest ways. Making her hard to hit and upon raising the blade and making trumpet noises, she turns invisible! The only thing to help killers hit her is the noises!

Builderman is questioning HOW the HELL she got the GHOSTWALKER when it's locked away in the HQ with the other SFOTH blades.

[Not much information to learn, ask questions to add more data]

[tgrailwar-zero]

"No matter what your opinions on the matter are, the universe is moving on. You can either cling to a civilization that will go extinct and will never acknowledge you even if you champion it, or you can be a herald of humanity's end and a different future for the planet. Still, take whatever path you please. You're unbound to anyone or anything but yourself, after all."

"If you want to understand accepting inevitable ends and worldly destruction, take a closer look at your 'Invader.' She took up the artificial Extra-Class Archimedes gave Sefar for a reason. That Spider… ah, that 'serpent'… she has the power to grab the food chain of any world and tear it apart."

"Regardless, you're going to be very busy soon. This place is beginning to respond to your magical energy. Take care not to die."

And with that, he was gone.

You finally had a chance to look around. It still felt unsettling, being here. Less disgust filled your body, though you could still feel that foreign data, or rather that 'remnant' data, clinging to you. It was odd. You felt powerful here.

Your other Servants walked next to you-- none of them any the wiser of what you had just experienced. He was right about the amount of time that had passed- a second, maybe less.

You heard your AVENGER's voice.

SALIERI: "Look."

Focusing elsewhere-- well, everywhere... you saw shadows forming. Shadow Servants, all dragging themselves and manifesting themselves out of the dark mana staining this place.

The second one of the shadows spotted another, it lunged at one of its counterparts. The two shadows began to engage in combat, before a burst of magical energy.

It was clear why this place was restricted. Any attempts at summoning were rendered mad, and lashed out at the first thing they could see. More shadows manifested- and all of them began to engage in combat, ignoring your presence.

KUKULKAN: "They're fighting each other…?"

NERO: "Better them than us. Still, these are far from proper Heroic Spirits. They're phantoms, wild and obsessive. Summoning a real Servant here will take focus."

SALIERI: "Think again."

He pointed as a massive shadow wrenched itself free from the darkness, manifesting. The air warped around it, its massive frame covered with bulging muscles and white fur. Magical energy crackled around it, seeming less like a human Heroic Spirit and more like a Magical Beast given form.

The other shadows turned towards it, a few making moves to attack, but they were swiftly knocked away. Other shadows kept their distance, as the massive beast looked around.

MONSTROUS BULL: "Urroohh…"

It looked at you, before its mouth split open with a terrifying bellow.

MONSTROUS BULL: "UURRROOUAAAHHHH!"

It swung its massive weapon down towards you- a blur of light shooting past your eyes as KUKULKAN caught it, though her footing seemed to shudder a bit from the weight of the impact. Her heels dug into the ground, cracking the hard stone as she yelled and pushed it away, the massive monster stumbling backwards.

NERO: "That's… that's the Minotaurus! What- was he drawn by the Master's magical energy? Is this the summoning capability of this hellhole?!"

The massive minotaur swung his axe again, KUKULKAN grabbing you by the waist and ducking you out the way before a blast of magical energy fired towards it, knocking it square in the chest. Your eyes snapped towards your CASTER, who had summoned a pair of Mystic Codes that were orbiting her.

NERO: "How dare! Did I say you could draw blood from my Ensemble? You're in the presence of an Emperor, so you'd best behave yourself."

KUKULKAN: "There's more incoming!"

SALIERI: "Servants summoning themselves for the sake of your crusade. Well… your old crusade. These don't seem like peaceful types."

His magical energy flared outward, his armor manifesting.

SALIERI: "…On your call, Masters."

Another set of figures- both of them heavily armored, clawed their way out of the darkness.

ARMORED TANK: "HYAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHA!"

The larger armored warrior thundered towards you, deceptively fast even considering his massive frame. He drew his weapon, spinning it wildly as he moved-- thrusting it forwards.

There was a crash of lightning as the charging armored figure was knocked backwards, a figure landing in front of you. The girl from the tavern, who had been adorned in that bridal gown. She was still wearing it, the white fabric fluttering behind her and stained a bit by the dust, but your eyes were drawn to the massive weapon tightly grasped in her hands.

Her weapon had smashed into the ground, causing a massive indent as energy flared around her. She spun her massive maul over her head, her feet settling back as she adjusted her body to its weight.

She turned towards you, her voice coming out as a strained, violent growl as electricity sparked from her body.

QUIET BRIDE: "…Ru… n…! Nnn... not… s... afe…! People can't… be here…!"

[michaelgogins]

Barry Vercoe (24 July 1937 – 16 June 2025)

I will not recapitulate what others have said in tribute to Barry Vercoe. You can read the Wikipedia article, or Richard Boulanger’s tribute (which is quoted in full here), or look at Barry’s old home page at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or read his New Zealand obituary.

Here I will offer my personal thanks to Barry for creating what, in my considered opinion, is one of the best musical instruments in history — Csound. I use it for almost all of my musical compositions.

There are now other systems, such as Max or Supercollider, that can do all, or almost all, of what Csound does. However, Csound came first, and is an ancestor of these systems. For at least some composers, such as myself, Csound is still easier to use, and perhaps more powerful. And just because it is older, Csound has the huge advantage of a very large base of running musical examples and pieces.

Here I will also offer my appreciation of Barry’s design choices and his implementation of Csound. My appreciation is based on my own experience, not only as an intensive user, but also as a sometime member of the Csound development team, when I contributed a number of features to Csound and came to understand Barry’s outstanding ability as a computer programmer.

There are some things I definitely do not like about the Csound code, mainly the cryptic names, and the use of preprocessor macros. Aside from that, here are a few of the good things in Barry’s code:

Of course the big home run was writing Csound in platform-neutral C, still the most performant programming language, and still available on more platforms than any other.

The extreme simplicity and efficiency of the inner loop for running Csound performances.

Invisible, automatic handling of multiple notes playing at the same time, for the same instrument.

The extremely flexible design for unit generators (opcodes), the building blocks of sound synthesis. Essentially, although written in C, Barry’s unit generators are classes -- data structures that derive from a virtual base class, and include methods for operating on their own data. The virtual base class idea makes it quite easy to extend Csound with new unit generators, and now even plugin unit generators.

The musical power and flexibility of Csound’s score language, which permits the user to define any set of fields for an event; and these fields are not limited to integer values, but are real numbers. Furthermore, based on his experience as a composer, Barry made sure his score language could handle tied notes, polyphony, changes of tempo, and so on. This is far more powerful than MIDI.

