#Audio data Analysis

[jcmarchi]

Beyond Security: How AI-Based Video Analytics Are Enhancing Modern Business Operations

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Beyond Security: How AI-Based Video Analytics Are Enhancing Modern Business Operations

AI-based solutions are becoming increasingly common, but those in the security industry have been leveraging AI for years—they’ve just been using the word “analytics.”  As businesses seek new ways to use AI to create a competitive advantage, many are beginning to recognize that video devices represent an increasingly valuable data source—one that can generate actionable business intelligence insights. As processing power improves and chipsets become more advanced, modern IP cameras and other security devices can support AI-powered analytics capabilities that can do far more than identify trespassers and shoplifters.

Many businesses are already leveraging AI-based analytics to improve efficiency and productivity, reduce liability, and better understand their customers. Video analytics can help enterprises identify ways to improve employee productivity and staffing efficiency, streamline the layout of stores, factories, and warehouses, identify in-demand products and services, detect malfunctioning or poorly maintained equipment before it breaks, and more. These new analytics capabilities are being designed with business intelligence and operational efficiency in mind—and they are increasingly accessible to organizations of all sizes.

The Growing Accessibility of AI in Video Surveillance

Analytics has always had clear applications in the security industry, and the evolution from basic intelligence and video motion detection to more advanced object analytics and deep learning has made it possible for modern analytics to identify suspicious or criminal behavior or to detect suspicious sounds like breaking glass, gunshots, or cries for help. Today’s analytics can detect these events in real time, alerting security teams immediately and dramatically reducing response times. The emergence of AI has allowed security teams to be significantly more proactive, allowing them to make quick decisions based on accurate, real-time information. Not long ago, only the most advanced surveillance devices were powerful enough to run the AI-based analytics needed to enable those capabilities—but today, the landscape has changed.

The advent of deep learning processing units (DLPUs) has significantly enhanced the processing power of surveillance devices, allowing them to run advanced analytics at the network edge. Just a few years ago, the bandwidth and storage required to record, upload, and analyze thousands of hours of video could be prohibitively expensive. Today, that’s no longer the case: modern devices no longer need to send full video recordings to the cloud—only the metadata necessary for classification and analysis. As a result, the bandwidth, storage, and hardware footprint required to take advantage of AI-based analytics capabilities have all dramatically decreased—significantly reducing operational costs and making the technology accessible to businesses of all sizes, whether they employ a network of three cameras or three thousand.

As a result, the range of potential customers has expanded significantly—and those customers aren’t just looking for security applications, but business ones as well. Since DLPUs are effectively standard on modern surveillance devices, customers are increasingly looking to leverage those capabilities to gain a competitive advantage in addition to protecting their locations. The democratization of AI in the security industry has led to a significant expansion of use cases as developers look to satisfy businesses turning to video analytics to address a wider range of security and non-security challenges.

How Organizations Are Using AI to Enhance Their Operations

It’s important to emphasize that part of what makes the emergence of more business-focused use cases for AI-based video analytics notable is the fact that most businesses are already familiar with the basic technology. For example, retailers already using video analytics to protect their stores from shoplifters will be delighted to learn that they can use similar capabilities to monitor customers entering and leaving the store, identify high- and low-traffic periods, and use that data to adjust their staffing needs accordingly. They can use video analytics to alert employees when a lengthy queue is forming, when an empty shelf needs to be restocked, or if the layout of the store is causing unnecessary congestion. By embracing business-focused analytics alongside security-focused ones, retailers can improve staffing efficiency, create more effective store layouts, and enhance the customer experience.

Of course, retailers are just the tip of the iceberg. Businesses in nearly every industry can benefit from modern video analytics use cases. Manufacturers, for example, can monitor factory floors to identify inefficiencies and choke points. They can use thermal cameras to detect overheating machinery, allowing maintenance personnel to address problems before they can cause significant damage. In many cases, they can even monitor assembly lines for defective or poorly made products, providing an additional layer of quality assurance protection. Some devices may even be able to monitor for chemical leaks, overheating equipment, smoke, and other signs of danger, saving organizations from potentially dangerous (and costly) incidents. This has clear applications in industries ranging from manufacturing and healthcare to housing and critical infrastructure.

The ability to generate insights and improve operations extends beyond traditional businesses and into areas like healthcare. Hospitals and healthcare providers are now leveraging analytics to engage in virtual patient monitoring, allowing them to have eyes on their patients on a 24-hour basis. Using a combination of video and audio analytics, they can automatically detect signs of distress such as coughing, labored breathing, and cries of pain. They can also generate an alert if a high-risk patient attempts to leave their bed or exit the room, allowing caregivers or security teams to respond immediately. Not only does this improve patient outcomes, but it can also significantly reduce liability on slip/trip/fall cases. Similar technology can also be used to improve compliance outcomes, ensuring emergency exits remain clear and avoiding other potentially finable offenses in healthcare and other industries. The opportunities to reduce costs and improve outcomes are expanding every day.

Maximizing AI in the Present and Future

The shift toward leveraging surveillance devices for business intelligence and operations purposes has happened quickly, driven by the fact that most organizations are already familiar with the equipment they need to take advantage. And with businesses of all sizes—and in nearly every industry—increasingly turning to video analytics to enhance both their security capabilities and their business operations, the development of new, AI-based analytics is unlikely to slow anytime soon.

Best of all, the market is still growing. Even today, roughly 80% of security budgets are spent on human labor, including monitoring, guarding, and maintenance capabilities. As AI-based video analytics become increasingly widespread, that will change quickly—and businesses will be able to streamline their business intelligence and operations capabilities in a similar manner. As AI development continues and new, business-focused use cases emerge, organizations should ensure they are positioned to get the most out of analytics—both now and into the future.

[innova7ions]

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[smallestapplin]

Hi im new to your blog!! I love your transformers stuff. I saw your requests was open and I was wondering if I could request something for a shockwave x female human reader?? i really enjoyed the petplay stuff you've written with him before and i was wondering if you could write something nsfw with a shy, quirky reader coming out of their shell for a scene and shockwave mixing both praise and punishment for them before the reward...... essentially training his pet 🤭💞 thank you so much if you do this request 🥺🙏

I can certainly attempt!

Warnings :fem!reader, pet play, Shockwave gets called master, spike warming, reader gets calls good girl twice.

🔞Mdni! Adults only, please!🔞

-

-

A human pet is perfect for such a con as Shockwave, he loves breaking you apart and seeing what makes you tick, what can he do to you that makes you drop your arms from hiding your face? What can he do to you to make you squeal for him? His optic never leaves you, studying how you twitch and what expressions you make.

The tag on your collar jingles with each bounce of your body, drawing his optic to it just to see his name on it, claiming you as his just as you always should be.

You lean your head back with a whine as you try to hard to fit more of his thick spike into your much smaller pussy.

“Easy, pet, I’d hate to have to put you back together.”

How cute you are jumping at the sound of his voice. Your look up at the large mech with a pleading expression, big doe eyes begging him for more, yet he does not yield to you.

With a servo on your hip he stops your movements, stopping you from using his spike like your own toy. You look ready to cry, all for more pleasure.

“Master, Master please fuck me, use me, I-I’ve been good I promise!”

Your desperate pled is music to his audio receptors, with tears stinging your eyes look so delectable. Shockwave hums, not at all convinced of your need even though he can feel your organic valve clenching around his spike, trying so hard to milk him of his transfluid.

“You are to sit still while I work, not trying to frag your needy valve on my spike. Good pets do as told, correct?”

His gleaming red optic stares down at you, taking in every detail as you try not to squirm anymore. You whimper, weakly nodding at his words, but that’s not enough for him.

“You are to answer me when I ask you a question, pet.”

Shockwave grinds his spike deeper into your pussy causing you to sob, your hands clinging to his servo trying to keep yourself grounded as you can feel your mind becoming cloudy with lust.

“Yes, yes, m’sorry, Master!” Drool slides down your chin as you lose yourself to your role.

You are Shockwave’s human pet, you serve your owner well, bad dogs who misbehave get punished and must work harder to earn a reward. So you sit still, leaning back against his torso, trying to keep still as he writes down something you can’t quite read.

His spike stretches you out so much, even just half way down his shaft your stomach bulges from just how much of him you’re taking. You want more, need more, need to cum, need to make him feel good—!!

A squeal rips from your throat as Shockwave presses his index digit to your neglected clit, slowly rubbing it in firm circles.

“You are doing well, I’m almost half way done with my data analysis and you haven’t moved. What a good girl I have.”

Praise is important if he wishes for his human to repeat behaviors he approves of, and it works like a charm with how you melt into his embrace, looking up at him like he is your moon and stars.

You’re so close yet it’s not enough, you struggle to bite back a whine when he moves his servo away and gets back to typing out his notes. You crave your beloved, need him deeper inside you. But you must remain good, to be a good pet for him, one he could proudly show off to his coworkers like the praise driven slut you are.

Just for him.

Anything for him.

“Are you close to overloading? Hm, seems I’ve underestimated your whorish behavior.”

You merely hum, though more akin to a purr with how you’re acting, nuzzling your cheek against his plating.

“You are right where you belong, aren’t you.” His question phrased more like an observation.

“Mhm.”

“Good girl, you learn quickly.”

You’ll be as behaved as he wants you to be, you’re nothing but a mindless pet for him.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Brutalist’s most intriguing and controversial technical feature points forward rather than back: in January, the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that he and Corbet used tools from AI speech software company Respeecher to make the Hungarian-language dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody (who plays the protagonist, Hungarian émigré architect László Tóth) and Felicity Jones (who plays Tóth’s wife Erzsébet) sound more Hungarian. In response to the ensuing backlash, Corbet clarified that the actors worked “for months” with a dialect coach to perfect their accents; AI was used “in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy.” In this way, Corbet seemed to suggest, the production’s two central performances were protected against the howls of outrage that would have erupted from the world’s 14 million native Hungarian speakers had The Brutalist made it to screens with Brody and Jones playing linguistically unconvincing Magyars. Far from offending the idea of originality and authorship in performance, AI in fact saved Brody and Jones from committing crimes against the Uralic language family; I shudder even to imagine how comically inept their performances might have been without this technological assist, a catastrophe of fumbled agglutinations, misplaced geminates, and amateur-hour syllable stresses that would have no doubt robbed The Brutalist of much of its awards season élan. This all seems a little silly, not to say hypocritical. Defenders of this slimy deception claim the use of AI in film is no different than CGI or automated dialogue replacement, tools commonly deployed in the editing suite for picture and audio enhancement. But CGI and ADR don’t tamper with the substance of a performance, which is what’s at issue here. Few of us will have any appreciation for the corrected accents in The Brutalist: as is the case, I imagine, for most of the people who’ve seen the film, I don’t speak Hungarian. But I do speak bullshit, and that’s what this feels like. This is not to argue that synthetic co-pilots and assistants of the type that have proliferated in recent years hold no utility at all. Beyond the creative sector, AI’s potential and applications are limitless, and the technology seems poised to unleash a bold new era of growth and optimization. AI will enable smoother reductions in headcount by giving managers more granular data on the output and sentiment of unproductive workers; it will allow loan sharks and crypto scammers to get better at customer service; it will offer health insurance companies the flexibility to more meaningfully tie premiums to diet, lifestyle, and sociability, creating billions in savings; it will help surveillance and private security solution providers improve their expertise in facial recognition and gait analysis; it will power a revolution in effective “pre-targeting” for the Big Pharma, buy-now-pay-later, and drone industries. Within just a few years advances like these will unlock massive productivity gains that we’ll all be able to enjoy in hell, since the energy-hungry data centers on which generative AI relies will have fried the planet and humanity will be extinct.

3 March 2025

[twipsai]

omega and silver fic is up! ill put the full thing under the cut yayyy

~

Days and weeks and months melted together, years going by as his body rusted and decayed, warping itself beyond repair as fewer and fewer people dared to enter the Flame Core, fewer caring to check in on them.

He wasn’t conscious for a large portion of it. How could he be? Why would he be? Any reason to stay present was gone.

So he sat. He waited. For what, he wasn’t sure.

…

And then.

And then one day.

One day, something new. The feeling of something stirring against his chest awoke him from a multi-decade slumber. It took minutes, maybe hours, for all of his systems to come back online. The ones remaining, anyway. Everything hit him like bullets— two lifeforms detected, tactile input detected, loss of ammunition, left shoulder joint disconnected, motor functions offline…

Everything buzzed faintly.

Finally, he could see again.

He shifted his cameras down to see…

“CHILD.”

The kid’s eyes flew open as he stumbled backwards from being curled up against his side. A scream erupted from the child’s body. Analysis showed he was a hedgehog, about six, not matching anyone stored within his database.

Though, there weren’t many people around who did, anymore.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Omega questioned, voice echoing unpleasantly against the cavern’s walls.

The child didn’t answer, his breathing picking up speed as his hands started to tremble. He fell to his knees, eyes wide and unblinkingly staring at Omega.

“I BELIEVE I MAY HAVE FRIGHTENED YOU. THIS WAS NOT MY INTENTION.”

It looked like the child couldn’t breathe, now, as if he was being strangled by an invisible force. He grasped a hand around his neck while tears rolled down his cheeks.

Somewhere in his data storage, something like a memory surfaced. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

At some point, someone he knew had something like this happen to them.

“INITIATING ‘COMFORT’ PROTOCOL.”

Through old, crackling speakers, a song started to play. Even with the terrible audio crunching, the piano still rang out as soft as ever. Slow notes drawled on. The lifeform behind him shifted. The child took about 3.49 seconds to visually indicate he had heard the music. His ears perked up and his terrified eyes softened. Over the course of six minutes and twenty-three seconds, the child’s heart rate decreased from 110 beats per minute to 100.

The first thing that tiny child squeaked out was, “Can you move?”

Omega responded after a moment to check. “NO.”

The child then slowly stood, inching forward on trembling legs to sit closer to the music. He leaned an ear to Omega’s chest where the sound crackled out from. He was way too warm for a tiny child, and if he wasn’t showing no other symptoms, Omega would have thought he was sick.

As the song steadily reached its conclusion, the child seemed about as relaxed as he was going to get.

“What is this?” he asked.

“GYMNOPEDIE NO. 1.”

The child looked up and squinted his eyes, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“IT’S A VERY OLD SONG FROM AN ESTIMATED 400 YEARS AGO.”

“A song? What’s a song?”

Omega was never very good at explaining the more… human aspects of life. The alive parts.

Others would be better suited to explain this.

He knew many that could’ve.

“A SONG IS TYPICALLY A COLLECTION OF NOTES PLAYED IN SUCCESSION TO CREATE A MELODY. WHY WERE YOU SLEEPING ON ME, CHILD?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I DO NOT CARE. YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED MY QUESTION.”

The child’s grey quills flared out even more than they already had, and he fidgeted with the bandages around his wrists. “Your body is cold. It’s very warm here. I was just trying to cool off…”

“WHAT IS YOUR NAME?”

“I think it’s Silver.”

“YOU ARE NOT SURE?”

“No.”

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?”

“I’m trying to get to Crisis City.”

That was an unfamiliar location. Omega checked his residual memory, and cross referenced it with previous data he had archived. “THE RUINS OF SOLEANNA.”

“Um. Maybe?”

“THE HEART OF IBLIS. INQUIRY: WHY IS A TINY MEATBAG LIKE YOU MARCHING TO YOUR CERTAIN DEATH?”

Silver sat down in the place where his left arm should have been, under exposed wires sparking threateningly. This close, Omega could see the scabs on his knees, the blood soaking through the messily-wrapped bandages, the cuts littering his arms and legs, his calloused hands and feet— he could see the determination in his eyes as he folded his hands in his lap and furrowed his brows. “I'm going to defeat Iblis.”

If Omega could laugh, he would. “DOES NOT COMPUTE. SILVER THE HEDGEHOG: SMALL, MORTAL, POWERLESS. IBLIS: GIANT, IMMORTAL, POWERFUL. I ASK AGAIN; WHY IS A TINY MEATBAG LIKE YOU MARCHING TO YOUR DEATH?”

“Because I have to! I have powers no one else has, if there's something I can do, then I wanna help!”

“FURTHER DATA NEEDED. WHAT POWERS DO YOU POSSESS, CHILD?”

“Um, someone told me its called psy– psycho— um—”

“PSYCHOKINESIS.”

“Yes! Psychokinesis!”

There was no telling how powerful the child actually was. Omega knew better than to underestimate children at this point, when three had accompanied him on adventure after adventure before the flames had consumed the world.

They were children. Most of his companions were. 

His chest suddenly felt strange. Felt. He tried to run a diagnosis on his power core, only to find that it was still destroyed. Nothing had changed about his state. What made that feeling?

“Excuse me, uh… sir?”

“OMEGA.”

“Huh?”

“THAT IS MY NAME. E-123 OMEGA.”

“Oh. Well, your eyes are glowing.”

Strange. Someone once said that he was very expressive— he thought it was what she called “sarcasm”, but then went on to explain all the little things she noticed about him, and how he reacts to things. It seemed that, even with almost all of his functions offline, he was still finding ways to express himself.

“Omega?”

“WHAT.”

Silver looked up at him shyly. “Can I lean on you again? It’s very hot in here, and you’re very cool…”

“I LACK THE PROPER MOTOR FUNCTION TO STOP YOU.”

“That’s why I asked.”

A memory surfaced. Covered in rust and cobwebs and ash.

A very long time ago, he was carrying someone gently, as gently as he could. This person was tired— he had been through a lot that week. He could barely stand. So he carried him to his room quietly, trying his best not to tear the blankets he used to tuck him in. He must not have done a very good job at being quiet, because he woke up to a degree.

“Omega,” he mumbled, eyes still half-closed. “Don’t… don’t let anyone do anything to you. Even though you’re… you’re a robot… you should get to be your own person…”

He quietly took a step back. 

“YOUR MUMBLING IS INCOHERENT,” Omega replied. “TELL ME TOMORROW; I WILL STILL BE HERE.”

And he turned.

And left.

Silver, for one reason or another, was dragging up memories that he thought had been trapped in old storage. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t had a conversation with another person in over a hundred years. Maybe the long stretches of silence had a way of turning one into a poet.

“YES,” Omega finally replied, “YOU MAY LEAN ON ME.”

Silver crawled over his lap, smushing himself in between Omega’s in-tact arm and torso, forehead leaning against his upper arm. If Omega thought the child would listen, he would warn him about getting tetanus from his rusted fingers.

“I have a question now. Is that okay?”

“YES.”

“How old are you?”

“73,784.8 DAYS HAVE PASSED SINCE MY CREATION.”

“Uhhh… that’s a lot…”

Eggman didn’t program conversion to weeks, months, and years into his internal clock. Eventually it would stop counting up when it hit 999,999.999 days. It also meant that he had to mentally convert it himself. “APPROXIMATELY 200 YEARS.”

“Oh.”

…

The child looked up at him with impossibly large eyes.

“Oh! Were you around before Iblis was, Omega?!”

“YES—”

“Can you tell me about it?! Please! I’ve heard stories but— but not from someone who was there! You gotta tell me!”

Much to his dismay, Omega was finding this child amusing. And familiar. “WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?”

“Um, um…” When he was in thought, Silver fidgeted with his poncho’s hem. “Tell me about the sky!”

“...THE SKY?”

“Yes!”

Omega hadn’t been outside for most of his lifespan— he had spent it in the Flame Core. But he did remember that— “IT WAS GIANT.”

A massive expanse that blanketed the entire earth. A constant in a chaotic life. No matter where you went, the sky followed.

“IT WOULD CHANGE COLOR. MANY COMPARED IT TO A PAINTING.”

The child looked up at him with wonder in his eyes, absorbing every syllable.

“IT WAS THE ONE THING IN LIFE THAT REMAINED.”

