#data masking tool

[innovativeroutinesinternational]

How the DarkShield IRI Tool Automates Sensitive Data Classification and Masking

Keeping private data safe is a big deal. Today, businesses deal with huge amounts of personal data. This includes names, phone numbers, credit card details, and more. If that data ends up in the wrong hands, it can lead to serious problems. That’s where the IRI DarkShield comes in.

This powerful tool helps teams find and protect personal information across different types of files and databases. You don’t need to be a tech expert to use it, but it helps to have some IT knowledge.

What Makes IRI DarkShield Unique?

The IRI DarkShield tool is designed to work with all kinds of data. Whether the data is structured, like a database, or unstructured, like a PDF file or image, it can still find and protect it. It does this using smart search methods and rules that you can set up in advance.

You can even search and mask data across entire networks, cloud storage, or file systems. This means you don’t have to search files one by one. Everything is centralized and automatic.

Getting Started with IRI Workbench

The tool uses a program called IRI Workbench, which is easy to work with. It looks and feels like many other computer programs, so you won’t feel lost. With IRI Workbench, you can:

Connect to your data

Choose what types of private data you want to find

Pick how you want to hide it (for example, by encrypting it)

This makes the job easier and faster. One feature that stands out is that everything runs on your own system. So you don’t need to worry about uploading sensitive data to outside websites.

Setting Up Data Classes and Rules

Before you start, you tell the tool what kinds of data to look for. These are called “data classes.” For example, you might want to find phone numbers or Social Security numbers. Then, you link each type of data with a way to find it and a way to hide it.

Once you set this up, you don’t need to do it again. The data masking tool will always know how to find and protect those details.

How DarkShield Finds Sensitive Information

The tool is very smart when it comes to searching. It can look for specific patterns (like a phone number format) or use tools like machine learning models to detect personal data. It even works with images and PDFs.

After searching, it saves the results in a log. You can use this log to see what was found or send it to another program to take action, like hiding the data right away.

Masking Data in Files

With just a few clicks, you can search and hide sensitive data in all sorts of files. This includes text, Word, Excel, JSON, XML, and even medical and image files. The best part? It works both on your computer and in the cloud.

This is where IRI DarkShield really shines. You pick the files, and the tool uses your earlier rules to search and mask sensitive information. You can even set filters so it only checks certain files, which saves time.

Working with NoSQL and Relational Databases

DarkShield isn’t just for files. It also works with many types of databases. These include NoSQL databases like MongoDB and Elasticsearch, as well as regular databases like Oracle and MySQL.

In both cases, the tool uses the same steps. You choose what to look for and how to hide it. Then, you let the program do the work. Everything is automatic once your job is set up.

Command Line and API Use

Even though the Workbench makes things easy, the tool also works behind the scenes. Developers can use the command line or API to run jobs without opening the software. This is perfect for teams that want to schedule tasks or connect the tool with other systems.

These options give your team more power and flexibility to protect data without slowing down other work.

Keeping Track with Audit Logs

Every time the tool runs a job, it creates reports and logs. These logs show what was found, what was masked, who did it, and when. They can also be viewed on dashboards or sent to other tools like Splunk.

This helps companies stay on top of their data protection efforts and show that they are meeting privacy rules.

FAQs

Q1: What is IRI DarkShield used for? IRI DarkShield is used to find and protect private data, like names and credit card numbers, in files and databases.

Q2: Can I use it even if I don’t know how to code? Yes. If you have some IT knowledge, you can use the IRI Workbench to set up and manage everything without writing code.

Q3: Does it work with images and PDFs? Yes. It can search and mask data in many types of files, including images and documents.

Q4: Can I use it with cloud storage? Yes. You can connect it to cloud folders like OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Cloud, and more.

Q5: Is IRI DarkShield a web app? No. Everything runs on your own system, so your data stays safe within your control.

Final Thoughts

IRI DarkShield is a smart and powerful way to protect sensitive information. It helps companies meet data privacy rules without slowing down their work. With easy setup, flexible options, and strong security, it’s a great choice for any business that takes data protection seriously.

[louistonehill]

A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. 

The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission. Using it to “poison” this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, by rendering some of their outputs useless—dogs become cats, cars become cows, and so forth. MIT Technology Review got an exclusive preview of the research, which has been submitted for peer review at computer security conference Usenix.   

AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Stability AI are facing a slew of lawsuits from artists who claim that their copyrighted material and personal information was scraped without consent or compensation. Ben Zhao, a professor at the University of Chicago, who led the team that created Nightshade, says the hope is that it will help tip the power balance back from AI companies towards artists, by creating a powerful deterrent against disrespecting artists’ copyright and intellectual property. Meta, Google, Stability AI, and OpenAI did not respond to MIT Technology Review’s request for comment on how they might respond. 

Zhao’s team also developed Glaze, a tool that allows artists to “mask” their own personal style to prevent it from being scraped by AI companies. It works in a similar way to Nightshade: by changing the pixels of images in subtle ways that are invisible to the human eye but manipulate machine-learning models to interpret the image as something different from what it actually shows. 

Continue reading article here

[rajaniesh]

Unity Catalog: Unlocking Powerful Advanced Data Control in Databricks

Harness the power of Unity Catalog within Databricks and elevate your data governance to new heights. Our latest blog post, "Unity Catalog: Unlocking Advanced Data Control in Databricks," delves into the cutting-edge features

[seahorsepencils]

I 100% believe that Nathan Fielder made a deliberate choice in focusing the episode around footage of him interacting with two autism "advocates" who are ultimately ableist and reductive in their understanding of autism. A congressman who doesn't even know what masking is, and an advocacy organization founder who uses outdated tests and won't acknowledge that not-autistic folks might benefit from rehearsing difficult social situations? That's not an accident.

If you look up Doreen Granpeesheh, you'll see that she is known for promoting the idea of autism "recovery," and that she has a history of publicly supporting the claim that there's a link between vaccines and autism. Her Wikipedia page makes very clear that she is a problematic figure whose work has been critiqued, and that she should not be taken seriously. Fielder, along with his writers and producers, would have known her reputation when booking her for the show.

A screenshot from Granpeesheh's website. Yes, it would appear she is actually proud of this headline.

And I think he's using the meeting with Cohen as a commentary on how autistic folks (and minoritized people in general, most likely) are treated by people in authority. Instead of masking and politely leaving the room, instead of picking up signals that Cohen is wrapping up the meeting without wanting to announce he's doing it on camera, Fielder purposely doesn't "take the hint" so that Cohen has to flounder and keep trying to wrap up the meeting in a way that is ultimately vague, dismissive, and rude. The longer the audience has to sit and watch that dynamic play out, the more likely we are to recognize Cohen as the bad guy in the situation rather than Fielder. It's brilliant.

And it's the exact same strategy he's using by spending the first half of the season ostensibly focusing on the first officer in those cockpit interactions, while deliberately giving screen time to guys like the "banned from every dating app" pilot to make it clear who is actually the source of the problem (and to hopefully trigger an FAA sexual harassment investigation in that one instance). In all three of these situations, he's showing us how a problematic person in power holds all the cards and is unwilling to budge.

I know there are differing opinions on what aspects of the show and his character are exaggerated or performed. As a very self-aware autistic comedy writer, this is my assessment: I think he's semi-deliberately not filling silences with masking behaviors, and asking questions he probably knows are uncomfortably direct, to create a space where others (often the neurotypical folks in these situations) have no choice to fill in the silence, which ultimately makes them say or do something relevant. I think he also acts like an unaware, unbiased observer in situations where he has a strong idea of what's going on. So whenever he says "I didn't know why" or "I didn't understand," he probably mostly does know and understand, but he knows that performing the role of an unbiased observer is a stronger strategic choice to get his message across.

He's basically playing the role of a journalist who knows that two of the most effective tools in his toolkit are a) silence when he wants a subject to reveal crucial information, and b) an "unbiased" narrative frame that makes the audience feel as if they're coming to a conclusion on their own, rather than being told what to think.

It's a nuanced approach but I think it's a smart one, especially considering that autistic-coded folks are very easily dismissed when speaking truth to power. And yeah, he's not gonna get his Congressional hearing. But pointing a camera at the problem and airing it for a massive audience, while saying "Me? I don't have an agenda; this data just presented itself in response to my neutral, unbiased question" is a pretty autistic—and often effective—approach to problem-solving.

[itsmerelliwellie]

Please Don't Be Scared Of Me | Sakamoto Days

How Sakamoto Days characters handle you being scared of them because of their job

Characters: Shin Asakura, Yoichi Nagumo, Seba Brothers, Gaku, Heisuke Mashimo

---

A/N: Hope you like this one OwO

---

~~Shin Asakura~~

When you pull away from him with that wide-eyed fear, it hits him like a ton of bricks. He hears it in your thoughts before you even speak it. “He's dangerous... what if he snaps?"

Shin freezes. His heart pounds, not because you’re wrong—he has killed people—but because you’re terrified of him, not what he’s done. That distinction shatters something inside.

“You think I’d ever hurt you?” he asks softly, voice cracking a little as he gently lowers his hand, like even touching you would confirm your fears.

He gives you space. Too much space. For days, he barely meets your gaze, too afraid of what he’ll hear in your mind again.

Eventually, he breaks, sitting outside your room like some kicked puppy. “I’ve done terrible things,” he admits. “But if I could hear just one thought from you where you trusted me again… I’d do anything for that.”

When you finally reach out, saying, “I just needed time to process,” he leans into your touch like a dying man given water. He whispers, “Then take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’ll never stop being protective—but he’s more careful now, more open. And when you finally kiss him, hands trembling, he doesn’t read your mind. He wants to feel your trust the human way.

---

~~Yoichi Nagumo~~

He laughs it off at first. “You scared of me? Babe, I’m the guy who brings you takeout and clips your cat’s nails.”

But when you flinch at the sound of his knife clicking open, everything stops. His expression drops like a mask falling away.

“You know, I pretend a lot,” he says, almost too casually. “Happy-go-lucky, pretty-boy hitman. But pretending you’re not afraid of me? That one really hurt.”

He disappears for a day or two. Not because he’s angry, but because he needs to figure out if being in your life is actually hurting you more than helping.

When he comes back, it’s late. Rain clings to him. He crawls into your bed fully clothed, laying next to you with his back to yours. “I never wanted you to see that part of me,” he murmurs. “But if you’d rather see the truth than love a lie, I’ll show you everything.”

He opens up like never before. About his past, about how much of it he regrets, about how every time he holds a blade. He thinks of what he could lose.

And when you finally touch his face and say, “I trust you,” his smirk returns, slower this time. “Then I’ll treasure that trust because you have no idea how much it matters to me."

---

~~Natsuki Seba~~

He gets quiet—scary quiet—when you recoil from his smile after hearing a story about one of his past missions.

“So it’s finally come to this, huh?” he says, pulling off his glasses and cleaning them slowly. “The moment when you realize I’m a monster.”

But there’s no bite in his voice—just exhaustion. He’s used to being seen as a weapon, a tool, a successful test subject. But he thought you saw him as human.

He doesn’t beg. Doesn’t plead. Just... slowly starts building walls. Talking to you only when necessary, pulling all-nighters again, isolating himself in data and chemicals.

When you confront him, saying, “I was scared, not disgusted,” he doesn’t believe you. Not at first. “You wouldn’t be the first to lie to me,” he mutters.

You finally break through when you patch up a wound he didn’t even ask you to touch. “You’re still you,” you whisper. And he grabs your wrist—hard—not to stop you, but because he’s shaking.

That night, he kisses you like a dying man. Desperate, soft, and scared. “If I scare you again,” he says, forehead pressed to yours, “tell me. I’d rather break myself apart than lose you.”

---

~~Mafuyu Seba~~

It’s a knife to the chest when you say, “I don’t know who you are anymore.” And Mafuyu just… smiles. Like he was expecting this.

“You were the one good thing I didn’t have to earn,” he says coldly. “Guess I got that wrong too.”

He shuts down completely. Barely sleep. Doesn’t text. You find his coat on your couch like he meant to come home but couldn’t.

The worst part? He wants to fix it. But he doesn’t know how. He was raised on logic and rules—emotions are messy, unpredictable. Dangerous. For the longest time, he never even had the guts for skin-to-skin contact. You were the first person to jump over the high walls.