The policy of complete backwards compatibility. The very first examples and compositions still run on today's Csound!

Based on Barry's foundation, the current implementation of Csound (far more capable than the original) remains highly efficient, flexible, and easy to extend.

[miirshroom]

Shadow of the Erdtree Foreshadowing that I haven't seen mentioned much

Some of the clues that the writers knew the direction that the DLC was headed in during development before Elden Ring was released in 2022:

Jarburg was one of the last elements finished in the base game, with Jar Bairn being added in patch 1.03 on March 17th. One of the NPC's who significantly ties into Radahn's questline is Warrior Jar Alexander - mentioned by Jar Bairn - who presumably scoops Radahn's flesh into a pot after the festival concludes. Guess what also changed in patch 1.03? Radahn's hitboxes were stealth adjusted, making him easier to kill. The DLC would then go on to heavily feature pots and Potentates. And Radahn.

Radahn is actually just as mysterious as Godwyn, in that neither of them are ever able to directly speak for themselves as to what are their ambitions. But Radahn has an edge in importance: he shares the same naming prefix as "Radagon", and this similarity is further emphasized with the "Rada" fruit placed throughout the DLC. Radagon is THE root catalyst below everything wrong in the Lands Between (expressed in being the final boss), and in a class far above any individual demigod for all of the threads that tie back to him. Prior to the DLC Godwyn had closure in the form of Fia's mending rune, and Godrick the Grafted/Golden basically being Godwyn-lite. Like, if Godwyn had been around he would have claimed the same rune as Godrick. About Radahn, it was known that he emulated Godfrey, which raises the question "Who is consort to Radahn as Godfrey is to Marika?". And why did he challenge the stars anyways? The DLC appears crafted to answer the questions about "why is Radahn?" that people didn't think to ask.

DLC plans are probably the reason why the devs cut the dreambrew quest. It suited an earlier version of Miquella's character that did not make sense anymore once the decision was made to have Miquella be taken by the Lord of Blood and corrupted. However, because there is extensive data mining for the game, just knowing that there was a dreambrew quest culminating in the "Miquella is St. Trina revelation" (and the theoretical "Age of Abundance and Decay" ending) was how Miquella was previously contextualized by fandom. Think about that: Miquella, the empyrean associated with sleep/dream, was understood through wishful thinking about content that was purposefully not implemented in the release version of the game.

Relying on cut content as secret canon is a slippery slope to disappointment, but in hindsight with full knowledge of the DLC the intention may be clearer. The player who looks backwards and inwards into the unused code of the game discovers a version of Miquella as he was. But since then the game version Miquella has undergone character development, by means of being taken by the Lord of Blood - as implemented with the cocoon of the empyrean. "Mohg, Lord of Blood" as a demigod character was also speculated as a late addition to the base game according to data miners who note that his AI is simply labelled "Greater Demon". Giving the impression that Miquella's diminished role in the base game narrative coincides with Mohg's increased status.

[tickle-bugs]

Hellooo! If prompts are still open can I request some ticklish loki? :) maybe the prompt “ you’re not ticklish? Really now? Lets see about that”

Or somethin, feel free to improvise :))) teehee

Thank you so much!

In Fond Memory

Summary: As an analyst, Mobius's knowledge of Loki comes from stale sets of data. He wants to know more about his partner. Loki decides to take them on a tour of his memories...to interesting results. Pre-relationship to confessing Lokius!

This got wildly out of hand. We're a little over 6k words. Not super happy with this fic, but I'd been sitting on it for too long to start over. Have the long-simmering origin story of Loki's eighth rib lmao.

The TVA cafeteria is chilled and reliably empty when Mobius and Loki take their lunch break. As usual, the break consists of Loki watching Mobius eat--both lamenting his agonizing pace and soaking in his company. 

“I know nothing about you.” Mobius takes a thoughtful bite of his salad. His non-sequiturs phase Loki less and less these days. They make an interesting pair, he thinks--a fallen god burdened with caring and a mustached auditor who speaks only in riddles. 

“I thought you knew everything about me.” Loki huffs. 

“More like bits and pieces. I know little factoids. What makes you tick.” Mobius points at Loki with his fork, a tomato skewered on the end. 

“So then you know what you need?” Loki plucks the tomato off the fork and pops it in his mouth. It crunches beautifully. 

“Well, I mean, I’d like to know more. If a certain someone would like to share with the class.” Mobius replaces the stolen tomato with a pointed stare. 

“You are terrible at asking for what you want.” Loki steals a crouton from Mobius’s salad. 

“Yeah? Pot, meet kettle,” Mobius chuckles, wiping his hands. Loki smiles, but the thought rattles around in his brain. Mobius makes so much noise, truly. Noise about morals and fixing things, about proving himself better than the TVA believes him to be--useless, frivolous noise. 

Compelling noise.

“Fine.” Loki sniffs. He holds out his open hand. 

“Fine…What?” Mobius raises his eyebrows. 

“Your TemPad.” Loki wiggles his fingers insistently. Mobius stares at him, clearly calculating the risk, and then slides his TemPad into the waiting palm. Loki balances the weight of his past smoothly in one hand--he’d expected the TemPad to fall heavier with a sense of occasion. He frowns at it.

These little reminders that he’s not special—significant, really…they start to grate on him after a while. 

“You don’t have to do this, Loki.” Mobius’s voice is worn smooth by something like fondness. It’s compelling to the cowardice still within him, but Mobius will stop looking at him like that if he doesn’t at least try. 

Loki fiddles with the device until the clock hands on Ms. Minutes’s digital face spin rapidly backwards. A portal of orange light opens beside the table. 

“Shall we?” Loki gestures. He can’t quite make eye contact. 

…….

They stride through the door to Old Asgard’s throne room in all its glittering glory, when its majesty seemed untouchable by the whims of war and time. Mobius gapes at the high ceilings and intricate stonework with a wide grin. It’s cute, stupidly so, but then the grand doors open yet again and Loki’s hackles raise.

He pulls Mobius behind one of the grand pillars and puts his finger to his lips. 

“They can’t see us, Loki. It’s a memory—“

Loki clamps a hand over Mobius’s mouth. Mobius rolls his eyes. He’s right, of course he is, but the survivalist in him can’t take the risk. Not with Odin. 

A younger Loki, toothy and tiny, races up to Asgard’s great throne. He stops before the giant steps, cradling something in a bright red cloth. Odin heaves a great sigh. 

“Father, look! I got my spell to work!” Young Loki carefully holds up the bundle. The fabric falls away to reveal a bulbous little frog with stark blue eyes. It blinks each eye separately.