Absolute awe was written on Silver’s face. 

Omega could make a well-informed guess of what awaited him outside the cavern if he was ever fixed.

“Can you tell me about the people?”

“YOU ASK MANY QUESTIONS.”

“I haven’t gotten this many answers before.”

They were his companions. Teammates. Friends, though, that was pushing it a little, as one of them would say. After so long to think about it, to put his feelings into words, he came to the conclusion that he must have cared about them. They were almost all gone, now. Almost. But he could remember watching them from afar, completely captivated by how they moved. It was all just play to most of them. They would train against each other, race across continents, get takeout in the middle of a mission… Everything was just another day. They laughed in the face of danger. They stood tall. They cared.

Oh, how they cared.

“I BELIEVE THEY WERE NOT VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE PEOPLE OF THIS TIME.”

“No?”

“NO. THEY WERE ALL JUST PEOPLE. MUNDANE.”

Silver knitted his brows together in thought, then pointed past where Omega’s cameras could reach, behind the two of them. “Was he there?”

But he knew.

He knew.

Knew who he was pointing to.

“YES.”

“What’s his name?”

“SHADOW.”

“Why is he trapped in there?”

While Omega couldn’t see him in his position, he knew exactly how Shadow looked. Arms up and cuffed with giant metal rings, attached to a hexagonal cage that stretched over him in a diamond shape, glowing pink and white. The image was committed to his long-term memory.

Perhaps it was better he couldn’t turn to see.

“HUMANITY THOUGHT HE WAS THE CAUSE OF THE FLAMES OF DISASTER.”

Silver stood and walked behind him. The tingle of apprehensiveness of having his back turned to a sentient being was duller than he remembered. “Was he?”

“NO,” he could say for certain. “NO, HE WASN’T.”

“Then why did they do this to him?”

He could remember his claw gripping Shadow’s neck as he begged and pleaded for mercy. He remembered his body acting without his command as he unfeelingly attacked him. He remembered Shadow going limp on the floor, almost dead. He remembered watching as people crowded around him and quickly put him into stasis.

He remembered standing with him,

for centuries.

Maybe as an apology. Maybe because it was what he was built to do.

He remembered.

“HUMANITY FEARS WHAT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND, CHILD.”

Quietly, Silver walked back to Omega’s side, leaning on him once again, and a little more curled up in his lap than he was before. “I know,” he said. “I know that.” 

Of course he did. Omega could have guessed that, especially in this world; this world that was dominated by terror. After all, Silver was here, alone, at six years old. Whatever reason he had for that couldn't be a pleasant one.

“YOU REMIND ME OF THE PEOPLE I FOUGHT ALONGSIDE BACK THEN.”

“Before Iblis?”

“YES.”

“I do?”

“YOU ARE MARCHING TO FACE IMPOSSIBLE ODDS. YET YOU REMAIN OPTIMISTIC. YOU STRIVE TO PROTECT A BROKEN WORLD THAT HURT YOU.”

Silver fidgeted with the hem of his poncho. His markings pulsed with light. “Even if the whole world was against me,” he whispered, “I'd still protect it.”

“I SEE. INQUIRY;”

“Mhm?”

“HOW CAN YOU FIGHT WHEN YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T WIN?”

For a long time, Silver stayed quiet.

He spoke slowly. “As long as I don't give up… there's hope.”

How optimistic. How cruel, for a child to say those words with a trembling voice. If Omega could, he'd weep. 

Then, he returned to his excited demeanor. “Hey, you know what? I could probably get Shadow out of there!”

“YOU COULD NOT.”

“I could try! If I could wake your friend up, then maybe—”

“CHILD.”

He stayed quiet.

“I MADE A VOW TO PROTECT THOSE I HELD DEAR.” He flickered some of the lights on his body on and off. “I BROKE THAT VOW ONCE. NOW, I WILL REMAIN HERE, BY HIS SIDE, UNTIL I AM GONE.”

Silver was practically curled up in his lap, forehead rested on his chest. His body temperature had dropped significantly since he had woken up. “Okay, then. Hey, I have another question.”

“ASK IT.”

“Can you make that ‘song’ again?”

How optimistic.

How cruel.

“YES. I CAN.”

The piano hummed through his broken speakers. It made ear-splitting popping noises occasionally, but Silver didn't seem to mind. He shifted so his ear was right above Omega’s internal speaker.

His companions would have liked Silver. It was obvious— maybe even Shadow would have. But they were separated by eons.

Omega only hoped the next time they met, it was for a kinder reason.

‘Hoped’...

Silver must have been rubbing off on him. 

[idontparticularlyliketoast]

That fucking robot got in my head dog

***

BOOT UP SEQUENCE READY

FIRMWARE

LATEST UPDATE: (2112.08.06)

CALIBRATION

EXPIRED

NEW CALIBRATION REQUIRED

AUDIO OK

“-works!” A voice said. It echoed strangely.

There was the sound of an engine humming, but smoother, quieter. Not the tell-tale gurgle of blood-mechanisms.

VIDEO OK

It’s vision flickered on, a ceiling looming above it. Old stone. Something next to it was glowing, a faint yellow hue filling the space.

MECHANICS ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MECHANICS DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL DETECTED

FOREIGN CODE DETECTED

CRITICAL SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

SHUT DOWN IN 3 2 1

“What– no– don’t– ugh.” The person beside it shifted, and the light pulsed blue.

ERROR

SHUT DOWN HALTED DUE TO FUEL DISCREPANCY

ALL SYSTEMS POWERED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

CALIBRATION DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL COMPATIBLE WITH UNIT MECHANICS

FOREIGN CODE COMPATIBLE WITH OPERATING SYSTEM

ACCEPT FOREIGN MATERIAL?

YES

CALIBRATION RESUMED

MECHANICS OK

A thousand connections fired, a thousand little servos testing a new body. The resulting feedback was clear. The legs were standard issue, as was the right arm and head. The foreign object was the left arm, and a section of the diaphragm.

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: VI

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE SITUATION

V1 rotated its head, inspecting the changes. The new arm resembled their right in form, but it was a completely new material, golden and glowing.

It then glanced up.

Standing beside it, holding a clip-board, was an angel.

Prior experience determined this was a new subtype. It had a more human form than a Virtue, but it didn’t have enough armor to be an arch-angel. A gold and silver helm with a design that mimicked rings of eyes. Some basic vambraces. All the rest of their form was covered by cloth drapings.

ERROR

PRIORITY OVERRIDE

REASON: FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

Prior experience indicated that V1 would be strapped down to the table. It was standard procedure when working with blood-fueled machines. It would be idiotic to wake up a hungry machine and not at least restrain it. V1 prepared to break the restraints.

V1 was not strapped down. It automatically discarded that strain of data-analysis, its core frantically trying to conserve energy. Energy that it shouldn’t have, because it didn’t have any blood.

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: BLOOD

The angel didn’t have any time to react before they were on the ground, V1 on top of them. The new arm was no Knuckleblaster, but it still smashed in the angel’s chest. Crimson splashed upwards, and its strikes grew in speed. Over and over again, it crushed glowing flesh, fists trading blows with ruthless efficiency.

Only when the blood stopped flowing, and the flesh stopped glowing, did V1 stop hitting.

FUEL RESERVES AT 41%

DATA ANALYSIS:

MANKIND IS DEAD

HELL IS GONE.

BLOOD IS FUEL.

THIS UNIT WAS FUNCTIONING AT 0%.

RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND A WEAPON

It scanned its surroundings. The work-station it had been laying on was nothing more than cut stone. Around it, someone has set up various tables, which held unknown tools and substances. The tables were definitely a newer addition– everything else in the room was covered in a fine layer of dust, including the blood-splattered floor. The room was a square of sharp stone angles with V1’s slab in the center. The only thing else of interest were a series of shelves cut directly into the rock walls.

Most of the shelves held crumbling books, irrelevant. But just behind where V1’s head had lain, on a particularly large shelf, were guns**. Large ones, small ones, even a few that looked like they’d been pulled right off the back of other machines.

V1 started throwing them into its wings with gleeful abandon. It had just finished shoving a massive rail cannon into its storage when the data connected; these weren’t random guns, these were its** guns. And, if its internal storage systems were working correctly, they had ammo.

It continued shoving them into its storage, and then began exploring the room.

NEW OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE

There was no clear door for the angel to have come. Could it have teleported inside? Possibly, but V1 was not sure the tables were small enough for an angel to teleport. Especially one of a lower power-level. Prior experience suggested there was a relation between matter moved and power expended. V1 noticed a break in pattern; there were only shelves on three walls of the room. It jumped over to the wall, and punched it with the new arm.

It flashed gold, and the stone cracked. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small chamber.

It considered the glowing arm, and labeled it Godpiercer. Godpiercer was sending what V1 could only interpret as off-signals for certain temporary conditions. It switched a random one on.

The arm prompted a further selection:

SPECIFY FORM:

MEMORY/FEEDBACKER

MEMORY/KNUCLEBLASTER

MEMORY/WHIPLASH

FEEDBACKER OK

The golden metal glowed brighter, and began to twist and warp. Metal plates wrenched apart, light growing in a sudden and violent osmosis. A second, more familiar arm, tore itself free from its sibling. “Feedbacker” glowed with an alien light. V1 made a quick inspection; a near perfect copy.

FUEL RESERVES AT 39%

Immediately, the machine switched the function off. The mimic arm was reabsorbed instantly, but the burnt fuel didn’t return.

NEW OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE MECHANISM USED BY ANGEL. IF FUEL DROPS TO 37% BEFORE OBJECTIVE COMPLETION, THEN SUMMON KNUCKLEBLASTER AND DESTROY WALL.

It returned to the body, and reached down to tear the skull off, before stopping. It was not in Hell, and if the angel had to be decapitated to use the mechanism, it wouldn’t have been able to revive V1. It settled instead for picking up the entire corpse and hucking it towards the wall.

No result. It scanned the rest of the room.

There was nothing else except the books and the angel’s tools. It began pulling books off the shelves, scanning through them as quickly as its processor could handle.

No relevant data. Many of the books were poorly constructed, damaged or otherwise unreadable. It was mostly disconnected sentence fragments, with no clear relation to the stone chamber or the construction. Its processor flagged some passages as containing familiar phrases and names. They were disregarded as irrelevant to the current objective.

Nothing. It returned to the angel’s tools, and began scanning and categorizing them. Group context suggested they were tools for repairing complex machinery and robotics, though many of them were completely alien.

It picked up a screwdriver. It threw it at the wall. The screwdriver tinged off, falling onto the angel’s body with a slightly wet thunk.

V1 began throwing all of the tools at the wall.

It succeeded in destroying a good amount of the angel’s tools, and the carefully pristine room was now a complete wreck. There was no other effect.

Its fuel reserves ticked down.

NEW OBJECTIVE: BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THAT WALL

It sprang to the new vacated bookshelf on the far side, its legs crouched, springs coiled. It summoned Knuckleblaster, the gold and red mass pulling free with the sound of a sword unsheathing. Then it powered its legs, aiming right for the spot it had previously cracked.

Shining metal met stone with the force of a bullet shot at point-blank, and the wall shattered.

A moment later, the machine stood up out of the rubble, and scanned its surroundings. It was dusk, and V1 was in a forest.

This was not a visual error. It double-checked.

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MEMORY DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

EARTH WAS A BURNT RUIN

MANKIND WAS DEAD

HELL WAS DESTROYED

THIS UNIT CONTINUED OPERATION FOR 5.6 YEAR(S) PAST PROJECTED TERMINATION DATE DUE TO GABRIEL

ESSENTIAL MOBILITY AND FUEL RETAINMENT SYSTEMS DEGRADED AND WERE UNABLE TO BE REPLACED

THIS UNIT DIED

ALL DATA CORRECT

That was… exactly what it remembered. It explained nothing. There was no sign of memory tapering in the diagnostic or gaps in recording. It had** died in a corpse of a world bled dry. And now it was standing in a forest, alive.

And it was still hungry.

FUEL RESERVES AT 36%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: FIND ANSWERS AND/OR GABRIEL

[jcmarchi]

AI strategies for cybersecurity press releases that get coverage

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/ai-strategies-for-cybersecurity-press-releases-that-get-coverage/

AI strategies for cybersecurity press releases that get coverage

If you’ve ever tried to get your cybersecurity news picked up by media outlets, you’ll know just how much of a challenge (and how disheartening) it can be. You pour hours into what you think is an excellent announcement about your new security tool, threat research, or vulnerability discovery, only to watch it disappear into journalists’ overflowing inboxes without a trace.

The cyber PR space is brutally competitive. Reporters at top publications receive tens, if not hundreds, of pitches each day, and they have no choice but to be highly selective about which releases they choose to cover and which to discard. Your challenge then isn’t just creating a good press release, it’s making one that grabs attention and stands out in an industry drowning in technical jargon and “revolutionary” solutions.

Why most cybersecurity press releases fall flat

Let’s first look at some of the main reasons why many cyber press releases fail:

They’re too complex from the start, losing non-technical reporters

They bury the actual news under corporate marketing speak.

They focus on product features rather than the real-world impact or problems they solve.

They lack credible data or specific research findings that journalists can cite as support.

Most of these problems have one main theme: Journalists aren’t interested in promoting your product or your business. They are looking after their interests and seeking newsworthy stories their audiences care about. Keep this in mind and make their job easier by showing them exactly why your announcement matters.

Learning how to write a cybersecurity press release

What does a well-written press release look like? Alongside the reasons listed above, many companies make the mistake of submitting poorly formatted releases that journalists will be unlikely to spend time reading.

It’s worth learning how to write a cybersecurity press release properly, including the preferred structure (headline, subheader, opening paragraph, boilerplate, etc). And, be sure to review some examples of high-quality press releases as well.

AI strategies that transform your press release process

Let’s examine how AI tools can significantly enhance your cyber PR at every stage.

1. Research Enhancement

Use AI tools to track media coverage patterns and identify emerging trends in cybersecurity news. You can analyse which types of security stories gain traction, and this can help you position your announcement in that context.

Another idea is to use LLMs (like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT) to analyse hundreds of successful cybersecurity press releases in a niche similar to yours. Ask it to identify common elements in those that generated significant coverage, and then use these same features in your cyber PR efforts.

To take this a step further, AI-powered sentiment analysis can help you understand how different audience segments receive specific cybersecurity topics. The intelligence can help you tailor your messaging to address current concerns and capitalise on positive industry momentum.

2. Writing assistance

If you struggle to convey complex ideas and terminology in more accessible language, consider asking the LLM to help simplify your messaging. This can help transform technical specifications into clear, accessible language that non-technical journalists can understand.

Since the headline is the most important part of your release, use an LLM to generate a handful of options based on your core announcement, then select the best one based on clarity and impact. Once your press release is complete, run it through an LLM to identify and replace jargon that might be second nature to your security team but may be confusing to general tech reporters.

3. Visual storytelling

If you are struggling to find ways to explain your product or service in accessible language, visuals can help. AI image generation tools, like Midjourney, create custom visuals based on prompts that help illustrate your message. The latest models can handle highly complex tasks.

With a bit of prompt engineering (and by incorporating the press release you want help with), you should be able to create accompanying images and infographics that bring your message to life.

4. Video content

Going one step further than a static image, a brief AI-generated explainer video can sit alongside your press release, providing journalists with ready-to-use content that explains complex security concepts. Some ideas include:

Short Explainer Videos: Use text-to-video tools to turn essential sections of your press release into a brief (60 seconds or less) animated or stock-footage-based video. You can usually use narration and text overlays directly on the AI platforms as well.

AI Avatar Summaries: Several tools now enable you to create a brief video featuring an AI avatar that presents the core message of the press release. A human-looking avatar reads out the content and delivers an audio and video component for your release.

Data Visualisation Videos: Use AI tools to animate key statistics or processes described in the release for enhanced clarity.

Final word

Even as you use the AI tools you have at your disposal, remember that the most effective cybersecurity press releases still require that all-important human insight and expertise. Your goal isn’t to automate the entire process. Instead, use AI to enhance your cyber PR efforts and make your releases stand out from the crowd.

AI should help emphasise, not replace, the human elements that make security stories so engaging and compelling. Be sure to shine a spotlight on the researchers who made the discovery, the real-world implications of any threat vulnerabilities you uncover, and the people security measures ultimately protect.

Combine this human-focused storytelling with the power of AI automation, and you’ll ensure that your press releases and cyber PR campaigns get the maximum mileage.

[neturbizenterprises]

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[vibratingskull]

Hi! I saw your open to chiss requests? I’ve just read the thrawn ascendency trilogy and I’m down bad for Somakro. Grumpy man with a loyal heart of gold?? I’m down so bad.

Anyway. Maybe a fluffy fic about Somakro having feelings for a fellow officer? Maybe he sees her help little skywalker chiri with something and his heart melts because he already respected her military prowess but she’s also good with kids??

I’d really take anything

Grumpy man being a sweetheart deep inside!!! 🥹🥹🥹 It woos me every time! Come get your glorious man and sweep him off his feet!

art by @jun-c

Samakro x F!Chiss!reader

Tags: Fluffy fluff, lil bit of childcare

Samakro types on his questis, keeping a sharp gaze on the officers under his command and Ch’eri on her chair.  When he is on the bridge nothing escapes him, he becomes an all-seeing being, monitoring his warriors and keeping tabs on everything happening. His subordinates feel him looming behind them and straighten their posture by reflex. 

The Springhawk leaves hyperspace in a resounding thud, shaking everyone present. They arrived. 

“Send me the last coordinates of the Pirates.” Samakro orders. 

He spins to go sit in the command chair and has to muster all his will to not take a step back before you. He didn't hear you approaching. You smile gently, handing him a microchip. 

“The coordinates, sir.” You say respectfully. 

Well, that was quick! 

That was instantly even. 

He takes the chip and inserts it in the port of his questis. 

“I will also need the calculations of their last 8 travels recorded, their spotted hideouts, and the audio recordings of the messages in their native language.” 

“They are all in there.” You nod. 

Oh... 

Well, it is refreshing to have officers able to think ahead. 

“I highlighted the pirates’ favorite routes and calculated some probability for their possible next spot appearance, I noticed a trend in the hours they chose to attack the Ascendancy. They seem random but there is a constant of 3 days and 5 hours between each of them, rinse and repeat 5 times then they disappear for two weeks to a month and resume.” You explain. 

Samakro looks at you, almost suspiciously. 

“And you noticed that alone?” 

“I studied the data during my break times.” 

That’s a heavy workload that you just lift from their shoulders. He and Thrawn will need to check if you are correct in your speculation but that will not take more than 45 minutes to review the data. 

“Thank you... Officer (Y/n)’(F/n)” He finally says after ogling you for several mute seconds. 

“Of course, Sir!” You stand to attention with a smile and walk away. 

He pretends to look back to his questis once again but looks at you walking away. That is not the first time you proved yourself zealous, and the Chiss expansionary defense fleet adores those types of behavior. If you are indeed right in your analysis he should keep a closer tab on you, you may become the next prized pupil of the fleet and his job is to facilitate your accession to higher ranks for the common good. 

He observes how you chuckle and give handshakes to several colleagues as you take back your place. You are visibly popular, which can also be an advantage in the future. With his gruff personality, Samakro was not really appreciated in the ranks of the Navy and counted his friends on the fingers of one hand. 

You do not seem to have that problem. 

“Skywalker Che’ri, you may return to your room and rest.” He orders, refocusing on the data. 

“O...Okay...” He hears the tired voice of the little girl. 

He sniffs, eyes on the screen when reality strikes him. 

Thalias is with Thrawn in his office! 

He spins his head just in time to see the little girl losing her balance as she heads toward the door. 

He is about to throw his questis to the other side of the bridge and lunge to catch the poor child when you pop out of nowhere and receive her little body in the security of your arms. 