So you break the silence first. You find him slumped over a desk, staring at a photo of you two. “Were you ever going to come back?”

“I was scared I’d break something that mattered,” he admits, looking up with raw eyes. “I don’t know how to be loved and feared at the same time.”

You hold him close and say, “Then let’s figure it out together.” His kiss is shaky, tender, and terrified. “I’ll make myself better,” he promises.

---

~~Gaku~~

He’s not surprised when you back away. He saw the fear in your eyes the moment he told you the truth.

“You thought I was just some weird, messy guy with a sharp tongue,” he mutters. “Turns out I’m also a trained killer. Surprise.”

He doesn’t beg or apologize. He just leaves. Ghosts you. The type of silence that tastes like blood and old memories.

You find him again by accident, nursing a busted lip in an alley. “Why didn’t you say goodbye?” you ask.

“Because I knew you’d try to stop me,” he replies, not meeting your eyes. “And I couldn’t watch you look at me like that again.”

You walk up and cup his jaw, thumb brushing his bruise. “You scare me,” you admit. “But I still love you.” That’s when he breaks, he hides his face in your shoulder and just breathes, like it’s the first real breath he’s taken in days.

Later that night, his touch is rough but reverent. He kisses your scars and his own. “If you ever want out,” he says, “I’ll let you go. But until then—I’m yours, even if I don’t deserve it.”

---

~~Heisuke Mashimo~~

He tries to joke it off. “I mean, who hasn’t accidentally blown something up, right?” But when you don’t laugh, he realizes this is serious.

His heart drops. “You think I’d hurt you?” he says, so softly it breaks your heart. “I’ve never even raised my voice at you.”

He spirals hard. Convinces himself you’re better off without him, that he’s too reckless, too unstable. He starts sleeping in his van again.

The guilt eats at him. You hear him muttering in his sleep—begging for forgiveness, apologizing to you, to the people he's failed.

You sat down next to him one night and said, “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be here.” He just stares at you like you’re some miracle he doesn’t deserve.

He hugs you too tightly. Buries his face in your neck like you’re his only anchor. “Please don’t be scared of me,” he whispers. “I’d rather blow myself up than hurt you.”

That night, he’s surprisingly tender. Fumbling, awkward, but passionate. “I’m yours,” he says between kisses. “Just tell me what to fix and I’ll do it.”

[eileen-crys]

AI DISTURBANCE "OVERLAYS" DO NOT WORK!

To all the artists and folks who want to protect their art against AI mimicry: all the "AI disturbance" overlays that are circulating online lately DON'T WORK!

Glaze's disturbance (and now the Ibis Paint premium feature, apparently. Not sure.) modifies the image on a code-level, it's not just an overlayed effect but it actually affects the image's data so AI can't really detect and interpret the code within the image. From the Glaze website:

Can't you just apply some filter, compression, blurring, or add some noise to the image to destroy image cloaks? As counterintuitive as this may be, the high level answer is that no simple tools work to destroy the perturbation of these image cloaks. To make sense of this, it helps to first understand that cloaking does not use high-intensity pixels, or rely on bright patterns to distort the image. It is a precisely computed combination of a number of pixels that do not easily stand out to the human eye, but can produce distortion in the AI's “eye.” In our work, we have performed extensive tests showing how robust cloaking is to things like image compression and distortion/noise/masking injection. Another way to think about this is that the cloak is not some brittle watermark that is either seen or not seen. It is a transformation of the image in a dimension that humans do not perceive, but very much in the dimensions that the deep learning model perceive these images. So transformations that rotate, blur, change resolution, crop, etc, do not affect the cloak, just like the same way those operations would not change your perception of what makes a Van Gogh painting "Van Gogh."

Anyone can request a WebGlaze account for FREE, just send an Email or a DM to the official Glaze Project accounts on X and Instagram, they reply within a few days. Be sure to provide a link to your art acc (anywhere) so they know you're an artist.

Please don't be fooled by those colorful and bright overlays to just download and put on your art: it won't work against AI training. Protect your art with REAL Glaze please 🙏🏻 WebGlaze is SUPER FAST, you upload the artwork and they send it back to you within five minutes, and the effect is barely visible!

Official Glaze Project website | Glaze FAQs | about WebGlaze

[stephanidftba]

From Sharon Astyk on Facebook:

Folks, if you haven't been wearing a mask regularly or consistently, but who oppose this administration I want to encourage you to start (folks who have been wearing them all along, let this one go, because this isn't about you.)

I know, I know, you don't want to - you don't want to be harassed, you've had covid twice and it wasn't that bad, you aren't that worried, so why would you do that?

1. Wearing a mask in public means that people who are protesting masked are normalized. If there are many people wearing masks in public spaces, they can't identify who is resisting easily. If masks are a proxy for resistance, as governments are calling them, then it is rather like the story of King Christian of Denmark donning the yellow star. So if you want to protect and support resistors, you can mask.

2. We are on our own with disease protection. RFK jr has been very clear he plans to make vaccines incredibly inaccessible to most Americans. Right now there are circulating cases of measles, TB, mumps, covid and below the radar bird flu (yes, that too) as well as other stuff. No one is going to give you a vaccine to prevent disease. No one is going to tell you when you or your kids are exposed to measles or tuberculosis or bird flu. They are not testing, they are not recording data, they are not seeking to protect you. If you don't protect yourself, no one will.

While I strongly recommend everyone get any boosters or vaccines they need, in a society with low vaccination rates, and permeable vaccines that let some cases through and wane with time, a vaccine-only strategy is not viable. You cannot tell when you are exposed to these diseases, and you will just get sick, and some people will die.

No one is going to tell you when Bird flu starts spreading human to human on any scale. We will find out when a bunch of people get very sick and die - and I don't want you to be among them. No one is going to tell you when a kid has measles at your school in many states now, and you don't know if your vaccine from 30 years ago is still holding. 38% of cases in Ontario have been in vaccinated adults.

Vaccines and air cleaning and far UV light, and smaller classroom densities (yeah right) are all good tools, but the most reliable one is an N95 or equivalent mask.

3. The opinion of Trump, RFK jr and the rest of this administration is that disabled or medically vulnerable people should just die. They've been very clear, and we've seen it in how they cut support, research, to cancer, sickle cell disease, diabetes, alzheimers, etc... and how they talk about people with disabilities like autism.

They are rapidly and painfully stripping resources like SSDI, Medicaid, Special Education support programs and funding, research for rare cancers and diseases, testing that would let you know if your baby has a condition...you name it.

A 14 country study just showed that after 5 1/2 years of the pandemic, 25-30% of people who have covid have long covid. And we've known that was going to happen - that's almost exactly the same stats we've seen in other studies. By your third infection, your risk of long covid is up around 30%.

And while our support systems have been broken and fraying for a long time, they are simply DEAD now. You won't get SSDI. You won't get health care for your disability. You may not get treatment for your cancer. Your Alzheimers meds may not be covered. RFKjr thinks the answer to type 2 diabetes or mental health issues is a work camp.

We know that some viruses, including covid are oncogenic (the obvious one is the HPV virus, and the vaccine prevents cervical cancer perfectly), which means they up your risk of cancer. We know it increases your risk of dementia, and the rate at which dementia progresses. We know that covid can reactivate EBV and TB.

We also know that measles wipes your immune system for three years - including your vaccines. If you get measles, and you cannot get vaccinated again, you could die of diptheria, tetanus, mumps, etc...

You cannot afford to be newly disabled right now. They want people dead or unable to resist. DO NOT COMPLY IN ADVANCE. No one is protecting you from this. So protect yourself - this is as much a step as getting your passport or supporting your food pantry.

4. Because they are so clear that they have eugenicist intents towards disabled people, as well as non-white folks, wearing a mask is an act of solidarity with them.

Statistics have always shown that non-white people are more likely to wear masks than white folks, mostly because they know perfectly well that the safety net has a lot of huge holes in it. They are often worn by people who simply cannot afford to be sick.

Moreover immunocompromised and disabled people HAVE to mask. There are also people who physically CANNOT mask, who rely on others to mask to protect them. When you put on a mask, you do two things.

1. You stand with those who must or wish to mask, and practice community care. You make it clear those lives are more valuable than your convenience. Remember, they are counting on you not to believe that and let disabled people be first targets.

2. You make protest, activism and resistance safe and accessible for millions of people who otherwise cannot participate in standing up to our goverment. You help cross crucial thresholds for engagement by making resistance fully accessible.

My father, who is in his middle 70s and disabled, repeats the mantra regularly that these motherfuckers are not going to get to kill him, no matter how hard they try. That he has no intention of dying under Trump. He's going to stay alive and piss them off and fight back until he gets to piss on their graves.

If you want to do that, you have to wear mask. Its that simple. Masking is fighting back. Masking is solidarity. Masking protects you and everyone. Masking is resistance. Wear a mask in public.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FT62GK2av/

@covid-safer-hotties

[revelboo]

oh shockwave's snarl and antenna flat back in silent aggresiveness, hes so traumatized lmaoo

He wants nothing to do with this nonsense, even if he might be a tiny bit interested which is making him even angrier about it

Everything Is Alright Pt 95

IDW Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• “What is he doing here?” Voice tight with anxiety, Starscream cups his other hand protectively around you as he glares at Shockwave. Aware of Megatron stiffening at being questioned. Of Soundwave standing far too close to him, right behind him. A trap? Of course it is, he’s surrounded by enemies here. Wings flaring out, he tries to decide if there’s enough clearance over Soundwave’s head. If he can transform around you and just bolt. If he can get to Skywarp, he can ask to be warped far away. Can he trust his brother, though? Can he trust anyone except himself?

• Optics narrowing as Starscream tenses, Megatron flicks his servos at Shockwave. “I can’t trust Hook to not be… influenced at this point, but Shockwave is merely here to run some non-intrusive scans on the human,” he says, unable to make himself say bond mate. Not about a weak, little organic. Aware of how irritated the scientist is, his antenna back as he grumbles softly. “Soundwave, bring the human,” he says. Watching his communications officer come around the agitated Seeker and offer his cupped hands. Feeling strangely unsettled as you touch the Seeker’s hand, whispering something too soft to catch. The look of almost panic on Starscream’s face instead of his usual arrogant sneer as he moves his hand to let you go to Soundwave. Hooking a servo around your middle like he doesn’t want to release you, before his wings droop and he lets you go. Remembering against his will the sounds you’d made under Starscream as he rutted against you. Soft skin bathed in the light of a spark, so illicit.

• Cradling you close, Soundwave approaches Megatron only to have the warlord point at a console as if not wanting to touch you again. Giving in to impulse, he lifts you up to rub his masked cheek against your face and shoulder. Feeling you lay a hand on him as Megatron watches with a frown. But if the warlord still thinks of him as a friend at all, he needs to reinforce that you matter to him to keep you safe. And he wants to touch you, reassure you that you’re not being abandoned. That this is okay even if he’s not sure it really is. Reluctantly lowering you, his servos linger against you before he pulls away. Feeling your eyes on him and Starscream. All the things he can’t say out loud in front of Megatron and Shockwave hurting him.

• Wrapping your arms around yourself, you watch them go, catching Star’s optic when Soundwave tries to touch his shoulder and the Seeker bares his denta. And you offer him a smile, trying to pretend you’re not terrified, because it’s all out now. No more secrets. Skin prickling as the big, purple cyclops makes a noise and picks up a tool, you tense. There’s nowhere to run to. Flinching when he powers the thing up and harmless light plays over you from head to toe. When that single optic narrows and he makes a circling gesture with his cannon and momentarily gets distracted staring at it, you obediently turn so he can scan your back.

• “Well?” Megatron demands as Shockwave studies the screen. From the corner of his optic, he sees you turn back toward them, arms around yourself. “What is it doing to them?” Because there has to be a sane reason for this. For why two perfectly reasonable- well, one perfectly reasonable mech and Starscream are so obsessed with a human to the point of bonding it. “No signs of its pheromones being able to influence their reasoning,” Shockwave mutters, scrolling through the data. “No psychic outlier abilities. Elevated levels of nanites present suggest numerous couplings. Organic is entirely unremarkable otherwise.”

