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radioactiverats · 5 months ago

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Mentor Starscream x seeker!reader (5/?)

Inspired by @xarology amazing art - just my own wild thoughts on nose scar because HALAS;DFJL;AFJD

Thank you @jackalackqwq and @swiftyangx12 for lovely art and always following my random thoughts with comments ily guys <3 Literally bringing this story to life with the amazing visualisations! And ty everyone for the reblogs, likes and comments they keep me going!!

Nose scar: You crash due to someone's incompetence and totally crack your faceplate open. Cue Starscream screeching

The war had totally upended your previous way of life, but one thing that remained constant through it all was the nonstop training. That was fine with you for the most part, as it provided a mote of familiarity amidst all the uncertainty. But aside from improving your ability in the air, there was another practical reason for it.

Group attacks.

Common, of course, but there was an issue.

Back in the academy, group maneuvers were only introduced towards the end of the program. Not only did seekers need competence in solo flight, but friendship, for the lack of a better word, was a significant contributory factor to success. As it turned out, closeness was most important in determining the harmony of a group flight, so you were ordinarily given a few years to form bonds with one another before actually being allowed anywhere near group maneuvers.

However, the war affords you no such luxury, and you find yourself lumped in with bots you've never met before in preparation to attempt a group drill. As usual, Starscream had been in command with a few other lieutenants to provide air support, but as soon as the session started, he'd been abruptly called away to attend to matters on the bridge.

Scores collected from individual drills means that you've been assigned the lead, and you stiffen as soon as you hear this. Part of you swells with pride to see proof of your hard work - even though you're contented yourself with being a follower, you've always wanted to be like Starscream. Having your capabilities acknowledged to be of leadership quality pleased you immensely, but at the same time... Starscream would never have risked your helm by putting you in such a high-profile position. However, a lieutenant seeker was now temporarily in charge, and had no such qualms about putting you straight in the firing line. He’d glanced at the score when was your turn and promptly waved you to the front.

“But-”

“You telling me that someone with your abilities should be wasted in the back?”

You promptly shut your intake.

You glance at the two other bots you're with - older than you, and probably more experienced, too. But they hadn't said anything when you timidly stepped to the front of the formation. You hope they're not the sort to take offense.

Lifting off without issue, it’s smooth sailing for the most part. The extent of your communications remained blessedly limited to curt reports on flight conditions as you soared straight ahead, and you're hopeful for an equally peaceful descent before you go your separate ways.

Unfortunately, no such luck.

Just as you think you’ll be able to make it safely back, your sensors pick up on a strange wind pattern up ahead. The collision point of a Ferrell cell and a Hadley cell - this planet had its own unique system of atmospheric circulation, which led to the collision of strong, opposing winds at certain latitudes. Starscream had taught you how to recognise them before, with an ominous warning that flying into them could disable even the most experienced of seekers.

You activate your comms. "In eight hundred metres, bank right.”

There’s a momentary silence before your comms crackle back online. “What did you say?”

“There’s really strong winds up ahead. We can’t just fly through it,” You say. You’re getting a bad feeling about this. Now would be a horrible time for your partners to misunderstand your urgent instructions as a show of power, rather than an increasingly frantic attempt to save your sparks.

“Strong winds, my aft,” The other jet’s derisive laughter crackles mockingly through your comms. “My sensors didn’t detect anything. Maybe you’re just a weakling.”

“No! Just look!”

The worst thing was that this formation required you to fly together at incredibly close quarters - meaning that you weren’t able to stop, because the others would crash right into your wings.

Five hundred meters.

“Come on, don’t you guys want to impress the lieutenant?”

“He’s a fragging slaghead,” Was the immediate response you got.

Just as you truly begin to panic - “Wait,” The other jet suddenly says. “I think they’re right.” As you fly closer, the clouds almost seem to be distorting before your optics, warped by fierce columns of wind.

“A likely story,” The first one snorts. “How long have you been flying? Longer than our squad leader -" his voice takes on a derisive tone - “has been alive.”

“Two hundred meters,” You warn.

A tense silence falls over your comms.

“I’m following what they said,” Crackles decisively through. “You’ll have to send me to the scrapheap before I fly through that just to make a point.”

“Frag you,” Growls the other voice, outraged static marring his words.

One hundred meters.

“Come on,” You say again, frantic, on the cusp of pleading.

The other jet says nothing, but you can feel the spike of his EM field when the column of wind begins to make itself known against the plates of your altmodes.

Fifty meters. Surely he wouldn’t be that stubborn. It was hard enough to stay alive in a war - would a mech really risk his spark over something as inconsequential as this?

You decide to take a gamble. If he banks with you at the last minute, no harm, no foul. If he doesn’t…

Surely, surely he would.

Twenty meters.

Ten.

The screaming of engines overtakes your audials as you and the jet to your left swerve sharply to the right - and your optics widen in fear as you realize what the defiant jet to your right has decided to do.

He’d wisely decided not to challenge the whipping column of wind, but in order to defy you, he’d decided to maneuver upwards instead. You’ve been told that losing position is one of the worst things that can happen, and you’re about to find out precisely why that is. The jet’s altmode clips your wing. Being of a heftier build, he wobbles in the air before managing to right himself. However, you are not so lucky. The momentum of your turn sends you careening straight for the wind column. Burning pain radiating outwards from the dent in your wing, you find yourself buffeted by the winds and unable to regain control of your spiralling frame.

You hurtle through cloud layer after cloud layer in a wild tailspin, mist obscuring your vision as you’re tossed around like a ragdoll by the roaring winds. Next to the Terrans, you may be a giant. But at the mercy of the natural world, you may as well be an ant. Through the panic that fizzles your processor, you suddenly latch onto something Starscream had drilled into your processor before.

You were done for the day - you’d done everything exactly as he instructed and by all standards, the session should have ended on a high. But as Starscream had quietly turns round, ready to return to base, an oddly somber mood had settled over you both. It took only two steps before he was glancing back at you, seemingly torn over whether or not to share what was bothering him.

“Sir?”

“…If you ever find yourself without control over your frame in the air, and nothing you do is working,” Starscream says, “transform into bot mode. Less resistance on the wings.” His voice has an edge to it, but you can’t quite discern what the emotion tingeing his words is. “Understand?”

“…Yes?” To you, this felt completely out of the blue - advice, while you were certain of its value, had nothing to do with the maneuvers you practiced today.

Starscream pivots to face you head on, optics feverishly bright. “Repeat it.”

Your confusion lasts for a few nanokliks too long for his liking, because he bares his denta in a frustrated snarl. “Are your audials working? Repeat what I just said!”

“Uh,” You fumble, trying to gather your thoughts. “If I don’t have control over my frame in the air, I should transform into bot mode?”

“Because there’s less resistance on the wings,” Starscream repeats. He sniffs, even if his plating isn’t drawn so tight now that he knows you’ve listened to what he said. “I hope I don’t have to spell out the necessity of transforming back into your altmode as soon as you regain control of the situation.”

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

The mood when you walk back to base is considerably lighter, but what prompted that sudden piece of emergency spark-saving advice had always been a mystery to you.

Well, now in the air and reduced to a chew toy flung around by the screaming forces of nature, it clicks into place. With all your strength, you activate transformation protocols, and feel the acute resistance against your plates and gears even as you transform. The sudden shift in mass and surface area throws you off-kilter for a nanoklik, but it’s in your favour. You’re abruptly thrown from the column of wind and into open air before your frame continues its downward plummet, gathering speed as the lush colours of the Terran earth once more bleed into your vision.

The Earth is green, you realise. Oh so green. Blurs of Decepticon paint zip into view. You send a silent apology to Starscream, already having calculated your odds. You’re sorry for not obeying his orders well enough. You’re sorry for being an embarrassment. You’re sorry for making him worry.

You grit your denta and focus the last ounce of strength you have into transforming into your alt mode, thrusters screaming as you try to pull up - however, you simply don’t have enough airspace to pull it off successfully. It’s enough to save your spark, you think, as you make agonising contact with the unforgiving earth. You just don’t know how permanent the damage will be.

For a nanoklik, your sensors are so overwhelmed with sensation that the pain doesn’t kick in right away. Everything happens at once - a billion warnings leap up on your HUD, the agony flares across the entirety of your plating, arcing through your wires like electricity. Through the ringing in your audials, you hear shouts approaching - echoing, warping through your rattled processor. Vaguely, you could make out the lieutenant, your partners - and… was that… Starscream…?

Scrap.

Half of you didn’t want him to see you like this. The other half of you wept and screamed for him to comfort you.

It seemed you had no choice, though. When you tried to move, or at least transform back into bot mode, you realised that you were as good as frozen - systems locked as your frame desperately tried to minimise further damage.

“CADET!”

You only manage a horrific crackle of static in response. But through the pain, you can still feel Starscream’s warm servo on the nose of your altmode. You focus with everything you have on that source of warmth, of kindness. “Listen to me,” Starscream says, next to your shattered cockpit. He’s forcing himself to sound calm, neutral - but the underlying tension in his voice threatens to bleed through, stringing his words tight. “I know it’ll use up the rest of your reserves, but you need to transform now so I can take you to med bay.”

You want to obey, but you’re so tired, the fuzziness of pain and exhaustion weighing your frame down. You try to tell your commander this, through another slurred buzz of static and frag, that hurt. Didn’t even know you could hurt there.

Distantly, you feel the panicked fluctuations of Starscream's EM field. “For the love of Primus, TRANSFORM!” Starscream roars, panic rearing its head as he abandons all pretence of neutrality. They can’t fix you like this. Maybe on Vos, once upon a time. But Knockout, for all that he can do, is not a seeker - and there are limits to what can be done with the seeker altmode without specialised knowledge. Besides, you wouldn’t fit into his med bay, and all of these become urgent problems when Starscream can feel your EM field growing fainter by the nanoklik.

Blearily, you register the frantic spikes of his EM field against your plating. Was he upset? You didn’t want Starscream to be upset. You could fix it. What was that he was yelling at you to do?

Transforming hurts. Every inch of your frame screams as loose screws and fractured plates twist and warp themselves into bot mode. Two warm servos clamp down on either side of your helm, and Starscream’s panicked expression swims into view. “Good,” He murmurs, and you hear his vocaliser reset as he forces the tremor from his voice. “Now, was that so hard?”

No, you want to say, because it was you who asked it of me. But all that comes out is another garbled mess of incoherent static and this time, you’re more aware that there’s something wrong with your intake, beyond your vocaliser. Without thinking, you shakily raise a servo to touch, to find out exactly what’s wrong. But Starscream sees your servo move and promptly scolds you back into submission, even if his frantic worry steals the bite from his words. Slowly, you take in the warnings on your HUD and realise it’s way more than just your intake. Another wave of pain sweeps through your misfiring sensors, cracking through your helm and splintering across your faceplate. Oh, scrap. Was Starscream… holding you together? That would explain the look on his faceplate.

There’s so many things you want to tell him, but only manage to place your bloodied servo over his - a firework show of popups on your HUD are all the warning you get before you’re out like a light. It's a shame that the all warnings have to obscure Starscream's faceplate before that.

---

The screech of a welder is what you awaken to. Knockout abruptly switches it off as soon as he notices you're awake - you can't help but think that it's uncharacteristically gentle of him, but you're thankful enough not to question it.

"Nasty tumble you took there," He remarks, as you groan. The pain has lessened, but your frame feels like lead and the warnings on your HUD are relentless despite your continuous attempts to close them.