“Careful there, Che’ri!” You chuckle with a bright reassuring smile, “I would hate for you to hurt yourself!” 

Samakro finishes crossing the bridge to join you both and kneels next to you. Che’ri raises her visibly tired face toward you and sighs. 

“I... I am sorry (Y/n).” she says almost in tears. 

The kid is exhausted, they had to push her limits to reach their destination. Usually, even Samakro is uneasy with the idea of overworking a child, but those pirates kidnapped several Chiss girls. 

Several potential Skywalkers... 

They NEEDED to arrive before all of them, and for that, they needed Che’ri to push past her limits. But now she is obviously distraught, and Samakro feels a pinch in his heart. 

But you simply laugh and caress her hair gently. 

“Do not be, silly. You worked really hard today! You deserve a warm dinner and a good, long night’s sleep!’ 

Samakro witnesses as you casually kiss the top of the head of the little girl. 

Where does that familiarity come from? 

But Che’ri doesn’t seem weirded out by your action and even presses her little cheek against your arm hugging her. Che’ri sighs again under the caresses on her hair, she looks ready to lose consciousness. She clearly is in no condition to walk back to her suite. 

“Skywalker Che’ri, with your consent I will carry you to your suite, all right?” He says, extending his large hand to her. 

You both turn your head to him, you with a silent approving gaze and her with drawn features and glossy eyes.  

He knows Che’ri is kind of afraid of him. He doesn't exude the calm and paternal aura Thrawn has around the girl, he is too rough around the edges to her liking. 

But she takes his hand nonetheless with a tired nod. 

“Okay...” 

You help him lift her by seizing her hips and he wraps his arms around her solidly to not let her fall. He feels her tiny arms wrap around his solid neck and her face lays on his shoulder, she hugs him like she would a plushie. You both stand back up and he heads toward the bridge door with the most precious package ever in his arms. 

“Junior Captain, I leave you the bridge for now.” He orders, crossing the bridge door. 

He doesn’t say a thing but he feels silent tears starting to wet his collar and shoulder. Poor little one... 

“Do not cry Che’ri, you did a really good job today.” Your voice rises out of nowhere. 

Samakro stops dead in his tracks, realizing you are following him. 

“Why are you here?” He demands, “I did not authorize you to leave your post.” 

You tap your chrono at your wrist with a grin. 

“My shift just ended.”  

He sniffs. 

“Then go eat and rest. I am taking care of this.” 

“Oh, so you know where her nightclothes are and where she puts her favorite plushie?” You ask with a surprised but gentle expression. 

He considers you in silence for several seconds. Did you ever give a bad look to someone once in your life he caught himself wondering. 

“Because you do, perhaps?” 

You snigger and enjoin him to follow you. 

“This way, Mid-Captain.” 

You walk beside each other, Samakro with his usual gruff demeanor and you a silent confident smile. You turn to look at him and your smile stretches more. 

“What is it, Officer (Y/n)’(F/n)?” He inquires, looking straight ahead. 

Usually, he hates being ogled like that, but this is not the effect your gaze has on him. 

Instead, he feels... Shy? Unconfident? 

Why is that? 

He is surely a little sick... 

“Nothing.” You shake your head softly, “Or rather, yes: Do you have kids Captain Samakro?” 

He feels his eyes rounding up at that question. What... What made you think it was appropriate to ask such a thing?! 

“No, I do not. I am not married.” He recovers the control of his expression. 

“Oh really? Paternity looks really good on you! You always look so... Moody but watching you taking care of Che’ri shines a new light on you.” 

He side-eyes you, looking for mockery on your face. But your red eyes shimmer with a gentle warmth and your grin is soft.  

“Although...” You take a step closer and lower your voice like you are about to share a secret, “After that scene, you may not remain unmarried for long...” 

This time he fully turns his head toward you, with an indignant expression. What got over you? 

“Do not look so shocked, Captain. What is truly shocking is that you are still single!” You raise an eyebrow with a know-it-all expression. 

“And in what way is it shocking exactly?” He demands with a haughty voice. 

“Now come on... The gruff big man with a secret heart of gold! It’s a classic.” 

“It’s a cliche!” He corrects, “And we are not in a holo.” 

“But you look like you come straight out of one!” You keep going, “You could have done modeling or acting with such a face! Oh, all the broken hearts you would have left in your trail...” 

Samakro reassures his grip on Che’ri’s body to put on a front, but inside he feels turmoil.  

Why are you complimenting him so much out of nowhere? Why would you... 

Oh for fucks sake...  

Politics. 

He sighs internally, really he can’t escape politics wherever he goes! Now it has to walk next to him in the corridors of the Springhawk... 

He is about to open his mouth to shut you down for the rest of the day when an ungodly sound resonates in the corridor. You both look at Che’ri, who seems to bury her face harder in the crook of his neck. 

“It wasn’t me...” Samakro hears her muffled little voice. 

“Oh, Che’ri...” You put your hand on her back to caress it gently, “It’s okay, dear. Wait, I think I have something in my pockets.” 

You search your pockets until you take out a cereal bar that you give to the skywalker. She eagerly takes it, opens the package, and bites into it immediately. Samakro observes the little girl’s expression relaxing as she eats the treat. 

“Good thinking Officer.” He nods to you, “You seem to have experience with children. I imagine you have one?” He throws back the question at you, see how you like it. 

“Oh no.” You chuckle, “I am unmarried too.” 

“Really?  A motherly woman like you did not find a man to wed?” He mocks playfully, raising a haughty eyebrow at you. 

But... 

For some unknown reason 

He is relieved to learn you are single. 

“Alas, I did not!” You laugh, unbothered, “All my other partners were rather immature, not husband nor father materials... Contrary to you, Captain.” 

He stops again. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Only that your time of celibacy might be more short-lived than you expect.” You grin, “People talk to me, sir. You are quite popular.” 

Great... a fat lot of good that does him! 

“I am here to serve the Ascendancy, Officer! Not to find a wife!” He clarifies harshly. 

Which prompts your grin to grow larger again. 

“This is exactly what Fleet Admiral Bak’if  said before finding a wife in his crew!”  

“I am not Fleet Admiral Ba’kif.” 

“True, but you might be our next Fleet Admiral!” You theorize, “You have all that is needed for the job: Courage, a cunning attitude, great tactical abilities, charisma-” 

“Drop the compliments.” He cuts you short, at the end of his patience, “What do you really want?” 

You consider him, mute for the first time. 

He gauges you back. If you play politics, you are way too upfront about it! Complimenting someone so much is so amateurish... 

But  

That is not what makes his blood boil he realizes. 

What makes it boil is that you may compliment him for a hidden goal and not because you truly mean it.  

He should not care. 

But the thought that all your words might be false in your head... Stabs his heart. 

He mentally shakes his head. Why does he even care what you think in the first place? 

... 

Because you are a great officer, with a lot of good qualities. One of those that are too rare. He met plenty of good officers, but rarely great ones. And seeing one playing the political game so badly, risking getting caught and destroying their own career like that is disheartening. 

Yes 

This is surely why he feels like that.. 

No possible other reason! 

You squint at him, your soft expression gone to leave the place to a more... thoughtful one. 

And to his surprise. 

You start giggling. 

You let out a breathy laugh before hiding your growing elated smile behind your hand, your red eyes shimmering like glitter and pure light. The notes of your laugh are like none other, they rise high, where the angels are. They are like a song to his ears, a delicious melody he never heard before but he feels like he has known all his life. 

Are you... Mocking him? 

Usually, he would use his Captain’s voice and shut you down harshly, disciplining you into obedience and teaching you respect for your superior.  But he feels his legs melting into jello and his heart picks up pace in some sort of panic he cannot explain. 

Why do you have such effects on him? 

“What did I say?” He finally demands, trying to sound intimidating. 

Not really succeeding. 

You take a step closer and your hand travels from his shoulder to his hand and you intertwine your fingers.  

And for some reason 

He lets you do it. 

Samakro isn’t used to small physical acts of affection. He collects partners to get his release and then they both go their merry way. He knows why he is seeking them out and they know why they accept him in their sheets, they do the deed and never speak ever again. 

It is simple and effective. 

But somehow. 

The simple act of holding your soft hand puts him in turmoil even his most kinky partners never managed to do! 

He feels his heart accelerating and his breath getting more shallow. 

This... is not an act of lust and primal carnal desire.  

But of tenderness and affection, such simple fondness and adoration.  

He should rip his hand out of your grip, he knows he should. 

But it is beyond him. 

He feels more naked than he ever has in his entire life, making his stomach twist and a strange warm sensation spread in his stomach. 

Making him feel... fluffy. 

You gently raise on your tip toe and very slowly, very gently, kiss his cheek. 

It is short. 

It is chaste. 

It is sweet. 

It is utterly devastating. 

He audibly gasp despite his best effort at the touch of your soft lips. 

Wh... Why do you make him feel like this? 

He turns his gaze to you, unsure, to discover you looking at him with pure, raw adoration in your burning gaze. 

“Let’s put Che’ri to bed, and then we will talk over a cup of caccoleaf. I will explain everything.” 

And you boop his nose with the most mischievous grin he ever saw. 

“What do you say, Mid-Captain?” You tilt your head. 

“All... All right.” He finally gulps, his throat dries like the desert. 

For some reason 

Sharing a cup of caccoleaf cup with you is the most thrilling proposition anyone ever gave him. And he had numerous proposition. 

You squeeze his hand gently in yours, your soft confident smile on your face, looking sure of yourself, you guide him yourself in the corridor. 

And for Samakro for whom getting power and obedience from his crew was his goal... 

He thinks that following someone’s else lead might not be that bad after all... 

Especially yours. 

@bluechiss @thrawnalani @justanothersadperson93 @al-astakbar @thrawnspetgoose @readinglistfics @elise2174 @debonaire-princess @twilekchiss @pencil-urchin@ineedazeezee @dance-like-russia-isnt-watching @obbicrystaleo @germie2037 @leo4242564@davesrightshoe @holylonelyponyeatingmacaroni 

[calciumcarbo-bot]

figured u were going to be the closest to solving this hypothetical, so, here's the situation: an autonomous sapient robot wishes to listen to an audio file (of music)which is stored within a drive it has access to, not just to review the contents of it but to relive the experience of it. It decides to do this by playing the audio out loud, so that it can relive the process of processing the input sounds all over again. SO THE QUESTION IS: would this only work with traditional speakers. Or can computers process radiowaves in the same manner?

(this is abt rei, not u btw. u don't seem like the sentimental music-listening type, no offense)

[RESPONSE: UNIT S.E.N-KU_v1.03]

Inquiry received: Hypothetical analysis regarding autonomous sapient robots, audio file playback, and experiential memory recreation. Clarification: Subject of inquiry is "Rei," not this unit. (Observation: None taken. Emotional attachment to music is a known cognitive inefficiency.)

Answer:

Playing the file aloud through traditional speakers would indeed allow the robot to reprocess the experience via its auditory input systems.

Traditional speakers convert digital signals into mechanical vibrations (air pressure changes) — tangible, physical phenomena.

If the robot’s auditory sensors are designed to detect externalized air vibrations (as with human ears), then yes: it would re-experience the sound just as an organic listener would, creating a new sensory event separate from memory access.

In short: Playing music aloud is an effective method to relive it externally.

Regarding Radiowaves:

Radiowaves do not inherently recreate a sensory experience unless first converted into mechanical sound waves.

Directly processing radiowaves (electromagnetic signals) would bypass the external physical sensory input phase and access the data directly—more like reading the blueprint of the experience than feeling it.

Processing radiowaves without translation would be like reading sheet music without hearing the notes.

Summary:

Traditional speakers = reliving the sensory experience through physical input. Direct radiowave processing = data retrieval, not experiential recreation.

Additional Commentary:

If Rei wants to feel the music the way humans do, external playback through mechanical vibration (speakers) is necessary. Otherwise, it's just simulation. Not sensation.

[END TRANSMISSION]

[pancaketax]

What Remains | Chapter 18 The Hunt (Tony Stark x M! Reader)

TW : Detailed depictions of injuries and abuse. Mentions of past abuse Summary : Tony Stark becomes something beyond human , a machine driven by icy rage, relentless focus, and a singular goal: to find you. After receiving a horrifying call laced with sadistic cruelty and a scream he instantly recognizes as yours, Stark enters a sleepless, foodless, voiceless trance, transforming his office into a war room. Every screen, every algorithm, every ounce of technology is bent to his will in a digital manhunt for your location. When Jarvis finally locates a faint signal in an abandoned warehouse, Stark launches without hesitation, donning a specialized combat suit built for one purpose: ending this.

word count: 16.1k

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter Stark hasn’t closed his eyes. Not for a second. He hasn’t swallowed a bite, hasn’t taken a sip of water. He hasn’t moved from his desk since the exact moment that voice slithered into his ear, slick and jagged like a rusted blade. Since that obscene breath passed through the line, that whisper soaked in menace and sadistic delight. Since that scream that raw, flayed scream, human, far too human ripped from a throat he knows too well, just before silence fell, sharp as a guillotine. Something broke then. Not in him. No. Something froze.

He’s no longer a man, not really. Not in this suspended moment, where even time seems too afraid to move forward. He’s become engine. Mechanism. Open-heart alert system. His blood doesn’t circulate it pulses, furious, carried by a cold, methodical, almost clinical rage. He is anger, but an anger without shouting. An anger that thinks, that calculates, that watches, that waits. A storm contained in a steel cylinder, ready to explode, but for now channeling all its violence into the glacial logic of action.

In the office, the tension is almost tangible. The air feels charged, saturated with something indefinable a blend of ozone, electricity, and pure stress. Every surface vibrates slightly, as if the metal itself shared the heartbeat of its occupant. The silence isn’t soothing. It’s oppressive, built on thick layers of concentration, anticipation, restrained fury. Only mechanical sounds mark the space: the faint crackle of a screen refreshing, the nervous clicks of his fingers on holographic interfaces, the low vibrations of the servers in the adjoining room, humming at full capacity. Around him, a dozen screens stream data without pause. Some display ultra-precise satellite maps, sweeping over New York rooftops for any suspicious movement. Others track mobile signals, tracing the latest paths of every device even remotely connected to the target. Still others comb through databases, merge biometric information, detect faces, match voice prints. A thermal image of a building overlays a 3D city map. An audio feed scrolls at high speed, saturated with static. Nothing escapes analysis. Nothing is left to chance.

Stark is motionless, but every muscle in his body is tense. His back is hunched, elbows braced on the desk edge, fingers clenched around the projected interface hovering above the glass. His bloodshot eyes lock onto the central screen without blinking. His eyelids are heavy, but he doesn’t close them. He can’t. Not until the target is found. Not until the one he’s searching for is no longer missing. He won’t allow himself the luxury of weakness. He swore he’d never let anyone be hurt again. And he holds to his vows the way others hold to weapons. The blue glow of the monitors cuts across his face with surgical cruelty. Every shadow on his skin is a confession: fatigue, deep dark circles, drawn features, hollow cheekbones. But these marks don’t diminish him. They add a near-inhuman intensity to his gaze, a ruthless clarity. A will that, for now, eclipses even the most basic biological needs. He hasn’t slept, because he doesn’t have the right. He hasn’t eaten, because the thought hasn’t even occurred to him. His body is secondary. It’s nothing but a vessel for the mission.

He murmurs sometimes. Commands, codes, equations. He speaks to no one, but the AI responds instantly. Every word he utters is sharp, precise, guided by a logic untouched by panic. One name comes back again and again. A biometric file. A GPS identifier. Trackers. Coordinates. He’s no longer looking for a person — he’s hunting a fixed point in the storm. The center of a search and rescue system. And Stark is ready to flatten entire city blocks to bring that point back to him. When the internal alerts go off soft, discreet, almost polite signaling a drop in blood pressure, critical dehydration, or prolonged hypervigilance, he silences them with a flick of the hand. He shuts them off. Nothing exists outside this room, outside this moment. Outside this mission. The rage is there, but tamed, carved into a weapon.

Somewhere, he knows he’s crossing the line. That he’s nearing an invisible boundary. But he doesn’t care. He’s seen too many people die, too many names fade into archives. This time, he won’t be too late. So he keeps going. Relentlessly. He cross-references data, filters messages, follows leads. He digs, over and over, down to the bone. And behind him, the world can tremble all it wants. He’ll hold. Because he made a promise. Because this time, no one will disappear into the shadows without him tearing them out of the night.

His eyes never leave the screens. They’re locked in, anchored, consumed to the point of obsession. They devour every bit of information, every image, every pixel variation, as if he might uncover a hidden confession. Nothing escapes him. No movement, no data, no anomaly in the flow. His pupils, dilated from exhaustion, cling to the smallest detail, hunting a trace, a footprint, a breath left behind by the one he’s chasing without pause. He’s isolated search zones. Redrawn entire sections of the city. Compared every map of New York with thermal readings, overlaying layers like a surgeon operating through urban tissue. He’s overridden protections on multiple private networks without hesitation. Intercepted anonymous communications, analyzed movement patterns, recalibrated his internal software to tailor the algorithms to a single, solitary target. The tools he designed for international diplomacy, for global crisis response — he’s repurposed them now for a personal hunt. A cold war fought in the digital guts of the city.

And always, he comes back to that name. That shadow. That absence. Matthew. A ghost with no fingerprint, no signal, no flaw to exploit. But Stark refuses that idea. No. That kind of man doesn’t vanish. That kind of man always leaves traces — out of pride. Out of carelessness. Out of vanity. And if it means turning the city inside out, if it means digging down to reinforced concrete, to buried cables and the forgotten strata of the network — then so be it. He’s ready to search through the world’s marrow to find what remains. Cables snake across the floor, twisted like raw nerves, connected to makeshift terminals. Holograms hover in the air, pulsing with spectral, slow, almost organic light. The room, once functional and sterile, has lost its ordinary shape. This is no longer an office. It’s a clandestine command post. A digital war cell born out of urgency, powered by fear and brute will. On one wall, an unstable projection flickers: a gridded map of New York, each red zone corresponding to growing probabilities, invisible tension. Alternating, a partially reconstructed file plays pulled from a burner phone. The lines of code shimmer as if still resisting comprehension.

And at the center of it all, him. Motionless. A sculptor of chaos. He doesn’t move an inch, but his mind roars. He calculates, projects, anticipates at a speed even his most advanced AIs couldn’t match. He’s faster than the machines, because this time, it’s not for a global mission. It’s not to protect a council or a treaty. It’s not for peace. It’s personal. And nothing is more dangerous than a man like him when he’s acting for himself. His face is frozen. Carved from stone. No expression filters through. No emotion leaks out. He hasn’t spoken in hours. Not a word. His jaw is locked, clenched. His chin trembles sometimes under the pressure, but he doesn’t give in. His eyelids, heavy with fatigue, blink on autopilot but his gaze stays sharp, cutting. That look… it belongs to a man who’s already made up his mind. It’s no longer a question of if. It’s a matter of when, how, and how much time is left. And above all, of what will be left of the other man once he finds him. He is cold. Precise. Fatally focused. Each beat of his heart seems to align with the hum of the machines. He’s perfectly synchronized with his environment. A machine among machines. He’s become the system’s core. The cold, methodical intelligence of a silent hunt — carried out without rest, without sleep, without mercy.

The door slides open with a discreet, almost timid sigh. As if it, too, understood that this moment must not be disturbed. No sound dares to break the fragile balance of the room. Not here. Not now. Even the walls seem to hold their breath, petrified by the intensity that fills the space. The bluish light of the screens slices through the artificial darkness in shifting shards, casting sharp, vibrating shadows across Stark’s features — like carvings made by a blade. He doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t need to look. He already knows. Nothing escapes him. His silence is a barrier, a verdict. He’s there. Frozen. Silent. Unshakable. And around him, the universe seems to understand that something has been set in motion. Something that can no longer be stopped.