• Numerous couplings. He’d basically implied you’re a sex fiend. Can the ground just open up and swallow you whole at this point? And entirely unremarkable. Yep. Mortified and offended, you stare at them. “You thought I was mind controlling them?” And then the warlord is frowning at you. Because apparently he really just wanted you to be manipulating them, not wanting to believe that they like you. Care for you.

• “Perhaps a more tactile exploration to reach conclusive results?” Shockwave suggests and you stumble back, eyes widening in fear. And for some reason that bothers Megatron. That fear. “That won’t be necessary,” Megatron says, watching Shockwave glare down at you before walking out. Leaving him with you. Those wide eyes stare up at him as he walks over to retrieve you, feeling your little heart racing when he picks you up and carries you to set on the arm of his throne. Sitting down, he studies you. “You washed off the scent of the Seeker before coming to me?” When you redden and nod, he laughs softly. “Good. You won’t come to me scenting of him.” So it’s not pheromones or some strange ability corrupting his forces. Just the interfacing itself which is almost as bad. No, it’s actually worse. Optics sliding to you, he remembers the glimpse he’d gotten of your back arched, Starscream’s hips moving urgently against you. The wet sound of it. Venting, he presses a servo against his aching head. “How exactly did the Seeker find you?”

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[pforestsims]

Why I started using DXT1 texture format for TS2 CC again (sometimes)

In the past I discouraged ppl from using it. But it has one benefit, which TS2 CC creators shouldn't ignore: DXT1 textures are about half the size of DXT3. In TS2 DXT1 is only used for textures without transparency.

There are two facts about textures that some ts2 cc creators and cc hoarders are probably unaware of:

Lossless compression (compressorizer etc) significantly reduces file sizes, but it does NOT help texture memory, because texture files get uncompressed before being stored in GPU texture memory cache

Byte size does NOT equal resolution. For example: Raw32Bit texture takes up around four times more space in texture memory cache than DXT5

DXT3 2048*2048 px takes up ~4MB, but DXT1 2048*2048, thanks to its harsh 8:1 compression, takes up only ~2MB of texture memory cache, which is an equivalent of two makeup textures 512*512 px Raw32Bit format (TS2 makeup creators' favourite :S ).

@episims posted a comparison of DXT formats here - but please note Epi compared texture sizes after those were compressorized. Also, I believe the DXT1 preview actually shows glitches that are not visible in the game.

To change texture format in SimPe you need to install Nvidia DDS utilities, which can be downloaded here (SFS). Also, Yape package editor is much faster and easy to use.

*This is about GPU texture memory. As far as I know, it's unclear how internal TS2 texture memory works - does it benefit from lossless file compression or not? No idea. But IMO we don't have a reason to be optimistic about it :/ What we know for sure is - the easiest way to summon pink soup in TS2 on modern systems, is to make the game load large amounts of texture data (large for TS2 standards anyway) in a short amount of time.

DXT1 built in SimPe with Nvidia DDS Tools tend to look bad - but as I had learned very recently, SimPe DXT1 preview (and export) is broken! It displays some artifacts that are not actually visible in game!

The only way to correctly view DXT1 created in SimPe outside of the game is the new YaPe package editor. You need to switch the texture format preview to AltRGB24 (Raw24Bit).

DXT formats use lossy compression which affects texture quality - this compression matters for texture memory.

DXT1 512*512*4 (4 bytes per pixel) / 8 (divided by 8, because of 8:1 compression ratio) = ~131 KB

DXT3 512x512 px (4:1 compression) = ~262 KB

Raw32Bit 512x512 px = ~1MB

2048x1024 px DXT1 texture takes up around as much texture memory as 1024x1024 px DXT3 or DXT5 (non transparent*) = ~1 MB

*Flat (non transparent) DXT3 size is the same as DXT5.

Fun fact: flat DXT1 and DXT5 built in GIMP look identical, and also not much better than SimPe DXT1 (in game!).

DXT5 has 4:1 compression just like DXT3 but it can store more data in alpha channel, and that allows for much better looking transparency (if smooth alpha is present, size is increased). As I already mentioned, DXT1 does not support alpha transparency.

I don't want my game to look like crap, but if texture looks OK as DXT1, then why not use it. Aside from hood decor, I've been reconverting some wall and floor textures for myself to DXT1 recently, instead of resizing.

Some ppl might cringe on seeing 2048x2048 skybox textures but to me large texture is justified for such a giant object. I cringe at Raw32Bit makeup.

I'm slowly turning all Raw32 makeup content in my game to DXT5 (no mipmaps). I've edited enough of those to know, that quite often the actual texture quality is not great. If a texture has been converted to DXT3 at some point, alpha channel is a bit choppy. "Upgrading" such texture to Raw32 doesn't do anything, other than multiplying texture size by four. I don't know how 'bout you, but I only use one or two skyboxes at a time, while my sims walk around with tons of face masks on them, so it's a real concern to me. And don't make me start on mip maps in CAS CC. My game certainly doesn't need 33% larger hair texture files :S

*note - another thing I've "discovered" after writing this post, SimPe DDS Builder can actually make crisp mipmaps as long as you set Sharpen to "None".

Note2: Raw8Bit (bump maps) / ExtRaw8Bit (shadows etc) are also uncompressed formats, but don't contain color data and weight around as much as DXT3.

/I've taken out this part from a long post I'm writing RN /

[steelbluehome]

From Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge on Facebook

Heading to a “Hands Off!” protest this Saturday? Here’s everything you need to know — your rights, safety tips, and what to do if arrested.

On Saturday, April 5, people across the United States will gather for a coordinated day of resistance. From major cities to small towns, the “Hands Off!” protests are about drawing a hard line — against political overreach, creeping authoritarianism, and policies that strip away our rights and dignity.

Whether you’re marching in New York City, Dallas, Chicago, or a rural square in Nebraska, your presence matters. So does your preparation.

Here’s your nationwide guide to showing up — and staying safe while doing it.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (AND WRITE THEM ON YOUR ARM)

Before you arrive: Write the local legal support hotline number on your arm in permanent marker. In many cities, National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapters will operate hotlines and send legal observers.

Say: “I am exercising my right to remain silent. I want a lawyer.”

Ask: “Am I being detained or am I free to go?”

If detained, remain silent.

If not, walk away calmly.

Legal observers (often in green hats/vests) are there to document police behavior — not to represent you legally. You can notify them if you witness abuse or misconduct.

WHAT TO BRING

Pack like you’re staying awhile and planning for anything:

Water and snacks

Face mask, hand sanitizer, and sunscreen

Phone with passcode lock (NOT Face ID/fingerprint)

External battery pack

Cash (for food, transit, emergencies)

Printed emergency contacts

Comfortable shoes, weather-appropriate clothing

Goggles or saline drops (in case of tear gas, depending on region)

Don’t bring:

Weapons (or anything that could be construed as one)

Illegal substances

Anything you wouldn’t want seized or photographed by law enforcement

STAY SAFE, STAY CALM, STAY NON-VIOLENT

Stick together. Stay with your group. Have a plan if separated.

Avoid confrontation. Ignore counter-protesters and agitators.

Film what matters. You have the legal right to record public events, including police activity — but don’t interfere.

De-escalate when possible. Your goal is to be heard, not baited.

Watch your surroundings. Know where you are and how to exit if needed.

If arrested:

Don’t resist.

Don’t talk beyond name and birthdate.

Wait for a lawyer.

Don’t sign anything without legal counsel.

PROTECT YOUR DATA

Phones are tools — and vulnerabilities.

Turn off Face ID and fingerprint unlock. Use a passcode.

Consider airplane mode during risky moments.

Back up photos/videos or use live stream apps like Instagram or Twitch to preserve footage.

Use encrypted messaging apps like Signal.

RESOURCES BY REGION

While every city differs, these national orgs often have local chapters or partners at major protests:

National Lawyers Guild: nlg.org

ACLU: aclu.org/know-your-rights

Mutual Aid Networks: Search “[Your City] Mutual Aid”

Bail Funds Directory: bailfunds.github.io

Legal Hotlines: Often listed on local protest pages or announced by organizers day-of

TRANSPORT + ACCESSIBILITY

Plan ahead: Some roads and transit lines may close or reroute.

Carpool or take transit when possible.

If you need ADA accommodations, contact local organizers in advance or ask staff at arrival points.

THIS IS BIGGER THAN A MARCH

This isn’t just a protest. It’s a warning flare — and a promise. That we won’t stand by while our rights are stripped. That we won’t let apathy win. That we see what’s happening — and we’re not afraid to raise hell, peacefully and powerfully.

So come prepared.

Come together.

And don’t let them scare you into silence.

Stay safe. Stay loud.

[innovativeroutinesinternational]

Securing Sensitive Data: Choosing the Right Data Masking Tool for Your Business

Data is a business's most valuable asset in today's digital age. However, with its value comes immense responsibility. Organizations must navigate a treacherous landscape of cyber threats, data breaches, and ever-evolving regulatory requirements. The challenge? Protecting sensitive data while ensuring it remains usable for essential operations. Enter data masking—a strategic approach that safeguards critical information without disrupting workflows.

Imagine handling confidential financial records, healthcare data, or customer details without fear of exposure. Sounds like a dream, right? With an adequate data masking tool, this becomes a reality. These tools replace sensitive data with realistic but fictitious substitutes, allowing businesses to maintain operational efficiency without compromising security. Whether you're working in banking, retail, or software development, ensuring data security is no longer optional—it’s a necessity.

The Power of Data Masking: More Than Just Compliance

While regulatory compliance is a driving factor behind data protection, the benefits of data masking extend far beyond ticking legal boxes. When implemented correctly, data masking can:

Minimize Risk: Shielding data from unauthorized access significantly reduces the likelihood of breaches.

Enhance Data Privacy: Protect customer and employee information, fostering trust and credibility.

Enable Secure Collaboration: Share data securely with partners, developers, and analysts without exposing accurate details.

Improve Development & Testing Environments: Ensure software testing and analytics use masked data instead of accurate, sensitive information.

This forward-thinking data protection strategy enables companies to innovate confidently while ensuring compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS regulations.

Choosing the Right Data Masking Tool for Your Organization

The market offers many options for data masking tools, but how do you determine which one suits your needs? Here are key factors to consider:

Comprehensive Masking Techniques: To ensure adaptability, look for a solution that supports static, dynamic, and deterministic masking.

Performance & Scalability: Your chosen tool should seamlessly process large volumes of data without slowing down operations.

Ease of Integration: Ensure compatibility with databases, cloud storage, and enterprise applications.

Regulatory Compliance Support: A robust tool with built-in compliance features will help you effortlessly comply with privacy laws.

Security & Audit Capabilities: Monitoring, tracking, and logging data access is essential for maintaining transparency and control.

By carefully evaluating these factors, businesses can select a data masking tool that enhances security without disrupting workflows.

Unlocking the Strategic Advantages of Data Masking

Beyond compliance and security, data masking plays a crucial role in business agility and innovation. Here’s how:

Mitigating Insider Threats: Even within an organization, not all employees need access to sensitive data. Masking ensures that only authorized personnel see what they need.

Facilitating Cloud Adoption: Cloud environments introduce new security concerns. Masking helps ensure that data stored or processed in the cloud remains secure.

Driving Data-Driven Decisions: Businesses can harness the power of analytics and AI without exposing real customer or company information.

The correct data masking solution empowers businesses to operate securely, enabling growth while eliminating vulnerabilities.

Conclusion

In an era where data breaches can incapacitate businesses overnight, proactive security measures are more critical than ever. A reliable data masking tool protects sensitive information, strengthens regulatory compliance, enhances operational efficiency, and builds customer trust. As threats evolve, so should your approach to data security. Investing in data masking today means safeguarding your business for a more secure, resilient tomorrow.

[mierins]

jessamine // ino takuma x reader; oneshot

“You let me win.” His tone is accusatory. “Congratulations,” I reply flatly, massaging with my sleeve at my jaw. He wipes at his face aggressively, as if by rubbing his eyes, he could alter the shape of the exchange. “That’s not what I-- You didn’t even try.” “And yet, you’re pissed off,” I answer. “Imagine how you'd feel if I did try.” ... I should have ignored him-- I don’t speak to anyone, much less scrappy Tokyo boys with a chip on their shoulder and more pride than manners. Something in me realizes this is the most sentences I’ve strung together for anyone except for maybe Iori-sensei.