Knockout regards you for a nanoklik more before shaking his helm, tutting disapprovingly. "Such a nice paintjob, too. Now hold still, I'm nearly done."

Gritting your denta as the welder screams to life again, you wish you had just stayed unconscious because by Solus, getting soldered back into one piece fragging hurt. You note with surprise and pleasure, however, that you've regained your sensory systems in your faceplate. Gently touching a servo to your cheek, you gratefully realise Knockout has chosen to work in order of most to least pain - as he'd knocked out (you bite your glossa to keep the inappropriate laughter back) the most painful aspects of your repair while you were still unconscious. The crack across your faceplate from chin to optic has been welded and buffed to perfection, save for... you frown as your fingers find a sizeable dent in your nose. Knowing Knockout's perfectionist streak, you wonder why something so obvious would have been left out, but hesitate to ask since he's already done such a good job on the rest of your frame and you feel guilty asking for more. However, you fail to quell the disquieting sense of unease that bubbles up in your chassis, which tells you that Knockout wouldn't have left your nose out without a very good reason.

You're panting by the time he finishes, plates drawn tight against your frame as you work through the residual pain. The dull grey of your metal shines through in patches, having ungracefully smeared the Terran grass with your paint - but your once-fractured plates are perfectly smooth and polished thanks to Knockout's handiwork.

It's relatively smooth sailing up until that point, because the final part of your frame requiring repair is your wings. Tender, not to mention the pain that arcs through your leading edges, spoilers, ailerons whenever you move... Primus. You decide not to think too hard about it. You have no idea how Starscream managed to stay still under your trembling servos that time you had to patch him up - every touch of the welder to your wings has you seizing in pain, writhing under Knockout's servos no matter how he tries to soothe you. Finally, he clicks the welder offline, with your wings still largely in disrepair.

Your ragged in-vents are all that fill the med bay. "Primus," Knockout mutters. "This isn't working."

For some reason, you get the feeling that his disgusted snarls of frustration aren't directed at you.

You watch quietly as he paces the length of his med bay, before finally whirling around to face you. "No matter what you're about to say, kid, I'm paging Starscream," He informs you. "Primus knows how many times he's had his wings repaired."

Knockout tilts his helm towards the ceiling, optics shuttered and his intake set in a grim line. "After all that effort to keep him out of my med bay, too."

The mental image of Starscream attempting to force his way into med bay just to make sure you're alright is almost too mind-boggling to entertain. Still, now is not the time. Your wings droop as Knockout sends the message out, angry at yourself for causing so much trouble. The pain that radiates from your wing joints at such a movement is deserved, you tell yourself. Is this how you repay Starscream for all that he's done for you? However, your downward spiral is promptly cut short by aggressive hammering at the door of med bay - Knockout emits a long-suffering sigh before going to open it. Starscream all but hurtles into the room, but you'd sensed his EM field even before that - spiking in waves as he attempts to suppress the panic before it gets the better of him.

"Well?" He demands, having taken in your prone form, patches of paint missing and the bridge of your nose chipped.

"Calm yourself," Knockout sniffs. "This is some of my best work to date."

"Best?" Starscream hisses. "Look at their nose! What do you call that?"

"Ah." Knockout looks oddly solemn at that. "One of the reasons I called you here. Filling in a part of one's anatomy requires high quality metal - and as you know, our glorious leader has deemed it un-utilitarian to allow soldiers access to such materials."

"Then put it under my designation," Starscream snarls, but Knockout shakes his helm, almost looking regretful.

"Even if you could, we're simply too short on materials to conduct such an operation. Abundant on Cybertron, sure. On the Terrans' planet, however? In a word: lacking."

By now, you're sure the anger pulsing off Starscream's EM field could power a small spaceship. Unfortunately, Knockout isn't done yet.

"The more pressing matter, however," he continues, "is the repair of their wings. I'm sure you understand."

At that, Starscream freezes. His optics zero in on you with intense precision and in the next nanoklik he's striding over to you, no-nonsense. "Show me."

You shuffle your frame upright, baring your wings to him. Judging by Starscream's sharp in-vent, it's not looking good. A few tense nanokliks pass, and you swivel back round to see Starscream nod curtly at Knockout. "I'll take it from here."

Turning back to you, he jerks his helm in the direction of the door. "Come on."

Before you can protest, Starscream loops a servo round your waist to support you, mindful of your wings. You strain to stay upright in front of the wandering eyes of other Decepticons, thankful that Starscream is more or less holding you up. You won't disgrace him any further. You won't - but finally, in the privacy of Starscream's habsuite, you can't hold back the ragged gasp of pain as the door slides shut behind you.

"On the berth, wings up," Starscream says shortly. He's already dug the welder out. But in spite of your best efforts, you can't stop trembling, already anticipating the pain.

However, instead of the unforgiving heat of the welder, Starscream's warm servo lands comfortingly on an unblemished area of your wings. "Brave," he murmurs, in Vosian, and it nearly makes coolant spring to your optics all over again.

There's a few instances in which you thrash so hard under the welder that Starscream has to hold you down, but you understand why Knockout decided to call Starscream in for wing repairs. Starscream murmuring to you in Vosian takes the raw edge of pain off, gently stroking the broad sections of your wings in between welds.

You're exhausted by the time he's finished, tremors jolting your frame even as the pain subsides. "All done," Starscream says, even if his vocaliser clips out for a nanoklik. "Now, was that so hard?"

Another garbled mess of static is all you can manage, but you determinedly extend your EM field to brush against his. Starscream stiffens before ex-venting deeply and allowing your fields to merge. "Recharge," He commands gently, tucking your frame against his, mindful of fresh welds. Exhaustion sweeping over you like a tidal wave, you're distantly aware of Starscream lightly stroking a thumb over the jagged scar on your nose. "'m sorry," You mumble into his chassis. "Hush," Starscream scolds. "What are you even sorry for?"

"Didn't do your lessons justice," You slur. "'m a waste of time." Starscream's arms tighten around you at that.

"Don't you dare call yourself a waste of time," He growls. "It's not your fault that some slagheads can't deal with their own incompetence. You're under my watch. That's all you, and the others, need to know."

"Mm," You mutter, burrowing closer to his warmth. "Yesssir."

Starscream ex-vents, but it's fond. He gently strokes his servo over your wings, soothing you enough to fall into recharge.

"Patience," He murmurs, more to himself than to you. "One day, they'll pay for what they've done."

Previous / Next

Edit: Now with more art!!!!!

#transformers #maccadam #starscream x reader #transformers x reader #starscream #Cadet AU

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ixxivvv · 2 months ago

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anxious attachment! caleb x avoidant/disorganized mc

cis f! writer/reader

(im an avoidant, but maybe once, when i was in in uni, i learned my lesson. im not sure what made me like this. but writing helps, ig)

- caleb: is anxious and afraid of what his wild bird will do next. he just wants a safe environment for the both of you. the center of his world, his love.

- caleb also: loves playing house. melts when receiving your sweet attention, knowing how busy you are. can't decide if he wants to be a loyal knight or prince by your side.

- mc: just wants to get past their days- managing work, payments or whatever adult thing, her own mind and struggles that face her, any little stress can tip her off, but manages. and has a partner that is willing to help, where ever he can. its not perfect, but you arent too.

- barbie has a great day, everyday. but ken only has a great day if barbie looks at him. :(

- after a particularly upsetting day at work, he gets to work. he takes his shower, weighted blanket, white noise machine, and sleepy herbal tea. his drive was leaving him on read, his hands at work helps him distract himself.

- as you turn a cold shoulder to him, he hands you two melatonin tablets. all this, makes you feel inadequate- like hes your caretaker, or treating you like a dangerous landmine. and you hated being looked over behind your shoulder at work or any situation. but you decide to see through your cloud of judgement and treat him with kindness, honest fully taking the tablets.

- caleb gives you a sense of ease. you felt this need being filled when he looked into you with those puppy eyes. it was sick, but, it gave you a sense of strength in you. that this, basically jock, cute guy with muscles is on his knees and constantly asking if you were okay.

- you didnt have friends and thats okay. managing him in your life was enough already. and he likes that obviously, so whenever you got a call from work or sees you going out, all dolled up would worry him.

- open communication is what helped you two. like bank accounts: joint and each their own calendars. you both enjoyed playing those communication test card prompt games for couples, or taking online quizzes together.

- it takes practice, "we can do it together, right?" as he looks at you. you just smiled, knowing you had to face your fears and problems.

- canon fact that he reads your journals. his fear is justified in a way, as you express frustrations of him being overbearing or making you feel like you two were competing for dominance. it broke his heart, to see you flip switches from having hope in the future and full of opportunities, to becoming snarky, sarcastic, and bitter. distrusting and unforgiving after one trigger.

- but the thing is, he understands. hes just as cold at times- just never you. he understands exactly what its like, which is why hes so afraid.

#caleb x mc #caleb x reader #lads headcanons #lads caleb #love and deepspace

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mollyjimbly · 2 years ago

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🚨🚨ATTENTION🚨🚨

Another Disgusting anti-LGBT bill, planning to censor queer content online.

Yet again another law that infringes on privacy. and anonymity.

The bill is KOSA

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1409

KOSA is a threat to LGBTQ+ youth.

It allows right-wing AGs to censor LGBTQ+ content in the name of "protecting kids".

This doesn't protect kids. This actually hurts kids even more.

It will snuff out LGBTQ+ spaces and makes the internet more of a dangerous place for them, more or less...

"Of course, like so many of these “bipartisan” anti-internet bills that have bipartisan support, the support on each side of the aisle is based on a very different view of how the bill will be used in practice. We went through this last year with the AICOA antitrust bill. Democrats supported it (falsely) believing that it would magically increase competition, while Republicans were gleefully talking about how they were going to use it to force websites to host their propaganda."

"Now, with KOSA, again you have Democrats naively (and incorrectly) believing that because it’s called the “Kids Online Safety Bill” it will magically protect children, even though tons of experts have made it clear it will actually put them at greater risk."

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/24/heritage-foundation-says-that-of-course-gop-will-use-kosa-to-censor-lgbtq-content/

KOSA will also undermine privacy in the name of "protecting children".

"This bill would effectively place many internet services behind an age verification wall, prevent anonymous surfing, and would require all users – adults or teens – to verify their age before they can access information or content.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association supports the enactment of comprehensive privacy legislation at the federal level, but has concerns about KOSA’s duty of care, vague requirements that would prevent teens from accessing critical information, and compliance provisions that conflict with current trends toward data minimization."

https://ccianet.org/news/2023/05/ccia-statement-on-unintended-consequences-of-kosa-legislation-would-place-most-internet-services-behind-age-verification-wall/

Age verification technology is just not secure enough for usage at the moment, leaks are likely to happen, it will be especially dangerous if the leaked Age verification information has a government ID linked to it. That would mean that malicious individuals may get a hold of personal addresses, bank details, basically you'll get doxxed by the government...

You may be asking, "well is there anything to do about it?"

Of course there is, but we really need your help spreading awareness around, because the bill is most likely to pass this July!

This website was put together by Fight for the Future. It has everything, from petitions to calls scripts. It's very easy to understand and use and one of the best links to spread. I urge you to use this when calling your members of congress. All you need to do is put in your phone number once and read off the script provided and it does the rest for you.

https://www.badinternetbills.com/

Signable petitions and open letters;

If you live in the states, call your state representatives;

Joinable Discord server;

More information;

I have to say again and I am not exaggerating, this is URGENT the bill could be passed THIS MONTH!