“What is this?” Odin looks down upon the creature with disdain. 

“It’s Thor.” Young Loki beams. The frog leaps onto his shoulder, then his head, and ribbits triumphantly. He laughs. 

“Bring my son back to me at once!” Odin hisses fiercely. 

“But—“

“Now!” Odin’s shout still tears something open in Loki all these years later. He flinches back into Mobius. The younger Loki does the same, but there’s no one to hold him. 

With a shaky voice, he murmurs an incantation and folds Frog Thor back into the fabric. He tosses the bundle ahead of him and, in a flash of green, a young and shiny Thor stumbles on newly human legs. He’s shorter--still taller than Loki, as he always was--and rounder in the cheeks, but he’s the unmistakable spitting image of his father. His cape, no longer frog-sized, unfurls to brush his ankles. 

“Woo! Loki, that was awesome!” Thor cheers. He pulls young Loki in for a sweeping, spinning hug. His boyish giggles are infectious--soon young Loki joins in, clinging to his brother to keep from falling. 

“Get out.” Odin seethes. The throne room doors slam open, echoing his command. 

“Father--” Thor tries, but one icy look from Odin silences him. He immediately bends the knee, so small that his cape nearly swallows him whole. Young Loki looks at him in disbelief, but when he reaches for his brother, Odin clasps his gloved hand around the shaft of Gungnir, the Spear of Heaven. 

Young Loki stumbles backwards, then flees, scrambling right by his older self without a thought. Loki turns his eye to Odin, the golden sack of shit, and scowls. 

“Come,” Loki says hollowly, following himself outside. He doesn’t look back. He knows Mobius is with him. 

He walks the familiar grounds but the stone doesn’t remember him. The sky is too bright, the torches too warm--this is a childhood preserved in amber. It’s too clear to be real. He passes his hand through the braziers, bitterly amused by the way the flame clings to his fingers. It’s not hot. 

Loki finds his younger self exactly where he expects him to be—no amount of years could erase that instinct to hide, to wait, to be forgotten until he could emerge again. The child is tucked between a pillar and one of the giant braziers, his dark clothes lending themselves as camouflage. 

Young Loki didn’t have that fire in him, yet. The scorn of being lesser. He was still naive, still thought Odin’s love was a real, attainable thing. 

“Loki?” Frigga approaches. Loki looks up at his mother’s face for the first time in years, but she peers directly through him. He steps aside as she approaches his younger self. When the child doesn’t answer, she crouches in front of him. It’s unbecoming of a Queen, but she’d never cared much about that. 

“What’s wrong, darling?” Frigga takes his younger copy’s face into her hands. She wipes away his tears with her thumbs and his skin briefly shimmers its natural blue. 

“Father, he…” Young Loki shakes his head, retreats further. “I upset him.”

“Oh.” She swipes more tears from his face. “Let us spend the day together, hm? I have new tricks to show you.”

The child allows his mother to lead him away, down onto the giant lawn beneath the terrace. Loki watches them go, the bitter sting of grief still raw, even after all this time. 

“My mother was…is everything to me.” Loki sniffs. He can’t tear his eyes away from her. It’s selfish to miss her, but he’s a selfish wretch. 

“She seems like a wonderful woman.” Mobius’s hand is warm on Loki’s shoulder. He leans into it. 

“Extraordinary. There’s no one like her.” He leads them over to a bench on the terrace, one that overlooks the most spectacular view of the palace lawns and waters beyond. He watches his younger self fling bursts of magic back and forth with his mother. 

“Can I ask you a silly question?” Mobius turns to face Loki better. Loki raises his brow. 

“Are you still…blue? Under here?” Mobius gestures at Loki’s face. “I’m not too sure about how this magic stuff works. It’s fascinating.”

Loki barks out an embarrassing laugh and does his best to rein it in, but surprise still leaves him chuckling. Mobius looks at him like…well, he’s not entirely sure what that look is. No one’s looked at him so softly before. 

“I was raised Asgardian, but the nature of changing forms is…fickle. Do it too much and you lose sight of where you start.” He turns his hand over, back and forth, and his skin glimmers blue. Mobius takes his hand, wrinkling his nose slightly at the cold. 

“That’s awful wise of you.” Mobius squeezes his fingers. 

“I like to think I have my moments.” Loki smiles. Mobius holds out the TemPad to him. Loki pushes a few things on it, opening another portal. They step through it with lighter hearts. 

…

What greets them is not the stale brutalism and dizzying expanse of the TVA cafeteria, but the very same terrace, gleaming in summer sun.

“Okay, so this…isn’t headquarters.” Mobius gestures. Loki scowls. He presses a bunch of buttons at random. The machine beeps at him. The animated Ms. Minutes icon sticks her tongue out at him. He scoffs. 

“I noticed.” He slaps the TemPad into Mobius’s hands. Mobius stares at him, plainly amused, and Loki scowls harder. 

“Well? Fix it.” Loki turns towards the lawn to lessen the weight of Mobius’s gaze.

A great shout rings out across the green, utterly unmistakeable, and Loki runs up to the terrace railing. Sif and the Warriors Three mill about on the lawn, their chatting only perceptible by Volstagg’s loud and grating laughter. 

“Brothers, please. I need some help!” Thor’s voice cuts clear and desperate through the air. He can’t be far past coming of age--he’s taken on all those distinctive features that won’t budge as he grows. His hair sweeps his shoulders the same way his cape sweeps his ankles. He supports a drooping teenage Loki as they stumble towards the trio. 

On the terrace, Loki’s eyes widen. He squints at where Thor is hauling his younger self--yep, the little shit is definitely alive and well. Which means only one thing. 

“What’s all the commotion?” Mobius shades his eyes from the sun and looks out towards the fields. 

“Did you fix it?” Loki snaps impatiently, gesturing for the TemPad. 

“Hm?” Mobius blinks. “Yeah. What’s happenin’ down there, though?”

Loki snatches the TemPad and punches in whatever he can. A wave of orange energy ripples over and through them with a loud woosh. Loki opens his eyes to….

The same field. The same day. He’s actually managed to put them forward in time. Just splendid. 

“Get help!” Thor spins and launches his Loki like a shotput. He barrels straight through Sif and Fandral. Their mingled screams of surprise and displeasure ring out. Thor cackles, doubling over, as Sif chases Loki around the field. 

On the terrace, Loki buries his rapidly heating face in his hands. Mobius snickers up a storm beside him. He leans into him for support. 

“Get help?” Mobius wheezes, eyes wet with mirth. Loki’s chest flutters and his face progresses into full redness. 