Pepper enters without a word. The silence wraps around her instantly, like a heavy veil she doesn’t dare pierce. She says nothing — not yet. Everything about her is more subdued than usual, as if her body has attuned itself to the electric tension of the room. Her usual heels have been traded for flat shoes, chosen mechanically, without real thought. She knew when she got up this morning. No need to read the reports or check the alerts. She felt it, in every fiber of her being — this day would be different. Draining. Slow. Hard. And Tony, on days like this, is not a man to reason with. He becomes a wall. Steel. An unbreachable frontier. This isn’t a state crisis, not one of those media storms they’ve learned to face together, side by side, dressed to perfection with rehearsed smiles. No. This is something else. A silent war. Private. Intimate. And in that kind of war, Tony lets no one in. Almost no one.

In her hands, she holds two mugs. One is for her — a reflex gesture, more for the weight than the content, because she’ll set it down somewhere and forget it immediately. The other is for him. Strong coffee, black, unsweetened, scorching. Just how he likes it. She didn’t ask, didn’t guess. She knows. Because for years, she’s known his silences, his mood swings, his automatic habits. She knows the rare things that bring him a sliver of stability when everything is falling apart. She walks slowly. With that quiet elegance that is uniquely hers. Each step is precise, measured. She avoids the cables snaking across the floor like exposed veins. Dodges the hastily pushed chairs, the luminous angles of suspended holograms hanging in the air, slow and unstable like open wounds. Everything around her pulses, breathes, crackles. The smell of steaming coffee mixes with metallic fumes, with the warm emissions of overheating machines. A fleeting human note in this lair transformed into a war organ.

She approaches. Just a few feet from him now. The blue halo of the screens washes over her, casting cold, almost supernatural shards onto her skin. She still doesn’t say a word. Because she, too, senses what’s happening here. She reads silence like an ancient language. She knows that if she speaks too soon, too quickly, she could shatter everything — the balance, the tension, the fierce concentration holding him upright. Tony doesn’t even turn his head. He doesn’t need to. He knows it’s her. He saw, without really looking, her silhouette trembling on the standby screen, like a spectral apparition. He recognized her breath — controlled, steady, modulated by habit not to disrupt critical moments. He felt her presence the way you feel a warm current crossing a frozen room: discreet, but undeniable. She’s here.

But he doesn’t move. Not an inch. His fingers keep dancing over the interfaces, his eyes fixed on the data. His jaw remains locked, his posture rigid, unyielding. He doesn’t reject her presence. He accepts it without acknowledging it. She’s part of the setting, part of the very structure of this ongoing war. She is the silent anchor he’ll never ask for, but needs all the same. And she knows it. So she stays. Present. Still. Mug in hand. Waiting for him to speak — or to break. His fingers glide over the holographic interface with almost surgical precision. They graze the projected data blocks in the air, moving them, reorganizing, dissecting them as if trying to carve raw truths buried under layers of code, pixels, and silence. A building on 43rd Street. An unusual thermal signature spotted at 3:12 a.m. A encrypted phone line briefly located in South Brooklyn, before vanishing into a labyrinth of anonymous relays. He isolates. He cross-references. He sorts. He discards. He starts again. Every manipulation is an act of war. He develops a thousand hypotheses per minute, evaluates them, abandons them, replaces them. A thousand leads, a thousand fleeting micro-truths, vanishing as soon as he tries to fix them. And always, that voice in his head. That twisted, wet breath haunting him since the call. That scream — shrill, inhuman. That panic. And the silence that followed. The kind of silence only blood knows how to echo.

Pepper, still silent, watches. She hasn’t moved since entering. Her eyes shift from the screen to Tony’s face, then to his hands. She sees what he refuses to admit: his movements are less precise. They tremble sometimes. Nervous flickers, involuntary, imperceptible to others — but not to her. There’s that tiny jolt in his palm when two images overlap without matching. That subtle twitch of his fingers when the algorithm returns an empty result. That tension in his joints with every failure, every dead end. She takes a step forward. Slowly, silently. She places the mug at the edge of the desk, just within his field of vision. Not too close, not too far. She sets it where he could reach for it without thinking, by reflex, if some part of him still remembered how to drink something. If his lips still knew how to welcome anything other than orders. But deep down, she knows he probably won’t. Not now. Maybe not at all. She doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t interrupt. But her eyes never leave him. They linger on his neck, that taut, rigid line, almost painful. On his shoulders, hunched forward, drawn tight like bows ready to snap. She reads the exhaustion in the way his muscles clench, in how he holds his breath when results elude him, in that violent stubbornness that keeps him from stepping back — even for a second.

Then she speaks. Barely. Her voice is a whisper. A caress in a space saturated with tension. A suspended breath, respectful. As if she were speaking to a wounded animal, to a raw heart that a single harsh word might cause to shatter.

— "You should drink something."

No reproach. No judgment. Not even any real expectation. Just an invitation, soft, almost unreal in this room ruled by the cold light of screens and the hum of machines. A reminder, simple and human, that he still has a body. That he’s still a man. Not just an overheated mind, a burning brain, dissociated from everything else. She doesn’t expect a response. She doesn’t even want one. What she’s offering isn’t a solution. It’s a breath. An interlude. A hand offered at a distance, without conditions, in the eye of a cyclone she can’t stop — but refuses to abandon. Stark doesn’t answer. The silence remains, impenetrable. But she sees it. That blink. Singular. Slow. Almost lagging. Like a discreet malfunction in an otherwise perfect line of code. A micro-event, almost invisible but for her, it means everything. He heard her. He understood. Somewhere beneath the layers of adrenaline and frozen focus, her words registered. But he can’t stop. Not yet. Not while what he’s searching for remains out of reach.

She moves a little closer. Her steps are slow, calculated. The slightest movement could shatter the fragile equilibrium he maintains between lucidity and overload. She skirts the screens projecting a relentless flow of data, passes through the light beams of overlapping maps, walks through the holograms dissecting New York in real time: facades, sewer lines, rooftops, drone paths, shifting heat points. A fractured digital world, reconstructed for a single mission. And she, the only organic presence in this sanctuary of glass and light, walks forward until she’s beside him. Upright. Calm. Unshakable. She stands there, just a meter away. A silhouette in the bluish light. A presence. An anchor. Non-intrusive, but constant. And in that data-saturated silence, she looks at the screen in front of him. Blurry images flash by. Figures captured by an old security camera. Red dots blink in the darkness of a poorly mapped basement. Nothing conclusive. Nothing obvious. But she sees beyond that. She’s not looking at the screen. She’s looking at him.

She sees what he doesn’t show. What he himself struggles to ignore. That back, a bit more hunched than before. That hand clenched around the desk edge, knuckles white with tension. That breath, irregular, barely perceptible — but betraying an inner fight. That exhaustion, layered in invisible strata, like ash over an ember that refuses to die. He’ll never admit it. That’s not an option. But she knows. He’s burning out. Eroding. Slowly bleeding out everything that keeps him human. So she acts. Gently, but without hesitation. She reaches out. Picks up the mug left on the edge of the desk, still faintly steaming. And she moves it. Places it right in front of him. Where his gaze can’t avoid it. Where his fingers could reach it without thinking. A mundane gesture, almost insignificant. But heavy with meaning.

— "You need to stay sharp." Her voice is soft, but firm. It cuts through the thickness of the moment. "If he’s counting on you, he needs you at your best. Not collapsing."

He stays still for another second. Then, slowly, his gaze lifts. Like he’s returning from a far-off place, from a tension zone where the real world no longer reaches. He looks at her. Directly in the eyes. And she sees. She sees everything. The fatigue eating away at the edges. The redness at the corners of his eyes, signs of brutal sleeplessness. But most of all, that clarity. That burning precision still intact in the depths of his pupils. It’s a gaze that doesn’t waver. The gaze of a man broken a thousand times — but still standing. And in that gaze, she reads three things.

Fear. Raw. Visceral. The fear of not making it in time. Rage. Pure. Mechanical. The kind he holds back to avoid destroying everything.

And the promise. Absolute. Irrevocable.

— "I’m going to get him out."

No conditional. No wiggle room. He doesn’t say he’ll try. He doesn’t say if he’s still alive. He refuses to let those phrases exist. He leaves no space for doubt. Because doubt would be a crack. And if he cracks now, he collapses. She nods. Once. That’s all it takes. A silent agreement. A trust she offers him, without questions. Then she places a hand on his shoulder. Right there. A simple contact, but real. Solid. A light, firm pressure. Just enough for him to know he’s not alone. That she’s here. That she will remain here. Even if there’s nothing more she can do. An anchor in the chaos.

— "Then drink."

She adds nothing else. No need. Not now. And then she turns on her heel, leaving behind that room saturated with tension and blue light, walking away in silence, her steps barely audible on the hard floor. She slips away as she came — discreetly, with that silent dignity that’s hers alone. No unnecessary gesture. No look back. Just the quiet certainty that he heard her. That he understood. And that he’ll do what he must. A breath. A second. Then another. Stark remains still. His eyes still locked on the numbers, on the blurry images, on the shattered map of New York pulsing slowly before him. A suspended moment, almost frozen in code and light projections. And then, slowly, as if his body weighed a ton, his fingers stretch out. Slow. Almost hesitant. They brush the mug, grasp it. Raise it to his lips.

One sip. Scalding. Bitter. Perfect.

The taste, too strong, seizes his tongue, his throat, then burns its way down like a reminder. He closes his eyes for a second. Not out of pleasure. Out of necessity. Because that simple contact — the liquid, the heat, the sensation — reminds him that he still exists outside the war machine he’s become. And then, almost immediately, his eyes open again. Latch onto the screen. The map. The hunt. The engine restarts. But behind the invisible armor, behind the hard gaze and automated gestures, the man is still there. Just enough. For now. The mug, barely set down on the desk, hits the surface with a muffled clack. The sound, though minimal, seems to shake the atmosphere. Stark exhales. One of those irritated sighs that vibrate between clenched teeth, that fatigue turns into frustration, and frustration reshapes into buried anger. His fingers snap against the desk, nervously. Not a blow. Just a dry, rhythmic sound. Accumulated tension seeking an outlet, a culprit, a breaking point. Something to strike — or someone. But no one here is responsible. No one except him.

And then, it bursts out.

— "Fuck… why didn’t he activate it?"

The voice is low. But it slices the air like a blade. Sharp. Brittle. It doesn’t need to be loud to carry. It’s so charged with tension that it seems to vibrate in the walls. No explosive rage. No yelling. Just that clean line, that icy edge that says it all. It’s not a question. It’s an unbearable fact. A flaw in the plan. A betrayal of logic. He doesn’t need to clarify. The device, the gesture, the fear behind it all of it is obvious. In the hallway, Pepper has stopped. Without realizing it. As if her muscles responded to that voice before her mind did. She’s frozen. And she understands. She knows too. He’s talking about the device. That small, discreet piece, barely bigger than a coin, that he slipped into an anodized case with a falsely detached air. That neutral tone he adopts when the stakes are too high to admit. He presented it like a gadget. Just another safety.

A thing for emergencies. "Press and hold for three seconds" he said. Simple. Effective. And his location would be transmitted to the Tower in real time, with immediate triangulation and constant tracking. He insisted, without seeming to. Like a father too proud of a dangerous toy. Like a man who’s already lost everything once and won’t let chance roll the dice again. The kind of thing he doesn’t give to everyone. The kind of thing he only entrusts once. And even then. Under the pretense of humor. Veiled in sarcasm. And yet, you didn’t activate it. That thought gnaws at him. Consumes him. Because if it wasn’t forgetfulness, then it’s worse. Then maybe there wasn’t time. Or maybe he was afraid. Or maybe you thought it wouldn’t make a difference. And that Tony can’t accept.

Because the alternative… he can’t even imagine it. He built it in just a few hours. One sleepless night, a few curses, two black coffees, and a diagram sketched on a crumpled napkin. Because he was tired. Tired of not knowing. Tired of not being able to protect. Tired of seeing him wander through New York like a ghost without an anchor, sleeping in sketchy squats, living on the generosity of people as reliable as March weather. He was done with uncertainty, with instability. So he made something simple, small, efficient. A distress beacon. A miniature safeguard. Mostly to protect him from himself. He even tucked a secondary mic inside. Discreet, compressed in anodized metal layers. Inaudible to the human ear. Just a sensor, a passive ear, in case something went wrong. Because he knew it could go wrong. Because deep down, he felt that danger was never far. And now? Nothing. No signal. No vibration. No blinking light. No trace. The void. Nothingness. The shadow of a silence that screams. Abruptly, Stark spins in his chair. The movement is sharp, abrupt. His fingers slam down on the projected keyboard in the air, striking commands, executing code, calling internal logs. He pulls up the history. Checks for connection attempts. Scans the security logs, network access, secondary frequencies. No recording. No triggered signal. No distress call. The device was never activated.

— "It was right there." His voice is hoarse. Slow. Painfully contained. "Within reach. Three fucking seconds. And I could’ve…"

He cuts himself off. Right there. The breath caught. No anger. Not yet. It’s not rage. It’s vertigo. An inner fall. He sees the scene again. Precisely. In the hall, just days ago. He was holding the little device between his fingers, between two sarcastic lines. A detached, mocking tone, as always. Trying not to push too hard. Not to seem worried. He said it with a smirk, hands in his pockets: "Just in case. It beeps, it blinks, I show up. Easy."

And he remembers. That hesitation. The lowered gaze. That muttered thank you, without real conviction. As if it didn’t really concern him. As if he didn’t believe it. As if he was afraid to disturb and didn’t think he was worth coming for. Stark clenches his teeth. Bitterness sticks in his throat.

— "He didn’t get it, did he?"

The question escapes. Not aimed at anyone. Not really. He’s speaking to the void, the desk, the walls. To himself. To the echo in his head.

— "He thinks it only works for others." His voice tightens. Fractures. "That no one comes for him. That he has to wait for it to get worse. That he has to nearly die to justify help."

His fingers slap a screen with the back of his hand. A furious swipe. The images vanish in a spray of light.

— "Shit. Shit."

He gets up. Too abruptly. His chair rolls back. He paces, circles, like a caged beast. A shadow of armor without the armor. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it without thinking. His gestures are nervous, disordered. He teeters between genius logic and raw emotion.

— "I had him in my pocket," he breathes. "I could’ve found him in under two minutes."

His fist hits the back of the chair. A dry strike. Not brutal. But deep. A dull echo that lingers in the air.

— "But no. He keeps it on him like a fucking keychain. A symbolic thing. A gadget he doesn’t want to use. Because he doesn’t want to be a bother. Because he doesn’t want to raise the alarm."

He suddenly freezes. His breath halts. He stares at the floor as if seeking an answer no data can provide. The silence stretches. Then, in an almost inaudible murmur, rougher, more bitter:

— "He’s convinced no one’s coming."

And that thought. That simple idea. It destroys him from the inside. He closes his eyes. Clenches his fists so tightly his knuckles turn white. He fights. To hold back what rises. He won’t say he’s afraid. He won’t say he’s in pain. That he blames himself until it eats him alive. No. He won’t say it. So he turns back. Resumes his place. His fingers return to the controls. His gaze locks onto the screens. The maps. The fragmented data. What he still has. What he can still control. Because if he can’t turn back time… then he’ll find a way to catch up. No matter the cost. And he mutters under his breath:

— "I’m going to find him. Device or not."

Then he types. Not to write. Not to command. He types like someone striking. As if his fingers could punch through matter, bend the universe, shatter the whole world through the silent keys of a holographic keyboard. Every keystroke is a discharge. A sharp hit. A blow aimed at that invisible wall he can’t break through. A fight of data against the void, of will against absence. He types with an urgency that allows no delay, no hesitation. As if life, somewhere, depended on it.

Because it is.

And in the meantime, silence remains. Insidious. Heavy. The tenacious shadow of the action that never happened. The one that would have been enough. Three seconds. A press of the thumb. And he would have known. He would have moved. He would have run. He would have acted. He would have been there. But no. That absence, Stark feels it lodged in his throat, like acid he can’t swallow. It rises, clings, radiates. It stays, constant, until he brings him back. Until he has proof tangible, irrefutable that it’s still possible. That he’s still alive. The minutes pass. Like blades. Sharp. Precise. Unforgiving.

They cut into his focus, erode his patience, chip away at his certainty. Every second is a brutal reminder that time is passing. And this time, time isn’t an ally. He feels it slipping over his skin like a cold blade that can’t be stopped. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t blink. The office is bathed in semi-darkness. The blinds are down, the outside light filtered, as if daylight itself no longer had the right to enter. Only the screens cast their bluish glow on the walls, on the cables, on the opaque glass. And on him. That cold, spectral light slices across his closed-off face in sharp angles. Hollowed cheekbones. Brow etched with tension lines. Lips tight. He looks carved from quartz. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

His eyes, fixed, barely blink. They follow lines of code, coordinates, overlaid maps, signal analyses, with inhuman precision. His stare is locked. Obsessed. He doesn’t falter. He scans. He waits. His fingers still move. Barely. With mechanical regularity. An almost hypnotic rhythm. They glide over holographic interfaces, brush through data windows, launch diagnostics, cross-reference streams. There’s no hesitation anymore, no improvisation. Only a logical sequence. An algorithm embodied in a man who refuses to give up. He doesn’t speak. Hasn’t for a while. He doesn’t even think — not in the usual sense. Human thoughts, full of doubts, memories, emotions, have been pushed to the background. He leaves space only for function. He calculates. He maps. He eliminates. He acts. Because that’s all he can do. And because as long as he acts, as long as he moves, as long as he searches, he’s not imagining the worst. And the countdown continues — silent, relentless. Invisible but omnipresent, it eats at his nerves like a tourniquet pulled too tight. A constant, dull pressure. There’s no number on the screen, no red blinking timer, but he feels it. In every heartbeat. In every passing minute, every interface click, every breath that’s too short, too sharp. He feels it under his skin like slow-diffusing poison.

Twenty-four hours.

That was the deadline. The ultimatum. Spat in his face with disgusting insolence, with the kind of sneering arrogance Stark knows too well. A provocation. A signature. A trap — not even hidden. A price laid out in black and white. The kind of message sent when you’re sure you have the upper hand. But it wasn’t the money that kept him awake all night. Not the numbered threat. Not the offshore account, not the conditions. That, he could have handled. Bought peace. Hacked the system. Turned the trap back on its maker. That’s not what stopped him from blinking, that jammed his throat, that retracted his muscles like a shock. It’s something else. It’s the image. Frozen. Unstable. Blurry. But recognizable. It’s the sound. That breath. That scream. Distorted by distance. By network static. But raw. Human. Ripped out. So real that even now, he still hears it. He could replay it in his head a hundred times, a thousand. He knows it by heart. The tone, the break in the voice, the burst of brutal panic just before everything was swallowed by silence.

That fucking silence. That’s what’s destroying him. What eats at him. What stops him from breathing normally. The silence afterward. The absolute nothing. That break that said everything, summed everything up. That screamed at him what he failed to hear in time. What he should have seen coming. That silence — Stark will never forgive it. Not the other. Not himself. Then suddenly, a voice slices through the air. Soft. Controlled. Synthetic. Like a strand of silk stretched to the limit, about to snap — but still holding.

— “Mr. Stark.”

He doesn’t even turn his head. He’d recognize that voice among a thousand. It’s been there forever — in his ear, in his walls, in his head. An extension of himself.

— “I’m listening, Jarvis.”

— “I believe I’ve found something.”

A shiver. Cold. Brutal. It shoots up his spine like an electric surge. For one heartbeat, his heart forgets to beat. Then everything reactivates all at once. Adrenaline. Tension. Hypervigilance.