I am begging you, please OPPOSE KOSA!!

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cicilychann · 2 months ago

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HAIKYUU BOYS + THE REAL-LIFE “MAN ROLE” THEY TAKE ON (PART 2)

(These are the characters not listed in Part 1)

જ⁀➴⋆˚✿˖°₊ ⊹ᝰ.ᐟ જ⁀➴⋆˚✿˖°₊ ⊹ᝰ.ᐟજ⁀➴⋆

Tendou Satori

• Surprisingly observant, he notices the little inconveniences you deal with and finds creative solutions.

• Handles unexpected chaos well: flat tire? sudden panic? he’s already solving it while joking.

• Not your typical “manly man” but takes over social navigation, dealing with weird people, or uncomfortable situations.

• Never forgets details: meds, your schedule, even how you take your coffee.

• Reliable in ways you don’t expect, which makes him dependable when it counts.

Ushijima Wakatoshi

• Strong, quiet, dependable. The one you trust to lift anything, fix anything, call anyone.

• Takes on traditional provider roles: makes sure things are paid, working, and safe.

• Doesn’t speak much, but acts with full conviction once he understands what’s needed.

• Handles stress silently; never panics, always steps forward.

• Will stand in the cold holding your bag without complaint if it makes things easier for you.

Semi Eita

• The “I’ll handle it” guy who pretends he’s annoyed but still does everything.

• Takes over house tasks without being asked; trash, laundry, calls to the bank.

• Doesn’t like confrontation but will absolutely step in if someone’s being rude to you.

• Plans ahead financially, mentally, and emotionally even if he acts casual.

• A mix of protector and fixer, grumbles but gets it done.

Yamaguchi Tadashi

• Grows into responsibility, doesn’t act “in charge” at first but learns fast.

• Handles emotional temperature of the relationship quietly: he knows when you’re off and adapts.

• Will become the guy who handles all doctor visits, grocery lists, and medicine tracking.

• Not forceful, but dependable in day-to-day stress: the one who says “let me do it” when you’re overwhelmed.

• Emotional support AND practical backup.

Kita Shinsuke

• Textbook “husband material.” Pays bills early, cooks, fixes things, checks in with you regularly.

• Handles traditions, family expectations, emergencies, all without raising his voice.

• You never have to ask twice; he remembers everything and keeps routines running smoothly.

• Naturally steps into the calm, leadership role in any dynamic.

• No drama, no games, he does what needs doing before it becomes a problem.

Suna Rintarou

• Chill but scarily efficient when needed.

• Lets you vent, lets you cry, then casually solves the problem like it’s nothing.

• Takes over awkward social things or online orders without blinking.

• Handles messy things: returning stuff, booking hotels, getting refunds.

• Doesn’t act “in charge,” but you realize over time he’s the one holding things together.

Aran ojiro

• Protective but not possessive, always walks you home, always double-checks you’re okay.

• Makes sure the bills are paid, your needs are met, and the plan is clear.

• Likes being useful and shows love through consistent, everyday responsibility.

• You don’t even notice how much he’s handling until he’s gone for a day and things feel off.

• Grounded. Grown. A real partner. (WAKE UP PEOPLE, STOP SLEEPING ON HIM!! )

Bokuto Koutarou

• High energy but extremely responsible in relationships.

• Wants to do well for you, handles heavy lifting, errands, and stressy stuff with enthusiasm.

• Will call five places just to find your favorite food.

• Doesn’t “take charge” in the classic sense, but always backs you up fully, like a loyal soldier.

• Surprisingly dependable once his switch flips into serious mode.

Kenma kozume

• Doesn’t come off as “in charge” but ends up being the brain of the operation.

• Manages logistics like a pro: appointments, bookings, taxes, he makes sure nothing slips.

• Quietly anticipates your needs: extra charger, pain meds, water, you didn’t even ask.

• Doesn’t like emotional conflict but will shut people down with savage logic if they stress you out.

• His version of taking charge is “let’s not make this harder than it is,” but he’s always prepared.

Sugawara Koushi

• The emotional glue and household CEO. He handles your breakdowns and your taxes.

• Nurturing but firm: lets you cry, then hands you the list of things to do.

• Handles emergencies with unsettling calm. “I already called the plumber, we’re good.”

• Lowkey the dad friend of the relationship—always carries tissues, painkillers, and a power bank.

• You’d trust him to raise a kid and pay your bills on time.

˚ ༘`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹˚ ༘`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹˚ ༘`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

(🌻: maybe i’ll make a part 3? not all the characters are here yet lol and even part 3 probably won’t be enough for all the haikyuu boys, so i’m just adding who i know + wanna include hehe, sorryyy! )

—⁠☆

#haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #haikyu fluff #haikyu fanart #haikyu x reader #haikyuu #anime and manga #headcanon stuff #headcanon #anime scenarios

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qqueenofhades · 1 year ago

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I completely understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering this, but my mind is spiraling out of control and you’re the only person I know with the level of knowledge to where I can feel comfortable asking this without getting some form of “bla bla we live in a safe state don’t worry.”

I’m sincerely wondering if I need to be making plans to leave the country in the event of November bringing the most horrible of outcomes despite our best efforts (and yes I’m planning to vote blue in everything I can); as a AFAB in CA?

I know about project 2025. I’m terrified. Forgive my pop culture reference, but I feel like a version of Princess Zelda staring down a barrel of possible doom while everyone around me is like “nah that future you literally had a nightmare about where they made it illegal for a woman to have a bank account without a guy co-signing it and took the money from everyone who didn’t comply by a certain date isn’t even a possibility!”

I’m just confused about my life and am trying to take it day by day, and exercising every right while I still have it to prevent this outcome, but it feels weird making plans and retirement accounts and just general Setting Up Adult Life And Future Things™️……while wondering if I even have a future in this place at all and I’m just making it harder to escape if need be.

I’m sorry I’m rambling, and I guess I don’t know what I’m asking since no one has a crystal ball.

But I guess, it’s stuff like how much can the feds effect state’s policies? Is it possible for them to immediately block international travel for all women practically upon inauguration? How much time would I even have to gtfo if the worst begins?

Bc honestly this whole thing feels like the lead in to a very nasty chapter of a history book, and even though I have hope we’ll have another blue tsunami, it can be hard to try and figure things out when it feels like there’s barely any historical precedent for any of it.

Welp. Okay. First of all, I am giving you a comforting hug, I am walking with you to your favorite coffee shop, I am paying for your favorite beverage and also a baked goodie of your choice, and we are sitting down in a corner where we can talk honestly. So that's where I want you to imagine us having this conversation.

To start with, yes, I completely understand this feeling of utter, paralyzing doom, where I am trying to go about my daily life and make plans for my career and carry out daily tasks and Be Responsible while there's still just this total void beyond the end of the year, the utter impossibility of knowing if we will have dodged an absolutely massive bullet and finally be safe (since if Trump loses again he is 100% going to jail in the next four years) or, well. You know. That is a very hard way to live, when you're wondering if anything is going to matter and you can't see beyond that black cloud of fear on the horizon. It sucks you down and tells you that nothing is worth doing now in case it just gets so much worse. I am not going to tell you not to feel that. We all do. We are all scared. That in and of itself is a perfectly normal way to feel.

However, there are things you can do both now and if (I repeat, if) God absolutely forbid, the worst was to happen (again). First of all, we have already lived through a Trump presidency once. It was terrible and scary and awful and demoralizing as fuck, but we can do it again if we absolutely Goddamn fucking have to (once, again, God forbid). Second, you are currently about as safe as you could be in California. Newsom has proven himself to be smart, tough, able to run rings around Republicans, and unwilling to comply with their stupid performative-cruelty directives. He's not a saint or a magician, but you don't need that; you need a shrewd politician able to fight back, and he has proven himself willing and capable of doing that. So as long as he is governor, you're going to be more safe than not, and I'd also like to ask all the shrieking Online Leftists if, should the shit go down, they would rather live in a state with a Democratic governor who will fight Trump 2.0 every step of the way, or a Republican governor who will just roll over and obey. (But that would destroy their BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME talking point, so you know.)

Next of all, even if the Republicans are doing their best impression, America in 2024 isn't Germany in 1934. There are different tools, different ways to fight back, and different awarenesses/social media/visibility factors. I also need everyone to remember that just as Biden can't just sign an executive order and fix everything everywhere, Trump can't just sign an executive order and fuck everything everywhere, just like that with no more discussion ever. He tried that last time, it generally didn't work, and trust me, at least this time nobody is sleeping on the danger he poses. His candidacy in 2016 was dismissed as a long-shot joke that nobody took seriously until it was too late, and for better or worse, people aren't doing that this time. He will be sued instantly, incredibly, and repeatedly with everything his band of wannabe fascists try, and since we have had four years of Biden fixing the courts from where Trump trashed them, that does mean something. There is no scenario where even if he does issue some outrageous order against women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, etc (which to be clear, I'm sure he would try) it would just be carried out completely, immediately, and with no feasible way to stop it. Evil is evil, but it is also stupid, clueless, determined to hurt people just for the hell of it without any regard for what is possible or which will be allowed, and there's a lot more grey area in there than just "Trump says something terrible and it's instantly done, the end."

Once again, I'm not going to say that the worst-case scenario is not possible, but I don't think it's likely, and even if that does happen, there are ways for us to survive and fight back (again). Nobody wants it and it should not have to be asked of us due to the utter collapse of the social, civic, political, and intellectual fabric of this country thanks to the TrumpCult, but once again... these people are so loud and dangerous and cruel and stupid because they are in the minority. Etc. etc. polls are garbage, but we did just have an interesting piece of empirical data from the Iowa caucuses. Trump -- in one of the whitest, most rural, most conservative, most religious, most Trump-loving states in the country -- struggled to break 50%. Almost half of a rabid Republican fully-Trumpized electorate, among the diehards sufficiently motivated to get out and caucus in extreme freezing weather, voted for someone else (Haley and DeSantis took about 20% apiece). Now, no, we don't know how that will translate to the general election, and if registered Republicans will flock back to the nominee even if it's Trump, but as almost half of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden if it was a Biden-Trump matchup in the general, there is some sense that Trump is an aberration to their otherwise ironclad party loyalty. Now, Republicans are the fucking worst and nobody should be relying on them to save us; we still need to get out and vote for Democrats with all our might. But Trump is no longer barn-burningly popular even in core Trump heartland, and it'll be interesting to see how things go in future primaries.

My point is: I know the feeling that evil is awful and unstoppable and all-powerful, and will crush our lives and our futures no matter what we do to resist it. I really, really do. But Trump is a terrible candidate, he's running literally only to keep himself out of a long, long prison sentence, and if he had crushed the Iowa caucuses regardless, we might be having a different conversation. However, we need to remember that it is possible, again (God forbid) in the worst scenario, to resist, to live, and to win. Everyone who is motivated to work for a better world will still be here. Everyone who can help you and all of us will still be here. And there are more of us than there are of them. Yes, I do understand the feeling that we need to have contingency plans in place, I do absolutely know that it could get very bad, and all that (as you say, nobody has a crystal ball). But for now, I want you to take a deep breath, try to take this day by day, and remember that this is not a crushing and inevitable future that will sweep over you and destroy you without you (or any other person of good will) having a say in the matter. You still have agency, you still have the ability to protect yourself, and you still have others who will protect you in turn. You're not alone. The bad guys want you to think that, because when you're isolated and terrorized, you're easier to pick off and/or recruit into their cult. But you're not.