“It was…a phase. An ill-advised distraction--”

“Seems to me like you used it plenty. One of your variants did that with Thor on Sakaar.” Mobius wipes his eyes and flicks the tears away, grin still splitting his face in two. 

“Shut up.” Loki groans into his hands until silence falls. He can feel Mobius’s keen eyes on the side of his face. He hopes for a random bolt of lightning to put him out of his misery. 

“You’ve changed, y’know.” Mobius bumps their shoulders together. 

“Have I?” Loki drawls, mostly unamused. The sincerity on Mobius’s face makes it hard to keep up the act. 

“You willingly showed me an embarrassing memory! You’ve changed plenty.” 

“I wouldn’t say…willingly,” Loki grumbles, rolling his eyes. 

“You and I both know you can fight a lot harder than that. This is growth, Loki. It’s good for ya.” Mobius pats his shoulder. Loki hums in acknowledgment.

“Careful, Mobius. I might start to think you’re fond of me.” Loki smiles teasingly. 

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Mobius chuckles and squeezes his shoulder. “Let’s get outta here.”

…

Another flash of orange, another failure to return to the TVA. Loki contains the urge to scream. 

“Where are we now?” Mobius puts his hands on his hips. 

“…I don’t know.” Loki frowns, turning in place. 

“That’s generally not good.” Mobius quips. Loki makes a snarky, incoherent noise at him as he takes in their surroundings.

Vaulted wood ceilings, immaculate stone walls, and green silks welcome them. Atop a giant fireplace, a regal painting of Loki leers at them, foxlike and empty-eyed. He cringes and turns away from it. He briefly considers throwing himself down on the green velvet divan and smothering himself in the throw pillows. 

“We’re on Asgard, certainly, and this is my room, but….” 

The doors fly open of their own accord and the hearth flares. A brunette with a strong build strides through the doors, their fingertips dripping with red motes of light. They’re clad in reds reminiscent of the magic--flowing fabrics gathered neatly under bits of strong leather armor. With a twist of their wrist, the leather breastplate falls away and arranges itself on a stand, right next to a stand with his own armor on it. 

“Who is this handsome devil?” Mobius raises his eyebrows and elbows Loki, but he is far too windswept at the sight of them. 

“Signy,” Loki breathes. 

“Who?” Mobius furrows his brow. 

The doors fly open yet again. A past version of Loki enters in similar dramatic fashion. It’s uncanny to see himself like this. Signy turns their gaze sharply towards him. The fire once again flares in the hearth. 

“Hello, darling.” Signy purrs, pulling Past Loki in for a kiss. They drink him in possessively, as if he’s going to evaporate without their claiming touch. He leans into it as much as he can without drowning. When they pull apart, they murmur to one another, low enough for the fire to swallow their words. 

“Ah, I see.” The bitterness in Mobius’s tone pushes Loki to clarify. 

“They were wonderful, but their jealousy often got to them. For all our happiness, we made each other worse over time.” Loki whispers conspiratorially, but Mobius doesn’t seem entertained. 

Signy and his past self begin to raise their voices, yelling at each other in an incomprehensible tumble of Asgardian. Mobius’s brow knits in concern. 

“Were you always this…loud?” Mobius frowns. Loki swallows the joke he wants to make.

“Like I said, we made each other worse. Much worse. We were betrothed all of two months before they tried to assassinate me.” Loki pulls back his shirt collar to reveal a thin, curved scar on his neck. 

“Assassinate—what?” Mobius touches it and Loki shivers. 

“It’s fine, Mobius. My Signy had naught but poison in their soul. This one seems…kinder.” Loki watches as they take his past self’s hands to stop him from wringing his tunic. 

“How is that fine—“ 

Their voices escalate into a tumble of shouting. Concern morphs into frustration and confusion. Why does Mobius even care? It happened, he survived, whatever—

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. His past self is…staring at him.

Loki squints at his past self and he squints back. Loki looks over his shoulder, then back at his past self, who is suddenly beginning to behave less like a memory and more like a—

“Variant,” Loki breathes. He opens his mouth to shout, but—

The variant disappears in a gentle flash of green light. Fuck.

“I think you just got outsmarted by yourself.” Mobius hums. Loki whips around, panic starting to bubble in his chest. 

“You said this was a memory.”

“It’s supposed to be.” Mobius rubs his chin. “With all the buttons you pushed, it’s possible that you sent us to a branch instead of a projection of your history. I’ll take a look at it.”

“Loki.” Signy eyes him carefully. They take him in with warm, red eyes that crackle with the hearth. 

“Heyyy…Signy.” Loki gestures awkwardly. Mobius snorts. 

“Darling, I apologize. You’re under much pressure.  I shouldn’t add to it.” Signy wraps their arms around Loki’s shoulders and pulls him close. He knows he should derive some comfort from it—he hasn’t been hugged in years—but it feels more like a creature pulling him into its clutches. Their fingers glide over the scar and Loki snatches their hand. 

“I’m…also sorry.” Loki pats their arm awkwardly and tries to worm out of their grip. 

“No need, my blade.” Signy presses in closer, cradling his cheek. Mobius snickers at the nickname off to the side.

“Don’t.” Loki, blushing, points an accusatory finger at Mobius. He holds his hands up, the perfect picture of innocence. 

“I think you’re lovely, but I’m not…your Loki.” He puts his hand over theirs. Their face pinches sharply. The fire kicks up. 

“You are beyond ungrateful. You are mine. I made you.” Signy grips his chin and forces him to look at them. Loki presses his lips into a line. 

“Signy—“

“Perhaps you need a reminder.” They press their hand to Loki’s side, right over the ribs on his right side. He panics and grabs for their hand. A tiny green spark jumps from his fingers, but it cannot stop the pulse of scarlet magic that wriggles deep into his skin. The magic snaps into cords, winding like puppet strings around one of his ribs. 

A strangled sound slips from him before he can stop himself. A terrible, toe-curling tickle—a powerful scritching like the blunt end of a quill over the bone—sends him clutching at Signy’s shoulders for dear life. 

“We are each other’s undoing. There is no you without me.” Signy pulls sharply on the threads of red light and Loki yelps.

“Oh.”

“Mobius—“

“Oh my god.” Mobius makes a noise that can only be described as a squeak of delight. Loki flips him off. 

“Even when I’m right in front of you, you cast your attention elsewhere.” Signy turns Loki’s jaw toward them, eyes darkening possessively, but their lips curl up in that damn smile that had drawn Loki back in over and over. 

There was a time when he’d daydreamed about Signy by his side on the throne. Now, he can’t fathom it. 

“You’re mine, Loki.” Signy tweaks their fingers, manipulating their magic, and Loki chokes down a screech. He laces his fingers into theirs and the magic blissfully vanishes. 