...

The coldest girl in the world meets a boy with sunshine in his face; or, the orbit of Kyoto's resident ice princess and a scruffy Tokyo sorcerer with everything to prove.

x Playlist x

ao3 link

Rating: M Word Count: 10.1k Warnings: A really unlikeable MC/reader insert, mild sexual content, enemies to friends to lovers to strangers trope, Jujutsu Clan bashing but also typical classism, MC is a walking identity crisis masked by being a bitch. Additional Notes: Welcome back Jessamine Lovelace

September, 2013. 25th Annual Kyoto-Tokyo Goodwill Event. First Year.

Everyone knew who I was. I hadn’t exactly collected the data, but the breakdown is approximately as follows: half of them pitied me, and half of them resented me.

Silent in a set of traditional robes in Jujutsu High navy, I keep my hands folded demurely in front of myself, not a hair out of place. I look more ready to be a guest at a Shinto wedding ceremony, than an inter-campus sorcery brawl.

I suppose that was the point, though. I don’t want to be here-- have never, in fact, wanted to be here.

The pity lay in that my parents were dead-- killed by curses when I was too young to know what power I held at my fingertips, but when I had already been old enough to long for a more simple life, for I was dragged kicking and screaming to Kyoto Jujutsu High, into a strange land of gods and monsters.

The resentment lay in that I never tried to make anything of myself there-- and it was never expected of me to do so, anyways. I was the last surviving scion of my clan-- my mother had uncles, sure, but they belonged to another name, another bloodline-- but I was last of my name, and was therefore afforded all the privileges, titles, and inheritances that had encompassed.

A sprawling estate. All the clan’s cursed tools. All the family fortune. The selection of a representative to the higher-ups’ council. Close ties to the Jujutsu Headquarters due to being their ward. An ancient clan name. Power in both the political and the cursed realms.

In short, I had everything.

Everything, but the choice to leave.

And so I made myself difficult. To read. To know. To like.

To control.

And so when the Tokyo students arrive for the exchange event, brimming with raw energy and easy laughter, I don’t offer anything, any semblance of sportsmanship or goodwill despite the name of the event, to any of them-- even when a first-year boy with shaggy brown hair reaches out with a smile and a name that I make myself forget.

“Ino Takuma.”

I look down at his hand, and then back up at him, and then raise a brow.

I have long since surpassed the urges of shame, and I’m willing to drag this on for as long as it takes him to get the hint that I’m not here to make any friends. My reputation has obviously not managed to precede me to such an extent that he knows what I’m about.

I see his olive skin flush, and then he scowls, snatching his hand back as if I’ve burned him.

“Fine. Forget it.”

September, 2014. 26th Annual Kyoto-Tokyo Goodwill Event. Second Year.

The Tokyo campus, located on the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis itself, was startlingly rustic for how positively avant-garde their main teacher, Gojo Satoru, happened to be, nearly the twin of the Kyoto campus.

Iori-sensei keeps an eagle eye on me as we make our way up to the gates, as if suspecting me of attempting to make a dash for it at any given minute. That might explain the buddy system we were on during the train ride over, really, though I’m sure I’d been so unpleasantly impervious to Zen’in Ranta in his attempts to engage me in obligatory small talk that he’d probably started to cry blood by the end of it.

Ridiculous. As if I’d have anywhere to go if I were to run. My money doesn’t become mine until I turn twenty. Until then, it’s in trust, with the provision that I will receive a sorcerer’s education.

Goddamn it, great-grandpa. If I can go back in time to when I was ten, I would break every one of his gout-ridden fingers until he takes that out of his will.

First event: group battle.

My schoolmates, ever the tacticians, made the bold, strategic decision to completely ignore my presence. Which suited me just fine, since I wasn’t planning to be a part of it anyways. I’m simply a Grade Four liability wrapped in clan niceties and a sour face that revealed too much of my inner thoughts. I spend the time napping in a tree, and climb down only when the victory bell sounds for Kyoto.

Second event: one-on-one battles.

This wasn’t in the schedule from last year-- or maybe it was, and I had been simply removed from the matchups once Principal Gakuganji realized that attempting to make me cooperate was beyond his scope of ability.

This year, though, I’m given the proper inducement: if I don’t participate, I will be forced to repeat the semester. Thereby jeopardizing the inheritance. Thereby jeopardizing my ability to actually get the fuck out of here.

I let the begrudging respect for the way Iori-sensei has seemingly figured out how to render me cooperative simmer for a bit-- just long enough to avoid giving her the satisfaction of immediate compliance-- before I go to find the roster, scanning it for my name-- at the bottom of the list, and printed next to it, Ino Takuma.

Not a clan sorcerer. So why did the name itch at the back of my brain, as if I remembered it?

It’s not until I’m called down to the ring (with an insistent nudge from Iori-sensei), that I realize who it is-- the boy who tried to introduce himself to me last year, all earnest eyes and gangly limbs. Taller now, lankier too, his hair no less shaggy and now brushing past his ears.

I bowed-- formality’s sake, nothing more. He didn’t, just rolled up his sleeves and shoved his beanie down over his face, performing some kind of esoteric chant.

He really needn’t bother. I don’t want to fight, anyways. I shuffled one foot back into a lung, hands coming up-- enough to give them a show, enough to keep my grades afloat, but no more.

“Don’t think I’m going easy on you just because you’re some poor little orphaned princess,” he mutters under his breath, eyes burning with some kind of judgement.

I blink once, slowly.

I’ve heard variations on dead parents from my peers enough that it doesn’t bother me-- not like that, no, but still--

“You’ve had a year to think of insults, and that’s what you came up with?”

He bristles, and as the drum sounds to signal the match start, I can see his hand spark with cursed energy.

I use none of my own.

For a moment, the two of us measure one another up, and then he’s lunging, and I’m dodging back as the first blow comes for me.

He grins, as if he’d done something (oh, the arrogance of men)-- “What’s the matter, princess? Can’t keep up?”

I didn’t respond, steadying myself again.

He came in again-- this time a feint with his arm, then dropping down for a kick. He was smart-- he wasn’t just a pair of hands and a cursed technique that felt as raw and unrefined as the energy that flickered around him.

But I give him nothing as he’s trying to press my defense, trying to see what tricks the Kyoto heiress has hidden up her sleeves.

No counters.

No blocks.

No cursed technique.

Just movement, dancing away from every one of his attempted blows. I catch Iori-sensei’s eyes in the stands. How’s that for cooperation, sensei? I doubted any of my classmates had ever seen me exert myself like this either, but I wasn’t going to be totally hopeless. I just-- wasn’t going to try particularly hard to rise the ranks or work.

It’s this endless duet that meanders along the edge of the sparring ring, him attacking, me barely playing defense, and I can see the vexation bloom in his eyes.

Until I let him hit me.

Just once-- his elbow catching the edge of my jaw. A strike that’s sharp enough to send me reeling back, but he’d pulled the blow enough that it wouldn’t bruise. Deliberately, I let my stumbles take me just outside the boundaries of the sparring ring, scattering the white sand that formed the border.

The drum rings out again. The match was over.

One point for Tokyo Jujutsu High, scored by Ino Takuma.

His classmates cheer. Mine clap politely, trying to pretend as if I didn’t throw the match.

He yanks his beanie off, panting, victorious,-- and red-faced with annoyance.

“You let me win.” His tone is accusatory.

“Congratulations,” I reply flatly, massaging with my sleeve at my jaw.

He wipes at his face aggressively, as if by rubbing his eyes, he could alter the shape of the exchange. “That’s not what I-- You didn’t even try.”

“And yet, you’re pissed off,” I answer. “Imagine how you'd feel if I did try.”

“Do you even care about being a Jujutsu sorcerer?” he demands.

I should have ignored him-- I don’t speak to anyone, much less scrappy Tokyo boys with a chip on their shoulder and more pride than manners. Something in me realizes this is the most sentences I’ve strung together for anyone except for maybe Iori-sensei.

“No,” I shrug, turning on my heel.

July, 2015. Tokyo. Supplemental assigned pair mission. Third Year.

I should have expected this-- really. I should have known the moment I let Iori-sensei cajole me into participating in the one-on-one duels by threatening to flunk me, that I was opening the floodgates. That moment of weakness-- of letting someone learn that in fact, the bitch princess of Kyoto did have something to lose, and stakes to play for-- had been all it took for Iori-sensei to embrace the newly-discovered leverage she had over me.

Tokyo in July was an atmosphere of curses so thick in the air that it felt like smoke before a fire.

The oppressive heat hit like a wall as soon as I stepped off the train, the assignment tucked into my sleeve for safeguarding. My first field assignment, a low-grade curse. Accompanying a Grade Two sorcerer, since everyone else was on missions already, and I was just skulking around the air-conditioned halls of Kyoto Jujutsu Tech like a phantom.

I get in the auxiliary manager’s car, a young woman a few years older than me, perhaps a recent grad, with bleach-blonde hair and dark roots that were beginning to show. I wasn’t sure if it was indicative of a fashion trend, or an overdue visit to the salon.

She gave me the quick rundown as we pulled away from the station: the curse was believed to be nesting in an abandoned apartment block on the outer edge of an industrial district. Grade Two Sorcerer deployed, possibly injured. No barrier in place yet, but she’d handle it once we arrived. I nodded silently, having tuned most of it out once I realized the redundancy of the mission brief, and watched the buildings blur past the window as the streets turned shabbier and more cramped.

I expected someone older. One of the third or four years. Maybe one of the recent grads.

I didn’t expect him.

Ino Takuma looked like he’d tried to fight a paper shredder or bear-- and lost. One sleeve of his uniform was torn clean off, his forehead was bandaged haphazardly over a still-seeping gash, and there was a bloodstain blooming at his knee where the denim had been ripped open.

He was crouched at the edge of the sidewalk in front of a condemned building, water bottle pressed against the side of his neck, and I’m debating whether or not it’s too late to ask the auxiliary manager-- Nitta, I think her name is-- to turn around, and pretend the mission brief was lost on the train, but then she pulls to a stop directly in front of him, and unlocks the doors for me.

As I disembark, I watch, fascinated in the way one might be with a slow-motion replay of a train wreck, as his expression shifts from boyishly wearied, to sour disgust. “You have got to be kidding me,” he scoffs. “You?”

I sigh, offering back the barest hint of a bow as Nitta pulls into a parallel park and begins to cast the barrier down. “Hello to you too, Ino.”

He stands, with the barest flicker of discomfort that he tries to hide from me-- I wonder if it were his knees, or from sitting in a crouch too long. “You’re who Iori-sensei sent?”

“I was told someone needed help,” I responded blandly, "Apparently, that someone was you.”

He’s grinding at his jaw. “Fine. But don’t get in the way. I’m not in the mood to babysit.”

“That’s ludicrous,” I shoot back. “I practically raised myself.”

“Whatever, princess.” He takes a final swig from his water bottle before tossing it over at Nitta, who, to her credit, doesn’t even blink before reaching out to catch it. Dusting off his jeans, he turns to look over his shoulder at me. “Keep up.”

I scowl at him in response. “After you.”

The interior of the tenement is-- I think to myself, if there is a hell, it surely must be modeled off of this building. I immediately make a resolution to go light some incense at the campus shrine once I’m out of here, because I am not going to spend eternity in such an appalling state, thanks very much.

The walls themselves smell rotten, as if this were a decomposing organism, and not a rusty old building. Everything feels damp-- moist, even-- a dark film clinging to the yellowing wallpaper as we make our way down the hall, and down another set of stairs.

I repress my temptation to gag, and hold my sleeve over my nose instead.

Beside me, Ino rolls his eyes. Let him judge, with the beanie covering his entire face, looking like a scarecrow given human form with his spiky brown hair.

He’s muttering something under his breath, and I almost think he’s taken up insulting me again before I realize it’s the mantras required to activate his cursed technique.

The heat and the living avatar of human misery must be taking a toll on me today, because I don’t have the foresight to ready myself before Ino’s pushing me behind him brusquely. From a drooping, water-stained ceiling panel, a twisted arm busts forth, followed by what might have been a head, and rusted nails for teeth-- like some festering blister finally bursting.

Including the spray of foul water and everything.