In conclusion: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #hang in there!

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sirianasims · 10 months ago

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Chapter 44.1

Girls on Millionaires

“Samara, this is hopeless.”

“It’s been five minutes, Julia, we’ve barely started!”

“But how am I supposed to find anything in here? They should have thrift shops online, I just want to grab what I need and get on with my life.”

Samara shakes her head. “You’re thinking about it all wrong, this is not shopping. Thrifting is more like a treasure hunt, you never know what you’re going to find.”

She moves between the chaotic piles with the practiced air of someone who’s done this a thousand times before. Her hands are constantly busy, picking up items, examining them, and occasionally letting out a small laugh or shaking her head as she puts them back.

I trail behind her, aimlessly running my hands over stacks of old sweaters and linens, feeling out of place. The whole rebrand is starting to stress me out. My money is dwindling faster than I expected, and I only have so long to get the channel up and running again before I’ll be forced to make that dreaded phone call and ask my parents for help. It would feel like admitting defeat.

My spare room looks empty and forlorn without my sewing machine and fabrics, and I was hoping to find something that would help me get the new aesthetic right without breaking the bank, even if I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for.

Instead, I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of other people’s memories, and none of them fit the person I’m trying to become.

I’m about to give up when Samara calls out, a triumphant grin spreading across her face.

“Julia, come check this out.”

She waves me over to a large, white mirror, tucked away in a corner by some broken chairs and unused exercise equipment.

I walk over to it and run my fingers along the curved frame. It’s smooth, no dents or scratches. There’s even a useful shelf on the bottom, and I can already picture it in my new recording setup, framing the scene just right.

“This is perfect, Samara! There’s no price tag on it, do you think they’ll sell it?” I gesture at the girl at the register. She hasn’t looked up from her phone since we got here.

“They’d sell the roof if it didn’t keep the rain out, let’s go make a deal.”

The Rooftop

The music pulses through my body, a steady beat that seems to resonate in my bones and push away any lingering traces of worry. The Rooftop is packed tonight, but I don’t mind the crowd. The energy is electric, the kind that makes you feel alive, feel like anything is possible.

I’m tipsy – more than tipsy, actually – and it feels good. Samara and I managed to get my new mirror home safely, and for the rest of tonight, all thoughts about the rebrand and the money situation are far away, drowned out by the bass and the chemical smell from the smoke machines.

I throw my hands up, twirling in place as the DJ transitions into a song with a heavier beat. The floor beneath my feet feels like it’s vibrating, and I can’t stop smiling, can’t stop moving. I’m probably grinning like an idiot but I don’t even care. For the first time in weeks, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, who I’m supposed to be.

Samara and Miranda are dancing next to me, and I close my eyes, letting the rhythm take over. All the tension I’ve carried melts away. I know I’ll have to face reality again tomorrow, finish setting up my recording equipment and sort out a new posting schedule, but tomorrow is a million miles away.

Miranda leans in close, trying to get my attention. “Let’s grab a table,” she says, and I feel like I can see the vibration of her words through the air more than I hear them. “I need a break.”

“Yeah, good idea, my feet are killing me.”

I slide onto the seat, relieved to get off the unforgiving steel floor, as Miranda puts a drink in front of me. The glass is cool in my hand, condensation dripping down my fingers as I take a sip. The strong taste of alcohol is barely masked by the fruits and sugar. Miranda always gets the good stuff, all the bartenders know she tips well.

I gently peel off my shoes and rest my bare feet on the cold, smooth metal bars of the stool.

“Miranda, seriously, how do you handle wearing heels every single day? I’m so sore.”

Miranda grins.

“You get used to it after a while, really. It’s all about practice and a little bit of masochism,” she says with a laugh. “And then there’s the stubbornness, I didn’t spend all that money on shoes just to keep them on a shelf – speaking of, since when can you afford Diego Lobos?”

I glance down at my shoes. “They were a gift from Paul, for New Year’s Eve. I just haven’t worn them since we broke up. He joked that they were mostly a gift for himself, actually. So he wouldn’t have to bend down as far to kiss me.”

And because he liked it when I wore them to bed. The memory stings a little, but it’s not as bad as it used to be, the wound of the heartbreak has finally scabbed over and the pain is less raw each time I think of him.

Samara giggles tipsily. “I mean, they look nicer than using a stepladder, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe that’s why he dumped me, I was bad for his back. I should find a shorter boyfriend next time.”

“Yeah? How tall is Marten?”

“That’s not – we’re not dating, Miranda!”

Miranda clicks her tongue. “Girl, I hate to break it to you, but he did take you on a date.”

“It wasn’t a date, we just hung out! We got home, played games, ordered takeout. He slept on the couch, and then he took the train back to campus. He didn’t try to flirt or hit on me in any way.”

“Sounds fake,” Samara says. “I still think he’s up to something.”

“Or maybe he’s just not into me, it’s not a crime. He can have friends and not want to date them, you know.”

Thankfully, they drop the subject and move on to something else. I don’t like admitting it, but Marten’s lack of interest bothers me. It’s not even that I want him, but I’m used to most guys wanting me, and my ego is frankly a little bruised. Marten is always so sweet and attentive, but that’s it.

I can’t help but find it strange that he spends so much time with me if he doesn’t like me like that. Am I really just so arrogant that I can’t imagine a guy who doesn’t want me? Or maybe I’m just obsessing over it because Paul didn’t want me either. At least not enough to give me more time. I push away the thought violently.

As I take another sip of my drink, my eyes wander towards the bar. The Rooftop’s head bartender, Shane, is quite pretty, all perfect hair and strong jawline – and not that tall. I catch myself staring a little too long, and then I remember that he asked Miranda about me. A flutter stirs in my stomach.

The truth is that I miss being wanted, being touched. I miss kissing and cuddling and holding hands, but most of all I miss sex, the sweaty, dirty, crazy kind that leaves you breathless on crumpled sheets at sunrise.

“Julia, are you even listening?”

“I think we lost her, Mir, she’s busy eye-fucking the bartender.”

“Good to know she’s healed enough to look at other men at last.”

I feel my cheeks get hot. “Sorry, I was just thinking, uh, isn’t that the bartender who asked about me?” I try to sound casual but Miranda isn’t fooled for a second.

She chuckles knowingly. “Oh, yeah, that’s him. Just a heads up, though, Shane is a total fuckboy, he doesn’t do relationships.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Who said anything about relationships?”

Miranda shrugs, her eyes still sparkling with amusement. “As long as you know what you’re getting into, babe. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, you don’t need more heartbreak.”

“Come on, Julia, you can do so much better. Just wait, before you know it, some prince is going to come riding in on a white horse and sweep you away.”

“Samara, I’d be happy with a duke on a rusty bike at this point. A girl has needs, you know – and my vibrator doesn’t cuddle.”

We laugh it off, but I have to admit that I feel extremely tempted by the thought of seeing where this might go.

Images flash through my mind of maybe, possibly, staying a little after closing time and getting to know Shane the bartender better. Maybe he could help me remember that Paul isn’t the last man on earth, and that even if Marten doesn’t want me either, someone else will.

My pocket vibrates, tearing me away from my fantasy. I look at my phone, slightly flustered. As if summoned by my thoughts, it’s Marten, asking if we’re going to play tonight. I fire back a quick text about being out with the girls and he answers immediately.

“No worries! Have fun and make good choices, okay?”

Good choices? What is he, my dad?

Still, his words stick with me, making me feel a little guilty for some reason.

I glance back at Shane, who’s now mixing a drink with the kind of smooth confidence that makes it clear that he knows exactly how hot he is. If he’s as bad as his reputation, he probably wouldn’t mind being someone’s rebound, but would I regret it?

I followed Paul back to his hotel even though I barely knew him. Am I just the kind of girl who hooks up with any hot guy on a whim? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Marten has a talent for making me second-guess myself.

If I’m being brutally honest, as hot as it sounds, getting railed on a bar after closing would probably not count as a good choice in anyone’s book.

But still…

A girl can dream.

navigation / previous / next

#duchellilegacy #duchellichapters #duchelligen5 #julia duchelli #miranda villanueva #samara davies #shane molina #sims spice

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wanderingskemetic · 4 months ago

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🐍Subtle Mehen Worship🛡️

Greatly inspired by @khaire-traveler's wonderful subtle worship series, which can be found here.

Carry a protective charm with you

Destroy depictions of A/p/e/p this can be as simple as drawing it on a piece of paper and tearing it up

Learn about and uphold Ma'at

Make a playlist or listen to songs that remind you of him or you think he'd like

Make a collage/moodboard/pinterest board/similar collection of photos and images you associate with him, especially if some of the images are your own

Wear a piece of jewelry or other clothing item that reminds you of him

Light a candle or incense that reminds you of him (safely)

Carry a picture of him in your wallet, pocket, phone case, etc. or as a phone or computer wallpaper

Have snake or boat imagery

Learn self-defence, weapons included or not

Making a list of your personal strengths and things you're proud of

Practice standing up for yourself; speak your mind and assert your personal boundaries

Exercise a little, even if it's just stretching

Do something hard or challenging, especially if you've been putting it off, or it needs to get done

Supporting local activists or online activism for causes you believe in; support human rights or humanitarian organizations

Stand up for yourself and people you care about

Work on becoming more comfortable with the idea of conflict; it is only natural that we sometimes disagree with people

Learn about healthy conflict resolution skills; try to implement these in your next conflict

Speak your mind; be honest and direct with others

Hold others and yourself responsible for their/your actions; apologize or make amends when possible/appropriate

Practice truthfulness and keep your promises

Let go of people or things that do not contribute to your life in a positive way

Don't feel obligated to forgive people; you do not have to forgive them even if they've apologized to you

thank him at the start of each day

Donate to food banks, medical debt forgiving organizations, wildlife organizations and other causes you think help life

Writing letters (that you will never send) to people who've hurt you and burning them

Play a combat-based video game; choose a supportive/defensive character

Set boundaries for yourself; I'll only give this much support to that person, I won't stay on my phone for hours before bed, I won't engage with this media that always upsets me, etc.

I may add more to this list in the future. Suggestions are always appreciated.

Link to the Kemetic Subtle Worship Masterpost

#kemetic polytheism #kemetic #kemetic paganism #kemetism #kemeticism #kemetic fandom #subtle deity worship #Mehen #polytheism #pagan tips #deity worship #paganblr

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kris-tyne · 8 months ago

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Chromebook Tech Literacy Masterpost

I've seen a lot of posts about the systemic death of tech literacy in schools with the advent of ChromeOS, and instead of responding to them one by one, I want to create a masterpost to destroy the system. First: FUCK CIPA. The Children's Internet Protection Act is a United States FCC act that standardizes internet safety across the country. Public schools are not required to comply with this act, but they will lose discounts offered for the E-rate program. In short, if you don't want to put up web filters, then you don't get government grants for technology and Internet. Fuck that. Many of these workarounds bank on my personal experiences, so some solutions may not work with your web filters, but they definitely are a step in the right direction. For talking with friends: chat rooms are your friend. Many chat rooms for professional use act just like Discord, and many are just a single text channel. Several I've used include: Google Messages, Rumbletalk, Slack, Element, ClickUp, Pumble, and... in a pinch, Google Docs can give you a shared document that's practically impossible to block. For watching videos: some chat rooms, especially Rumbletalk, allow you to directly embed a YouTube video. This is rare, however, so we found some workarounds. Canva has a video search and embed function that allows you to play YouTube videos straight from the editing page of their slideshows. For anime, a website that I don't think is maintained as well but should still work is AnimeTribes. It is a .ru site but it is perfectly safe, as long as you don't click on ads. I've never seen it redirect you otherwise, and the owner used to be commonly found on the chat page. Another piracy site is 9Anime, which doesn't work on Chromebooks but is an infinitely better source in general. A non-anime video piracy site is Arc018, which is my favorite. It does redirect you decently commonly, but just take care to avoid those redirects and follow piracy suggestions that I will lay out further down. For adblocking: the easiest method is to use uBlock Origin. Though, with all the stuff that Google has been doing, I'm not entirely sure if it works anymore. I gave up on Chrome the second I could get away from it and I suggest you all do the same. For playing games: so. I'm a nerd. I play Pokemon games. SO if you do too you're in luck. The only thing I could come up with was to download GPemu, a ChromeOS based emulator. Unfortunately it's pretty bad, but apparently there's an alternative called EmulatorJS. I never used it myself, but if someone wants to try it and let me know how it goes, that would be appreciated. HOWEVER, none of these work without the games to play them with. I'm going to detail piracy safety later, but for now: Vimm's Lair recently got axed by Nintendo's DMCA, but some ROMs may still be available. Another source (which is admittedly undergoing some major changes) is The Internet Archive. I haven't done a lot of searching on the Archive, and I don't know if it works on Chromebooks, but try it and let me know :).