“Yes, yours. Mobius, help.” Loki casts a frantic look in his direction, gesturing at Signy. Mobius makes a ‘stall�� motion, then starts fiddling with the TemPad. 

“Look at me.” Signy pulls sharply on his tie. They sigh deeply, and their edge begins to wane. 

“Thanos has you dreaming of more, my love. I want more for you. But have you not enough here? Am I not enough?” Signy smooths their hands down Loki’s chest. He freezes.

“Thanos?” He asks quietly. Dread sinks into his gut. Signy’s expression softens.

“I know that you crave what you are owed. Your family has robbed you of your birthright. You are meant for greatness, Loki, but not at the cost of his greed. Asgard is yours for the taking. By my hand, you shall have it.” Signy leans their foreheads together. He squirrels away as much of this momentary comfort that he can. 

“Why would you help me?”

“Have you contracted your brother’s oafishness?” Signy playfully holds their hand to his forehead as if checking for fever. “I love you, you fool.” 

“Oh.” He blinks. He looks towards Mobius and finds him with a haunting expression, like some sort of ache had burrowed forth into his face. A suffocating hollowness crawls through Loki’s chest. He swallows thickly. 

“Yes, ‘oh’.” Signy curls their fingers beneath his chin. He laughs softly, involuntarily, and flinches away. Mischief and embers dance in Signy’s eyes. 

“My, you are…handsier than I remember.” Loki twists out of their grip. 

“Can you blame me?” They appear behind him in a scattering of red sparks. Warm hands wrap around his waist, tracing feather-light shapes that seem to burrow into his skin. He chokes on a quiet, suspiciously giggly sound and they light up.

Mobius scoffs and clears his throat loudly. His scowl seems baked into his face, a chilling force against the fireplace. 

“Okay, so I’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you wanna hear?”

“Bad news first.” Loki wrestles with Signy’s roaming hands. Signy trips and tumbles backward onto the divan, scattering the pillows. They start tugging at Loki to try and get him to follow. 

“Your collar is broken. Kaput. S’probably why your variant was able to escape. TemPad can’t get a read on which one of you is real. You also MemLocked us, which is fascinating—“

“I’m sure it is,” Loki huffs, fighting to leverage Signy under him. Mobius barrels on. 

“MemLock allows us to manipulate a branch as if it were a memory, but the tech is volatile, so we rarely use it. It is neat though. Lets us walk right through as if we were invisible. Shame it ain’t workin’ on you.” Mobius snaps his fingers next to Signy’s face. They don’t seem to notice. 

“And the good news?” 

“I can probably fix it.” Mobius smacks the back of the TemPad and a panel pops out the side of it. He starts fiddling with the components. 

“Probably?” Loki’s voice cracks. 

“Well, I don’t wanna take the wrong Loki back with me. That’d be a fiasco. Though Signy—“ Mobius draws out their name with disdain— “probably wouldn’t even notice.” 

“Jealousy is unbecoming, Mobius.” Loki’s joking, but Mobius’s eyes don’t light up the way they usually do. 

“Y’know, far as I recall, you got yourself stuck in this mess. You should be thanking me for helping you.” Mobius puts his hands in his pockets. He tilts his head with a smile, easy and mischievous. Loki lobs a throw pillow at him.

Mobius punches something into the TemPad and, with a glorious beep, Loki’s collar disengages and clatters to the floor. Mobius scoops up the collar gently, letting the straps dangle between his fingers. 

“I’m keeping track of what you owe me.” His half-smile is somewhat dim. 

“I’d expect nothing less,” Loki breathes. Mobius nods sharply and turns towards the door. 

It’s an unfortunate distraction, one that lets Signy discover they can buckle his knees if they tickle him there, but Loki can think of nothing else but the reflection of the firelight on Mobius’s cheek. 

…

Mobius ducks quietly into the hall, shutting the chamber door behind him. The stone floors eagerly amplify his footsteps, tired of its own quiet. 

It’s unsettling, this place. People don’t seem to live here as much as they haunt it. Mobius can see how Loki turned out the way he did. It sets loose an ache in him. 

“Stop.” 

Mobius turns around with his hands raised. The variant twirls a dagger in his hands. He’s clad only in a green shirt and soft pants, his feet bare against the cool stone floors. This Loki is duller—he’s exhausted around the eyes in a way Mobius’s Loki isn’t. 

His Loki. Hm.

“Who are you?” 

“I’m afraid that doesn’t concern you, Your Highness,” Mobius says calmly. Loki disappears in a flash of green and reappears behind Mobius. 

“I could have you executed.” Loki’s dagger materializes across the plane of Mobius’s throat. Mobius tips his head back slightly to avoid the sharp edge. 

“I’m not scared of you, Loki.” He says it firmly, even as his skin prickles at the kiss of the blade. 

“Maybe you should be,” he snarls lowly, his lips brushing Mobius’s ear. Mobius flinches away. He kicks himself for it--Loki follows him easily with morbid interest. 

“Aren’t you curious about what I know?” Mobius hums. Silence stretches down the long hall. There’s a suspicious lack of guards in this wing. Is Loki’s chamber not worth protecting?

“You have a…clone of me. Why?” The blade presses in again. Mobius takes a careful, measured breath. 

“He’s my companion. We took a bit of a tumble, ended up in the wrong place.” A smile quirks at Mobius’s lips. Loki doesn’t look as confused as he thought he might—more…thoughtful. 

“Wrong place being?”

“That I can’t tell you. I can tell you that we’re trying to leave. If you don’t mind.” Mobius puts two fingers on the dagger and gently pushes it away from his throat. Loki releases Mobius but keeps his blade leveled at him. He’s tired, so tired, Mobius can see it in his bones. His eyes, dark-rimmed, seem frightened of closing. 

“You, uh…” Mobius pauses, taking in Loki’s twitchiness-- “I noticed you tryin’ to escape your beau in there. Signy, right?”

Loki stiffens at the utterance of their name. The blade remains steadfastly pointed at Mobius’s throat. 

“They ever hurt you?” Mobius clenches his jaw. Loki eyes him warily. 

“No. Never. Never.” The blade wavers with Loki’s voice. “But we don’t…agree on many things.”

“Well, I think you could do better. For the record.” Mobius steps forward—how could he not? But Loki’s knife and hackles meet him. He stops. 

“I’ll be sure to tell them you said so.” The fingers on Loki’s other hand twitch, glowing the faintest green. 

“You fancy making a deal, Your Highness?” Mobius sticks his hands in his pockets. He tries to keep his demeanor light, but he clasps his hand around the collar where it’s hidden. 

