#Databases in AWS course

[cloudolus]

Amazon RDS Simplifies Database Management in Just 5 Minutes a Day!

[chadobi]

Bayverse TMNT Boys React to Reader’s Specific Talent (Headcanons)

Leonardo – Reader is a talented calligrapher and traditional artist

•Leo spots your sketchpad one day and flips it open expecting doodles… only to find perfectly executed calligraphy and serene ink drawings of Japanese landscapes, spiritual symbols, and even his katana.

•He’s quiet for a moment, flipping pages. “You drew these?”

•“It’s meditative,” you say, handing him a brush. “Want to try?”

•He’s reluctant, but soon you’re teaching him how to hold the brush, how to let his breathing guide the strokes.

•It becomes a bonding ritual: silent, focused time together with tea and ink.

•You even start writing him notes in delicate calligraphy. He saves every single one.

•On your birthday, he gives you a blank scroll. “Your art brings me peace. I figured… maybe you’d share it with me.”

Raphael – Reader is an amateur boxer who trains for fun

•You two are sparring in the dojo and Raph’s holding back — until you duck, twist, and land a perfect shot to his side (with love, of course).

•“Holy hell,” he grunts, grinning wide. “Where’d you learn that?”

•”Boxing gym. Did it for confidence. Didn’t think I’d need it to fight a mutant turtle boyfriend.”

•He’s impressed, like genuinely hyped. It’s not about strength — it’s your footwork, your fire, your control.

•You start training together. It turns into flirt-sparring: punches, banter, the occasional kiss mid-round.

•He brags about you to everyone. “My girl? She could drop you.”

•When you knock out a would-be mugger one night with a clean jab, Raph is so proud he forgets to throw a punch himself.

Donatello – Reader is a speed reader with a photographic memory

•He hands you a blueprint to get your opinion, expecting to explain every detail… but you just skim it and respond with a perfect breakdown.

•He blinks. “Wait… did you just memorize that whole thing?”

•“Yeah? I’ve always had a weird memory for stuff like this.”

•You casually reveal that you can quote entire books, recite news articles, or remember the order of a deck of cards after glancing at it.

•He’s fascinated. He starts testing you — hands you technical documents just to see if you can do it. You always can.

•You become his research buddy. You read things ten times faster and summarize like a pro.

•“You’re like… my living database,” he says in awe.

Michelangelo – Reader is a skilled dancer

•One night you’re goofing off while music plays, and you suddenly drop into a freestyle routine — clean footwork, isolations, body rolls that are way too smooth.

•Mikey’s jaw hits the floor. “WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT???”

•He jumps in immediately, turning it into a dance battle that ends in both of you panting, laughing, and collapsing into a tangled mess on the floor.

•From that point on, dance-offs are your love language.

•He starts choreographing silly couple dances for TikTok (even if you don’t post them), and begs you to teach him your slickest moves.

•You make him playlists, he makes you custom LED sneakers.

•”You’re like a human rhythm goddess,” he says. “And lucky for me, I’m your #1 backup dancer.”

[starqueensthings]

We need to talk about Echo (and by talk I mean screm). S3 E13 + 14 Spoilers!

FRIENDS, I'M GOING TO EXPLODE. I need to talk about Echo for a minute. We need to talk about Echo for a minute,  because he has spent the last two episodes in the absolute thralls of complete and total danger, and I personally don't feel like there's been enough of a celebratory uproar for me to be satisfied with the level of appreciation and love that man deserves. (Remember when Hunter ran face first into a colossal exhaust pipe and we all collectively lost our minds because it was so impressive and so sexy? Remember when Tech drove a speeder really fast through a tunnel and we all fainted? I'M A TECH GIRLY. IT WAS ME! I FAINTED!!) but, Y'ALL, Echo deserves that right now!! And for all eternity!!! Because he is wholly submurged in the harrowing potential of torture and execution, and he didn't even bat an eye to put himself there. My awe of him is all-consuming, so please forgive me if this rant reads as nothing but incoherent screaming. 

Echo haters (first of all, we can't be friends....) come on this journey with me! Let's back pedal to the beginning of the last episode (13). He stole an imperial shuttle. Let me repeat, he stole an imperial shuttle. And not just an attack shuttle. Not just a lil one-pilot transport. Bro somehow stole a Rho-class medical transport, which is very large, obscenely conspicuous, and very easily tracked. And, to use his own words, it was "the best he could do on short notice." The man stole a shuttle on short notice. ON SHORT NOTICE? HELLO, HOW DID HE DO THAT. WHY AIN'T WE LOSING OUR COOL ABOUT IT. 