Circumventing the web filter: While those solutions work for specific things you can do online, these present a general solution, capable of multitasking and providing you much more extended freedom. The first is CroxyProxy, a completely free proxy service that can be added through the Chrome Web Store. If the Web Store is blocked, it can be accessed via the direct website or through specific IP addresses. These change frequently, and I’m absolutely positive the ones that I have access to are blocked or simply go nowhere useful. The other option, assuming you have a home computer connected to the Internet at all times, is Chrome Remote Desktop. It will work as long as both computers are signed in to one shared Google account and both are connected to the Internet.

But Ty... none of this works for me: Oh boy. I guess it's time for my trump card. The pinnacle of my Chromebook workaround career has culminated in this. The ultimate destruction of ChromeOS, all without jailbreaking the computer and getting in a LOT of trouble (don't do that please). My magnum opus came from my blossoming understanding of emulation and, specifically, Windows images. During my senior year, I successfully used a trusted and necessary source (unblockable) to emulate a Windows computer entirely through a single Chrome tab. This source… Microsoft Azure. This cloud computing service allows the creation of a remote desktop that will save data when offline. The biggest hurdle with Azure is that… it costs money. However, when I did it, I got 200 hours of emulation FREE, and I would highly recommend you find the same deal, if it still works. Things to note: you can make multiple accounts, but you will need to also have separate payment cards, as multiple accounts with the same card will flag and not be usable. The frame rate is decently shit, and there is no physical graphics card, so the vast majority of games will not run. I mostly used it for Discord. However, feel free to experiment and make it your own. Use this knowledge wisely, and run free, my friends. Fuck CIPA, and fuck ChromeOS!

Please feel free to reblog or comment with more suggestions, because I would love to add them!

#boost this post so it reaches as many eyes as possible!#i want people to know about the ways they can fight against their schools!#tech literacy #chromebook #chromeos #school system #united states #masterpost #tech tag

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tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors · 11 months ago

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ok wait thats such a good point because you can definitely exercise in packers (as in regular gym activity) but now im thinking about flying whilst packing. being upside down whilst packing. do not know if id trust that as much 😂 there are methods of packing using (body safe) tape so i cant imagine itd be too risky but definitely. anxiety inducing

right like in a gym you could excuse yourself to adjust your whole business if something comes loose but you cant excuse yourself from a bank robbery in progress. you cant excuse yourself from Remus Is Throwing A Car Again. i'm cringing at the thought of how much he'd panic if something went wrong

wait im thinking like. logan has flighty silly rich people parents but i feel like he's always been more practical than that so im just imagining something like logan actively preferring to pack with socks and always has. "i dont have to keep a separate storage area, so its a dual purpose usage and improving my efficiency. its a fabric i know im not sensitive to already (there are unknown textures on online ordered products!). and if it falls out of my pant leg it is passable as merely static cling from the laundry. its the perfect solution."

Rémy, cupping his face and pinching his cheeks: oh, babe, ma petite étoile, nobody in their mind will believe you did laundry incorrectly

Logan, muffled: it's 'in their right mind,' Papa

Rémy: oh no even the crazies would clock you my love

George and Diane, two rooms away: it's true!

#ask #Anonymous #ping verse #three disaster bisexuals and their inexplicably straight-laced son #i continue to be obsessed with Rémy #i imagine the three of them standing around logan with babies first abacus like ???????

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worms-go-here · 8 months ago

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2025 PREP LIST

Here's a list of things you should do to protect and help yourself going into 2025. I've organized them hard/medium/easy based on their time consumption and difficulty of execution.

GET A PASSPORT & OBTAIN DOCUMENTS (HARD)

• Get or update your passport so it will last through these next 4 years. Your passport is a very strong piece of identity keeping material. Everything in this section is especially important for people who have legally changed their name in any form. 2025 will likely contain some legislation targeting people whose name doesn't match on all their legal documents. Also if you need to flee the country this will be super important to have. Certain passport renewals are eligible to do online.

• Get copies or originals of all your legal documents. That means you should have your birth certificate, your social security card, and any diplomas or degrees. Keep those yourself at home in a safe location or in a safety deposit that you have legal access to (your name should be on the access slip and you should have a key)

CONTROL YOUR MONEY (MEDIUM)

• Move your money to a local bank or preferably a credit union. Big banks collect data on you and use your money to back their own evil causes. The people going into power don't care about people, they care about money, so that is our most powerful mouthpiece. Moving it sends a message to them and also denies them the data they get from monitoring our purchases and it protects it better. This is one of the most proactive things you can do right now.

How to move your money: It is probably best practice to call your bank and let them know that you are going to be closing your account there and transferring your money. This is so they can make sure they have enough cash on hand to give you. Then you'll just take that and head over to your new local bank or credit union and they'll get your accounts set up. It can be accomplished in a morning or afternoon. The hardest part will be just finding the time, and then moving all online accounts to a new billing situation. I did this a few years ago and it was actually super easy.

• Shop Local ! Shop Small ! everyone has been preaching this for years, but you need to keep doing it or start now. Shopping local has always been more expensive, but with the tariffs coming, its not going to matter any more. Don't shop Walmart, Target, big conglomerates. Especially for groceries. Food safety is going to continue to be relaxed under the incoming administration. Eating local and knowing where your food came from will be the best way to protect yourself.

• Get a budget. You can use a budget app like YNAB or just track it yourself on paper or on a spreadsheet. Just being aware of how much you spend and where will help you save money in the expensive time we're going into, and realize if your money is going to someone you don't want it to go to.

CONTROL YOUR BODY (HARD)

• Future of birth control and abortion is uncertain. Stock up now on Plan B and Plan C abortion pills. Do this even if you are not a person affected, because you never know who in your life will be. (be aware of the effectiveness of these pills. Plan B lowers in effectiveness on people 165 pounds and over. Other Plan B options have similar issues.)

• Consider your options for long term birth control. Talk with your doctor about how much birth control pill you can stock up on, or consider an IUD. Do your research about your options, they all affect different people differently. Most of these will last through the next 4 years. If yours is set to expire before or during that time period, ask if your doctor will go ahead and replace yours early.

• here is the list of doctors in the states who will perform sterilizations or permanent birth control

• update your vaccinations now. the future of vaccines are also uncertain. the updated covid and flu shots are available, ask your doctor or check your records to see what vaccines you need a re-up on. you should have an updated tetanus/tdap shot every 10 years. you can get these at your doctor or at CVS, Walgreens, etc.

• stop use of all period tracker apps or tracking your period on any digital platform based on the internet, cell data, or the cloud. track on paper.

• if you take prescriptions talk with your doctor about how much of it you can have on hand at once. stock as much as you can.

CONTROL YOUR RELATIONSHIPS (MEDIUM)

• Women are divorcing and breaking up with people who voted for Trump. If there are people in your life who don't align with your values its time to consider cutting them out, especially if they are a romantic partner.

• The 4B movement is taking off in America as a movement to show right wing men that they can't have their cake and eat it too. The 4 B's stand for no dating men, no sex with men, no marriage to men, and no childbirth. If that interests you now is the time to start.

• Delete your dating apps and your profiles on your dating apps. These guys will be scrolling past the same two women every day with no other offerings. Your body, your choice, no exceptions.

DITCH AMAZON (EASY)

• Cancel your amazon prime and delete or forswear use of your amazon account. Amazon has always been evil but now it is evil backed by evil. It collects your spending data and it is the biggest proponent of convenience culture. Getting real rights for workers means all of us recognizing that convenience has a cost, and it is far more than amazon is charging. A good life for everyone means you get your things slower, and we all need to learn to be ok with that.

• Unsubscribe from all shopping mailing lists. When you get the shopping newsletter in your inbox from wherever, hit the unsubscribe button. We need to be telling corporations and companies we don't care about their crap, and junk emails are bad for us and the planet. This is an easy way to cut temptation and stick it to them.

• Where you buy from matters. Buying small business or local means a safer product and it means your money does not go directly to the pockets of evil. The best easy thing you ca do during the next 4 years is CARE WHO YOUR MONEY GOES TO.

PROTECT YOURSELF ONLINE (EASY)

• SWITCH TO FIREFOX. It's said all the time on this website, but do it this time, actually do it. I finally did and it was super fast and easy and took less than a minute and it migrated all my bookmarks and passwords from chrome. Though the safest way to be online is with Linux, if you have that capability.

• add necessary extensions to your new firefox. these will be recommended when you install and you should 1000% add them: Ublock origin, privacy badger, facebook container, and clear urls. avoid adding savings extensions - honey is the biggest culprit. they make money off of your spending data. now is the time we have to fight harder than ever for our digital privacy and security, and that starts by denying them access.

MAKE YOUR PURCHASES NOW (MEDIUM)

• consider your life and if there is anything in it that is necessary and might break or need replaced in the next 4 years. I mean big purchases like appliances, car maintenance, house maintenance. Everything is going to get more expensive, and if you can get these big purchases now at a cheaper cost, you should do it.

• stock up on any imported goods that you have space for and want to prioritize having. Olive oil, wine, spices, to name a few.

HAVE AN EMERGENCY PLAN (MEDIUM)

• maybe when you move to your new credit union you move some of your money to a designated emergency savings fund. Everyone should have an emergency fund or money to fall back on in case anything happens, but that is going to be even more important to build and pad that fund going into an administration that is going to jack the prices of everything. Also because if you do need to flee you'll need money to fund your escape.

• make a plan for if you do decide to flee the country or it becomes necessary. consider where you will go and how you will get there. its important to think about how long you will stay there and how long you can stay legally or if you can immigrate, and to consider what the political climate / human rights situation in your hopeful new country is like.

EDUCATE YOURSELF (EASY)

• we all have to be part of the change, and we all have to fight for it. we can start by educating ourselves. My reading list includes Mutual Aid, Except for Palestine, Let this Radicalize You, Becoming Abolitionists, The Jungle, Assata, The Purpose of Power, Social Movements, We Do this till We Free Us, Strangers in their Own Land, and The New Jim Crow.

Knuckle down. We're not going into 2025 afraid, we're going in prepared.