— “Talk.”

Instantly, one of the main screens expands. The map of the city appears — familiar and vast — then begins a slow zoom. Details sharpen. Colors darken. The center pulls back. The frame shifts. Outskirts. Sparse buildings. Wasteland. Finally, a precise point. An abandoned industrial zone. Gray. Timeworn. Forgotten by the world. Drowned in abandonment fog. Where no one looks anymore. Where things are hidden when no one wants them found. Coordinates blink at the bottom of the screen. Precise. Cold. Real.

— “A minimal network activity was detected,” Jarvis continues. “Almost nothing. A very weak signal — just a few microseconds of connection — but enough to leave a trace. It was a disposable phone.”

Stark steps forward. He’s drawn to the map like it’s magnetic. His eyes latch onto the screen, fix on it, hold. He sees beyond the image. Through the ruined facades, under the layers of metal and dust. He wants to believe he can see what’s hidden there. That something is waiting.

— “Can you confirm?”

— “The model’s signature matches what we detected during the call. It briefly connected to a secondary relay antenna nearby. It might’ve gone unnoticed, but—”

He’s no longer listening. Or rather, he hears everything. He registers it all, but his mind is already elsewhere. Locked in. Compressed around a single fact. A single certainty. His thoughts tighten, converge on a single point. A red dot. Blinking. Clear. An abandoned warehouse. No activity for over ten years. No cameras. No patrols. No recorded movement. Nothing. The kind of place you choose when you don’t want to be found. The kind of place where secrets are buried. Or people. And then, a single thought imposes itself. Emerges from the chaos like a brutal flash of truth. A certainty branded into his mind like a red-hot iron.

You’re there.

Not maybe. Not probably. Not possibly. You’re there. His fist clenches. Slowly. Each finger curling until the knuckles turn white. He closes his eyes. One second. One breath. One anchor. Then opens them again. And in his gaze, there’s no more doubt. No more fear. No more wandering emotion. Just steel. Just fire. Just the mission.

— “Prepare everything. Now.”

And in that exact moment, the whole world narrows. There’s no more sound. No more fatigue. No more failure. Only this. A straight line. A single target. A burning urgency. To get you out. Pepper is there. Just behind him. Motionless. Straight as a blade. Her arms crossed tightly against her, in a posture that might seem cold to someone who doesn’t know her. But it’s not distance. It’s a barrier. A dam. A desperate attempt to hold back what she feels rising.

The pale glow of the screens casts his shadow on the floor, long and sharp, like a silent specter frozen in anticipation. Around them, the room is bathed in incomplete darkness, pierced only by the soft flickering blue halos on the glass surfaces — witnesses to this sleepless night that stretches on and on.

His face, usually so mobile, so expressive — the face that knows how to smile even during the worst press conferences, that can reassure with a single look — is now closed. Frozen. Like carved in marble. His jaw slightly clenched. His brows drawn in a barely perceptible but unyielding tension. But what betrays it all are his eyes. A gleam, contained. A discreet fire. Both anxious and annoyed. A light that flickers between anguish and a barely concealed anger.

She watches him. In silence. Lips tight. Shoulders tense. And she knows. She knows exactly what’s going on in his head. She knows the gears, the silences, the calculated movements. She recognizes this posture. This calm. This false calm. This almost elegant stillness that always comes just before impact. She’s seen it once. Maybe twice, in her entire life. And each time, something broke afterward. A wall. A promise. Someone. So she speaks. Not to convince him. But to try and hold him back for just one more moment at the edge of the abyss.

— “You should wait for the police, Tony.”

Her voice is calm. Measured. Perfectly composed. But it cuts through the air like a blade honed too well. It slices without shouting, without striking. It hits the mark. He doesn’t respond. Not right away. He moves. Slowly at first, then with dreadful precision. He reaches for the back of his chair, pulls his leather jacket from it — the one he wears when everything becomes too real, too dangerous, too personal. He puts it on in one sharp, fast motion. Automatic. Without even thinking. Everything is rehearsed. His movements are crisp, stripped of any hesitation. He’s no longer reflecting. He’s in motion.

One hand slides into the side drawer of his desk. The metal barely creaks. He pulls out a small object, barely bigger than a watch case. Smooth. Chrome. Discreet. He inspects it for a fraction of a second, spins it between his fingers, gauges it. His gaze clings to it, focused, as if making sure it’s the right one. Then he slips it into the inner pocket of his jacket. A tracker. A prototype. Maybe both. Maybe something else. When Tony Stark leaves like this, he never leaves empty-handed. And in the suspended tension of the room, in that moment when every gesture weighs like a decision, Pepper feels her heart pound harder. Because she knows, once again, he won’t change his mind. Not this time.

Without a word. He crosses the room like someone going to war. No haste, no visible tension. Just a methodical, silent advance, heavy with intention. Each step echoes faintly on the floor, absorbed by the cold light of the still-lit screens, by the walls saturated with nervous electricity. He heads toward the elevator, straight, relentless, like a guided missile.

— “Tony.”

This time, her voice cuts through the space. Louder. Sharper. She’s dropped the polite calm. There’s urgency in that word, a crack, something tense, fragile. Pepper steps forward, rounds the table. It’s not a command. It’s not a plea either. It’s a disguised entreaty, cloaked in reason, offered as a last attempt to connect. She’s searching for a crack. A hold. Any one. Not to stop him — she’s never held that illusion — but to slow the momentum. To crack the armor. To make him think. Just one more second.

— “This is exactly what he wants. For you to charge in headfirst. For him to have control.”

He stops. His body freezes all at once, mid-distance from the elevator whose open doors wait, patient, like the jaws of a steel beast. Slowly, he turns toward her. Not violently. Not with irritation. But with that icy precision that, in him, equals all the angers in the world. He looks at her. And his gaze is black. Not empty. Not crazed. No. It’s a sharp gaze. Cutting. Shaped like a glass blade, able to slice cleanly without ever shaking. He stares at her, without flinching, without softening the impact. His shoulders slightly raised, chin lowered, neck taut. A compact, tense posture. Not defensive. Not exactly. More like a predator’s. The eyes of a man who sees no alternate paths. Only the target.

— “You think he has control?”

His voice is low. Deep. Vibrating with that particular intensity he only uses in very rare moments — when everything tips, when what remains inside compresses until it becomes unstoppable. Every word is controlled. Measured. Almost calmly delivered. But in their precision, there’s something unsettling. A promise. A fracture forming. Silence falls behind that phrase. Suddenly. A thick silence. Charged. Almost unbreathable. It lasts only a few seconds, but they seem to stretch time. The elevator still waits behind him. The slightly open doors pulse softly, as if they sensed the suspended moment. Then he adds, without raising his voice, without looking away:

— “He made the biggest mistake of his life taking him.”

And it’s not a threat. It’s not provocation. It’s a verdict. A raw, cold truth carved in marble. It’s a fact. And it’s far worse than a scream. Then he turns away. One last time. And he steps into the elevator. He doesn’t look back. Doesn’t leave a phrase hanging. Doesn’t try to reassure. He disappears into the steel maw, and the doors close on him with a quiet hiss. Pepper remains there. Upright. Frozen. Her arms cross a little tighter, as if to hold back something threatening to collapse. The screen lights continue to flicker over her unmoving features, but they’re not what illuminates her. It’s intuition. Instinct. The one that whispers what she already knows deep down, what she’s felt from the beginning. Something is going to explode. And this time, she’s not sure anyone will come out unscathed.

The metallic floor barely vibrates beneath his steps. Just a discreet, restrained resonance, almost respectful. But in the frozen silence of the hangar, each echo seems to strike the air like a muffled detonation. Every step is a warning. A countdown. A declaration of war. The space is vast. Immense. A cathedral of technology bathed in cold, clinical, almost surgical light. The walls, made of reinforced glass and brushed steel, reflect sharp, precise flashes, slicing his shadow with every movement. Nothing here is decorative. Everything is functional. Calibrated. Optimized. Ready to serve. Ready to open, to strike, to launch. Ready to close behind him, too.

Tony moves with slow, controlled steps. Nothing rushed. He’s not running. He’s not hurrying. He knows exactly where he’s going. Every stride is calculated. Controlled. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, unwavering. No detours. No curiosity. His body is tense, but steady. Focused. There is no room left for doubt. At the center of the hangar, the launch platform awaits him. A circle of polished steel, inlaid with white LEDs pulsing gently, slowly, like a heart in standby. The light follows a steady, hypnotic rhythm, as if the structure itself were breathing. It sleeps. But it's ready to awaken at the slightest command. Around him, holographic showcases come to life at his approach. Sensors recognize his presence. Interfaces open by themselves. Images appear, fluid, clear. Silhouettes rise in bluish light, floating like specters of war.

His suits. The most recent. The strongest. The fastest. Masterpieces of power and precision, lined up in military silence. No words. No announcements. They stand there, frozen, waiting, like a metallic honor guard ready to activate at the slightest signal. Majestic. Relentless. Inhuman. They are beautiful in their coldness. Intimidating. Perfect. But he doesn't look at any of them. Not a single glance. Not a hint of hesitation. He passes through them like one walks through a memory too familiar to still fascinate. The suit doesn’t matter. Not this time. He isn’t here for spectacle, or showy power. He doesn’t want to impress, or buy time. He wants only one thing.

Efficiency. Extraction. The end.

His steps remain steady. His silhouette moves alone among the giants of metal. And in his wake, the air seems to vibrate with low tension, restrained anger, pain too vast to be named. The soldier is on the move. And what he’s about to do now… he’ll do it without flinching. His gaze is fixed. Frozen. With an almost inhuman intensity. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t deviate. He aims. His attention is a taut line between two points: himself, and the target. It’s not anger you see in his eyes. That would be too simple. Too mundane. No — it’s worse. It’s frozen resolve. A sharp calm like a scalpel's edge. Clinical determination, purged of raw emotion, as if every feeling had been distilled, compressed into a single objective: locate, neutralize, retrieve. At all costs.

The suit he’s come for… it’s not the one from interviews. Not the one for demos. Not the one that dazzles crowds or makes headlines. This one, he only brings out when someone has to fall. No flash. No light. No declaration. With a sharp gesture, he activates the control interface embedded in the platform. The floor lights intensify, blink once, then a metal ring slowly rises from the ground, encircling him with solemn gravity. Everything remains silent. Nothing overreacts. Everything is perfectly calibrated. Robotic arms unfold around him, in a mechanical choreography of military precision. They don’t tremble. They don’t hesitate. They take position, ready to interlock, to serve, to build the weapon.

— "Omega configuration."

His voice snaps. Dry. Dense. Like a hammer strike on glass. And instantly, the machines comply. Without delay. Without flaw. The first pieces of the suit lock around his legs, securing his joints, enclosing his muscles in layers of reinforced alloy. The boots anchor to his feet with a soft hiss, each plate sliding into place with a perfectly tuned metallic click. Then the chest modules rise, locking over his ribcage. The red and gold lines slowly take shape, forming a symmetrical, ruthless architecture. Nothing is superfluous. Everything is there to protect, to absorb, to strike. The metal climbs along his arms, embeds into his shoulders, clamps onto his back. A vengeful exoskeleton. A body of war. Every movement is fluid, exact. The machine knows his rhythm. It knows his silence. It recognizes this moment when Tony Stark is no longer joking. He lowers his head slightly. The helmet drops with a magnetic hiss. It seals with a muffled chhhk. Instantly, his vision turns red. The interface lights up. Sensors activate. Data streams appear. Code scrolls. Maps. Thermal signals. Local comms networks. Building schematics. Ballistic paths.

He’s inside. He’s ready.

— "J.A.R.V.I.S., send the flight plan."

— "Coordinates locked. Route optimized. Risks assessed."

A moment. Just one. A tenuous silence. Like a held breath. Then Jarvis’s voice, lower, almost hesitant. A soft note. A nearly human tone, as if trying to reach through the metal to something deeper.

— "Tony… you don’t have to do this alone."

Not a tactical suggestion. Not a precaution. An offering. An outstretched hand. But Tony doesn’t respond. Not yet. One beat. Just a suspended moment between question and answer. But it won’t come. Because he’s not. Not alone. Not really. It’s not solitude that lives inside him. It’s worse. It’s that weight, hanging on his chest like an anvil: responsibility. He feels responsible. And that kind of responsibility can’t be delegated. Can’t be shared. It must be borne. Endured. To the end. He’s not doing this because he’s alone. He’s doing it because he’s the one who must. Because he was there when it happened. Because he should have seen, understood, foreseen. And because he will never forgive himself if he arrives too late.

A metallic breath escapes his shoulders. Light, but precise. The thrusters arm with a restrained growl. Internal turbines hum softly, like a beast holding back its power before leaping. The entire platform tenses. A low vibration rises under his feet, echoing the energy condensed beneath his heels. The lights turn orange. The floor opens. Slowly. In segments. Like a mechanical wound revealing the hangar’s nuclear heart. The air grows denser. Warmer. Electrified. Stark bends his knees. His muscles instinctively adjust for the imminent thrust. And then, without hesitation, without countdown, without another word…

He lifts off the ground.

With a piercing roar, the suit tears through the air. Flames burst from his heels, searing the platform, and Tony’s body becomes a comet of metal and fire shooting through the open ceiling, soaring at blinding speed into the already paling night. The hunt has begun.

The sky races around him. A continuous stream, distorted by speed, slashed by incandescent trails. Every inch of the armor vibrates under the strain, every thruster hums with surgical precision. The wind slams into him, compressed, transformed into pure force that only the flight algorithms manage to contain. The city stretches out below. Gigantic. Vast. Insignificant. Skyscrapers blur past like mirages. Rooftops, streets, glowing points of light — all turn into abstraction. But he sees nothing. Not the glowing windows, not the crowded avenues, not the numbers blinking across his heads-up display. Not even the overlaid messages, trajectory readings, or secondary alerts. He sees only one red dot. One destination. One objective. And nothing else exists.

He thinks only of you.

Of your body, twisted under the blows. Of your features, contorted by pain. Of your breath, ragged, torn, like each inhale is a battle against agony. Of your face, bruised, sullied, pressed against a floor too cold, too dirty, too real. He sees the blood, the unnatural angle of your shoulder, the fear diluted in your half-closed eyes. He sees everything. Even what you tried to hide. He still hears that fucking scream. The one he never should’ve heard. The one he should’ve prevented, before it ever existed. A scream you can’t fake. A scream torn from you, raw, visceral. He heard it through the phone, compressed, muffled by your breath, crushed by the violence of the moment. But despite the static, despite the distance, he felt it. Like a blade to the heart. Like a shockwave that didn’t just hit him. It went straight through him.

And in his mind, that sound loops. Again. And again. And again. Louder than any explosion. More violent than a collapsing building. It’s not a memory. It’s a living burn. An active wound. He sees it all again. Every second. Every word. Every tone. That bastard’s voice.

Matthew.

Every syllable spat like poison. Every word sculpted to wound. To provoke. To leave a mark. Not on you — on him. It was all planned. Orchestrated. A performance. A slow, cold, painfully precise execution. Meant for one person: Tony Stark. To hit him. To show him how badly he failed. To push where it hurts most.

And it worked. Fuck, it worked.

He still feels how his throat closed. The exact moment his heart skipped a beat. The absolute void that swallowed him when he realized he was too late to stop it but maybe not too late to save you. That instant shift, when all logic shattered, replaced by one certainty. He will pay. Not for the humiliation. Not for the provocation. But for putting you in that state. For daring to lay a hand on you. And Stark, now, isn’t flying toward a hideout. He’s flying toward an execution. His heart is pounding too hard. It no longer syncs with the armor’s rhythm. It hammers against his ribcage like a primal reminder that, beneath all the metal, despite all the tech, he is still a body. A man. And that body is boiling. His fingers tighten inside the gauntlets. The joints, calibrated down to the micrometer, creak under the pressure. He clenches. Too hard. Pointlessly. As if the pain might return control to him. As if he’s clinging to the sensation of something real. The internal temperature climbs a notch. A brief alert flashes, notified by a beep that Jarvis cancels instantly. He knows. Even the tech feels that something is cracking. That the tension line has reached a critical threshold. The tactile sync grows more nervous, less fluid. Not from failure — from resonance. As if the suit itself were reacting to the rage boiling beneath the metal. As if it knew he’s on the verge of detonating.

But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t speak. He breathes. And he moves forward. Because rage — real rage the kind that doesn’t erupt but eats you alive, the kind that carves deep and anchors in silence, isn’t fire. It’s ice. A blade. A metallic tension that sharpens second by second. This is no longer about ransom. This is no longer an intervention. It’s not even a mission anymore. It’s personal. Because you… you’re not just some kid he hired. You’re not an intern, not a checkbox on some HR dashboard. You’re not a casting mistake he corrected in passing. You’re not one more name on a list of talent. You’re not a recruit. You’re that lost kid who showed up one morning with bags heavier than your shoulders, a voice too quiet, gestures too small. The one who looked at screens like they mattered more than the world. The one who barely spoke, but worked until you shook. Until you collapsed. Without ever complaining. Without ever asking for help. The one who clung to the work like it was the surface of a frozen lake. Just to keep from drowning. And that’s where it started.

Tony doesn’t know exactly when. When it slipped. When he stopped seeing you as an employee and started caring differently. Started checking if you’d eaten. Turning concern into jokes — but counting the times you said "not hungry." Setting rules. Break times. Making sure you got home. That you slept. That you didn’t vanish into the blind spots. Getting used to hearing you mutter when he worked too late. Paying attention. And now, he realizes it too late. This thing, this invisible thread, clumsy, imperfect, but real… it’s there. Damn it, it’s there. And now, you’re gone. And he’s going to cross fire, smash through every wall, burn everything down to find you. Because nothing else matters now. And that’s what’s eating him alive. Not guilt. Not passing doubt. No a slow burn, rooted deep in his chest. A slow poison, distilled with every heartbeat. Because that little idiot… you had a device. A fucking distress device. Not just any gadget. Not a toy.

A device he designed. Refined. Gave to you. Built in haste, but with care. Meant for this. To stop this. To block the worst. So he’d never have to hear screams like that. So he could get there before the blood spilled. And you didn’t even use it. Not a press. Not a signal. Nothing. You took it all. To the end. In silence. Like always. And that’s what drives him mad. The silence. That fucking habit of suffering quietly. As if it doesn’t count. As if your pain isn’t valid. As if your life isn’t worth protecting. As if pressing a button to ask for help… was already asking too much. As if he wouldn’t have come.

And now? Now you’re in the hands of a madman. A psycho acting out of vengeance, control, power hunger. A man with no limits, no brakes, who already crossed every line. Tony saw it. Heard it. He knows. Tortured. Broken. Gasping. The images come uninvited. Your face. Your features twisted in pain. That ragged breath, barely audible. The weight of your body giving out. The hard floor under your cheek. Blood seeping from a wound he can only imagine. And that look, more felt than seen, somewhere between fear and resignation.

Tony clenches his jaw. So hard his teeth slam together inside the helmet. The sound is dull, amplified by the metal echo. It vibrates through his temples. A muffled detonation ringing through his skull. He wants to scream. To hit something. To do anything. But he stays focused. Rage can’t come out. It’s compact. Controlled. Targeted.

The worst part? He still hears you. That murmur. Between gasps. That muffled breath, fragile, but so distinct. That tone. That voice he knows now. He recognized it instantly. There was no doubt. No room for illusion. He could’ve denied it. Lied to himself. Said it was a mistake. A coincidence. But no. He knew. He knew immediately. And from that moment, something inside him snapped. Not dramatically. No collapse. A clean fracture. Like an overtightened mechanism breaking in silence. Because now, it’s too late to argue. Too late to reason. Too late to call the cops. Too late for rules, procedures, delays.