Next stop on this I-love-Echo journey through my mind: not only did he provide his brothers transportation in the complete void of their own (RIP havoc bb), but he also came equipped with intel and clearance codes, and, as Rampart stated, those things change DAILY. Echo somehow procured top secret imperial clearance codes, and a fkn SHIP, within hours of the Batch requesting his help. Not to mention, the ship had yet to be reported missing (which means it was only-freshly commandeered), and the clearance codes worked. Of course they did. Echo never fails. Never doubt Echo. "Echo's on it."  

Choochoo, next stop! Once they arrived on that station orbiting Coruscant, and made their way to the control room (lookin sexy as heck in his armour-au-noir), he broke imperial encryption, hacked into the Imperial database, almost instantly found them the location of a ship departing for the prison that holds their daughter Tantiss, AND THEN DIDN'T EVEN HESITATE TO CLIMB ABOARD AND STOW AWAY.  

He didn't even remotely have a plan, or have time to make a plan. He didn't know who or what else would be on board that mysterious vessel. He didn't know where it was going other than the name of the fkn mountain (which has proven to be nothing but unhelpful thus far). He just ARC-troopered his way through that crowded hangar, dodging aggressive astromech's and inconsiderate loader droids, shirking from the perspective eyes of highly trained commandos, and snuck his way onto a heavily guarded, extremely unknown science vessel. Then, of course, he wasted no time, hacking into the ships control system (may I gently remind- there were at least three pilots and an officer prepping the ship for jump and closely watching all aspects of its controls), disabling the proximity sensors without being detected, and then seamlessly covered the troopers absence by pretending to be him (which we all know is what should have happened on Serenno but... hindsight is 20/20.)  

So... SO.... now we're at Episode 14. Here we at fkn terrified station because HULLO ECHO IS ALONE ON A SCIENCE DIVISION TRANSPORT; we have literally seen them carry around Zilo beasts in that shit. What the heck else could be on there that they don't know about? Literally anything. Because THEY KNEW NOTHING before attaching themselves to it. Echo knew NOTHING before sneaking onto that thing and creepin' around. Thank heck he didnt come across a fkn fresh wave of slither vines ok?  

NEXT, Echo shoots (not stuns- lol) a sassy fkn droid (they had it coming, not sorry), then another trooper. AND THEN discovered his only option for departing the ship once it enters atmosphere is going completely undercover, because (in true "we improvise everything" CF99 fashion that gives me heart burn just thinking about it), they had zero fkn plan to get off the ship. I will repeat: completely undercover. On Tantiss. COMPLETELY UNDERCOVER ON TANTISS. NO COMMS, NO BACK UP, NO RECON, NO PLAN, BARELY ANY GEAR, and I would just like to stress... no neuro brace. He left his neurobrace on that ship. Left it. LEFT IT AND TOOK A HAND INSTEAD. PLEASE FKN SEDATE ME.  

We can't leave this station yet... This I-love-Echo train needs to linger at this point for a sec because I think it's lost on some people how wild this is. Echo without his neurobrace is huge. It's a bigger deal than Echo without his armour. Armour is, in the grand scheme of things, inconsequential (one can find more- see Howzer). Echo's neurobrace is not armour, it's a computer and it's so so so crucial to how his mind processes information and events. Don't forget, the Technounion HIJACKED HIS BRAIN. They took every memory from him and manipulated it for their gain. Pruned it, tweaked it, blanched it, poached it, turned it into scrambled eggs, and then fkn ate it up and used it to defeat their enemies (Echo's family- I'm sobbing). They implanted him with an unfathomable amount of information; they changed the way the neurons in his brain fire in relation to stimuli. That neurobrace is so so critical for him. Now, we know he can operate well enough without it, we saw it in the last episode of the TBB arc in season 7 of Clone Wars, but... please.... to what extent? We don't know what an extended time without that neurobrace looks like for him... especially when all other aspects compliing his surroundings foreign, unknown, and dangerous, and that scares me.

AND NOW HE'S ABOUT TO RUN AMOK IN TANTISS with Emerie who, (I'm sorry) is wishy-washy as heck (who are you loyal to!!!!! What is your history!!! Are you trustworthy and what are you looking to gain!!!), trying to adopt a collection of Jedi children whove spent maker-knows how long playing space tetris, WHILST ALSO ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE AND ESCAPE WITH HIS BROTHERS UNDER THE EYE OF THE GALAXY'S SECOND MOST DANGEROUS MAN. 