Additions welcome, let me know if there's anything I missed. I know I'm missing how this affects people in college or going into it and ways you can protect yourself as an LGBTQ individual. I'll add to this as I learn that information.

#2025 #project 2025 #fuck donald trump #2025 prep

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girldragongizzard · 9 months ago

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Chapter 7: Ptarmigan’s folly

Saturday isn’t the best day to start work on your own name change, but it’s the seventh of September and I have a fresh SSI deposit in my bank and no rent I need to pay. So, after the morning song, which I manage to initiate by starting just a smidge early, I settle down in the coffee shop with my tablet to learn about how to do it, and maybe pay the fees to get it started.

It looks like the procedure is pretty easy in Washington state, but there are two little snags.

It’s expensive. I can afford it, because I’m not paying rent. Kind of. That money is ideally going to go toward food now, though. But I can supplement my diet with seagulls if I have to.

And, I need more identification than just my enhanced state ID. Like, my birth certificate. And that’s in the stuff that’s supposedly been boxed up and sent to Nathan’s place to put in his garage. When Joel crashed through my apartment wall and trashed the place, I got evicted and trespassed. So, we’d arranged for that, and Nathan says it all seems to have arrived safely, but I haven’t had a chance to go through it all because he lives in another dragon’s territory.

I double check my Discord server for whose it is.

Ah, the individual I’d nicknamed Godzilla, who on my server is going by gronk_lizard.

I shoot him a DM asking if I may have permission to visit Nathan’s garage and look through my stuff that’s stored there. And then fret about the response, which doesn’t come immediately, or for a while.

OK, there’s a third and fourth snag in the name change process, but I’ve already talked about those, and plan to just deal with them when they come up. If I have to, I can send a human emissary to get permission from Waits to enter their territory to go to court. And there’s got to be some kind of concession for altered appearances with a photo ID, especially since other trans folk exist and go through this in their own way. Maybe that’s what the birth certificate is for.

I’m really hoping that asking permission with other dragons is going to work for visiting their areas of the city. This is so new, and I don’t think we’ve really tested this before. But, I think I’d be pretty reasonably chill myself if another dragon asked me, especially after my encounter with Astraia.

Gotta try it someday, why not today?

And I did. And I’m fretting, because gronk_lizard isn’t returning my message yet. He’s not even online, though.

As I take a moment drink my coffee, I realize that I’m hyperfocusing on this because maybe I feel the need to get back into, or establish, a mundane daily routine. I’m trying to ground myself in my identity, which is fair. But now that I’ve done what I can for the day and hit a hurry-up-and-wait snag, it kind of hurts.

The events of the last week, finishing off with that conversation yesterday, have been a bit much.

Especially that conversation. Especially the idea that I might be an Artist.

The idea feels absurd to me.

I don’t have an Art. Not that I know of. I don’t draw or write. Though I’m definitely thinking about writing! But I have no practice in it. I don’t do music. I don’t program. All I’ve ever really done is watch movies, read books, and daydream about being a dragon.

A lot of daydreaming about that. Especially as my chronic fatigue set in and I couldn’t do much else. Which.

I don’t have chronic fatigue anymore and it turns out I’m actually a dragon. So, what do I do?

I fucking go flying, eat seagulls, fight other dragons, and get in a turf war with the biggest, richest wizard in town, apparently!

Or, am I?

Is David Säure an Artist?

Or, did I misunderstand what Ptarmigan was saying?

I think about the main points of yesterday’s conversation, and realize that so much of what was said by both Ptarmigan and Chapman could be interpreted several different ways. And Chapman’s been talking like that since I met hir.

When Kimberly asked Ptarmigan her age, and Ptarmigan responded with “forty-nine”, she didn’t specific of what. Forty-nine years? Seconds? Eons? Heck, she didn’t even say, “I am”, so it might not even have been an answer. Just, “Forty-nine, I think.” Like, “I’m thinking of the number forty-nine.”

And, the reason this sticks with me is because I caught when Kimberly asked more directly if Ptarmigan was forty-nine years old, and Ptarmigan said, “No.”

I take a glance around the coffee shop and the street outside through the windows, and don’t see anyone I know well besides Nathan and Cerce behind the counter.

For some reason, my thoughts feel more private knowing I’m basically alone, and I continue puzzling this.

Maybe Ptarmigan was just saying that Daniel Säure’s involvement in local dragon politics is due to the work of an Artist, not that he was one.

I don’t want to give a billionaire any benefit of the doubt, but I’ve gotta concede I don’t know anything about him. Not even why he’s gone personally reclusive lately. And he could just be this hapless human being with way too much money and way too much interest in local politics.

The part where Ptarmigan was painfully honest and transparent, though, was when she admitted that she didn’t know if I was an Artist, only that it was a guess, and that she’d used divination to find the center of the global metamorphosis and it was apparently me.

Either she was outright lying there, or I was the center of it for some reason.

So, like, we’ve got this pair of immortal beings, supposedly. Or people pretending to be immortal beings, but they can definitely do magic of some sort. And they both have this habit of telling partial truths, or phrases that might as well be partial truths, to mislead or hide the actual truth. It creates this precedent of communication where I guess I expect them to keep up that habit.

So, when one of them then goes, “I don’t actually know. That was a guess. But what I found is that you’re at the center of this dragon event,” well, it stands out. It’s not the same pattern of communication.

What does that mean?

This is going to give me main character syndrome if I think about it too much.

If I take Ptarmigan’s report at face value, does that mean that my dream that night, in which I tore off my human disguise, was indicative of something bigger?

If I’m an Artist and don’t know about it, would that have been me subconsciously practicing my Art? Does dreaming count as an Art?

Or, maybe it’s transformation that’s the Art, but dreaming was my expression of it at the time.

If I had paper and could write this down, I feel like it would make sense on it. But, emotionally, it’s not clicking with me. I just feel numb and disconnected with it when I think about the idea that my own transformation, my own personal desires made manifest, actually affected the entire rest of the planet.

It’s just too much.

But I lift my chin and tilt my head like that one meme, and think that transformation would be a pretty fucking fantastic Art to have. Phenomenally powerful.

If I could somehow do that, transform myself or other people or things, I could use that Art to smooth out so many problems the, uh, global dracomorphosis is causing. At least locally, I think.

And trying it would either confirm or debunk Ptarmigan’s claims.

I could maybe get into that.

I’m honestly at a loss for what else to do, besides to continue networking with my new friends and trying to build a local coalition of dragons while some billionaire tries to ship us one by one out of the county.

There’s been no helicopter for the past two nights, though, that I know of, so it seems like we’ve got a bit of a reprieve. And I should probably take advantage of that.

Networking should only take a couple hours each day, at most, ideally. So the rest of the day I can use for planning, scheming, processing the idea of being somehow immortal or something myself, and experimenting.

Doing that might even keep me out of trouble with my neighboring dragons. You know, by mostly keeping to myself.

Except, I do want to move forward on this name change thing, and that is going to take some leg work. Or wing work.

Well.

I drink some more coffee, and focus on the process of doing that. Like eating, it's also pleasant, if nothing like what I used to do with a human mouth.

The best part of it for me, now, is tasting the air above the coffee before drinking it. There’s just so much detail to the aroma of the steam, so many volatiles lifting away in it. Each one is a different note of flavor. It's almost like I can taste each individual molecule as it alights on my tongue.

But, then, bathing my tongue in the liquid is a totally different beautiful experience, too. There's even more flavor there, but it all blends and swirls around my taste buds as I immerse my chin deep enough into the bowl to function as kind of a ladle, and lick.

Three licks and swallows with snout in bowl gives me a sense of drinking sips kind of like before. And then I lift my head up and back to swallow the gulp of fluid in the bottom of my mouth.

A huff and my tongue is swathed in the warmth of coffee breath and a whole other set of flavors, and I feel like I’ve permeated myself with the myriad of fascinating chemicals that make up the hot extract of coffee beans. Head high, eyes closing, I allow myself to float on the sensations and the memories they bring of doing this almost every morning since I awoke to my true self.

I hear the front door bell chime and jingle and have to stop myself from imitating the noise in response. I close my eyes tighter to distance myself from it.

After a couple of seconds, I hear Ptarmigan speaking to me her desert thunder of a voice.

“We should go for a walk,” she says. “Or, if you know some place private, that would be better. I want to work with you on something, if you’re up for it.”

I open my eyes and look at her in the collarbone. She’s dressed in exactly the same clothes as yesterday.

I’m not done with my coffee yet, so then I look at it, and then look back up at her.

“I’m sorry. You can take your time. I mean, I would like to meet with you some time today, if possible,” she says. “Can you? Will you? Do you have a good place for that?”

“Yes. Okay. Stay,” I say, without pulling out my tablet. Then I go for another mouthful of coffee and make a demonstration of it.

I don’t exactly dislike Ptarmigan. I’m intrigued by her. But I feel like she has disrupted my life just as thoroughly as Joel did when he crashed through my wall. And I do not trust her.

That lack of trust seems more important than anything.

And what she’s revealed to me has damaged my trust in Chapman, too, and I am not grateful for that.

I find that I don’t really want to do anything with Ptarmigan without Rhoda by my side. But she does have her own life, and she’s not here right now.

After sitting with the fumes of my last gulp of coffee for long enough that I feel I’ve made my point, I pull out my tablet and ask a simple question with it.

“What?” I inquire.

“I want to help you explore what I talked about yesterday,” Ptarmigan says. “Privacy would be good so that you don’t feel so self conscious about it. I like going for walks, but I understand your territory is smaller these days. Maybe your roof would work?”

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m in the mood for doing right now. I’m so anxious today, I think I’m done with my coffee, despite how I’ve been trying to wallow in it.

I may not trust Ptarmigan, and I’m not exactly confident in my own decision making skills lately. But I’ve been really great at learning new stuff from my mistakes, and I’m desperate to be doing something productive and new.

I put my tablet away again and stand up, saying, “Okay. Go.” And then I walk out the door and lead the way to the fire escape.

It’s got one of those sets of stairs that only lower when weight is put on them, but I can reach that easily and pull it down, which I do. I climb partway up that and then wait for Ptarmigan to follow. And then we both climb to the top floor.

Leaping up to grab the roof from there is much easier than the last time I did it, and I’m sure I’ve grown a bit in length now.

Once up and in my new home, the rooftop, I turn around and watch Ptarmigan to see if she has any manner of getting up here herself.

She just watches me back, passively.

OK.

My haunches and tail are heavier than my front, so I figure I can help her up while using my hips as a fulcrum. I keep my wings folded and held as far back as possible while I walk to place my hind claws near the edge of the roof. Then I crouch and lean down and offer Ptarmigan my foreclaws, my tail rising in the air and arching behind me.

Then, when she grabs my foreclaws, I flap my wings furiously and lift with my legs to pull us both back up.

She walks up the side of the building with her feet and it all works pretty well.

I allow myself to be pleased with my feat of balance and strength.

Then we make our way to the center of the roof. And as I flap my wings a few times to stretch them again after working them for our ascent, her duster billows.

I find that I wish she was wearing a pair of dark black rimmed wrap around sunglasses, but she’s not.

“OK,” she says. “We can go about this a couple of different ways. We should try both. What are your hobbies? Do you do anything creative?”

“No,” I say. I hesitate for a moment to let that sink in, but then I pull out my tablet, and she watches me as I turn it on and make sure my app is open. “I used to read,” I take the time to say. “I used to daydream.”

“What do you do now?” she asks.

“Know Artists. Fight. Be dragon. Eat seagull. And fly,” I say, completely deadpan as usual.