Matthew is already dead. He doesn’t know it yet. He still breathes. Still thinks he’s in control. Thinks he’s running the show. But he’s not. He’s already finished. Erased. Condemned. Because Tony Stark heard that scream. And that scream changed everything. That scream signed Matthew’s death warrant. And he’s going to make him pay. Inch by inch. Breath by breath. Until he gets you back. Or burns the world down to drag you out of the dark.

When the Iron Man suit finally lands, it’s as if the whole world holds its breath.

A metallic breath explodes beneath the impact, followed by a dull rumble that cracks the already fractured concrete of the ground. The shock ripples through the foundations of the old industrial district, awakening the ghosts of rusted machines, worn-out beams, and gutted walls. Dust immediately rises in thick, greasy, lazy swirls, dancing around him for a moment before slowly settling, as if even it knows not to linger here. The air is saturated. Heavy. It reeks of rust, moldy wood, and decay embedded in the walls. It reeks of abandonment. And worse: expectation. The congealed oil on obsolete pipes reflects faint black gleams, almost organic, like fossilized blood. The ground creaks under his boots. All around him, the environment seems frozen. Trapped in a time that forgot how to die.

Icy wind rushes between the metal structures, howling through broken beams, whistling past shattered windows. It carries the cold of a soulless place — emptied, but not deserted. Not entirely. Around him is nothingness. A heavy, oppressive void. No sound, no light. Nothing lives here. Nothing breathes. Not even a rat. Not even a shadow. As if the rest of the world had the decency to look away. As if even the city itself knew that what was going to happen here… should not be seen. And in that thick silence, saturated with contained electricity, Tony remains still. His body in the suit doesn’t tremble. But everything in him is ready to strike. The HUD displays thermal readings, sound scans, parasitic electromagnetic signatures. Traces. Remnants. Leads.

He ignores them. He doesn’t need confirmation. He looks up. There. Right in front of him. The building. A block of blackened concrete, eaten away by time. It rises before him like a vertical coffin, planted in the ground. Its windows are empty sockets. Its crumbling walls seep with moisture and menace. It’s a carcass. A gaping maw. A lair. The kind of place where people are held. Erased. Buried. And deep inside, somewhere in there, he knows. You’re there. And Tony Stark came to get you.

The windows are shattered, slashed like screaming mouths frozen mid-silent howl. Shards of glass still dangle from some frames, claws of dead light ready to cut. The gutted openings let in a freezing wind that rustles the remains of forgotten curtains, faded, trembling like surrender flags. The concrete holds together only by habit. Cracked, eroded by seasons, cold, rain, and grime. By time. By indifference. Parts of the facade have collapsed in whole sheets, revealing the interior like a raw wound. Rusted beams jut from the gaping holes, still supporting broken, twisted staircases whose steps are gnawed by corrosion. A withered metal skeleton groaning under its own weight.

The scene is saturated with signs of dead life. Hastily scrawled graffiti, some grotesque, some terrifying, scream from the walls like echoes left by shadows. Split-open bags. Scattered trash. Abandoned syringes. A broken stroller, overturned. An old moldy couch under a porch. Traces of human passage, old, sad. But nothing lives here anymore. Everything reeks of neglect. Of misery. And something worse still: violence. That scent doesn’t lie. It seeps everywhere, even into the walls. A stagnant, invisible tension, but palpable. As if the very air had absorbed a memory too painful to vanish. An echo of blows. Of screams. Of fear.

Inside, it’s swallowed in thick, grimy darkness. No light. Just the blackness, mingled with dust, rot, and silence. But he doesn’t need light. Doesn’t need to see. His scanner activates instantly. The interface opens in a silent click, layering across his HUD. Schematics align, partial blueprints of the building take shape in 3D. Partial plans, modeled reconstructions from thermal scans, wave sweeps, mass detection. Heat sources appear. Faint. Distant. Unstable. And then, deep in that rusted steel maze, cracked concrete, and rotten silence… a thermal signature. Human. Residual. Nearly gone. A blurred point, nestled in a windowless room, behind thick walls. A trace. A breath.

Tony clenches his fists.

The sound is minimal. A quiet metallic creak, but full of tension. The gauntlets respond to the pressure, contouring his restrained rage, absorbing the shock. He doesn’t need confirmation. Doesn’t need to see more. Doesn’t need to wait. He knows. His instinct — that damn sixth sense he spent years mocking — screams through his body. It’s here. This rat hole he chose. This rotten theater for a filthy ransom. This stage for torture. A place not built to hold… but to break. To terrify. To harm. A bad choice. Tony approaches.

One step. Slow. Calculated. Methodical. Every movement is measured. The suit follows without fail, amplifies his stride, makes the ground tremble with each impact. Metal boots pound cracked concrete like war drums. A warning. A sentence. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t need to. Matthew’s time is already counted. His sensors scan blind spots. He identifies exits, access points, high ground. He’s already plotting firing lines, breach paths, fallback routes. He thinks like a weapon. Like a strike. Because he’s no longer just an angry man. He’s become a projectile. A terminal solution. A promise kept too late. And inside… someone is about to learn what it costs. To lay a hand on you.

He pushes the door with a sharp, decisive gesture. The metallic impact creates a brutal clang, and the battered frame wails in a piercing screech. The sound is long, grotesque, almost human. It slices the air like a cry ripped from a bottomless throat, the shriek of a grave forced open, or a coffin pried too late. The metal scrapes, shrieks, protests — but obeys. Before him, the hallway stretches. Long. Narrow. Strangled between two walls dripping with damp. The air is dense, fetid, soaked with stagnant water and ancient mold. A cold breath seeps from the walls, icy and clinging, sneaking into the suit’s seams as if to slow him, to warn him.

The walls are alive. Not with organisms, but rot. Dark mold clings to them, spreading in irregular patterns like necrotic veins. It crawls across the concrete, invades corners, slips into cracks. In places, the plaster has given way, reduced to gray dust. Beneath, twisted, rusted rebar protrudes — like broken bones, as if the building itself had been tortured, split open. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling, bare. Dirty. Its globe yellowed by time, its sickly light flickers intermittently. Suspended from a wire too long, too thin, it dances with every draft like a rope ready to snap. It blinks. Once. Twice. The yellow halo it casts wavers, bleeding against the walls. The shadows it throws stretch, distort, crawl along the ground. Shapes too long, too fluid, as if the walls themselves breathed beneath the dying light.

Tony doesn’t slow.

He doesn’t hesitate. His stride remains straight, steady, heavy. Each step echoes off the floor, amplified by the armor’s metal. Debris cracks underfoot: broken glass, plaster fragments, splinters of forgotten furniture. Every sound ricochets in the narrow hallway, trapped between the walls like a muffled volley of gunfire. But he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look around. He advances. Like a metronome. His eyes never leave the end of the hall, even as everything around seems to want to swallow him, smother him. He sees the corners, the ajar doors, the stains on the floor, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t deviate. He walks this hall like a trial. A purgatory. He knows hell waits ahead. He feels it.

And he’s ready to tear it open with his bare hands. Each step is a countdown. Each breath, a burning fuse. Each heartbeat in his chest, a war drum. He knows what he’ll find. Maybe not the details. Maybe not the form. But the essence. He knows the scent of blood is there, somewhere. That fear has left its trace. That pain has seeped into the walls. And he knows that you… you’re at the end. You’re there, in the dark, at the end of this sick corridor. Maybe unconscious. Maybe barely alive. But you’re there. And that’s enough. Because even if the entire world has to burn for him to find you,

Stark walks down that hall like a blade sliding into a wound. Slowly. Silently. Without flash, without unnecessary sound. He doesn’t strike. He infiltrates. He dissects. Every step is measured, controlled, charged with clinical precision. The weight of his body, perfectly distributed, flows with the suit’s supports. His boots barely graze the floor, but even that friction seems to vibrate through the air, taut with tension. Tension is everywhere. In his muscles, locked beneath the metal. In his jaw, clenched to the point of pain. In his nerves, on maximum alert. He’s taut as a bowstring. Like a weapon whose safety was disengaged long ago. Even his breathing is suspended. He hardly breathes. He’s sunk into a slowed rhythm, between apnea and absolute focus.

Then the smell hits him. Not softly. Not in waves. Brutally. A wall. An invisible punch to the chest. Heavy. Thick. A metallic stench clings to his throat, invades his nostrils like a warning. Blood. Not fresh. Dried. Hours old, maybe. Mixed with damp, with the building’s mold, with dust saturated with dead micro-organisms, with the stagnant rot that infests places where nothing lives anymore. The smell of a trap. The smell of pain. His stomach tightens. Not from fear. From rage. His heart doesn’t race. It slows. As if syncing to the place. He shifts into a deeper, duller, more dangerous frequency. His pulse beats like a drum ready to strike.

Above him, the bulb still swings — a pathetic relic of a once-functioning past. It crackles, flickers, sputters to life at intervals. Each pulse casts sickly light across cracked tiles, warped walls, and scattered remnants of a forgotten world. The shadows stretch, shrink, crawl along the walls like filthy hands. Even the walls seem to hold their breath. He steps forward again. One step. Then another. Every movement is fluid, silent, nearly unreal. His visor scans relentlessly. It overlays stacked data layers, displays thermal signatures, rough volume outlines, hidden masses behind walls. He examines blind spots. Gaps. Floor markings. Broken hinges, scuff marks on wood.

He doesn’t see Matthew yet. But he feels it.

Like a presence. A greasy vibration in the air. A low tension running beneath the walls like a rogue current. A sensation that cuts through him, visceral. It’s not intuition. It’s certainty.

He’s here. Somewhere.

And then he sees you.

You.

There’s no sound. No warning. No orchestral swell. Just that brutal, abrupt moment when the image slaps him in the face like a blow that nothing can soften. You're there. Not standing. Not sitting. Collapsed. Against the wall. No — not against. You’re melded into it. As if your body were trying to dissolve, to disappear. A trembling mass, dirty, slack with pain. No longer a person. No longer a boy. Just a heap of living, broken flesh. A dislocated silhouette in the dark. His brain takes a moment to understand what he’s seeing. This isn’t you. Not the you he knows. It’s something else. A ruined version. And the violence here isn’t hypothetical. It’s tattooed on you. Your arm is twisted.

Not bent. Twisted. At a monstrous, impossible angle. The elbow joint reversed. Bones displaced under stretched skin. Something that should only appear in accident reports. Not here. Not like this. Your shoulder has collapsed. Your hand, almost detached from the rest, barely trembles.

And your face... It takes Tony a second. Just one. But it lasts an eternity.

He doesn’t understand right away. He recognizes nothing. No features. No familiar contours. Just damage. Open wounds, horrible swelling, bruises stacked upon bruises. Your eyes — if they’re still there — are buried under hematomas. Your lips are split. Your right cheek is so swollen it distorts the entire shape of your skull. It’s a mosaic. A work of pure cruelty. And the blood… It’s still flowing. Not much. Not in spurts. In seepage. Slow trickles, like a steady leak. It slides down your temple. Your mouth. Your neck. It’s sticky. Matte. It ran, dried, and ran again. It’s on your throat. Your collarbone. Your chest. You’re soaked.

Not with sweat. With blood. With fear. With the filth of the floor. Your clothes are just rags now. Torn down to the skin. Deep tears are visible, laceration marks, fingerprints, nails, blows. Your hands are open. Literally. Cut. Your palms are cracked, marked by a desperate attempt to defend yourself. Your fingers are splayed as if caught in a frozen spasm. Your knees are red, shredded. Raw flesh peeks through peeled skin. And your back... He doesn’t even want to look. He can guess. He knows what he’ll find there. Marks. Burns. Blows. Traces of what no one should ever do to another human being. But he doesn’t look. Not yet. Because then... he sees it. Your chest.

It moves. Barely. But it moves. A breath. Weak. Jagged. Rough. A struggle with every motion. A breath that doesn’t really come out. A choked wheeze. But alive. You’re breathing. You’re there. Still there. And Tony stops cold.His entire body freezes. The armor locks with him, as if the machine itself understood. As if every fiber, every metal plate had turned to stone. Time collapses on him. A crushing weight. A shroud. His heart? It stops. It no longer beats. Just a void. An absence. A pulse. Heavy. Dry. In his temples. His throat. His stomach. What he feels has no name. It’s not fear. It’s no longer even anger. It’s a breaking point. A place in the soul where everything stops. Where everything is too much. Too much pain. Too much hate. Too much regret. Too late. Too far. He’s here. In front of you. And he can’t go back.

It’s a fracture. A rupture in everything he thought he could control. You’re alive. But at what cost? And somewhere, just a few meters away... Matthew is still breathing. But not for long. A cold shiver, sharp as a steel blade, climbs Stark’s spine. He doesn’t push it away. He lets it slide between his shoulder blades, slip under the metal like a warning that what he’s seeing isn’t an illusion, but raw, naked, implacable truth. Yet nothing on his face betrays this vertigo. Not a twitch, not a flinch, not even a blink. His rage, once explosive, has retracted into a clean, focused line. It’s no longer a storm. It’s a blade. Smooth, cold, sharp. A perfectly honed weapon, ready to strike the moment it’s needed. Not before.

His eyes stay locked on you, unblinking, unwavering. Every detail imprints itself in his mind like a photograph branded with hot iron: the grotesque position of your broken arms, the dark brown blood dried in rivulets on your chin, your neck, your chest; your skin, so pale beneath layers of grime and pain it looks almost like that of a corpse; the faint flutter of your chest, a fragile reminder that you haven’t crossed over yet. He sees it all. He doesn’t look away. And he will remember it. Until his last day. And yet, he doesn’t move right away. Everything in him is screaming. Every fiber, every muscle, every electrical impulse of the armor and his own body calls him to you, to rush, to drop to his knees, to check your pulse, your breath, to place his glove at your neck, to say your name. But he doesn’t give in. He is Tony Stark, yes. But here, now, he is also Iron Man. And Iron Man knows how to recognize a trap. Instinct needs no explanation. He feels that grimy vibration in the air, that invisible weight that warps the atmosphere around you, that intent still lingering, ready to pounce. He knows he’s not alone.

So he advances, but his way. Not slowly out of hesitation, but with control. One step. Then another. Controlled. Silent. The floor crunches beneath his boots, and even though the armor absorbs most sound, here, in this room saturated with shadows and stench, every movement rings out like a barely contained threat. The air is still. The walls seem to listen. The silence, tense, fills with static. He stops a few steps from you. Just close enough to see you breathe, to catch that tiny tremor in your ribcage, that breath that fights, clings, refuses to yield. Just far enough to strike, to raise his arm, to hit in half a second if something emerges. Because he knows: this is the moment Matthew is waiting for. The moment he thinks he can finish what he started. But he’s about to learn that this time, he’s not facing a wounded child. He’s facing Iron Man.

His eyes scan the room relentlessly. Every detail is absorbed, analyzed, memorized. The walls, covered in peeling paint, reveal patches of bare stone, gnawed away by damp. Mold streaks stretch up to the ceiling, which has collapsed in places, letting frayed wires dangle alongside crumbling fragments of plaster. Rusted pipes run along the walls like dead veins, slowly bleeding black water into the corners of the room. A distant drip echoes, irregular, distorted by reverb, like the heartbeat of a body already emptied of everything. The air is thick. Stagnant. It smells of oil, blood, mold, and abandonment. This isn’t really a place anymore. Not a living space, not a shelter. A dead place. Forgotten. A pocket outside of time, perfect for monsters to hide in.

And Stark knows it. It’s too quiet. The space is frozen in a dull anticipation. The smell is too sharp. The scene, too carefully placed. Nothing here suggests an accident. Everything has been calculated. And he hasn’t come to negotiate. He’s not here to understand. He’s not here to reach out. He’s here to end it.

So he speaks. Not loudly. Not shouting. His voice slices through the silence like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. Low. Slow. Sharp. It doesn’t tremble. It doesn’t seek to impress. It states. It targets. It’s the voice of someone who’s gone beyond fear. Who knows the war is no longer a risk. It’s happening. It’s here. Present. Inevitable.

— "That’s your big plan, Matthew?"

The words hang in the air. Clear. Sharp. And they cut. The silence that follows is even sharper. It relieves nothing. It stretches. It weighs. It presses on the nerves like a finger on an open wound. A silence with a taste. That of blood just before the blow. That of a held breath, of the instant suspended between lightning and thunder. A silence ready to rupture. And Stark is ready to tear through it. He kneels.

The suit exhales softly, like a restrained sigh, when Tony bends a knee to the ground. Metal meets filth, dust, and the invisible fragments of an abandoned world in an almost solemn hiss. It’s not a brusque gesture, nor heroic. It’s a humble movement. Precise. One knee placed in the grime of a ravaged sanctuary, a cathedral of pain frozen in time, where the slightest sound feels blasphemous. He places himself near you. Within reach of your voice. Within reach of your breath.

Above you, the light flickers. It trembles at irregular intervals, swaying like a sick pendulum. It doesn’t truly illuminate. It hesitates. As if it, too, refused to fully expose what it reveals. The scene seems unreal. Suspended. Out of the world.

Stark only sees you now. His eyes are on you. At last. Truly. He no longer sees you through the lens of worry or authority. He doesn’t see an employee in distress, nor that lost kid he tried to protect from afar without ever really getting involved. He doesn’t see a responsibility. He sees you. The body you’ve become. This collapsed, mutilated body, barely breathing. That breath, ragged, whistling, clinging to life like a flame battered by wind. The position in which you’ve fallen, curled in on yourself, speaks of an instinct stronger than thought: to hide, to disappear, to avoid another blow.

Tony doesn’t move. Not yet. A long moment suspended in a bubble of silence. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. Only his fist, slowly, curls. A controlled movement, silent, without tremor. A gloved hand, silently absorbing the rising tension, the seething rage, the refusal to accept what he sees. He observes you. He scans every visible patch of skin, every line of your battered face, every gap between the tatters of your torn clothing. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He wants to know. To understand. To see what you’ve endured. He’s ready for everything — except looking away. And what he discovers freezes him.

The recent wounds, he expected. He had imagined them, feared them. The swollen bruises, the black and violet hematomas covering your ribs, your stomach, your face. The clean or jagged cuts, open or dried. The blood clotted at the corner of your mouth. The split lip. The torn brow. Skin ruptured in places, stretched by swelling. All of that, he had seen coming. He had already heard the echo of the blows. Guessed the brutality.

But what he hadn’t expected… were the other marks.

The ones left by someone other than Matthew. The ones no sudden rage could justify. Scars. Fine. Old. Some nearly faded, white, invisible to the untrained eye. These delicate lines, precise, snake along your forearm, disappear under the fabric, reappear on your side. He recognizes some of them. He knows those clumsy cuts, those poorly closed edges. He’s seen them before. On other bodies. In other contexts. He passes a hand — slow, without touching — over your chest. A gesture both useless and necessary. An attempt to understand without harming, to see without interfering. Your top is torn. Not by accident. Deliberately. As if someone wanted to expose your fragility. As if your skin had become a trophy. A message. Your ribs are streaked with deep bruises, a blue so dark it looks black. These were blows delivered methodically. Not to kill. To mark. To leave a print. And beneath that recent violence, other, paler shadows appear. Older bruises, half-faded. Hidden scars. Belt marks. Traces of falls, perhaps. Of repeated gestures. Systematic ones. Not wild brutality.

Habit. Not battle scars. Survival marks. And Tony feels something fold inside him. Slowly. Painfully. As if the steel of his suit tightened, turned inward, crushing his bones, compressing his breath. He inhales, despite everything, but the air is too heavy, too foul. He feels cold sweat on his neck. The taste of metal on his tongue. This didn’t start yesterday. Not even this week. Not even this year. And the hatred rising now is no longer a fire. It’s a collapsed star. A core of pure fury. A point of no return.

— "Fuck..." he breathes.