I actually gag this time, falling back even more as Ino snaps with impatience, “Kaichi!” and a horned projectile forms between his hands.

I close my eyes, rolling my shoulders back, letting my own cursed technique ripple over my skin-- a thousand refracted prismatic points, turning me crystalline.

They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I am a diamond, and therefore, by definition, my own best friend.

The curse snaps its maw threateningly at Ino-- obviously having been the culprit of the mauling earlier with tatters of his uniform still between its teeth, the projectile still zooming around the stripped basement as the curse weaves and dodges it, trading blows and snarls with the other boy.

Obviously, the reason they called me here was because round one was an abject failure. I make the executive decision not to feed Ino to the curse and charge forward. It’s too preoccupied with my companion, too eyeless to see, too stupid to sense the way I slide under its blistered belly, punching up before Ino even has the chance to react, or protest.

Diamond against cursed flesh-- let’s see which is stronger.

I fucking hate brawling. It’s graceless and uncivilized in the highest degree, too much elbow grease for my proclivities, but something about this mission-- maybe it’s the irritation at being deprived of air conditioning and clean walls, maybe it’s the absolute annoyance of my companion that fuels me on. I just want to get it over with. I don’t give the curse a chance to react. I just keep throwing my fists at it, again and again, till I’m covered to the forearms in cursed gore.

It shrieks, stumbling back, and Kaichi’s horn finally homes into its heart, exploding it into a splash of ichor.

Even in a crystalline form, the disgust on my face is evident as I step away from the detonation point.

We stand there in silence for a moment, the only sound being our breathing, the drip of a mildewed wall, and the hum of a faulty generator-- and then he says, “Didn’t know you had it in you, princess.”

“Please,” I let the diamond retract, the blood sloughing off as well, until I’m pristine again. “You don’t know me at all.”

September, 2016. Aomori Prefecture. Tokyo-Kyoto Joint School Training Mission. Fourth Year.

These woods were haunted.

Even a civilian would know that-- the Hakkoda Mountains are full of ghosts, some as ancient as the island itself, some as new as hapless hikers. 199 men were lost in a military training expedition in the snows a century prior. Some of their corpses were found still standing, as if frozen in time.

Gojo Satoru, in a brilliant stroke of genius, had decided that instead of having us participate in the Goodwill Events this year, the fourth-year kickoff event would be an inter-campus simulated training mission in the far north of Tohoku.

“There’s more than enough cursed spirits to go around!” he’d cheerfully exclaimed on our train ride north, with all the exuberance of a toddler who got into the candy jar.

Unfortunately for us, there was no sugar crash in sight here.

It’s a pity, really. There were a few amongst the new gaggle of freshmen that had all the makings of a company I might have tolerated-- maybe even respected, if I were feeling magnanimous. Not that I’d ever admit such a thing aloud. I’ve sworn, many times, that I’d never befriend anyone associated with this godforsaken world of curses. But still--

There’s the unexpected Kamo clan heir who’s practically oozing the doleful weight of clan obligation, all formality and reserve wrapped in a set of traditional robes.

And the Zen’in girl with a gun strapped to her waist and disinterest writ clear across her posture, all edge and no tolerance for any of her classmate’ antics.

Bound by clan hierarchies and rigidity, their faces screaming, I have to do this, and so I refuse to make this a pleasant experience for anyone else.

My kind of people.

It’s just my luck that the one year where I’d actually want to take interest in the proceedings, just so happens to be the one year we’re here instead, trekking through the browning forest towards some dilapidated hot spring, on some overglorified field trip that no one asked for.

Even Iori-sensei looks half a second away from snapping Gojo’s head off, what with the way she’s glaring daggers at him and muttering under her breath. The Tokyo students are all trekking merrily on ahead, as if this could be a stroll in the park, following the lead of their instructor.

Gojo may call it a test of teamwork, but I suspect for most of the Kyoto cohort, it’s more a test of patience.

Now, looking at the site of our “camp” for the night, I give it another generous half day before we’re going full Lord of the Flies or Battle Royale on each other.

Tashiro Hot Springs were once, if not bustling, at least some place that indicated some semblance of civilization, given that an entire military unit was lost trying to make that their reconnaissance point.

Now, though?

Technically, yes, there were still buildings-- at least, what remained of them. The main lodge was a liminal wooden husk, warped by age and weather, the beams partially caved in like it had given up halfway through a collapse and simply decided to languish in ruin instead. The whole thing reeked of damp timber and neglect.

Then there were the remnants of the onsen on the grounds-- a rock bath and a wooden one, fed by natural hot springs that continued to flow, as if unaware that all mortal contact had ceased to seek out its bounty. One might imagine this was a luxury-- until you took in the sludge, algae, and layers of decay crusted at the bottom of the basin.

“I have got to stop getting assigned to places like this,” I sniff, fighting off the urge to make a face at the ever-present scent of sulfur that lingered around the grounds. I let my school-issued bedroll fall to the ground with a sullen thud, barely even disturbing the layers of decomposing leaves.

Once I get back to civilization, I was going to book an everything spa, because if the technology doesn’t exist to Men-In-Black this shit out of my mind, I was at least going to get it scrubbed off of my skin.

The first thing I notice in the dusk, is that it’s quiet. Too quiet. Some kid from the Tokyo school’s yammering on about the wildlife guide he’d picked up at the Aomori train station when we’d first pulled into town, about the black bears lurking in the highland forests, about the pit vipers slithering through the undergrowth, about the presence of giant hornets, the risk of lyme disease, and the likes.

I can’t help myself, and from where I sit, a few paces away from where the rest of the students are gathered at the fire, I tilt my head, and lob into the crowd, “Where are they all, then?”

The gathering falls silent. Ino casts me an overly-familiar glare, and I stare back, the unrepentant wet blanket over every gathering. I hear Iori-sensei take a breath, and I’m bracing myself for the familiar lecture about team spirit and manners, but then Gojo Satoru of all people, stands, brushing off his trousers.

“She’s right.”

It’s a shame that I don’t get to gloat at the acknowledgement, because in the next moment, something crashes out of the woods, into our campsite.

Dripping maw, hunched shape-- in the dark, someone without any cursed energy might be forgiven for mistaking it as a rabid black bear, but the lot of us knew better-- cursed energy flowing all around it, twisted into some primeval misery that reeked of sulfur and death.

It’s followed by another hulking beast, nearly twice the size of the first-- and pandemonium breaks loose.

For a group of fourth year Jujutsu sorcerers, my peers are surprisingly quick to startle, because screams start lancing through the night air. The fire sputters as someone hurtles over it, kicking up a spray of dirt and mildewed leaves.

That selfsame Tokyo kid who had been merrily babbling away about the wildlife is now screaming for Gojo, who, surprise, surprise, is nowhere to be found.

I sigh. Let the games begin.

The bear-curses are rampaging their way through camp, and students are scrambling for their bags, their equipment, and I almost laugh, watching them scatter.

But I’m not dumb enough to just stay standing there-- and I deftly grab my own bedroll, slipping back through the woods in the direction that I think we had come from.

As soon as I’m around the corner, out of sight of the cursed spirits, I drop to my knee, quickly rummaging through my bag. A cursed talisman rustles as I retrieve it, bloodred sigils sparking with the flame of cursed energy as I ignite it, holding it aloft as I stand again to pick my way cautiously down the overgrown path. I ignore the radio at the bottom of the pack.

Sparks of cursed energy flicker across the night sky, and I begrudgingly salute my classmates for mustering enough to fight back-- couldn’t be me, as I’m trying to weasel my way out of here.

Then, abruptly, my shoulder snaps back as I walk directly into something unseen.

I recoil slightly, blinking. The path ahead is empty. No trees in my way. No roots. Nothing visible at all.

I reach forward again, and my hand stops short against something smooth and unyielding.

Not bark. Not rock.

A barrier.

Gojo’s idea of “training,” no doubt. I sigh in disgust. Of course it couldn’t be as easy as just picking up my bag and strolling out of there.

A veil has been cast. Our instructors have penned us in.

I allow myself the luxury of a string of swear words just as something else crashes through the woods, and I’m encasing the diamond over myself in the span of a breath, sacrificing unobtrusiveness and cursed energy for glittering durability, ready to fight, or at least to survive if it were one of the bear curses-- or worse-- because Gojo Satoru definitely would come up with worse.

Ino Takuma’s wide hazel eyes find mine. He’s panting, hair mussed, beanie clutched in his fist.

“Shit,” I breathe. Of all people.

He echoes the sentiment. “Fuck.”

I retract the diamond form. Gesture to the boundary I’d just tried to cross. “They set up a veil to keep us in.”

“Of course you’d be trying to run,” he mutters under his breath.

It’s called being smart, and staying safe, thanks very much. Just because I know when to walk away, and not try to throw my life away like the rest of these chucklefucks.

Instead, I ask-- “And where were you headed?”

He flushes slightly. Seems I’ve hit a nerve.

The next moment, a shadow surged out of the trees, where it had been lying in wait, silent, watchful. A pit viper, grotesquely enlarged-- twenty, maybe thirty feet of scale and muscle coiled beneath the skeletal outlines of trees that groaned under the weight of its cursed form. Less uncanny than the bear-curses, at least recognizable by shape. But far more terrifying for that very reason.

I hate snakes. I could even say I’m terrified of them, but that would be admitting far too much.

The cursed viper flicks its tail like a whip, and Ino doesn't even have time to take in another breath before he goes flying, a ragdoll that crashes into the undergrowth with a sickening crunch.

Everything goes slow-motion in the span of seconds, as if time itself crystalized around me, weighing the outcomes, the options, the choice between fleeing the scene, leaving him to fend for himself or--

He isn’t mine to worry about. Not my friend. Not my ally. Not even my schoolmate.

But he’s not getting up. Alive, still, groaning coming from the bushes he’s buried in. But the viper is slithering towards him, yellowed fangs glistening in the dim light of our curse talismans.

Diamond surges across my skin in the span of a breath, and I’m in the air, leaping at the curse-- nothing but bare hands. I extend out my fingers like claws, dig them into the gaps between the scales. Let the gravity carry me down, tearing a gash through its reinforced flesh. The snake rears back with an unnatural screech that could have only been produced by a curse.

I’m on Ino in a second, yanking him to his feet by his collar as his eyes widen. “Get your fucking ass up.”

He tries to laugh, I think, but it ends in a wince and a cough instead. “Never knew the Kyoto ice princess had a mouth on her.” He’s discombobulated. Definitely shellshocked. Possibly concussed. It’s disconcerting to see him like this, when he’s always been so… prickly towards me. Argumentative. Combative. Resentful, or what have you. Pick your poison, and mix it in a shaker.

I let go of his sweatshirt, grabbing the beanie out of his hand to shove onto his head, not bothering to dignify him with a response as I wheel around, just in time to slam a crystalline fist into the snake’s jaw, sending its head reeling once more.

Behind me, I hear him gasp, “Auspicious Beasts Summon-- Kaichi!”

The increasingly-familiar horned projectile blasts past my ear, close enough that I can feel the puff of air it leaves behind in its wake, catching the viper in the underbelly where I’d already scratched past its scales. It wails, writhing as Kaichi burrows itself into the beast’s heart.

The curse explodes in a haze of dark sludge, leaving us there in the forest.

Ino spits into a nearby bush, saliva mixed with blood, and he turns, opens his mouth as if to say something, before he collapses. I let my diamond armor retract, and grasp onto his arm, shifting more of his weight onto my shoulder.

The forest is silent around us, save for the sound of our breathing.

September 2016, Tokyo. Kyoto-Tokyo Goodwill Event Closing Ceremony. Fourth Year.

“Senpai,” a blue-haired first year begins, trailed by a diminutive blonde and the Zen’in girl. Her bangs slant a bit alarmingly over her forehead-- I choose, out of the kindness of my heart, to believe this was an intentional fashion statement and not the result of a rebellious teenaged streak. “Your hair looks so nice.”

“Save it,” I reply calmly, twisting a small piece of the fresh-roasted eel off of the filet with my chopsticks, before letting it melt in my mouth-- and though it was delicious, I don’t try to make any kind of effusive gesture, staying as composed as ever. I doubted the girl was telling the truth, given that I’d just barely managed to brave a wash in the communal showers and managed to throw on a nicer kosode before the farewell dinner.