So yes, short of d-d-d-di... can't say it... short of THE WORST CASE, Echo has made the ultimate sacrifice to save not only Omega who is literally the only person we've seen able to make him truly laugh, but all the clone brothers that he's been desperately trying to locate and rescue. His bravery and determination are literally unrivalled, and he did it while feasting on nothing but humble pie because that man wouldn't know arrogance if it danced naked under his perfect nose.  

Okay so welcome, we've finally pulled into I-Love-Echo station. Before departing the ride, please stand and do a hip hip hurray for the miracle that is Echo, including but not limited to, everything he's done, is doing, and is willing to do for other people. 

[losergames]

Just found this WIP today. I'm absolutely in awe with the aesthetics and designs of your game, and your blog. If you ever wrote/did any kind of crash course in UI design for Twine, I would pay serious money for it. I feel like it's really hard to get such a professional, clean, and unique look for a game!

thank you so much that is so incredibly kind!!!

honestly my best advice is reference! reference your butt off!!! so much of design is looking at other designs first before attempting your own. chop shop's twine build came from a lot of places. i looked at the need for speed series, forza, GTA, saints row and hitman from the top of my head.

in fact chop shop's main console was inspired by the menu from need for speed underground 2:

i highly recommend checking out Game UI Database - it categorises games by genre, style, themes and more! i'm always looking at stuff on there for ideas to improve my own ui! i 100% recommend looking at the cyberpunk 2077 ui page, it is so incredibly detailed and has so many stills of the different menus.

twine can be intimidating for sure. sugarcube 2 is basically limitless since it's html, css, and javascript. but again i say, use as much reference as you can! the best ideas are not usually your first and it's always easier to build something when you've already got a base to look at y'know?

i hope that's a little helpful! please let me know if you wanna talk more about ui and design! <3

[gallamy]

One-shot: Smith goes to a pottery class (idea credit: @otto-von-gay)

Smith has no idea why he was in this confounded, inane little pottery class. Well, that was a bit of a lie. The Mainframe had instituted very specific directives for the Agents: data collection via human experience.

In human terms, it was essentially: “Go do human shit and report back so we machines know more about these little sheep in order to better control them, to improve upon the code of the Matrix so as to subjugate them more effectively.”

Smith resists the urge to shoot everyone in the room.

He walks in, and the room falls silent. It’s approximately a 70-30 split between females and males. He takes a seat, notably away from all the rest of the group of humans. He doesn’t wish to get closer than what is absolutely necessary. He can feel their little idiotic eyes on him. It seems as though this group knows each other already from prior classes; thus, his presence is instantly noticeable. He ignores them.

The class begins. A male – the teacher, Smith presumes – walks to the front of the class, a sickening grin on his face.

“Are we ready for POTTERY!” Exclaims the male teacher, and the class murmurs in excitement (except Smith, of course.) The male is far too enthusiastic, Smith thinks, like an old-time human cartoon. Smith’s forehead vein bulges in irritation. Had he been human, his blood pressure would already be heightened to a stroke risk.

The male teacher directs the class to start molding their clay which was already supplied in front of them. Smith attempts to access the Matrix database on how to engage with pottery-making; however, the Mainframe denies his request.

Mainframe: Agent Smith (I.D. code 10000271) must use his own skills to execute the prior directive regarding human interaction.

Translation: “The Mainframe won’t help you become a master pottery-maker in the blink of an eye. You’re on your own to blend in.”

Smith feels anger but wills his face to stay neutral. It seems that he just actually learn this skill - pottery-making, that is. How irritating. Reluctantly, he starts working with clay as it spins on the pottery wheel.

He hates the texture of the wet clay. It’s slimy and unpleasant. His hands move awkwardly like a child, clearly unaccustomed to the act of molding such a malleable material. He grimaces.

The male teacher informs the class that they may sculpt whatever they want. Smith ponders what exactly he should construct. He settles with a plant pot. It seems the easiest, the overall shape being less complex than a vase or other such shapes.

The pottery clay is unexpectedly hard to handle, even the slightest pressure causing the sides to collapse inward. He feels the irritation rising within him, and he imagines flipping the table. The thought amuses him, but he maintains a scowl, his eyebrows furrowed as he slowly gets the hang of molding the clay into what resembles…something like a plant pot.