“I’m listening.” Loki shifts his fingers on the dagger’s hilt. 

“My Loki and I will distract Signy for you if you stay with us long enough for us to secure an exit.” Mobius jerks a thumb in the direction he came from. Loki follows the movement with his eyes. 

“All you require is my presence?”

“That and preferably that you refrain from using that toothpick of yours. Rather fond of my Loki.” Mobius inclines his head towards the knife. A wealth of emotions flickers across Loki’s face--he’s always been terrible at hiding his feelings, it seems. He tries to steel himself back into something sharp, but it just turns…sad. 

Loki lowers his blade. He loosens his fingers and it falls, but it vanishes before it hits the ground. 

“I agree to your terms.” Loki sniffs sharply, once again locating his arrogance.

“Excellent. Shall we?” Mobius gestures. Loki nods. They stroll back towards the bedchamber, relishing in the quiet comfort of their footsteps falling in line. 

“What are you to him? To me?” Loki’s voice goes soft. Mobius is usually quite adept at compartmentalizing, but it escapes him at this moment. 

“I’m not sure.” Mobius swallows. It’s easier not to think about it. 

“But you’re fond of him, as you said.” Loki sweeps closer, a familiar teasing grin playing across his lips. 

“I am.” Mobius huffs. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“The honor’s all yours, mortal.” Loki tilts his head, his smile growing wider. Mobius rolls his eyes. 

…

Mobius opens the door for the variant and they’re greeted by a wall of noise. Loki screams bloody murder and Signy yells over him in Asgardian, their sharp fingernails plucking at his ribs. They’ve switched positions, with Signy expertly pinning and tickling Loki down into the divan. 

The variant snickers, covering his mouth to hide it, but Mobius’s ears have long-since been tuned to his partner’s laugh. Interestingly enough, Signy looks up too. They furrow their brow as if searching for something, eyes glazing right past their variant, and then return to taking Loki apart.

An idea prickles at the back of Mobius’s mind. 

“You.” Loki shouts from the tip of his toes. His hair is a frizzy, disheveled mess. The variant goes to run, but Mobius scruffs him by the collar.

“You okay over there?” Mobius calls. Loki’s red face grows redder. He points angrily at the variant. 

“Come take your place, you sniveling little brat—“ Loki hisses, but he’s cut off by Signy tickling his waist. The most hysterical little giggles slip free and he buckles under them. 

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. That weakness is your plague to bear, not mine.” The variant’s regret is all mocking. 

It’s a stupid idea, but it’s an insistent one—the longer Mobius gazes at this variant, the more he finds that he can’t let it go.

“Sorry, just to clarify—you’re not ticklish?” Mobius doesn’t bother to hide his amusement. The variant eyes him stubbornly. 

“No. I’m not a child.” Oh, but like with every Loki, his eyes betray him. 

“Well, that’s a shame.” Mobius regards him thoughtfully. The variant turns a lovely pink. “Then, would you mind asking Signy to release my friend? Seeing as they pose no threat to you.”

Mobius crowds in closer. The variant pulls his dagger. Mobius tuts at him and pushes it away. The dagger’s point makes gentle, insistent contact with his stomach.

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” the variant snaps, but Mobius stands before him un-stabbed. 

“Sure it was. I said we would distract Signy.” Mobius smirks. “Just never said that you were part of the distraction.”

God, Loki is really rubbing off on him. 

“I’ve been told I’m quite stabbable, if you’re not amenable.” Mobius gestures to the dagger between them. The variant shifts his fingers on the hilt. 

“D-Don’t you dare touch him!” Loki pipes up through gritted teeth. He’s managed to pin Signy underneath him, but judging by his twitching, they’re not quite done with him.

Mobius grins at him. Loki makes an endearing little pinchy face and refuses to meet his eyes. The variant takes the chance to try and slink away, but Mobius grabs his wrist. The dagger disappears in a flare of green sparks. 

In a slick maneuver, Mobius loops the collar around the variant’s neck and it magnetically fastens. It beeps in confirmation of acquiring its target. 

“What is this?” He hisses, tugging at it. He flexes his fingers, calling for the dagger, and nothing happens.

“Just a bit of insurance. Now, would you like to deal with them—“ Mobius gestures to where Signy is wreaking havoc— “or me?” 

“I’m sure there’s a third option.” The variant chuckles almost nervously. His eyes dart around for an escape. 

“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” Mobius sighs deeply, as if it pains him. The variant’s eyes widen, and—

There it is. A flicker of thrill. 

“If you think you can stand to a god, I welcome you to try.” The variant spreads his arms wide. Mobius puts his hands on his hips. He’s never considered himself a particularly great fighter, but he prides himself on knowing his targets well. For example, he knows that nearly every Loki lacks small-scale patience. If he just waits…

The variant snarls and charges. Mobius ducks past him and loops his arms around his torso. 

Any Loki is deadly with or without their magic, but thankfully Mobius doesn’t have to worry about killing him. Or harming him at all, for that matter.

The variant lets out a confused, almost-offended squeak, like a kitten being bested. Before he can speak, Mobius starts clumsily tickling him. The resulting stilted laughter is interspersed with threats he can’t understand--both for being peppered with giggles and incoherent Asgardian. The variant tries to headbutt him in a way that doesn’t seem entirely on purpose. Mobius dodges predictable flying elbows and waits.

Over on the divan, Loki’s mostly given up. He’s wheezing more than anything, more focused on hiding himself from view than doing anything helpful. The quiet allows for the variant’s patchwork laughter to carry, just as Mobius hoped. He folds on a particularly powerful guffaw and Mobius follows him with a snort. S’cute, sometimes, the ways in which they’re the same. 

Signy’s gaze snaps up. Loki squirms out from underneath them and darts to the other side of the room, clutching his side. He makes eye contact with Mobius. His gaze is so full of sheer fondness that Mobius has to look away. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” The variant tries to back up. Mobius squeezes his side and he yelps.  

“How’d you get over there?” Signy narrows their eyes. 

“Suppose I’m quicker than you.” The variant falls immediately into his role, ever the Loki. Mobius curls his finger into the collar and it disengages. The variant whirls on him, but then Signy starts to stalk across the room. 

“We’ll see about that, love.” Signy’s tongue curls sharply around the word. The variant bolts for the door. Signy laughs and chases after them. Their footsteps echo down the empty hall and carry them both from sight. 

A wave of green magic slams the door shut so hard that it rattles in its frame. Loki hefts a bookshelf in front of the door, then a heavy chest, then about every piece of furniture he’s capable of moving in the room. He slumps down onto the divan with a heavy sigh. Mobius hovers by his side, shoving his hand in his pocket so he doesn’t start fiddling with the disheveled bits of Loki’s appearance. 