(It was, as always, Gojo’s fault, for delaying us at some dessert shop and causing us to miss our train back-- prompting us to all scramble and show up in various states of either disheveled or tardy as a result.)

“We don’t know where to go,” Nishimiya, the eldest of the trio, tries instead-- realizing the flattery from her first-year friend isn’t sticking. “None of the salons we tried know how to work my hair.”

“Are they paying you for missions yet?” I ask. The trio nod in sync.

Oh the cruelties of the Jujutsu world. Forcing us to get down and dirty just to get the money it would take to make us look human again. Rinse and repeat in a vicious cycle. Not that I needed it. I had my own inheritance for that reason.

(Wait, is that why all my peers react with such disdain towards me?)

“Well, all this,” I gesture expansively to myself. “Costs money. Not student-allowance money. Clan inheritance money.”

I can see the blue-haired girl’s face fall, and I turn my attention back to my half-eaten meal. Typical of most everyone to be done by now, socializing, non-alcoholic drinks in hand, speakers playing some jazzy ambient mix a few people are dancing to-- given my tardy arrival, and the fact that everyone’s so starved as to forgo table manners altogether.

“How are we supposed to get that?” asks the Zen’in girl waspishly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I got the name, but I’m dead broke anyways ‘cause the family won’t give me anything. Just packed me off here to screw with her.”

She’s glaring at another girl across the room as she says this-- one with nearly the same face, just with spectacles perched upon her nose and long hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail. Sisters, I gather. Maybe twins.

“The inheritance goes to all the men first before it gets to us. So marry your cousin. Change your sex. Kill all your male relatives.” I reply with a shrug, taking a sip of my green tea. “I could honestly do without the money, if it were going to be tied up in so many damn strings like learning to be a sorcerer.”

I expect the girls to scoff, maybe storm off-- since I’m not exactly being all that forthright, or earnest. But instead-- they’re rapt, Nishimiya perching on a chair, Zen’in Mai leaning against the table, Miwa with her feet planted firmly to the ground, curious despite the disappointing answers I’d already levied upon her, perhaps too intimidated to socialize without her friends around her.

It’s as if, for the first time in maybe a dozen-odd years, that maybe, what I’m feeling, and what I’m saying, matters. I wasn’t just the Kyoto bitch princess here. They looked at me as if my philosophies were worth considering. That I wasn’t just some vain ingrate with a chip on her shoulder and too many zeroes in the bank account.

“You ever think about leaving?” Mai asks abruptly, feigning the nonchalance of studying her nails-- a cute, girlish manicure that matches her friends’. I feel almost envious, given the way everyone in my year tended to give me a wide berth-- granted, it was partially self-inflicted, but still.

I tilt my head slightly, setting down my chopsticks with a decisive clack. “Every day.”

That earns a pause from the three-- and I can see the gears turning in their heads. Miwa, from a civilian family, who probably thinks this is some Harry Potter shit, something cool, and not blood and ancient vows and survival of the fittest. Nishimiya, a child of two worlds, born of two sorcerers, who’s never known anything else but this path. Zen’in Mai, who’s been forced into this life just as much as I was, but without the safety nets and freedom to act that I’ve always been privileged with, even as I strained at the bit to prove that I was miserable.

“The moment I’m twenty,” I say, voice cool and composed, “I will. This life’s a scam. All this blood and fighting, and for what? Just to be treated as a piece of meat and incubator by the clan men? Just to die as fodder? No thanks. I’d rather stay free, stay pretty, take my inheritance, go on a shopping spree, move to California or Portugal or somewhere and forget what cursed energy even feels like. I’d rather be ordinary.”

Miwa stares at me like I’ve grown two heads, whilst Nishimiya frowns as if trying to decipher a foreign language.

“That sounds…” Zen’in Mai begins.

“Vapid?” I offer with arched brow, echoing words I’ve heard all too often from my peers.

“Nice,” she finishes, almost reluctantly.

I raise my cup of tea to them. “It is, isn’t it? Go find your own way in life.”

And, because they’re all falling over themselves with thank you, senpai, and bowing, and I’m feeling particularly kind tonight, I add, “Tell you what-- I’ll take you guys to the salon when we get back to Kyoto.”

They scamper off, leaving me with my cold rice and a sensation of-- something I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s just the underclassmen who are leaving this campus with a new perspective.

“Corrupting the youth, are you?” Ino’s voice cuts through the low hum of conversation, warm and teasing. I turn around from where I’m nursing the remnants of my bowl of food, and find him leaning against the wall, the boyish grin back on his face. He’s cleaned up surprisingly well in an obviously borrowed white dress shirt that hangs a smidgen too loose around the shoulders. His hair, though, remains scruffy as ever.

“Me? Never,” I say smoothly, raising a brow. And because I can admit, that despite myself, I’m glad he’s here, instead of in the hospital, I add, “I’m just being honest to them, that’s all.”

He grins, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks that have replaced his typical sweatpants for the night. “That’s what makes it worse, princess.”

His injuries were mild, mostly bruises and a hint of minor head trauma. Nothing permanent. Nothing that sleeping it off on the train and Dr. Ieiri’s technique couldn’t handle.

The music switches from an ambient instrumental to something more upbeat-- current radio hits rigged to the speaker from someone’s phone, no doubt, and Gojo Satoru has gone and done us the favor of shutting off the overhead lanterns in lieu of strobe lights. It’s not quite a club dance floor, not exactly, but enough for the underclassmen to bounce around, burning off the rowdy adrenaline of their jujutsu duels.

For a moment, I allow the thought to flicker quietly in my head, like the light of the cursed talismans we had clung onto on that mountain. That I would have missed him if--

Don’t, the part of my brain that’s dedicated to self-preservation warns. I decide to listen to it, when he extends out his hand with a half-expectant smile. “You’re too overdressed to be sitting in the corner all night, princess,” he says.

It’s a dangerous line of thought, coupled with the temptation to say yes. As dangerous as the earnestness in his eyes. I decide to guillotine it right where it lay.

“I’m not really the dancing type,” I admit instead, with a light shake of my head, a subtle curve to my lips. Just being honest. No rancor behind the statement-- no haughty stonewalling that makes his face turn red and his hand fall back to his side, as it were all those years ago in freshman year.

His brow furrows, half-amused. “Aren’t you? I thought the Kyoto ice princess would have picked up some moves with fancy tutors, or somethin'.”

“I’m the type that steps on toes,” I reply dryly. “And never apologizes for it.”

Ino chuckles at that, as if he’s managed to catch onto the metaphor behind the statement.

“Yeah,” he says, half to himself. “Yeah, that checks out.”

June 2017, Tokyo. Just after the Jujutsu Tech Graduation Ceremony.

The joint ceremony between the two Jujutsu academies is hosted in Tokyo on a sunny June day, on behalf of the higher-ups, who like keeping their little pageants close to home.

The light filters down on us like a benediction as we pass through the ceremonial torii gates out of the shrine for the final time as pupils.

We’re herded together for the commemorative photo-- Kyoto graduates and Tokyo graduates alike, all mixed together in one neat little gaggle, our senseis bookending our group, pretending like we haven’t spent the last few years in annual school-sanctioned events wherein we try to beat each other up.

Families gather. Shutters click like the rhythmic beat of some foreign mechanical heart.

My classmates drift apart into circles-- each their own little sun in navy blue, their families orbiting them, the excitement in the day palpable as hugs are exchanged. Numbers. Promises to keep in touch. Congratulations.

For me, this was just any other day.

Graduation marked the end of their youth, in a way-- the transition point between being a student, and being a career sorcerer. Some would go on to fight their way up through the ranks. Some would go home to their clans, get involved in the secret game of chess behind the veil of cursed energy. Some would stay at their high school campus to become teachers.

Some would die.

In truth, the last was inevitable-- just a matter of when it was crossed off the list, and in what order.

For me, though-- nothing has changed. Nothing will change. Graduation was less a milestone, and more just another step up, a year closer to true freedom.

Just one more year, I tell myself. One more year till I come of age, turn twenty. Till I’m out from under the thumb of the higher-ups. Till I’m able to take all my money, and get out of here-- till I’m able to live as I pleased.

Still, I wear the uniform. I accept the certificate from Gakuganji’s liverspotted old hands. I bow when prompted. Applaud in the right places. Smile for the group photos obligingly, though never with teeth.

And then I make myself scarce in the dorms-- in my guest room, bare save for the clothes I’d thrown over the desk chair while trying to figure out if I had wanted to spend any time touring Tokyo.

No one wanted the unpleasant orphan in their graduation memories, after all. I couldn’t blame them. My walls were so ice-cold and high up, that most people would rather journey somewhere warmer than risk hypothermia.

I’m sitting on my bed, trying to decide between a casual summer yukata and a boat-necked sundress and whether or not it would be worth the time to go to Harajuku when I hear a knocking at the doorframe, and then a familiar voice through the door.

“Yoo-- hi? Ya there?” the Kansai accent is thick, and recognisable.

I sigh, then dump my dresses onto the bed before I go to the door. “The fuck do you want, Ranta?” I asked.

“The grads are all goin’ down to the izakaya in an hour or so--” he begins, practically withering at the gaze I level at him-- a feat, considering he was already the shortest kid in the collective graduating class anyways.

“-- And Iori-sensei put you up to dragging me down there,” I conclude, unimpressed.

For all the posturing that the Zen’ins do, all that bullshit about the inherent superiority of men or whatever, it brings me no small amount of amusement that Ranta, and a good few of his cousins, all seem to be scared shitless of Iori-sensei. I doubted anyone else would have been willing to do her bidding in this matter.

He nods in the affirmative.

“And I won’t have to see your family’s sorry asses there?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Just the students.”

I sigh. “Fine.”

I shut the door in his face, and an hour later, I’m pulling up in a sleek black sedan outside the restaurant that Ranta had mentioned. At least, even if I’m the loner and loser here, I can at least look impervious to the misery and resentment being inflicted, what with the swanky Uber and the block-printed yukata.

I thank the driver, and step out to find that most of the seniors are already gathered-- cliques formed, food ordered, drinks poured, tables occupied.

Perching into a stool, I briefly wonder if I could slide a tip across the bar and convince the bartender to overlook the fact that I’m not turning 20 till next year, and to make me a drink or two anyways. It felt like that kind of night-- anything to drown out the introspection.

A warm presence slides into the seat across from me. “Two Sapporos, please,” Ino says, forgoing his usual sweatshirt for an oversized graphic tee, though his beanie remains perched upon his head.

I raise my eyebrows at him.

He winks back.

Later, out of earshot of the bartender and halfway through a platter of karaage that’s rapidly disappearing between us-- along with an additional bottle of sake he ordered without asking-- I murmur, “Look at you, corrupting the youth and encouraging underage drinking.”

He laughs, throwing his head back, and it’s bright and unfiltered and entirely too contagious. The drinks have softened everything, blurring the hard edges of the world like someone’s dipped the night in honey.

“And yet,” he says, downing the remnants of his sake glass whilst I survey the motion of his throat, “here you are, agreeing to drink with me, princess.”

Then-- time ebbs and flows with the conversations-- post-grad plans, restaurant and music recommendations, punctuated teasingly with that one refrain-- princess, and the sake and karaage are both gone now. Somewhere in that time frame, he’s graduated from Ino, to Takuma.

The lights in the izakaya dim further, whether from the hour or the haze in my head I couldn’t say. But I can feel his presence still-- closer now. His knee brushes mine. His shoulder dips into my space. His voice is quieter, and there’s heat coiled under it like something dangerous when he says, “You’re beautiful tonight.”

I flush, heated under the collar of my yukata despite the fine cotton fabric, and mumble some kind of excuse me, somehow gathering enough presence of mind to get myself out the door.

Outside, the night hits colder than I expect-- cool and biting in a way uncharacteristic of June, just enough to jolt my senses back from the edge. I lean against the stone wall of the izakaya, just past the reach of its flickering neon sign.

Behind me, the door creaks open. I don’t have to turn to know who it is.

Takuma joins me in the quiet. No words for a while. Just the stillness that sinks like a stone into dark waters.

His face is flushed-- I don't know whether it’s from the drinks, or from the heat that’s flowing between the two of us. I don’t know who makes the first move-- there’s just the stillness against the Tokyo night.