When his project is completed, Smith notices that the plant pot is a bit misshapen. Perhaps more than a bit. Nonetheless, the irritating male teacher comes over, clapping Smith on the back – a sign of comradery, much to Smith’s chagrin.

“Excellent job, friend!” The male teacher says, his voice seemingly sincere and warm. “Come by in a couple of days, and the pot will be ready for planting!”

Smith merely nods. He doesn’t want to spend any more time in this awful place than needed, so he informs the male of his departure. Smith walks out of the room but can’t help but to ponder what plant he shall plant within the pot.

In a way, he understands the appeal of pottery to the stupid humans. It’s creative and practical, almost a small way of being God, if there was such a thing.

[jgroffdaily]

Jonathan is involved in the documentary ‘Ghost Lights’, a documentary about Broadway, theater and AIDS.

From Mark Harris at Vulture:

Back in the day at Tower Records, there was a young, highly opinionated gay man who worked the register, an aspiring filmmaker named Kieran Turner. “He was considered the bitchiest clerk ever to work there,” says his friend Christianne Tisdale, an actor who has been part of the Broadway company of Wicked since 2019. “Epically awful. He knew his stuff, and if you didn’t, he could be fierce. And he was quite beautiful, so, of course, people would’ve been like …” A brief pantomime of gay bedazzlement flickers across her face. “He was a fascinating little creature.” His first documentary, Jobriath A.D. (2012), was a sad and enthralling portrait of a 1970s performer who was once compared to David Bowie and is believed to be the first fully out glam-rocker; soon after his first two albums, his career went up in flames. Jobriath died of AIDS-related illness in the Chelsea hotel in 1983, little remembered.

By the time Turner started his next film, he was 48, and he had chosen an even more difficult retrieval project �� one that, in a way, was intended to finish what Neufeld’s list had begun decades earlier. Titled Ghost Lights: Reclaiming Theater in the Age of AIDS, the film would tell the story of theater’s devastation and resilience in the face of an existential threat to the people who kept it going. “He felt a huge connection with this population and with this story,” says Tisdale, who came aboard to produce the movie. Turner’s interest had grown from the front-of-house jobs he had taken as a young man working for Broadway’s Shubert Organization. Night after night, it was impossible for him to miss the toll the disease was taking on the theater community. “Kieran would read obituaries and keep seeing all these deaths in the theater world that were just strange, with all these weird causes,” says Tisdale. “So many young men, but none of them were dying of AIDS. Kieran was like, Oh, there is a story here that’s in danger of being lost forever.” Years later, he started compiling his own database of names, labeled DEATHS GRID, which became the foundational research for the movie.

In 2016, Turner was diagnosed with cancer and had to postpone work to begin chemotherapy. Six years later, as the film was underway, his cancer returned. Even as he continued to source archival material, he was often in pain that was difficult to ignore or conceal. Nevertheless, Turner came close to finishing Ghost Lights, banking more than 150 interviews with theater directors, choreographers, producers, writers, actors, and journalists, many of whom witnessed the first 15 years of the crisis, before he died at 56 this past December.

Turner’s documentary, which is now being overseen by Tisdale and the production company RadicalMedia, is seeking funds for completion. Tisdale sometimes feels overwhelmed by the breadth of the story it’s telling. “Is a thousand a safe estimate for those who died? It’s probably low,” she says. “Still, that’s the ensemble of Wicked, dying twice a year for 20 years. All the hopes and dreams they had, all that their families have lost. All the communities that were lost, all the work they had yet to do. It’s all gone.”

At the time of Turner’s death, a handful of interviews remained on his wish list. One of the people he had originally hoped to talk to, the actor Jonathan Groff, initially turned down the request. Groff was still in grade school when the catastrophe unfolded; he told Turner he had more questions than answers. The producers reapproached him and asked if he would consider serving as, in Tisdale’s words, a kind of on-camera “tour guide … a bridge between generations and a conduit to our audience.” He agreed. This is, perhaps, the central mission shared by filmmakers, museum curators, advocates, and activists — to bring a vanished era to life for generations of younger queer people, to tell them what it was like before there’s nobody left who knows firsthand.

[rei-ismyname]

The First X-Men Highlights 2

In part one we explored Logan's dizzying tour through important times and places in mutant history as he started ... The First X-Men - decades before the cowardly wimp Xavier. See right here how Holo is assuring him that he's a leader - part 2 explores how true that is.