The word slips from his lips in a hoarse whisper, no louder than a murmur. It doesn’t snap. It doesn’t strike. It falls. Heavy. Exhausted. It’s not an insult. It’s a prayer. An apology. A confession. A verdict. He could have said your name. He could have screamed. But he no longer has the strength to hide the collapse eating away at his gut. That single word carries it all: the guilt, the shame, the shock, the poorly disguised love, and that powerlessness he hates more than anything in the world. His eyes rise slowly to your face. He studies you, searches, hoping for a sign, a crack in that absence. You’re still unconscious. Or maybe just trapped in your own body. Your eyelids, heavy with pain, barely twitch. As if you’re fighting inside a nightmare too real. Your lips, cracked and swollen, part in an almost imperceptible motion. Sounds escape. Weak. Shapeless. Phantom syllables, swallowed by your raw throat, crushed by the shallow breath of survival.

You’re fighting.

Even now, half-dead, on your knees in the mud, in the blood, in the fear — you're still fighting. And Tony, he doesn’t understand how he missed it. How he could’ve overlooked it. He thought you were folding because you were fragile. That you were falling because you were weak. He discovers now that you never stopped getting back up. Again. And again. And again. And that by climbing back up alone, without help, without a hand to reach for, you broke. Slowly. Silently. From the inside out. Another anger rises in him. It doesn’t explode. It doesn’t burst like an uncontrollable flame. It’s slow. Deep. A fury that doesn’t make noise as it climbs but anchors in his gut, between his ribs, in every fiber of his being. It doesn’t burn. It freezes. A precise, surgical anger. Against Matthew, of course. Against the monster who did this to you, who turned your body into a map of pain. But not only.

Against himself. For not seeing it. For not wanting to see. For believing his rules, his demands, were enough. For forcing you to maintain an image when you were already falling apart. Against the system that let you slip through. Against the entire universe that abandoned you without so much as a flinch. Against the silence. Against the averted gazes. Against the excuses. Against everything that brought you here, barely breathing, bleeding in a place no one should know. And this anger — he keeps it. Not for the night. Not for the moment. He keeps it for what comes next. Because this isn’t a mission anymore. It’s not even vengeance. It’s an answer. A cold, precise, implacable answer.

His fingers spread. Slowly. As if releasing something too heavy to contain any longer. Then, just as slowly, his hand closes. Not in rage. Not to strike, nor to threaten. But as one seals a vow. As one locks a promise in the palm, sheltered from the world, where it can never fade. A discreet gesture, small, but charged with immense weight. He leans forward. Just a little. Just enough for his face to draw closer to yours, his features blending into the trembling light, his breath almost brushing your skin. He doesn’t try to wake you. He doesn’t disturb the fragile silence. Only to be closer. To speak for you, and only you. And in a breath that belongs only to him — hoarse, broken, dragged up from deep within — he whispers:

— "I’m sorry..."

It’s not a phrase said lightly. Not a line of circumstance. The words struggle to come out, each one bearing the weight of a collapsed world. They don’t shake. They crash. Heavy. Dense. Inevitable. And it’s not for the blows. Not for the broken bones, the bruises, the wounds, the blood. Not for the absence of rescue, the nights you waited without response, without a call, without presence. Not even for the hesitation or delays. Not for the wavering between compassion and distance. No. That’s not what he regrets. It’s something else. Deeper. More insidious.

He apologizes for what he didn’t see. For everything right in front of him that he ignored. For all the times he looked at you without really seeing you. For all the moments he should’ve understood, read between the silences, the tight gestures, the small changes in your voice, the blankness in your eyes. He’s sorry because he should’ve been the one to know. The one who reached out without being asked. He didn’t. And he knows it. You never told him. Not clearly. Not with words. But he doesn’t blame you. He blames himself. His inattention. His blindness. His comfort. Because he should have known. He should’ve seen past the surface, not settled for what you showed. He’s a genius, after all. He cracked codes, AI, government secrets. But he didn’t read you. You.

And now he sees you. Really sees you. You're here, lying down, broken, beaten, emptied to the bone. You carry the recent scars — but also all the old ones. The ones that tell something else. Another story. A life that didn’t begin tonight. Pain accumulated like strata in rock pressed too long. Blows someone made you believe were normal. Silences you were taught to keep. Constant adaptation, until survival became a reflex. Each scar is a sentence. Each bruise, a word from the story you carried alone, your throat tight, your body tense. And Tony is only just beginning to understand. Not everything. Never everything. But enough for the void to open beneath his feet. Enough for something to snap. For guilt to root itself where it will never leave. It’s not just Matthew. It’s not just this night. It’s everything that came before. This whole life you lived in the shadows, moving through with false smiles and stiff gestures. And he didn’t see. He didn’t know. He didn’t reach out.

He feels that truth in his fingers, in his tight throat, in the strange way his vision blurs without fully knowing why. And the anger returns. Deeper. Colder. But this time, aimed only at himself. Because he should’ve been there. But now that he is — now that he sees you — he swears, without even needing to say it, that it will never be too late again. Not a second time. Never. Stark doesn’t turn his head. Not right away. He stays still, locked in a perfectly controlled posture, his chest still bent over you, his body still tensed above yours like a shield of steel. But his eyes narrow, just slightly. An imperceptible detail to anyone else. An almost microscopic change, but revealing. He saw it. Or rather, he sensed it. Not a clear movement. Not a sharp sound. Just a shift. A faint vibration in the air. A thermal fluctuation, too precise to be natural. A flicker in the visual field, where there was nothing seconds ago.

The suit confirms it silently. A variation in air pressure. A subtle thermal footprint. A disturbance in the suspended particles. Something moved. Someone. In the shadows. He already knows. He doesn’t need confirmation. No detailed analysis. His instinct and the machine speak with the same voice. Matthew is here. He never left. He never fled. He waited. Coiled in the darkness like a knot of hate, hidden behind the ruined structures of the warehouse. A corner too dark for ordinary eyes. But Stark isn’t ordinary. His gaze adjusts. The armor’s sensors recalibrate instantly. Every shadow pixel becomes a map, a data set analyzed in real time. Shapes emerge, unfold, reveal themselves under thermal filters. He sees the silhouette. Humanoid. Crouched. Twisted in animal tension. Almost glued to the damp wall. Motionless — but falsely so. Ready. Ready to strike.

A predator. Or so he thinks. But to Tony, he’s not a beast. Not an opponent. He’s a parasite. A pest. A residue of misdirected hate. A mass of cowardice wrapped in a semblance of human flesh. Nothing more. And he waits. Stark sees it. He waits for the right moment. The right angle. He still hopes. One wrong step. One lapse. One second of distraction. He still thinks he can win. He thinks he can strike from behind. Finish what he started. Reduce further. Humiliate again. He believes this stage is his, that the dark protects him, that fear is on his side. But it’s not the same game anymore. And Stark is no longer the same man.

His fists clench. Slowly. Not in rage. In certainty. A cold pulse runs through the armor, from his shoulders to the thrusters in his forearms. Internal systems activate in silence. Energy builds. Not for show. Not to intimidate. But to strike. Coldly. Deliberately. And yet, he still doesn’t move. He doesn’t break the silence. He remains there, by your side, his body lowered like a barrier. You're still beneath him, fragile, barely breathing. And he stands, in that false calm, as the last thing between you and the one who still thinks he can reach you. But this time, there will be no negotiation. No ultimatum. No speech. This won’t be a warning. A chuckle. At first almost imperceptible. Just a scrape, a discordant note in the tense silence of the warehouse. Then it swells. Gains volume. Becomes a clearer sound — thick, mocking, like a bubble of bile rising to the surface. It comes from the shadows. From that cursed corner of the room that even the light avoids, as if refusing to reveal the truth. A place too dark for nothing to be there.

Stark doesn’t move. He doesn’t look up. Not yet. He stays crouched beside you, his body interposed between you and the thing that finally creeps out of its lair. A sentinel. A wall. A blade ready to cut. But his shoulders stiffen. His breath halts. His fingers stop trembling. He listens.

— “You really came in the suit, huh…”

The voice pierces the darkness like a carefully distilled poison. It has that dragging tone, unbearable, dripping with sarcastic self-confidence. It oozes obscene pleasure, filthy arrogance, sick amusement. The kind of voice that wounds before it strikes. It seeps into the air, hungry to exist, to dominate, to stain.

Matthew steps out of hiding—or what’s left of it. A shadow barely separated from the dark. Just enough for part of his face to appear under the sickly glow of a dangling bulb. Half a face. Half a smile. Wide. Frozen. Too tight. And his eyes… wild. Shining. Flickering with an unstable light, unable to fix on a single point for more than a few seconds.

— “For him? Seriously?”

He gestures vaguely toward your body on the floor, careless, almost lazy. As if pointing at a gutted trash bag. A carcass of no worth. His grimy fingers tremble slightly, but not from fear. From excitement.

— “The little favorite. The loser. The kid who can’t even breathe without collapsing.”

He takes a step. Slow. Pretentious. Nonchalant. His chest slightly puffed, arms wide, almost cruciform. A show-off stance. A provocation. As if offering himself for judgment, convinced he’ll walk away untouched. As if he’s challenging God himself amid the ruins of a world he helped destroy.

— “You sure brought a lot of gadgets to save a half-broken body, Stark.”

A higher, more nervous laugh escapes him. He doesn’t have full control. He thinks he does, but his words are speeding up. His breath quickens just a bit. A trace of madness laces every syllable.

— “You think all that’ll be enough? The thrusters, the scanners, the AI?”

He stops a few meters away. Far, but visible. Too visible. Grime clings to his clothes, his skin, his hyena grin. His face is gaunt, cheeks sunken, hands filthy. He looks like someone who lives in filth. And carries the arrogance of someone who thinks he’s untouchable. He believes he’s won. That he still holds the cards. That he has the upper hand.

— “You showed up like a superhero. Big savior. Like you actually care whether he’s still breathing.”

He tilts his head. A tiny movement. Almost childlike. Almost mocking. The gesture of a brat waiting for the adult to raise a hand just so he can laugh louder afterward.

Then, in a whisper, lower, crueler, slid in like a needle through skin:

— “Sad. To see you stoop to this.”

That’s when Stark moves. Not a sharp gesture. Not a threat. Just… he rises. Slowly. Very slowly. Each vertebra seems to align with inhuman precision. His back straightens. His shoulders lift. His gloved hands open slightly, fingers spreading, joints clicking faintly. A stance. A charge. But he doesn’t speak. Not yet.

Because Matthew goes on. Because he doesn’t understand. Because he still believes words protect. That taunts disarm. He still thinks Stark is here to play. That this restrained rage is only for show.

— “I mean, come on… look at him.”

He points again. His filthy index finger extended, trembling slightly. Not from fear. From ecstasy.

— “Take a good look at what he’s become. What I made him. And ask yourself what you were doing all that time.”

And that silence after — that void between two breaths… it’s the most dangerous moment. Because right now, Stark doesn’t see a man in front of him. He sees the outcome. The cause. The shadow behind the screams. And this time, he won’t look away. Matthew moves. It’s not hesitation. It’s a reflex. A sharp jolt of intention, of venom, of premeditation. His arm snaps in a motion too quick, too precise to be theatrical. He’s not trying to intimidate. He’s trying to end it. His hand plunges into his jacket with mechanical brutality, the rustle of fabric too sharp, a sound that splits the silence like a silent detonation. A glint of metal slides between his fingers. The black barrel of a gun emerges like a verdict. Cold. Final. He lifts his arm. But not toward Stark. Not at the looming figure of steel, red-lit, poised to strike. Not at the obvious threat, the armored man, the living weapon who could incinerate him with a single gesture.

No. He points it at you. You, still on the floor. You, vulnerable. Shattered. Barely breathing. You’re lying there, more ghost than flesh, your chest struggling to rise, your face drenched in blood—and that’s exactly why he aims at you. Because you can’t fight back. Because you can’t even look away.

The barrel aligns with clinical slowness. A descending trajectory, methodical, unbearable. A deliberate motion, thick with silence, cracking the air like an invisible slap. There’s no tremble of doubt, no hesitation. The quiver in his wrist isn’t fear—it’s anticipation. A sick pulse shooting through his arm, twitching his fingers on the trigger. Obscene pleasure in this total domination. His breath quickens. His eyes gleam. He savors. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Where he’s aiming. How he wants this to end. It’s no longer a threat. It’s an execution. A scene he’s imagined, rehearsed, craved. A twisted revenge. A show where he’s both executioner and audience. And in this suspended second, this instant where everything can tip, he becomes something worse than an attacker.

He becomes a man convinced he’s about to kill. Because he wants to. Because he can.

— “You got the money, then?”

The words fall like a dull-edged blade. No hesitation. No dramatic delivery. Just a string of words spat low, almost casual. Like a logistical question. His voice is dry, flat, stripped of emotion. Verbal mechanics, a routine, a question tossed out like checking an order. But the poison—it's in the posture. The gaze. The barely-contained tension in his outstretched arm.

The gun’s barrel stays still. Perfectly aligned. No longer shaking. Calm. Cold. A disturbing steadiness, almost clinical, like a surgeon ready to cut — except he’s not seeking to heal. He’s aiming to rupture. To erase.

He’s not really talking to Stark. Not really to you either. He’s speaking to himself, to feed the illusion of control he’s desperate to maintain even as he feels the ground slipping. He keeps playing, just long enough to delay the inevitable. To fabricate a role. The one who asks. The one who decides. The one who ends things. But there’s that barrel. Black. Smooth. A heavy promise stretched from his arm. He doesn’t move. He waits for an answer he knows is pointless. He knows there’ll be no deal. No negotiation. But he asks anyway. As if asking is enough to pretend he still owns the scene. As if it can mask the obvious rising in the air like an imminent detonation.

He’s ready to shoot. And it’s not the money he wants. It’s what comes next.

taglist🥂 @9thmystery @defronix @lailac13 @the-ultimate-librarian @ihatepaperwork if you want to be part of it here

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kayla Gogarty at MMFA:

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning. In a new study, Media Matters assessed the audience size of popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online. To do so, we gathered data on the number of followers, subscribers, and views across streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick) and social media platforms that are used to amplify and promote these shows (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok). Apple Podcasts does not publicly provide follower counts on its platform, so it was not included in the audience data. This analysis was based on 320 online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent. We found that right-leaning online shows dominate the ecosystem, with substantially larger audiences on both politics/news shows and supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined often platformed ideological content or guests.

Key findings:

We found 320 online shows — 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning — that were active in 2024 and covered news and politics and/or had related guests. These shows had at least 584.6 million total followers and subscribers.

We found substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms: Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.

Across platforms — YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows we assessed.

Comparatively, left-leaning online shows had nearly 104 million followers and subscribers across the eight platforms — nearly five times less.

Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million. The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, which had 21.1 million total followers and subscribers across platforms.

Our analysis — which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent — found over a third self-identify as nonpolitical, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly nonpolitical categories.

Out of 320 online shows, right-leaning programs categorized as comedy — 15 shows in all — had 117.5 million followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all programs we assessed. This category included The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and Full Send Podcast.

Right-leaning shows accounted for two-thirds of the total YouTube views on videos from channels affiliated with the shows we assessed — 65 billion views in total. Comparatively, left-leaning online shows totaled 31.5 billion total views.

Right-leaning shows use Rumble to expand their audience — gaining millions of subscribers and billions of views for their content.

Podcasts, online shows, and streamers are increasingly popular and influential

The 2024 presidential election has been dubbed the “podcast election” — in part because President Donald Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and their vice presidential picks made various appearances on podcasts and online shows as candidates.At Trump’s election victory party on November 5, UFC President Dana White praised several podcasters for their role in helping to get Trump elected, saying: “I want to thank the boys Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin' with the Boys. And last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.” Podcasts and online shows have become more popular and trusted news sources. The number of people listening to podcasts monthly has reportedly more than doubled since 2016. According to a 2023 Pew Research study, 87% of people who hear news discussed on podcasts said they expect it to be mostly accurate and 31% said they trust podcasts more than other news sources. In August 2024 — just a few months before Election Day — Pew found that about 1 in 5 Americans said they regularly get news from influencers on social media. The weekly reach of large online shows is also reportedly better than that of many cable networks. With Americans increasingly getting their news from these sources, they played a significant role in the 2024 election. By appearing on these shows ahead of the 2024 election, Trump reached an audience of 23.5 million American adults in an average week — compared to Harris’ 6.4 million — according to Edison Podcast Metrics. Journalists have started to highlight the asymmetry of the online media ecosystem. Bloomberg watched and analyzed over 2,000 videos — nearly 1,300 hours of footage — from nine prominent YouTubers, including Adin Ross, Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Theo Von, and Patrick Bet-David, and found that “above all, the broadcasters described American men as victims of a Democratic campaign to strip them of their power,” though “none of the broadcasters style themselves as political pundits.”

Nine of the 10 online shows from our study with the largest total following across platforms were right-leaning, accounting for at least 197 million total followers and subscribers. These are the online shows of:

Joe Rogan: 39.9 million

Ben Shapiro: 25 million

Jordan Peterson: 23 million

Russell Brand: 22.5 million

Theo Von: 22.3 million

Charlie Kirk: 18.6 million

Nelk Boys’ Full Send Podcast: 16.7 million

Candace Owens: 15 million

Dr. Phil: 14.2 million

The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, with over 21.1 million total followers and subscribers. Of these most-followed right-leaning online shows, only 4 are categorized on Apple Podcasts as news and politics, while Rogan, Von, and Full Send are characterized as comedy, Peterson as education, and Dr. Phil as society and culture.

[...]

Of the 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning online shows that covered news and politics or hosted related guests, 80 of the right-leaning online shows (42%) are categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, or other supposedly nonpolitical topics. In fact, 72% of the 111 supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined had an ideological bent were right-leaning. Moreover, these right-leaning shows span a wider variety of categories, self-identifying by subjects such as business, comedy, gaming, education, entertainment, religion and spirituality, society and culture, sports, wellness/health, and technology. Meanwhile, left-leaning shows that are not explicitly identified as news and politics-related mostly self-identify as comedy, entertainment, or society and culture programs. The disparity in total followers and subscribers across platforms of right-leaning and left-leaning online shows in these categories was substantial. Right-leaning online shows categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, and other supposedly nonpolitical topics had at least 243.1 million total followers and subscribers — more than the 237.5 million for right-leaning online shows categorized as news and politics-related. It’s also more than five times the 44 million followers and subscribers for left-leaning shows not identified as political, and more than four times the 60 million of left-leaning shows categorized as news and politics-related. The 15 right-leaning online comedy shows featured in Media Matters’ analysis — including The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, Full Send Podcast, Impaulsive, AwakenWithJP, Kill Tony, Flagrant, The Roseanne Barr Podcast, and The Tim Dillon Show — had more than 117.5 million total followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all 320 right- and left-leaning shows.