Just that at some point, the silence snaps, and his lips are on mine. Or mine on his. A collision. Slow at first, like testing the water with a toe. But the second we realize we’re not pulling away-- heat flares, hungry and real.

He leans in, his mouth brushing my cheek, voice barely above a whisper. “Love hotel? Or back to the dorms?”

My pulse is a riot in my throat. My hands are already curling into the collar of his shirt. “You’re drunk,” I murmur, kissing him again. But I’m no better.

And then, when we're trying to fumble our way through an unfamiliar room, and his hands are insistent on the ties of my yukata, he's pressing his forehead to mine, peppering kisses against my face.

My hands bury themselves in his hair, tugging it loose from where it’s already gone wild. His beanie is discarded somewhere on the nightstand. His hands are reverent and possessive in turn, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish. “Shit, princess,” he half-laughs, half-groans, eyes dark, wild with something deeper than just lust. “You’re too dangerous.”

When I finally reach for him, truly touch him, the last barrier between our bodies stripped away, his breath catches. His whole body shudders like he’s been waiting for this for longer than just this one night.

I throw my caution to the wind, and we lose ourselves in each other-- completely, with all the reckless abandon of youth. There’s no space for thought, no room for restraint, not in the heat between our bodies or in the way his voice breaks when he says my name like it’s something fragile. Eventually, breathless and warm, we drift. His arm drapes across my waist, heavy and sure, an anchor against the storm of my roiling emotions.

But when dawn crawls in thin and gray through the window blinds, reality follows behind it with a worse blow than the hangover.

I wake before him, and for that I’m grateful. He’s still asleep beside me, face turned toward mine, boyishly unguarded. I brush the hair from his forehead, skate my thumb over the scar there, and for a moment, I let myself imagine the quiet calm of waking up to his face-- not just this morning, but every day after.

And I can’t stand it.

Because I remember his antagonism at my unwillingness to fight. The way he’s always wanted to prove himself. The mentor he mentioned in passing last night, the upcoming promotion to Grade One within the next year. Eyes bright, as if he were hoping I could find it in me to be proud of him.

In some ways, I was. In others, I just feel like I’m mourning something that’s never quite existed in the first place.

Because he’s good. As earnest as the sunshine. Wants to fight the good fight.

And I… I’ve always wanted out.

He murmurs something in his sleep and shifts onto his side, one hand reaching for me blindly.

I pull away before he could touch me.

I dress in silence, careful not to make a sound. My yukata chafes against my skin, wrinkled from where it had been discarded in a pile of our clothes. The scent of him, boyish, sea-salt and citrus, brushes briefly against my senses and my eyes feel tight.

For a moment, I’m tempted to just crawl back into bed, to kiss him awake to greet the dawn.

But I can’t do this.

I slip out before the city wakes, before the sun paints the sky with its rose-hued fingers, before the streetlights flicker off, before he can open his eyes and ask me to stay.

In an hour or two, when the sun begins its ascent over the sky, he’ll wake, finding the other side of the bed empty.

In an hour or two, I’ll be halfway back to Kyoto, and it’ll be as if I had never been there.

December 2017, Tokyo. Disciplinary Hearing for Hakari Kinji, Second Year Jujutsu Tech Pupil.

The courtroom of the Jujutsu Headquarters is expansive, forbidding, shadowed. Ancient stone and silence. A shoji screen panel concealing the faces of the elders from the rest of the court, like some shrouded altar to unseen deities.

This isn’t a trial or investigation. This is a sentencing.

Hakari Kinji, the accused, a tall young man with dark hair, stands at the center of the room, flanked by two guards-- arms bound behind his back, posture lazy with the flippant boredom of someone who, despite the intimidating grandeur bearing down upon him, could genuinely care less about the entire spectacle.

I respected that.

I’ve already said my piece. That Hakari Kinji was a promising young sorcerer, but that an act of aggravated assault on a higher-up, on my own great-uncle, was unconscionable. That I recommended a suspension period of a year, and a probationary period following, because of course, Hakari had great potential as a sorcerer. But that his unwillingness to respect the elders of our community made him a liability.

Hakari’s cursed technique, all glitz and glamour and vice, offends every conservative instinct in my great-uncle’s body, and many more sympathisers like him. To them, Hakari isn’t just some degenerate youth-- he’s a walking antithesis of the tradition they cling to so dearly. And really, that was what this was all about. The black eye will fade. He has enough to afford dental implants. But it’s about putting Hakari down. Sending a message.

I met my great-uncle’s eyes where he’d been seated, just in front of the panel of higher-ups. Wearied, but not frail. Wounds on display. In his traditional robes.

He gives me a faint nod of approval.

I swallow to tamp down on my shudder of disgust.

This was a man who’d let me be an orphan, despite the fact that he was my mother’s uncle. My mother had a family who could have taken me in, instead of letting me be raised at the Kyoto Jujutsu High, but they didn’t.

And yet, at a moment when he’d wanted me to come condemn a young man who he’d probably pissed off in some manner, he comes to me, makes me play the polished and demure heiress again, to bow and scrape in front of the higher-ups for their petty power plays.

The timing’s perfect. Gojo Satoru is out of the country on a mission with his newest pupil, Okkotsu Yuta. He won’t be there to play white knight for his student, to strongarm the higher-ups out of their warpath of vengeance on a boy whose only crime was to have a low tolerance threshold for the crotchety, conservative bullshit that had inevitably been spewing from my great-uncle’s mouth.

During a time such as the Night Parade, too-- when all hands were mustered to ward off curses, but an old man deemed it more important to argue and provoke a kid who was just trying to do his job, and follow the orders to fight for civilians, for his fellow sorcerers, for the future of Jujutsu.

I barely give the hearing any kind of preparation or genuine effort-- after all, my place was to just show up, look pretty, parrot the party line, bow appropriately low, play the concerned grandniece, as dictated by the clan obligations. I barely even glance at the schedule of proceedings.

That was my mistake.

The figure that comes to the stand after me as a character witness for Hakari himself wears a borrowed white dress shirt, one that nearly fits his frame now, with scraggly brown hair he has tied into a low ponytail, and my gut drops into the soles of my shoes.

Ino Takuma.

I keep my fingers clenched tight in my lap, willing myself not to react. Not even when he turns to address the assembly, and I can feel the weight of his gaze. I didn’t look. Barely blinked.

Didn’t let myself remember how his mouth had felt on my neck, the last time we’d been around each other.

“As Hakari Kinji’s senior at Tokyo Jujutsu High, I can attest to his character and potential,” he begins, more clipped and formal than I’ve ever seen him.

“I’ve known him since his first year. We’ve trained together. Fought together, on missions, as well as during the Night Parade. I’ve seen him take hits for fellow students who don’t even like him, who have the same opinion of his cursed technique that some of you in this room may have-- that it’s too flashy, too loud, too vulgar to be considered orthodox jujutsu. But that’s not what I’m here to argue about.”

I breathe in slowly. Focus on the wood of the barrier in front of me.

“I won’t say he was right for fighting with Matsuda-sama, but he’s not a volatile or dangerous individual. He’s just angry at the way that people treat his cursed technique, the way they write him off before being able to come to know him as he truly is. Hakari Kinji is a hardworking sorcerer, a loyal comrade. Someone who’s dedicated to pushing the limits of jujutsu and power. People like him are rare. And his suspension would be an undoubted loss for our world, one that sends the message that we’re going to keep turning our backs on power, just because it’s not in the conventional form we’re comfortable with. I ask that you waive his punishment to probation, and practice leniency on him. Thank you.”

I can feel his eyes on me as he returns to his seat, as the higher-ups murmur to each other behind their shoji screen, as my great-uncle stands from his seat and joins them, with one last glance cast at me.

The ruling is passed within minutes-- the deliberation period mostly for show, the boy’s fate sealed the moment his fist connected with my great-uncle’s face.

Hakari’s suspension would stand.

I can see Takuma stand, his chair screeching back, stalking out of the chamber. After him files some of the Jujutsu High students-- I can recognize their uniforms.

I wait for the room to mostly clear out, before I make my way down the aisles towards the door. Praying that he wouldn’t be waiting outside for me. But of course he was.

Leaning against a column outside, a quiet fury in his eyes. I attempt to brush past him, avoiding his gaze, but his hand shoots out. Closes around my forearm.

“You couldn’t even look at me in there.”

I stop, but I don’t turn. “Don’t make this about you,” I say quietly. I’m tired, I realize. Of wanting, and being unable to have. Of waiting for my strings to be cut. Of the way he looks at me, like he expected anything better from the ice bitch of Kyoto Jujutsu High.

“Maybe it is about me,” he snapped. “Maybe I’m sick of being the one who remembers that night, while you’re busy running away and pretending like it never happened.”

I feel my heart tremble in my chest, and force my face to keep in its placid, cold mask. “That night,” I said, carefully-- as if trying to rationalize it to myself, “was a mistake. We were drunk, we were just floating off the high of graduation.”

He laughed-- but it was a bitter bark that didn’t suit him at all. “No. The mistake was thinking you were ever going to stop running back to your lap of luxury.”

I don’t-- I can’t-- respond to that.

What could I even say? That I still dream about his scent and the weight of his arm over my waist? That I chafe against my titles, my cage, my obligations? That I wish I could disappear?

I turn to look at him-- and really look at him then, at the embers in his dark eyes, furious and betrayed and heartbroken all at once.

There’s something in my face, finally, that prompts him to let go of my wrist, and I turn away again, pacing quickly out the doors.

The heat of his fingers leaves an invisible heat, a shackle around my wrist.

October 31st, 2018. Prelude to the Shibuya Incident.

The knock comes just after dinner on Wednesday night. I open the door of my study, find Mrs. Konoe, the housekeeper, who wordlessly presents me with a sealed message from the headquarters.

The scroll is tied with a red ribbon, pasted over with a talisman, the insignia of the Jujutsu Council stamped upon it. It sits upon a lacquered tray, the scarlet seal atop it like a warning. I stare at it for a brief moment, and then retrieve it with caustious fingers-- as if I were handling some kind of venomous snake.

I wonder what else could be the matter here.

I’d just received a notice from the higher-ups confirming my status as a retired sorcerer after all the paperwork was processed, along with a notarized letter from my trustee informing me that the estate had been formally transferred. My name, now signed across all the deeds and titles. The house was mine. The fortune. The clan seat.

I unravel the scroll.

This summons is issued to you in your capacity as a retired Jujutsu sorcerer, and as head of one of the twelve ancestral Jujutsu clans of Kyoto.

You are not presently obligated to report due to your retirement, however, in response to the veil lowered over Shibuya Station and the overwhelming risk to civilian life presented by this event, the Jujutsu High Council has extended voluntary muster orders to retired sorcerers of sufficient rank and capability.

Should you choose to accept this summons, please report to the perimter in Shibuya City, Tokyo, by 2100 to receive further orders and unit assignments.

My hands curl around the edge of the scroll, biting at the inside of my cheek to keep something down-- fear, maybe, or guilt.

My answer had already been a resounding no by the end of the first sentence-- but the mention of Tokyo just cemented it. Too afraid of the ghosts there.

I remember my last day I’d ever set foot in the city-- chocolate brown eyes that welled with betrayal. Of the way my heart sank with every step I took out of the headquarters.

Too afraid to face the feeling of Takuma’s sure hands on my body.

Too afraid to face the weight of what ifs that completely obliterated my own plans.

And now, I imagine him stepping into Shibuya, ever the hero. Here to protect. To save. His beanie pulled over his face, summoning the cardinal mythical creatures from his fingertips that shatter through curses.

I imagine him looking around the perimeter of Shibuya once, as the sorcerers mill about, readying to their battle stations. Just once, to see if I was there. If I’d show.

But I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

If I went, it would never stop. I knew how this life, the clans, the higher-ups, Jujutsu sorcery in general, tended to consume people whole. But if I gave them the in, if I gave them the quarter, they’d never stop asking of me. Taking of me.

One more mission. One more summons. One more hearing.

I’d be twenty-five.

And forty.

And sixty, if I were lucky enough to make it that long.

I stand from my desk-- pace to the hearth in my study.