“Well, come on then.” Loki bares his throat with an impatient gesture. There’s an imprinted red line where the collar usually sits. Mobius runs his thumb over it, gently, and Loki scrunches his nose with a smile. The sight is so lovely that Mobius spaces out a bit. 

“You are cruel and terrible, you know that?” Loki grumbles. Mobius remembers himself and tries not to savor the brush of Loki’s jaw against his fingers. He holds the transmitter box of the collar to Loki’s throat, scooting it around a bit in search of a signal. Loki twitches. 

“Mmm, just the worst. Stay still, will ya?” He huffs. Something in Loki’s collar clicks and the TemPad chirps a jolly tune. Both of them sigh in relief. 

Mobius punches in a few things and the familiar orange door opens up before them. He looks down at the collar in his hand, then shoves it deep into his pocket. Loki makes a soft noise. 

“Why?” He blinks almost innocently. Mobius swallows. 

“You wanna go back or not?” He juts his thumb towards the portal. Loki pulls him through as if it’s going to disappear. 

…

They have duties to complete, but living so many years in a day has thoroughly eroded what tiny sense of duty Loki has. His mind is abuzz with various iterations of he trusts me--a new and exciting thought--and it leaves him with zero desire to do anything but sit in Mobius’s presence like a flower in the sun. 

So, when Mobius heads for the library, Loki hooks their arms together and drags them towards the cafeteria. Responsible grumbling turns into fond chuckles, and soon enough, they’re assembling God's mistake: frozen yogurt.

They enjoy their spoils on a bench deep in the massive sprawl of the TVA. The complex sprawls out infinitely before them, twinkling in the abyss. It’s a prettier sight than this place deserves, but Loki can only pay attention to the unnatural strawberry hue of Mobius’s lips. 

“This is awful,” Mobius laughs, cringing through a spoonful of frozen-solid chocolate chips. 

“It’s perfect. Completely mediocre in every way. Humanity’s only worthwhile creation.” Loki bites a gummy worm in half with a smile. He offers the other half to Mobius and he takes it.

Loki thinks of Signy, of the look of muddled pain on Mobius’s face through the entire back half of their misadventure, and he cringes. Mobius pauses in picking at his froyo. 

“Brainfreeze?” 

“No, not quite. I want to…apologize, Mobius.” Loki fiddles with his fingers. He looks up just in time for the back of Mobius’s hand to gently slap against his forehead, as if checking for fever. 

“You? Apologize? Maybe I did bring back the wrong Loki.”

“Hilarious, you bastard.” Loki rolls his eyes and bats away the hand. 

“Well, don’t let me get in the way of history. Say your piece.” Mobius sweeps his hands out. Loki turns to straddle the bench, facing him fully. He leans his back against the wall. The cold of the concrete leeches through his shirt. 

“Earlier, things got…out of hand. I hoped if I showed you my past, you might find some detail, some tiny minutiae that would set me apart from the other variants. But, I suppose nothing you saw surprised you.” Loki runs his fingers over his throat, right where the collar usually sat. He felt lighter without it and, strangely, more exposed. 

“I wouldn’t say that.” Mobius mumbles around a strawberry piece. 

“I spent my life chasing after destiny. Everyone in my family had a grand purpose to fulfill, and I believed mine would be the greatest of all. Now I know that my destiny is to be disposable. The only significant thing I’m part of is the time I’ve spent here with you.” Loki pokes at his froyo with the spoon. Mobius swings to also straddle the bench, grumbling as he does, but it gets Loki’s attention. 

“I’ve got my own confession to make.” Mobius chuckles. “I don’t actually know everything about you.”

“We established this.” Loki scoops up an Oreo piece and pops it in his mouth. 

“Well, yeah, but—“ Mobius makes a series of grand gestures— “I mean, I don’t know everything about you, Loki.”

“Now you’ve said the same thing twice.” Loki frowns. Mobius makes a frustrated little noise.

“Look, you’re different. Sure, your story starts the same as the others, but you overwrote my expectations the moment we met. You are unique. You’re a unique pain in my ass, really, but…you’re a good partner. A great one.” Mobius gestures more with his spoon. 

“Go on.” Loki takes the cherry into his mouth, stem and all. A few moments later, he pulls out the stem—tied in a perfect knot. He smiles at his handiwork. 

“I’m trying to compliment you.” Mobius huffs. 

“I’m aware.” Loki grins teasingly, but the mischief caves easily under a wave of genuine joy. 

“Alright, wise guy.” Mobius narrows his eyes. A flutter of thrill picks up in Loki’s stomach, but no chase ensues. He tries not to be disappointed. 

“What I’m trying to get at—“ Mobius huffs dramatically— “is that it’s not your past that makes you. I’ve always studied you guys in patterns and matrixes. I thought a flip would switch and I’d understand how you fell into my lap instead of any other Loki. But…you defy sense. Turns out, you can bake some drastically different cakes with the same core ingredients.” 

“Careful, Mobius,” Loki says softly, so his traitorous heart doesn’t hear. “I might start to think you’re fond of me.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Mobius smiles. 

“No, we can’t.” Loki’s eyes flit to Mobius’s lips. The air between them pulls taut. Loki scoots forward, bringing their knees to touch. 

“You have something on your face, right here. Terribly distracting.” Loki gestures to his lips. Mobius furrows his brow and pats his face with a TVA-branded napkin. Loki bats his hand aside and kisses him. It’s shorter and tamer than what his heart screams for, but he can’t dive into untested waters. Not yet. Not with something so important. 

Mobius, wide-eyed, follows Loki’s every move. He swallows once, thickly, then clears his throat. Not a single coherent word comes out of his mouth. His eyebrows move in nearly every direction as he tries to string some words together. Loki tips his chin up, catching his eyes. Mobius quiets, succumbing to a lovestruck smile.

“Did you get it?” Mobius gestures to his face. Loki laughs, knocking his head into the wall behind him. Mobius scrambles forward to catch him far too late, but they’re close. Close enough for Loki to see the pink froyo flecks actually hiding in his mustache. He smirks. 

“Hm, only one way to be sure.” He pulls Mobius in by his tie and kisses him like it's the end of times.

[digitaldetoxworld]

Python Programming Language: A Comprehensive Guide

 Python is one of the maximum widely used and hastily growing programming languages within the world. Known for its simplicity, versatility, and great ecosystem, Python has become the cross-to desire for beginners, professionals, and organizations across industries.

What is Python used for

🐍 What is Python?