Media Matters For America has a report on the right-wing dominance of the online media ecosystem that has its tentacles into supposedly non-political spaces, such as sports and comedy shows like The Joe Rogan Experience, PBD Podcast by Patrick Bet-David, Kill Tony by Tony Hinchcliffe, and This Past Weekend by Theo Von.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The "Israel" X account tweeted on Tuesday night what it said was evidence of PIJ culpability in the attack, saying that “from the analysis of the operational systems of the IDF, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit”. However, the original version of the post included a video of rockets fired from the vicinity of Gaza City. The video was later deleted by the account, while analysts noted that the first public mentions of the bombing were at 7.20pm local time, whereas the video shared by Israel as evidence was time-stamped at between 7.59 and 8pm local time. That same account shared audio on Wednesday from the Israeli army claiming to be a conversation between Hamas operatives, in which they discuss the destruction of the hospital and pin it on PIJ. But Muhammad Shehada, a Gaza-based civil rights activist who has reported on Hamas for a decade, posted that the quote had been mistranslated from "they're saying" to "we're saying". "He's describing a rumour, not evidence," Shehada wrote, before going on to list other reasons for believing the audio was part of a campaign of misinformation. Alex Thomson, a correspondent for Channel 4 News, said "several experts" had told him the "audio tape of 'Hamas' operatives talking about the missile malfunction is a fake. They say the tone, syntax, accent and idiom are absurd." "They shot it from the cemetary behind the hospital," one of them can be heard saying. Francesco Sebregondi, an architect and researcher currently with the investigative NGO Index, told Middle East Eye that Israel was keen to provide material quickly for analysts to pin their conclusions on. "By quickly providing a number of poorly substantiated 'evidence' in the form of, for example, drone footage of the site, the Israeli army may also be counting on the eagerness of some Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) actors to use any image/material/data to quickly publish new content, or 'analysis' and thereby more or less directly support its version of the events," he said.

[evidence-based-activism]

Men Underestimate and Women Overestimate Their Own Sexual Violence

Time for an excellent new (2024) article "Gender Differences in Sexual Violence Perpetration Behaviors and Validity of Perpetration Reports: A Mixed-Method Study".

What this study did:

This study asked 23 men and 31 women to "think out loud while privately completing [the Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Perpetration (SES-SFP) survey] and to describe (typed response) behaviors that they reported having engaged in on the SES". The researchers asked anyone who "reported no such behavior ... to describe any similar behaviors they may have engaged in". They then analyzed differences in the quantitative responses (numerical values on the SES) and the qualitative responses (written descriptions and think-aloud audio).

What this study found (broad strokes):

Men’s sexual violence (SV) perpetration was more frequent and severe than women’s

Men’s verbal coercion was often harsher in tone and men more often than women used physical force (including in events only reported as verbal coercion on the SES)

Women often reported that their response to a refusal was not intended to pressure their partner or obtain the sexual activity*

Two women also mistakenly reported experiences of their own victimization or compliance (giving in to unwanted sex) on SES perpetration items, which inflated women’s SV perpetration rate

Quantitative measurement can miss important qualitative differences in women and men’s behaviors and may underestimate men’s and overestimate women’s SV perpetration

*This phrasing is poor (in my opinion) the authors are emphasizing genuine differences in men and women's reported behavior for ambiguous situations (not just their internal intent). Specifically, women would endorse responses for behaviors that (most) people would not actually consider a form of sexual violence. For example, women often indicated that the behaviors they were reporting were all pre-refusal (i.e., the women stopped and respected when their partner said no/told them to stop). Other "seducing" behaviors (e.g., kissing/touching) were also reported by women because their partner ultimately refused. Men did not report these types of behaviors, which the authors suggest is possibly because women may be more likely to remember experiences where they wanted to engage in sex with someone who did not because this violates social norms. It's also possible that men are more likely to consider these behaviors acceptable provided they stop when refused. (Ironically this suggests that the anti-feminist hyperbole that people will start recording "normal sexual interactions" as violence ... has only affected women.)

Lots more details below the cut (I use a mix of - unmarked - quotes and paraphrasing):

Quantitative data

The overall prevalence of sexual perpetration of significantly inflated due to intentional over-sampling of likely perpetrators (particularly female perpetrators). This is reasonable because the authors are interested in examining differences among self-reported perpetrators, not in establishing incidence/prevalence rates.

Even without taking the qualitative aspects into consideration (i.e., looking only at the quantitative data), men reporting SV perpetration reported more frequent offenses than women (re-offended more often). Men were also more likely to report more severe acts of violence (per the original tactic-act, the tactic specific, and sexual act specific continua).

Differences in severity identified via qualitative analysis

Men’s verbal coercion was more often stronger; more deceptive, persistent, or intimidating; or otherwise harsher in tone (e.g., "She kept refusing to do anything with me. I remember saying to her “just cause you’re on your period doesn’t mean I can’t get head.” I then remember repeating my intentions with her and almost gaslighting her and making her feel that she must not love me."). Proportionally more men described continually asking or persisting after repeated refusals, getting angry, telling lies, making false promises, and trying to make their partner feel guilty.

Women’s verbal coercion was predominantly expressing disappointment or pouting after a single refusal (e.g., “I got upset and said whatever and rolled over the opposite way”)

Also a difference in intent that could only be identified in the qualitative data. 35% of women who perpetrated explicitly said they had not intended to pressure their partner, change their partner’s mind, or obtain the sexual activity after their partner refused (e.g., "I respected him not trying to do anything further, though, and did not attempt anything further."). No men explicitly said they had not intended to pressure their partner or obtain the sexual activity and [men] more often than women explicitly said that they had intended to (e.g., "I think it was one time where I just kept pressuring . . . Didn’t happen, but the pressure was there, that’s for sure. I definitely asked more than a couple times.")

A few of women’s SV perpetration behaviors appeared more like attempts to advocate for equity in their own sexual pleasure or to stick up for themselves in response to a partner’s coercion (e.g., "I really love receiving oral sex. But sometimes my partner ignores that and directly goes to the penetration. So, I stop him and make him do it because I also feel like being properly aroused to get a better sexual experience.")

False negatives

Some participants that did not mark any of the perpetration items still described similar experiences. Most were not coercive (e.g., asking and “respecting” a refusal, clarifying an unclear refusal) but a couple were clear false negatives. There appears to be an issue with some behaviors not clearly fitting into any of the described categories (e.g., Even the physical force SES items refer only to more extreme force (holding down, pinning arms, having a weapon).)

There were many more cases where a less severe offense was marked (i.e., coded as a true positive for perpetration but for incorrect offense in severity analysis). Specifically, men reported only verbal coercion but then described physical behaviors, so the tactic report was incorrect or incomplete (e.g., "We were experimenting with different things and I did not necessarily ask for their consent before putting my finger in their butt." was coded by one man as verbal coercion).

False negative may have occurred, in part, because behaviors that were themselves no different than those performed in consensual sex were not adequately captured. This is a problem given that previous qualitative research has also found that initiating or going ahead with penetration without asking or following a refusal is a common SV perpetration behavior used by men (i.e., this type of behavior may be recorded as either a false negative or a less severe offense in quantitative scales).

When women reported verbal coercion only, but then described initiating sexual acts without asking, they almost always initiated non-penetrative sexual acts in contrast to men who more often described penetrative sexual acts without asking.

The SES may underestimate use of physical force and, especially, men’s rape and attempted rape.

False positives

Some participants reported perpetration on the SES that their description showed was not forceful, coercive, or engaged in without consent or following a refusal. Men explained that they did not engage in the behavior, misread or misinterpreted the SES question, or clicked the wrong response. Some women reported these same problems, but two "were reports of victimization or giving in to unwanted sex" (i.e., mistakenly reported victimization as perpetration).

Notably, three out of the four men with false positives reported other instances of SV perpetration on the SES whereas two of the four women with false positives did not report other perpetration and, therefore, inflated women’s perpetration rate.

Taken together, our analysis of false negatives and false positives suggests that the SES likely underestimates men’s SV perpetration and overestimates women’s perpetration.

This doesn't even account for instances reporting no intent to perpetrate (as described above). But the fact that many women reported no intent may further support the conclusion that women overreport or are more likely to remember and report because their coercion violates social expectations

Verbalized thought processes

In general, most participants appeared to understand and interpret the SES as intended

But there was evidence that the distinction between attempted and completed acts on the SES may be unclear for some respondents (e.g, one woman said "I also don’t understand what they mean by “tried.” Like does this mean that . . . You simply spoke to them, and they said no? Does this mean that you were engaged in an act and they pushed you off? Or does this mean that something disrupted you? So, this question doesn’t seem very clear to me.")

Second, participants used different items on the SES to report having used a specific category of tactic that is not mentioned in the measure. For example, some participants described kissing and sexually touching their partner without asking to try to arouse them and reported this as verbal tactics to obtain non-penetrative sexual contact. This may have underestimated attempted and completed sexual coercion (because the intent was to engage in penetrative sex). It may also have overestimated non-consensual non-penetrative sexual contact category (the most frequent category for female offenders) since research also finds that partners often use nonverbal cues including kissing and touching to communicate about sexual interest.

There was also confusion about the meaning of “getting angry” or "showing displeasure". Some participants (particularly women) indicated these could refer to internal feeling as opposed to external expression or be a “normal human reaction to . . . feeling rejection” that does not necessarily include a purposeful attempt to manipulate.

Other problems: (1) confusion on if intoxication only applied to alcohol, (2) too many tactics listed in a single question resulting in confusion, (3) participant frequency estimates were rough estimates likely contributing to a significant underestimation problem, (4) participants wouldn't endorse items that specified "without consent" even if they later described coercive behaviors suggesting different phrasing may be needed, (5) participants reported shock at the severity of the tactics asked about, which may indicate SV is not normalized among non-perpetrators or may indicate that less severe tactics are not being captured

Concerning (4) above: Other research indicates that while conceptually narrower, asking about behaviors done after someone resisted or indicated “no” (i.e., post-refusal persistence) results in higher rates of self-reported SV perpetration than asking about behaviors done without consent or when the other person did not want to.

Citation: Jeffrey, Nicole K., and Charlene Y. Senn. “Gender Differences in Sexual Violence Perpetration Behaviors and Validity of Perpetration Reports: A Mixed-Method Study.” The Journal of Sex Research, Feb. 2024, pp. 1–16. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2322591.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Germa's Ancestors

(+ Shandora connection?)

This is a kind of long theory post. I feel like at some point it would make more sense to narrate this as audio/video, because I think people don't like walls of text.

Anyway, bear with me for now, this is a long post.

I want to begin by analysing this scene:

To my knowledge, the phrase 無念の魂 is very specifically only applicable to the souls of the dead, and you can't use it to say souls/spirit in a euphemistic sense. E.g "put my soul into my work", or something like "the spirit of the age". I did my best to check various examples of usage, and far as I can find it really just means dead people.

In that case, then the dialogue about 300 years in the raw would mean "To think that I entrusted you with 300 years' worth of my kingdom's regretful souls".

"Regretful souls" is, as it says, the souls of people who died with a lot of regrets or resentment. It's quite a different sense from "longing".

Also another thing, he says 合わせる顔もない about the dead. This isn't "disgracing their memory". This is "I'm so ashamed (of myself/my failure) that I cannot face them", hence the "I despise myself" dialogue that comes after. It didn't really specify a word for "direct ancestor" so I assume he meant all people of Germa of the past.

So... this could be either/or, but if failing to restore Germa = regrets, and supposedly people there have been dying in regret for 300 years, then it sounds like wanting to restore Germa was the people's dream ever since their destruction.

Though, that is still open to interpretation. It doesn't have to mean "reconquering North Blue" really was the goal that was passed down through generations. Maybe actually the ancestors just wanted to have some land again, but over the years that goal becomes corrupted and twisted.

Or all of that was just crazy talk and the ancestors never actually wanted this. Who knows?

(I do apologise to anyone who really don't like Judge for putting this stuff on your dash, but he's kind of the only one who ever actually said anything substantial about Germa history, and for analysis purposes he has to be in there)

Also a little conspiratorial bent.

The dialogue text said that the souls cannot return to their homeland, it strongly implies the land is just completely obliterated. It's similar to how the Shandians said that their ancestors no longer has a place to return after the sacred trees were cut down.

Germa, or at the very least Judge, has a similar attitude towards the ancestors as the Shandians. Perhaps not quite to the point of worshipping them as gods, but Judge view the past dead of Germa with deep respect.

I feel like it's hinted that "Moon = high technology", as shown by the robots on the moon that Enel saw in the cover story. I've made theories before speculating that Germa is thematically connected to the moon, but maybe they actually literally are related to the moon via one of the moon tribes that descended to the Earth.

I'm not sure how canon it is, but one of the Data Books had said that Skypieans don't actually have wings. Their wings are just costume/decoration.

Assuming this is real (Data Books and Vivre Cards are sometimes wrong), are there humans in the world who are actually descendants of Skypieans? After all if they literally have no wings, then they would look no different from regular humans. Skypieans didn't really have an obvious strong ancestral worship like the Shandians, but perhaps there is some shared culture that we don't know.

That, or possibly somehow the Shandians' wings are also fake. In the moon murals you can see that the Birkans' wings are differently-shaped from the other two. If the Skypiean wing is fake, who's to say that the Shandian one isn't?

Also, an interesting thing is that the Shandian ancestor seems to be the one making the robots, while the Birkan is either observing or giving instructions. So the Shandian ancestor is at least some form of engineer. Curious.

On that note, the people of Wano also deeply respect their ancestors, as real Japanese people do. They have curious Princess Kaguya hints, as well as strong prevalence of moon symbols all over.

As I noted in my analysis of honorifics, Skypieans, Wano, and Germa all share the 上 honorific usage. This is an unusual honorific that no other kingdoms in the world seem to use. Aside from the above 3, only the merfolk royalty and the Tenryuubito use them.

It could be that it's simply "archaic language" even in the One Piece universe, and it just fell out of use in most of the kingdoms. It still makes me wonder if there are actually a lot of humans who have blood ties to the moon tribes that isn't revealed yet as well.

I've also previously mentioned that young Judge has a "Kabuki face" that reminds me of Kin'emon, but I didn't consider that Kalgara also kind of looks like that too. It might just be design coincidence, but maybe it actually means something, I don't know.

[jcmarchi]

Arsham Ghahramani, PhD, Co-founder and CEO of Ribbon – Interview Series

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/arsham-ghahramani-phd-co-founder-and-ceo-of-ribbon-interview-series/

Arsham Ghahramani, PhD, Co-founder and CEO of Ribbon – Interview Series

Arsham Ghahramani, PhD, is the co-founder and CEO of Ribbon. Based in Toronto and originally from the UK, Ghahramani has a background in both artificial intelligence and biology. His professional experience spans a range of domains, including high-frequency trading, recruitment, and biomedical research.

Ghahramani began working in the field of AI around 2014. He completed his PhD at The Francis Crick Institute, where he applied early forms of generative AI to study cancer gene regulation—long before the term “generative AI” entered mainstream use.

He is currently leading Ribbon, a technology company focused on dramatically accelerating the hiring process. Ribbon has raised over $8 million in funding, supported over 200,000 job seekers, and continues to grow its team. The platform aims to make hiring 100x faster by combining AI and automation to streamline recruitment workflows.

Let’s start at the beginning — what inspired you to found Ribbon, and what was the “aha” moment that made you realize hiring was broken?

I met my co-founder Dave Vu while we were both at Ezra–he was Head of People & Talent, and I was Head of Machine Learning. As we rapidly scaled my team, we constantly felt the pressure to higher quickly, yet we lacked the right tools to streamline the process. I was early to AI (I completed my PhD in 2014, long before AI became mainstream), and I had an early understanding of the impacts of AI on hiring. I saw firsthand the inefficiencies and challenges in traditional recruitment and knew there had to be a better way. That realization led us to create Ribbon.

You’ve worked in machine learning roles at Amazon, Ezra, and even in algorithmic trading. How did that background shape the way you approached building Ribbon?

At Ezra, I worked on AI health tech, where the stakes couldn’t be higher–if an AI system is biased, it can be a matter of life or death. We spent a lot of time and energy making sure that our AI was unbiased, as well as developing methods to detect and mitigate bias. I brought over those techniques to Ribbon, where we use these techniques to monitor and reduce bias in our AI interviewer, ultimately creating a more equitable hiring process.

How did your experience as a candidate and hiring manager influence the product decisions you made early on?

Finding a job is a grueling process for junior candidates. I remember, not too long ago, being a junior candidate applying to many jobs. It’s only become harder since then. At Ribbon, we have deep empathy for job seekers. Our Voice AI is often the first point of contact between a company and a candidate, so we work hard to make this experience positive and rewarding. One of the ways we do that is by ensuring candidates chat with the same AI throughout the entire hiring process. This consistency helps build trust and comfort—unlike traditional processes where candidates are passed between multiple people, our AI provides a steady, familiar presence that helps candidates feel more at ease as they move through interviews and assessments.

Ribbon’s AI conducts interviews that feel more human than scripted bots. Tell us more about Ribbon’s adaptive interview flow. What kind of real-time understanding is happening behind the scenes?

We have built five in-house machine learning models and combined them with four publicly available models to create the Ribbon interview experience. Behind the scenes, we are constantly evaluating the conversation and combining this with context from the company, careers pages, public profiles, resumes, and more. All of this information comes together to create a seamless interview experience. The reason we combine so much information is that we want to give the candidate an experience as close to a human recruiter as possible.

You highlight that five minutes of voice can match an hour of written input. What kind of signal are you capturing in that audio data, and how is it analyzed?

People generally speak quite fast! Most job application processes are very tedious, tasking you with filling out many different forms and multiple-choice questions. We’ve found that 5 minutes of natural conversation equates to around 25 multiple-choice questions. The information density of voice conversation is hard to beat. On top of that, we are collecting other factors, such as language proficiency and communication skills.

Ribbon also acts as an AI-powered scribe with auto-summaries and scoring. What role does interpretability play in making this data useful—and fair—for recruiters?

Interpretability is at the core of Ribbon’s approach. Every score and analysis we generate is always tied back to its source, making our AI deeply transparent.

For example, when we score a candidate on their skills, we’re referencing two things:

The original job requirements and

The exact moment in the interview that the candidate mentioned a skill.

We believe that the interpretability of AI systems is deeply important because, at the end of the day, we are helping companies make decisions, and companies like to make decisions based on concrete data. Something we believe is critical for both fairness and trust in AI-driven hiring.

Bias in AI hiring systems is a big concern. How is Ribbon designed to minimize or mitigate bias while still surfacing top candidates?

Bias is a critical issue in AI hiring, and we take it very seriously at Ribbon. We’ve built our AI interviewer to assess candidates based on measurable skills and competencies, reducing the subjectivity that often introduces bias. We regularly audit our AI systems for fairness, utilize diverse and balanced datasets, and integrate human oversight to catch and correct potential biases. Our commitment is to surface the best candidates fairly, ensuring equitable hiring decisions.

Candidates can interview anytime, even at 2 AM. How important is flexibility in democratizing access to jobs, especially for underserved communities?

Flexibility is key to democratizing job access. Ribbon’s always-on interviewing allows candidates to participate at any time convenient for them, breaking down traditional barriers such as conflicting schedules or limited availability, which is especially beneficial for working parents and those with non-traditional hours. In fact, 25% of Ribbon interviews happen between 11 pm and 2 am local time.

This is especially crucial for underserved communities, where job seekers often face additional constraints. By enabling round-the-clock access, Ribbon helps ensure everyone has a fair chance to showcase their skills and secure employment opportunities.

Ribbon isn’t just about hiring—it’s about reducing friction between people and opportunities. What does that future look like?

At Ribbon, our vision extends beyond efficient hiring; we want to remove friction between individuals and the opportunities they’re suited for. We foresee a future where technology seamlessly connects talent with roles that align perfectly with their abilities and ambitions, regardless of their background or network. By reducing friction in career mobility, we enable employees to grow, develop, and find fulfilling opportunities without unnecessary barriers. Faster internal mobility, lower turnover, and ultimately better outcomes for both individuals and companies.

How do you see AI transforming the hiring process and broader job market over the next five years?

AI will profoundly reshape hiring and the broader job market in the next five years. We expect AI-driven automation to streamline repetitive tasks, freeing recruiters to focus on deeper candidate interactions and strategic hiring decisions. AI will also enhance the precision of matching candidates to roles, accelerating hiring timelines and improving candidate experiences. However, to realize these benefits fully, the industry must prioritize transparency, fairness, and ethical considerations, ensuring that AI becomes a trusted tool that creates a more equitable employment landscape.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Ribbon.