Kneel before it, as if in some kind of prayer-- and feed the scroll to the fire. Watch the paper curl in on itself, bright embers bleeding across the ink, and scattering into ashes.

I think of California, or Portugal. Somewhere I could go, and forget.

And I hoped-- in the depths of my soul, in the places of myself I hadn’t quite repressed and pruned of color-- that he would make it through the battle.

Even if I would never see him again.

Even if he hated me forever.

Even if he was in his rights to.

The price of my freedom was just the idea of facing the rest of my life as a stranger-- to the world, to him, to myself.

Alone.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Not mentioned in the article, but part of the reason for the decline in Paxlovid's efficacy is covid evolving for antiviral resistance because we do not utilize a full course of the drug when it is used. Five days is 3 to 5 days too short a course for most people to fully clear an infection before the drug wears off, and since it's a viral inhibitor, not a true anti-viral, that means any covid left just goes back to whatever it was doing, only now it's epigenetically primed to evolve to survive similar experiences. More cases treated by not enough paxlovid leads to more rebounds leads to covid we can't even treat. This is why we have to mask and clean the air. Our tools to fight covid only work if we all use all of them consistently. Until then, wear a high quality respirator and avoid high risk scenarios whenever possible.

[rohvee]

Whoops meant to share this for WIP Wednesday here too yesterday! Some backstory/setup for my Death Stranding AU Jayvik fic 🖤

—

“How is the project going?”

Jayce hesitated for a moment.

Mel never let up about the project. Of course, she didn’t. It was the project of the century. A breakthrough that could reshape civilization—if Jayce could make it work. Another tool in the fight against the Death Stranding.

Long before Jayce was born, Runeterra was a very different place. No one knew what triggered them, but the first explosions—the voidouts, they called them—were unlike anything the world had seen. Detonations more powerful than nuclear blasts shattered the land, swallowing entire regions in moments.

But the aftermath was worse.

They called it the Death Stranding.

The voidouts tore through the boundary between the realms of life and death. And through the cracks, things slipped in. Spirits, creatures, substances that defied natural law. The rain itself could kill now, accelerating time with every drop. Stepping outside unprotected was suicide. The few remaining colonies, scattered across the ruins, were isolated, disconnected.

That was where porters came in. A lifeline. Brave souls hauling vital supplies across the hostile land, linking the last remnants of civilization. Trade was brokered. Humanity adapted. Rebuilt.

But the disconnect remained. The life of a porter was perilous, and trade was agonizingly slow.

That was what Jayce was trying to fix, and the key to it all was chiralium.

A substance originating from the world of the dead, chiralium lingered here as dust in the atmosphere, as jagged hand-shaped crystal formations jutting from the earth. It ignored time, existed outside of it. Its properties were nothing short of magical.

So far, it had been harnessed to make objects levitate, to create self-healing materials, and most importantly, to enable the instantaneous mass transfer of data, sending it through the timeless realm of the Beach; the world of the dead. This enabled them to connect communities in a new way. Sharing information—blueprints, crucial knowledge, culture.

But data was all they could send, for now. Nothing real. Nothing with a soul.

That was Jayce’s big project—figuring out how to harness chiralium to send physical materials instantaneously from one place to another, crossing through the Beach.

It would revolutionize trade. It would save lives. It would connect the world.

“It's not… going great,” Jayce admitted with a wince, his eyes flicking to the tablet in front of him. His calculations sprawled across the screen in increasingly erratic handwriting, a visual representation of his fraying patience. “I can’t even get a working theory down, never mind how to actually implement it.”

Mel didn’t respond immediately. She simply stood there, gaze drifting to the floor, thoughtful in that measured way of hers. Then, with a quiet sigh, she reached up and unclasped the sides of her mask.

The golden mask slipped away, unveiling the sharp contours beneath—the cut of her cheekbones, the golden glint of subdermal implants catching in the dim lab light. She was, in every sense, beautiful. A beauty few were ever granted the privilege to see. A beauty Jayce had once known intimately.

She set the mask down on a nearby workbench and leaned against it, crossing her arms. “Jayce, what do you think about bringing on another person?”

His brows furrowed. “Like… a partner?”

“Yes.”

Jayce frowned. “That’s not necessary. I’ll get there eventually, I just need more time—”

“Things are… strained, Jayce.” Mel exhaled, glancing away. “I can’t tell you much, but the ability to send materials through the Beach would loosen tight cords significantly.”

“And it’ll happen, I just—”

“We found someone.” She met his gaze then, unwavering. “An evo-devo biologist in Zaun.”

Jayce blinked. “Evo-devo—? Mel, this is physics. I don’t need a biologist.”

“He’s an engineer and physicist as well, like you. Perhaps a fresh perspective would help.”

His jaw clenched. Irritation curled hot in his gut, and he tapped his fingers against the desk in agitation. “I don’t need him. Really. I’m on the verge, I know it. I don’t need someone coming in and making a mess of things.”

“That’s too bad.”

“No, it’s fine, actually—”

“Because he’s already on his way.”

Jayce blinked. Alarm spiked through his exhaustion. He pushed himself up from his chair. “You sent for this random biologist to cross through BT territory without even asking me if I wanted this?”

Mel gazed at him neutrally. “I don’t care what you want, Jayce. I strongly feel that this is something you need.”

His hands curled into fists. “You can’t just—!”

“I can.”

A low, guttural sound tore from Jayce’s throat—something between a scoff and a snarl. He turned sharply, raking a hand through his hair, pacing in tight, agitated strides.

The thought of someone else—some outsider—intruding on his project made his skin itch. This wasn’t just research; it was his baby. It was the culmination of a lifetime of work, dedication, obsession. No one understood chiralium like he did. No one had pushed the boundaries of its potential further. He didn’t need someone stumbling in, making reckless assumptions, forcing him to waste time explaining what he already knew wouldn’t work.

And a biologist?

What the hell did he need a biologist for?

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Mel sighed, retrieving her mask as she straightened. She slipped it back into place, golden metal once again obscuring half her face. “Just give him a chance when he gets here.”

Jayce didn’t respond. Didn’t turn to look at her. His jaw clenched, but he knew arguing was pointless. Mel had made up her mind. There was no changing it. With a long, exhausted sigh, he let himself sink back into his chair, fingers pressing against his temples.

Mel took that as her cue to leave. She turned smoothly, heading for the door. As she approached, it hissed open, revealing Sky lingering in the hall, looking anxious.

Jayce finally spoke, voice low. “What’s his name?”

Mel paused, glancing over her shoulder. Her lips quirked in a small smile.

“It’s Viktor.”

[blueratgrmln]

✨️PART 2 OF THE 2025 SONIC BIG BANG✨️

Excited to share my little animation for @chipistotallysane 's adorable, unique, and entertaining fic Across Data and Code starring Princess Elise making a *mysterious* yet heartwarming digitalized friend (AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES💙🧡) named MIKU! Alongside the amazing illustrative cover and illustration done by fellow artists @summoning-chaos and @arlen801 !! Shout out to @theteenykitten for being a great beta reader for our writer! Thank you once again to the mods of @sthbigbang and my group(s) for making another *banger* collab project💜✨️

LINKS

-> Across Data and Code fic

-> Fic Cover

-> Fic Illustration

And now, here is my short animation for the story! I learned how to use Alpha Mask tool while making this.

[willowwindss]

100 Inventions by Women

LIFE-SAVING/MEDICAL/GLOBAL IMPACT:

Artificial Heart Valve – Nina Starr Braunwald

Stem Cell Isolation from Bone Marrow – Ann Tsukamoto

Chemotherapy Drug Research – Gertrude Elion

Antifungal Antibiotic (Nystatin) – Rachel Fuller Brown & Elizabeth Lee Hazen

Apgar Score (Newborn Health Assessment) – Virginia Apgar

Vaccination Distribution Logistics – Sara Josephine Baker

Hand-Held Laser Device for Cataracts – Patricia Bath

Portable Life-Saving Heart Monitor – Dr. Helen Brooke Taussig

Medical Mask Design – Ellen Ochoa

Dental Filling Techniques – Lucy Hobbs Taylor

Radiation Treatment Research – Cécile Vogt

Ultrasound Advancements – Denise Grey

Biodegradable Sanitary Pads – Arunachalam Muruganantham (with women-led testing teams)

First Computer Algorithm – Ada Lovelace

COBOL Programming Language – Grace Hopper

Computer Compiler – Grace Hopper

FORTRAN/FORUMAC Language Development – Jean E. Sammet

Caller ID and Call Waiting – Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) – Marian Croak

Wireless Transmission Technology – Hedy Lamarr

Polaroid Camera Chemistry / Digital Projection Optics – Edith Clarke

Jet Propulsion Systems Work – Yvonne Brill

Infrared Astronomy Tech – Nancy Roman

Astronomical Data Archiving – Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Nuclear Physics Research Tools – Chien-Shiung Wu

Protein Folding Software – Eleanor Dodson

Global Network for Earthquake Detection – Inge Lehmann

Earthquake Resistant Structures – Edith Clarke

Water Distillation Device – Maria Telkes

Portable Water Filtration Devices – Theresa Dankovich

Solar Thermal Storage System – Maria Telkes

Solar-Powered House – Mária Telkes

Solar Cooker Advancements – Barbara Kerr

Microbiome Research – Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello

Marine Navigation System – Ida Hyde

Anti-Malarial Drug Work – Tu Youyou

Digital Payment Security Algorithms – Radia Perlman

Wireless Transmitters for Aviation – Harriet Quimby

Contributions to Touchscreen Tech – Dr. Annette V. Simmonds

Robotic Surgery Systems – Paula Hammond

Battery-Powered Baby Stroller – Ann Moore

Smart Textile Sensor Fabric – Leah Buechley

Voice-Activated Devices – Kimberly Bryant

Artificial Limb Enhancements – Aimee Mullins

Crash Test Dummies for Women – Astrid Linder

Shark Repellent – Julia Child

3D Illusionary Display Tech – Valerie Thomas

Biodegradable Plastics – Julia F. Carney

Ink Chemistry for Inkjet Printers – Margaret Wu

Computerised Telephone Switching – Erna Hoover

Word Processor Innovations – Evelyn Berezin

Braille Printer Software – Carol Shaw

⸻

HOUSEHOLD & SAFETY INNOVATIONS:

Home Security System – Marie Van Brittan Brown

Fire Escape – Anna Connelly

Life Raft – Maria Beasley

Windshield Wiper – Mary Anderson

Car Heater – Margaret Wilcox

Toilet Paper Holder – Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner

Foot-Pedal Trash Can – Lillian Moller Gilbreth

Retractable Dog Leash – Mary A. Delaney

Disposable Diaper Cover – Marion Donovan

Disposable Glove Design – Kathryn Croft

Ice Cream Maker – Nancy Johnson

Electric Refrigerator Improvements – Florence Parpart

Fold-Out Bed – Sarah E. Goode

Flat-Bottomed Paper Bag Machine – Margaret Knight

Square-Bottomed Paper Bag – Margaret Knight

Street-Cleaning Machine – Florence Parpart

Improved Ironing Board – Sarah Boone

Underwater Telescope – Sarah Mather

Clothes Wringer – Ellene Alice Bailey

Coffee Filter – Melitta Bentz

Scotchgard (Fabric Protector) – Patsy Sherman

Liquid Paper (Correction Fluid) – Bette Nesmith Graham

Leak-Proof Diapers – Valerie Hunter Gordon

FOOD/CONVENIENCE/CULTURAL IMPACT:

Chocolate Chip Cookie – Ruth Graves Wakefield

Monopoly (The Landlord’s Game) – Elizabeth Magie

Snugli Baby Carrier – Ann Moore

Barrel-Style Curling Iron – Theora Stephens

Natural Hair Product Line – Madame C.J. Walker

Virtual Reality Journalism – Nonny de la Peña

Digital Camera Sensor Contributions – Edith Clarke

Textile Color Processing – Beulah Henry

Ice Cream Freezer – Nancy Johnson

Spray-On Skin (ReCell) – Fiona Wood

Langmuir-Blodgett Film – Katharine Burr Blodgett

Fish & Marine Signal Flares – Martha Coston

Windshield Washer System – Charlotte Bridgwood

Smart Clothing / Sensor Integration – Leah Buechley

Fibre Optic Pressure Sensors – Mary Lou Jepsen