Python is a excessive-stage, interpreted, fashionable-purpose programming language.  The language emphasizes clarity, concise syntax, and code simplicity, making it an excellent device for the whole lot from web development to synthetic intelligence.

Its syntax is designed to be readable and easy, regularly described as being near the English language. This ease of information has led Python to be adopted no longer simplest through programmers but also by way of scientists, mathematicians, and analysts who may not have a formal heritage in software engineering.

📜 Brief History of Python

Late Nineteen Eighties: Guido van Rossum starts work on Python as a hobby task.

1991: Python zero.9.0 is released, presenting classes, functions, and exception managing.

2000: Python 2.Zero is launched, introducing capabilities like list comprehensions and rubbish collection.

2008: Python 3.Zero is launched with considerable upgrades but breaks backward compatibility.

2024: Python three.12 is the modern day strong model, enhancing performance and typing support.

⭐ Key Features of Python

Easy to Learn and Use:

Python's syntax is simple and similar to English, making it a high-quality first programming language.

Interpreted Language:

Python isn't always compiled into device code; it's far done line by using line the usage of an interpreter, which makes debugging less complicated.

Cross-Platform:

Python code runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, and even cell devices and embedded structures.

Dynamic Typing:

Variables don’t require explicit type declarations; types are decided at runtime.

Object-Oriented and Functional:

Python helps each item-orientated programming (OOP) and practical programming paradigms.

Extensive Standard Library:

Python includes a rich set of built-in modules for string operations, report I/O, databases, networking, and more.

Huge Ecosystem of Libraries:

From data technological know-how to net development, Python's atmosphere consists of thousands of programs like NumPy, pandas, TensorFlow, Flask, Django, and many greater.

📌 Basic Python Syntax

Here's an instance of a easy Python program:

python

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def greet(call):

    print(f"Hello, call!")

greet("Alice")

Output:

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Hello, Alice!

Key Syntax Elements:

Indentation is used to define blocks (no curly braces  like in different languages).

Variables are declared via task: x = 5

Comments use #:

# This is a remark

Print Function:

print("Hello")

📊 Python Data Types

Python has several built-in data kinds:

Numeric: int, go with the flow, complicated

Text: str

Boolean: bool (True, False)

Sequence: listing, tuple, range

Mapping: dict

Set Types: set, frozenset

Example:

python

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age = 25             # int

name = "John"        # str

top = 5.Nine         # drift

is_student = True    # bool

colors = ["red", "green", "blue"]  # listing

🔁 Control Structures

Conditional Statements:

python

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if age > 18:

    print("Adult")

elif age == 18:

    print("Just became an person")

else:

    print("Minor")

Loops:

python

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for color in hues:

    print(coloration)

while age < 30:

    age += 1

🔧 Functions and Modules

Defining a Function:

python

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def upload(a, b):

    return a + b

Importing a Module:

python

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import math

print(math.Sqrt(sixteen))  # Output: four.0

🗂️ Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

Python supports OOP functions such as lessons, inheritance, and encapsulation.

Python

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elegance Animal:

    def __init__(self, call):

        self.Call = name

def communicate(self):

        print(f"self.Call makes a valid")

dog = Animal("Dog")

dog.Speak()  # Output: Dog makes a legitimate

🧠 Applications of Python

Python is used in nearly each area of era:

1. Web Development

Frameworks like Django, Flask, and FastAPI make Python fantastic for building scalable web programs.

2. Data Science & Analytics

Libraries like pandas, NumPy, and Matplotlib permit for data manipulation, evaluation, and visualization.

Three. Machine Learning & AI

Python is the dominant language for AI, way to TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-research, and Keras.

4. Automation & Scripting

Python is extensively used for automating tasks like file managing, device tracking, and data scraping.

Five. Game Development

Frameworks like Pygame allow builders to build simple 2D games.

6. Desktop Applications

With libraries like Tkinter and PyQt, Python may be used to create cross-platform computing device apps.

7. Cybersecurity

Python is often used to write security equipment, penetration trying out scripts, and make the most development.

📚 Popular Python Libraries

NumPy:��Numerical computing

pandas: Data analysis

Matplotlib / Seaborn: Visualization

scikit-study: Machine mastering

BeautifulSoup / Scrapy: Web scraping

Flask / Django: Web frameworks

OpenCV: Image processing

PyTorch / TensorFlow: Deep mastering

SQLAlchemy: Database ORM

💻 Python Tools and IDEs

Popular environments and tools for writing Python code encompass:

PyCharm: Full-featured Python IDE.

VS Code: Lightweight and extensible editor.

Jupyter Notebook: Interactive environment for statistics technological know-how and studies.

IDLE: Python’s default editor.

🔐 Strengths of Python

Easy to study and write

Large community and wealthy documentation

Extensive 0.33-birthday celebration libraries

Strong support for clinical computing and AI

Cross-platform compatibility

⚠️ Limitations of Python

Slower than compiled languages like C/C++

Not perfect for mobile app improvement

High memory usage in massive-scale packages

GIL (Global Interpreter Lock) restricts genuine multithreading in CPython

🧭 Learning Path for Python Beginners

Learn variables, facts types, and control glide.

Practice features and loops.

Understand modules and report coping with.

Explore OOP concepts.

Work on small initiatives (e.G., calculator, to-do app).

Dive into unique areas like statistics technological know-how, automation, or web development.

[rajasthan-political-leader]

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore — Cabinet Committee Approves Caste Census Under PM Modi’s Leadership

Caste Census Approved: A Historic Decision

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the Union Cabinet Committee has approved a caste-based census (Caste Census), marking a significant and historic decision. This move is a crucial step toward making India’s socio-economic policies more inclusive.

Former Olympian and Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore welcomed this decision, stating that it is a major initiative for the upliftment of marginalized and backward communities. He emphasized that PM Modi’s decision reflects the government’s commitment to social justice and equality.

Significance of the Caste Census

The caste census will help the government accurately assess the socio-economic status of various communities. Key benefits include:

Better Policy Planning — Data on caste demographics will enable the government to design more effective welfare schemes for backward classes.

Equitable Resource Allocation — Resources in education, employment, and healthcare can be distributed more fairly.

Political Representation — It will ensure better political representation for diverse communities.

Rajyavardhan Rathore’s Perspective

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore called this decision a “bold step toward social harmony.” He stated that the Modi government has always worked on the principle of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas,” and this move aligns with that vision.

Conclusion

The approval of the caste census reflects the government’s progressive approach. It is a major step toward ensuring an equitable future for all sections of society, especially backward communities. Support from leaders like Rajyavardhan Rathore proves that this decision is in the nation’s best interest.