I’m being subtly funny, but it’s also basically the truth. Ever since my metamorphosis, I’ve been so content in a way I’ve never been before, despite all the stressors, that my usual coping mechanisms haven’t had any draw to me.

“Huh. OK,” my oblique reference to a meme seems to go right over her head. “What were you doing the night of the metamorphosis?”

“Dreaming,” I reply. “Woke up dragon.”

“Right. What was your dream about?”

“Removing human disguise.”

She points at me.

I figured as much.

“That’s it.” Then she sits down on the black tar roof, and says, “Now, describe that dream in detail, please. I’ll wait.”

I huff and look at the sky.

Then I oblige. This dream has stuck with me strongly since that night. I remember it as if I lived it while awake. And I’ve described it before, but it’s worth reviewing it.

I dreamt that I was back in school, college specifically, and it was one of those naked dreams. I spent about half the day interacting with professors and classmates before I really noticed, and I was in just my tighty whities, which is better than being completely naked, but not by much. What I hated more, in the dream as in real life, was my hairy chest and arms, the stubble of my beard, and the obvious bulge in my underwear. These were things that had been plaguing me since puberty, but I never felt like I could do anything about them. If I’d been willing to upend my whole life by admitting that I was a trans woman, which I absolutely never wanted to be (thank you internalized transmisogyny), I wouldn’t have been able to afford transition anyway.

Of course, with the Affordable Care Act, Washington State made it so that Medicaid and Medicare would cover transitional healthcare, including surgery if I’d wanted it. But, for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to come out. Not even after I’d lost the last attempt at a job I’d ever had, and settled into the Magnolia apartments friendless and hopeless and exhausted beyond belief. I didn’t have anything to lose anymore, but I couldn’t see how embarrassing myself by publicly transitioning would make my life any better. I was doing everything I needed by living as a woman online, I thought.

That history followed me into my dream, of course. And it colored everything and made me feel even worse and more desperate. I couldn’t believe I was back in school when I had such severe chronic fatigue, and I couldn’t even answer emails or voice messages anymore due to my C-PTSD.

And then, in the dream, one of my classmates, someone I’d made the mistake of considering a friend at the time, asked me why I’d decided not to wear any clothes.

And I turned to him and said, “Because dragons don’t need clothes.”

And then I ripped off my human disguise and woke up.

I simplify this considerably for Ptarmigan, condensing my personal history down to, “I’m trans. Was male in dream. Am female.”

She nods, and scratches at the stubble on her chin.

“Yeah, that shit sucks,” she says. “I’ve dealt with my own dysphoria in some terrible ways. I wish I could have done what you did.”

“You are Artist. You incarnate. Don’t you choose?” I ask.

“I’m not the Poet,” she says. “Sometimes I use words badly. But also, my existence is contradictory. I suspect yours is, too, if you look close or deep enough.”

“Explain.” I’ve decided I’m not putting up with any more vague bullshit from Artists. “Make me understand.”

“Yeah,” she says. Then she walks over to the southern edge of the building and looks out over the sound. “Being trans is part of my nature when I live as a human. I can’t stop from being it. All Artists are queer or neurodivergent or deviant in some way. This is one of my ways. It comes with the Art. In my case, I’ll choose one sex or another, and end up being a different gender from it. Kids these days would say that my sex is defined by my gender, and I like that. But I can’t explain what happens to me with those words because I’m not exactly born. So I’m not assigned the wrong sex at birth.” She looks back at me. “I choose, but then my choice is taken from me, by my own nature. But it’s even more absurd to me, because the whole gender thing as it is today is a construct of white supremacy. It should be irrelevant.”

That last comment seems like a confirmation to me that she’s Indigenous. But I don’t really know. The right thing to do is wait for her to share that information directly. And, she’s an Artist, not a human. Ethnicity may be irrelevant to her, too. There are more important things to consider at the moment.

“What’s your Art?” I ask.

She grins for the first time I’ve seen yet. It’s an awkward thing, full of ruefulness and stilted self consciousness, but her eyes twinkle.

“Nightmares,” she says.

I think about that for a moment, and she lets me, so I ask, “Did you cause mine?”

“No, I don’t cause nightmares,” she says. “Well. Not all nightmares. I navigate them. I find them. I dig into them. I pull them apart. And I learn from them. Or try. The world is full of so many of them, I’ll never read them all. Ever. But, similar to how Chapman’s Art works, it also turns out to be a pretty good way for making divinations. Which is how I found you.”

“What’s Chapman’s Art?”

“Physics,” she replies. “Sie is the Physicist. I’m the Nightmarist. And I’m trying to figure out what you are.”

“What if not Artist?” I ask.

“Then I’m thinking you’re something even more interesting, and I think you’ll want to know that as much as I do,” she says. “Your dream is definitely a big huge clue, too.”

“What is Säure?”

“A billionaire and an asshole who hides behind his carbon offset credits and social clout,” Ptarmigan says. “But I haven’t really taken a good look at him yet. I don’t know more than that. We’re going to have to find out. Chances are pretty good he’s just human, though. Most people are.”

“Yes,” I agree.

“Humans aren’t to be underestimated, though. They make tempting playthings for us Artists. And probably look tasty to you dragons sometimes. But they collectively control everything right now. And their short lives make some of them really bloody minded and rash.”

I don’t say anything to that. I’m not sure what to make of it. I agree with a lot of the words, but the sentiments are weird to me. A little off.

When it comes to my humans, at least, I just can’t bring myself to be that cynical.

“OK,” she says. “I think I want you to try daydreaming first. That will probably be the easiest test. I expect nothing from it, except maybe to be able to do a divination off of it if you daydream the right thing. But it’s the least amount of effort right off the bat. Are you up for it?”

“What about?” I ask.

“If my hypothesis that you’re the Artist of Transformations, or something like that, is correct, then that’s what you should daydream about. Try to recreate something like that dream you had, but while you’re awake.” She nods. “The next step is to put you to sleep and have you dream a nightmare like that for real, but that’s more invasive and more work. I’d rather not do it. Maybe if I learn the right things from this, we can try something else.”

“Okay,” I say, and then start pacing around the roof, looking at things, and thinking about what I should daydream about. What kind of transformation I should envision. And maybe what kind of nightmare scenario that transformation would solve.

Well, I’ve got a ready made scenario, at least. Säure’s next attack.

And my immediate emotional response is that I want to be bigger and tougher and able to withstand bullets. And to breathe fire indefinitely.

So, sure. I sit on my haunches near where Ptarmigan is standing and daydream about what that battle would be like. And about what it would be like to change my body into that greater draconic form.

While I do this, Ptarmigan pulls out a tiny sketchbook and a pen and starts scribbling in it while occasionally looking up at me. She sits down cross legged beside me after a few moments, and really gets lost in her work, flipping pages to work on new ones when the old one becomes too full of ink. And as she’s doing this, I feel a constant soft hum in the fabric of reality that has a harmonic in one of my nerves, like a slowed down and quieter version of the shift I get from Chapman when sie uses hir art.

In my mind, I’m taking to the sky and flying so high that it’s almost like I’m in orbit. And I’m so big and so impervious to everything that I can’t help but imagine that as being a form of intangible existence, like a spirit or a celestial being of some sort. A dragon made of starlight and lightning.

Bullets of any caliber are useless and helicopters go down in flames.

“Yeah. No. That would have been too easy,” the Artist of Nightmares says.

I break my revery and look over at my tablet before walking to it and tapping the screen for a bit, “Not work?”

“Oh, I read you just fine. You’re just not the Artist of Transformation,” she reports. “From what I can see, you’re just a dragon. It’s bewildering, frankly.”

“Told you,” I say.

“Sure,” she says. “Good solid nightmare visions, though. Thank you.”

I don’t have anything else to say to her at the moment. I’m once again at a loss myself. But, as I watch her, her eyes narrow.

“What?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m definitely not done with you,” she says.

Whatever, I think to myself. At least I’ve made some personal psychological progress today. I now have something I can reliably daydream about when I want to relax.

“Done today,” I say. “Please go.”

“Sure,” she says again. “I need to think about this, anyway. Thank you for working with me.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Take care,” she says, then wanders over to where the fire escape is and lowers herself onto it carefully and disappears down the stairs.

I huff and look out over the water again. I have some more thinking to do of my own.

#dragon #writeblr #transformation #transgender #original fiction #serial fiction

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avengerscompound · 1 year ago

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The Interview - Chapter 12

The Interview - A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Rating: E

Warnings: Mentions of sex

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC Melody Danes

Word Count: 1831

Summary: Melody Danes gets the break of a lifetime when as a lowly intern, she’s assigned to write a profile piece on Captain America. Steve Rogers is a hard man not to fall for and as she and Melody get closer and Melody’s career takes off, jealousy leads to sabotage, and the potential to bring her whole world crashing down.

Chapter 12

The trip away with Steve seemed to cement what Melody and Steve had as a committed romantic relationship rather than just two people seeing if they hit it off. In the handful of weeks since the trip they had started to dot in more domestic dates around their more romantic ones. They were both still very busy with their prospective jobs, but he’d duck around to the DB to meet her for lunch on any day he was free. She’d go to the tower after work a few days a week between her time in the office at the DB and her waitressing job. On her days off she would sleep over at the tower and have dinner and breakfast in his apartment, and despite neither of them being fantastic cooks, they’d make the effort to cook together. They’d even started doing things like going to the supermarket together, not because Steve needed to, but because he wanted to spend that time with Melody.

The weekend away had also been fantastic for Bobbi and Bucky’s relationship. While Melody didn’t know exactly what had happened behind the scenes, Melody had told Bobbi that she should be safe telling Bucky that she was a trans woman. A week after that, Bucky had started sleeping over.

Bobbi was busier than Melody and her moments with Bucky were stolen in the middle of the night. He’d meet her at work and they’d sneak into the apartment together, and the following day, she and Bucky would often end up catching the train back into the city with Melody. The development in the relationship did highlight one thing.

Melody really needed to move.

Bucky was such a quiet man in every other aspect of his life. Snarky for sure. Flirty. But quiet. That wasn’t true for the bedroom. She could be fast asleep when they snuck in at two in the morning and they wouldn’t wake her until the moans and banging of the bed against the wall woke her up.

The time of sharing a one-bedroom apartment might be coming to a close.

When Bobbi and Melody had first moved to New York, they’d barely had a dollar between them. They’d found the cheapest possible place they could find while staying on the island of Manhattan and keeping their travel time into Midtown feasible. That place was the one-bedroom flat in a run-down apartment complex on the Upper West Side. They’d both needed to work two jobs to cover rent and utilities, and their expendable income didn’t always leave enough for anything else. Their social lives and whether they ate sometimes came down to the generosity of the people who employed them. As they’d established themselves more, Bobbi had gotten the better paying and more reliable work and she’d practically been supporting Melody while she tried to make it as a writer.

Now Melody could officially say she’d made it. Money was still tight, but she was making enough with the column to pay rent and expenses. With the profile pieces and waitressing work, she was feeling fairly comfortable. There was a little savings nest growing in her bank account. Not to mention the Daily Bugle was looking at yet another branching off into online content of a similar vein to BuzzFeed and she’d been approached to work as an editor and curator for it, as she was the youngest person on the team, and she had built a good rapport with quite a few celebrities. If she took the job, she’d not only be able to return the favor Melody had paid her and support her as she focused more on her acting career, but they might be able to afford to pay for a two-bedroom apartment as well.

Melody was up and dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop writing. Which mostly involved checking her finances and browsing the internet for apartments for rent while occasionally clicking back on her document link and adding another sentence to her piece. She had her headphones in playing music a little louder than she normally would because about an hour into her work, that now, way too familiar moaning and banging of the headboard and started up in the bedroom.

It meant that she didn’t notice when Bobbi came out of the bedroom looking disheveled in her mismatched cami set and went into the bathroom. She didn’t notice when she came back out and knocked on the bedroom door before heading over to Melody and looking over her shoulder. She didn’t notice Bucky coming out of the bedroom in just a pair of boxer shorts and heading into the bathroom. So when Bobbi tapped her on the shoulder, Melody nearly jumped out of her skin.

She pulled her earbuds out and looked up at her cousin. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I thought you would be with Steve,” she said. “What are you doing here? Looking for a new apartment?”

Melody spun around in her chair and clapped her hands on her thighs. “I have news!”

“Please don’t tell me you and Steve are thinking of moving in with each other,” she said. “It is way too soon for that!”

“I’m not moving in with Steve,” Melody laughed. “Jesus, Bobbi. He took me out of town to do the deed for the first time, you think we’d be moving in three weeks later? We haven’t even said the ‘L’ word yet.”

“So what are you doing?” she asked, standing back and folding her arms.

“So I don’t know if you know this, but you and Bucky are extremely loud when you fuck,” Melody answered.

Bobbi yelped and covered her face. “What? Oh no! I mean, yes I know but I didn’t know you could hear us! Oh my god! Mel! I’m so sorry! Oh my god, please don’t move out! I’ll muffle him somehow.”

“I’m not going to move out!” Melody laughed, taking Bobbi by the wrists and pulling her hands down. “Look. When we moved here and I got the internship, you told me to take it and that you’d pay a bigger portion of the rent so I could work toward getting my dream job as a writer. I know you’ve been chasing yours too, but I always said if I make it, I’d tell you to quit your job and take over that part of the rent because it’s only fair you get to devote your time to chasing yours.”

“You know I have been,” she said. “I act. I audition.”

“Yeah, but you work all the time,” Melody argued. “And besides - there’s been a development. The Daily Bugle is branching out into light online content aimed at people in their twenties. You know - quizzes, silly interviews, the kind of product reviews where you just sit and eat fifty types of cookies in a row and rank them? And I’ve been asked to head it.”

“Are you serious?” Bobbi squealed, grabbing Melody’s hands and jumping up and down. “Oh my god! That’s amazing! You’re doing it! We need to celebrate!”

Melody couldn’t help the huge smile that broke out on her face. She hadn’t told anyone about the impending promotion. It was new, but Bobbi was the person she told these things to first. Bobbi pulled her into a hug and rocked her side to side.

“Okay, okay,” Melody laughed, hugging the taller woman back. “It’s not official yet. They might decide I’m not qualified enough - which quite frankly would be fair.”

“Still,” Bobbi said, pulling back to look at her. “The fact they even came to you with the possibility is amazing!”

“And it means we can get a bigger place, and if you want you can just have a normal human amount of jobs because I can pay the bigger amount of rent now!” Melody said.

“Oh my god!” Bobbi squealed and started jumping up and down with Melody. “Can you even imagine it? We can have an actual living room!”

“And you guys can be super noisy and I won’t hear!” Melody added. “And you should see the ones I think we can afford. One is two stories! And one has a washer and drier!”

“We won’t have to cart our stuff to a laundromat!” Bobbi squealed.

Melody stopped and pulled back, taking her hands. “And Bobbi… I probably shouldn’t be saying this, partially because it’s still up in the air, and even if I will get the job and even if I do, I don’t know how much final say I get on every aspect,” she babbled.

“What,” Bobbi said, sharply shaking Melody’s hands to snap her out of it. “Tell me.”

“Well we need presenters, and I think I might be one of the people who get to choose. It probably won’t just be up to me, but if you wanted it, I am fairly sure I could pull strings to get you an audition,” she said.

“What?” she yelped. “Oh my god, that would be amazing!”

The women began to jump up and down, screaming again, hugging each other tightly.

Bucky stepped out of the bathroom and watched them with an amused expression on his face. “What are we celebrating?” he said, his voice still gravelly with sleep.

“Mel is getting a promotion and we might be able to move into a bigger place!” Bobbi said.

“Congratulations!” Bucky said, with a sleepy smile. “Does Steve know?”

Melody shook her head. “No. I wanted to tell Bobbi first. And it’s not official anyway.”

“He’ll love to hear it. If you want to call him we can take you out for a celebratory lunch before this one has to get to work again,” he said. “I mean the two of us can take you if you want to keep it a secret from Steve. I’ll pay.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Melody said. “But I will tell him.”

“Oh let him,” Bobbi said. “It’ll be nice.”

“Okay,” Melody conceded. “Thank you, Bucky. But nothing too expensive. Just a diner.”

“You call Steve, and we’ll take a shower,” he said.

He grabbed Bobbi’s hand and pulled her toward the bathroom again.

“Hey, Bobbi,” Melody called as Bucky led her toward the bathroom. Bobbi looked back at her, and Melody pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhh…”

Bobbi squawked and broke down into giggles. “I’ll do my best.”

When they were out of the room, Melody relaxed again, closing out the tabs on her phone. It felt like her life had reached a massive turning point. She was in a serious relationship. She had a proper career that was progressing quickly, and she was close to living in an apartment with her own room. She’d had her break, and everything was falling into place. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and for a second, she just enjoyed that feeling before she picked up her headphones, put them back in her ears, and called Steve.

// NEXT

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ipaydayloans · 2 months ago

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💡 Now Available for Free: “Safely Invest and Store Cryptocurrency” on Archive.org

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fincrif · 4 months ago

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How to Protect Yourself Legally When Taking a Personal Loan from an NBFC

Introduction

A personal loan is a convenient financial tool that helps individuals manage various expenses, including medical emergencies, home renovations, debt consolidation, and education. While Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) offer quick and flexible personal loans, borrowers must be cautious about legal and financial risks before signing any agreement.

This guide explores how to legally protect yourself when taking a personal loan from an NBFC, ensuring you avoid hidden charges, unethical recovery practices, and financial pitfalls.

Understanding the Role of NBFCs in Personal Loans

NBFCs are financial institutions that provide loans and credit facilities but do not hold banking licenses. They are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and offer competitive loan products with fewer formalities compared to traditional banks.

Advantages of Taking a Personal Loan from an NBFC

✔️ Quick Loan Approval – Faster processing with minimal documentation. ✔️ Flexible Eligibility Criteria – Suitable for individuals with lower credit scores. ✔️ Higher Loan Amounts – Some NBFCs offer larger loan limits than banks. ✔️ Customizable Repayment Options – Borrowers can choose flexible tenure plans.

🔹 Tip: While NBFCs provide easy access to credit, borrowers must carefully evaluate the terms and conditions before accepting a loan offer.

Legal Risks Associated with NBFC Personal Loans

While NBFCs are a viable alternative to banks, borrowers should be aware of potential risks:

📌 Higher Interest Rates: NBFCs generally charge higher interest rates than banks. 📌 Hidden Charges: Processing fees, late payment penalties, and foreclosure charges may be higher. 📌 Aggressive Loan Recovery Practices: Some NBFCs employ strict recovery agents. 📌 Unclear Loan Terms: Borrowers may face misleading clauses in loan agreements.

🔹 Tip: Always read the loan agreement carefully and clarify all terms before proceeding.

How to Legally Protect Yourself When Taking a Personal Loan from an NBFC

1. Verify the NBFC’s Legitimacy

Before applying for a personal loan, ensure the NBFC is registered with RBI. You can check the RBI website to confirm whether the lender is authorized to operate in India.

✅ Visit www.rbi.org.in to verify the NBFC’s registration. ✅ Avoid unlicensed lenders or fraudulent loan providers.

🔹 Tip: Never share personal or financial details with unverified lenders.

2. Understand the Loan Terms & Conditions

Before signing any agreement, review the following:

📌 Interest Rate & APR (Annual Percentage Rate): Ensure transparency in how interest is calculated. 📌 Processing & Foreclosure Charges: Check for hidden costs. 📌 Repayment Tenure & EMI Schedule: Ensure you can manage the repayment. 📌 Prepayment Penalty: Some NBFCs charge extra for early repayment. 📌 Late Payment Fees: Be aware of the consequences of delayed payments.

🔹 Tip: Request a loan amortization schedule to understand your total repayment liability.

3. Compare NBFC Loan Offers with Banks

NBFCs are more flexible in approving loans, but banks may offer better terms. Compare:

✅ Interest Rates – Banks generally have lower rates than NBFCs. ✅ Processing Fees – Check upfront fees before signing the agreement. ✅ Loan Tenure & Prepayment Charges – Some NBFCs charge penalties for prepayments.

🔹 Tip: Use a loan comparison tool to evaluate the best personal loan options.

4. Avoid NBFCs with Unethical Loan Recovery Practices

While RBI regulates NBFCs, some engage in unethical collection methods. Borrowers should:

📌 Check the NBFC’s reputation – Read customer reviews and complaints. 📌 Ensure RBI-compliant recovery methods – No harassment, threats, or coercion. 📌 Request a Written Repayment Plan – Verbal promises should be backed by documents.

🔹 Tip: If harassed by recovery agents, file a complaint with RBI or consumer courts.

5. Keep All Loan-Related Documents for Legal Protection

To avoid disputes, maintain copies of the following:

📌 Loan Agreement & Terms – The signed agreement serves as legal proof. 📌 EMI Payment Receipts – Keep bank statements as evidence of payments. 📌 Correspondence with the NBFC – Emails and messages act as supporting documents.

🔹 Tip: If facing loan-related issues, consult a legal advisor.

Best NBFCs Offering Safe & Reliable Personal Loans

1. Bajaj Finserv Personal Loan

✅ Loan Amount: ₹50,000 – ₹25 lakh ✅ Interest Rate: 11.50% – 20.00% p.a. ✅ Tenure: Up to 5 years 📌 Best For: Flexible repayment options and online approvals.

2. Tata Capital Personal Loan

✅ Loan Amount: ₹75,000 – ₹25 lakh ✅ Interest Rate: 10.99% – 18.00% p.a. ✅ Tenure: Up to 6 years 📌 Best For: Low processing fees and competitive interest rates.

3. HDB Financial Services Personal Loan

✅ Loan Amount: ₹50,000 – ₹20 lakh ✅ Interest Rate: 12.00% – 22.00% p.a. ✅ Tenure: Up to 5 years 📌 Best For: Quick disbursal and minimal paperwork.

Final Verdict: Stay Legally Safe When Borrowing from NBFCs

📌 For Borrowers:

Always verify the lender’s RBI registration before applying.

Read the loan terms carefully to avoid hidden charges.

Keep all loan-related documents for legal protection.

📌 For Lenders:

Follow ethical lending practices and disclose all charges upfront.

Ensure compliance with RBI loan recovery guidelines.

For expert financial guidance on safe borrowing, visit www.fincrif.com today!

FAQs

Q1: Is it safe to take a personal loan from an NBFC? Yes, as long as the NBFC is RBI-registered and follows transparent loan policies.

Q2: How do I check if an NBFC is genuine? Visit the RBI website to verify the NBFC’s registration status.

Q3: What legal action can I take if an NBFC harasses me? File a complaint with RBI, the Consumer Forum, or the Banking Ombudsman.

Borrow Smartly & Stay Financially Secure with the Right NBFC Loan!

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