Trask, Fred Duncan, and Virus (the monster looking dude) are in a secret FBI taskforce that's just decided they like the Trask approach. Private Xavier is there too, driving more important people around as sentinels fly off to slaughter Logan, Creed, and a bunch of kids. Uh, nice!

Turns out Virus can control people remotely. Partly assimilate them. They got their hooks into one of the X-Men - Forrest - and learnt where they're holed up. These X-Men won't go down without a fight.

Turns out Colossus was just another Fastball Special partner - Logan invented it decades prior. MF probably built the first Cerebro too. He slices up a sentinel while dual wielding katanas, not using his claws for some reason. The literal 8 year old is holding his own pretty well, lucky he can shoot bombs from his hands.

Virus is mainly here for a new host, figuring Logan and Creed's healing factors make them ideal candidates. The two were fighting each other anyway, but Virus makes them do it more while the kids die in the background. Creed gets taken over but successfully fights it off with Logan's help - unfortunately not before mortally wounding his would be wife.

Creed blames Logan for everyone dying and Logan agrees, driving everyone off Harry and the Hendersons style. We never see the 8 year olds he abandons again so they're probably dead. He's not meant to look good here (I think) because at best he's leaving them homeless and rejected. He plans to kill the sentinels himself while they escape, like a real man.

As you can see the cabin the X-Men were living in is ablaze, the sentinels destroyed. The reveal that two of the kids are agent whatever's kids comes out of nowhere. Did he force them into government experimentation? Chuck has a belated hero moment when he mentally encourages the father to run into the blaze and rescue his kids (that Logan abandoned.) Chuck mindwipes his colleagues so they can live off grid together.

It doesn't make much sense and everyone involved looks awful. I'm not sure what the point of this was but I guess Xavier needed something to do. Or something? We never hear from them again either - and somehow Chuck avoids being detected by sentinels. Maybe they're working off a database instead of scanning.

Creed's 18 year old girlfriend is the reason he ran off, ostensibly to get her medical care. While dying, she uses her illusion powers to give him the Picard Inner Light treatment - experiencing a lifetime together in a few moments. Then she dies of course and Creed ignores her wishes. He swears to ruin any chance of happiness that Logan ever gets. Not something that needed explaining but sure.

The debacle ends the government sentinel program (very briefly) and everyone except Fred Duncan is fired, leaving him the Director of the Department of Mutant Affairs. He approaches Logan with an offer to work together, but he's too depressed. He walks off into the night vowing to kill. Okayyyy.

Trask is done working for the government, or they're done with him. He doesn't learn a thing, of course, and works with his mutant son Larry building sentinels of his own. Pretty impressive for an anthropologist, though they keep killing members of his family and turning on humans, so maybe not. Still, funding and building them is pretty wild for one guy working alone. Young Larry is wearing his medallion so Bolivar knows he's a mutant. McCarthyism is a hell of a drug.

Logan kills the bald guy who was in charge of all this - slaughters him unarmed in his home. Dude deserved it, though he'd just been fired and was acting on behalf of higher ups. Would have been good information to get out of him, but maybe that's the point? This book is all over the place. Logan mopes around in Canada killing people and getting drunk, at the end of his rope. Weapon X folks approach him and are very upfront about the risks and awfulness of their proposal. He volunteers for it, which feels thematically off to me.

We end on Magneto and his bizarre vampire vibes. He reads the news report and is like 'toldya!' though he raises a glass to their failure and the coming war. He hovers dramatically talking about a brotherhood in his neogothic mansion and clothes. Strangely, this story shifts the blame for human/mutant conflict around - completely absolving Magneto. He proposed organisation and they said no while trying to kill him. Xavier was a passive bystander and Logan fucked everything up then forgot it. Because of the military horror he signed up for.

The actual final panel is Xavier hammering a sign out front of his house that says 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.' He's able bodied and his father is next to him, so this may as well be a what if? Maybe it's all equally true.

[jcmarchi]

Charity Majors, CTO & Co-Founder at Honeycomb – Interview Series

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/charity-majors-cto-co-founder-at-honeycomb-interview-series/

Charity Majors, CTO & Co-Founder at Honeycomb – Interview Series

Charity is an ops engineer and accidental startup founder at Honeycomb. Before this she worked at Parse, Facebook, and Linden Lab on infrastructure and developer tools, and always seemed to wind up running the databases. She is the co-author of O’Reilly’s Database Reliability Engineering, and loves free speech, free software, and single malt scotch.

You were the Production Engineering Manager at Facebook (Now Meta) for over 2 years, what were some of your highlights from this period and what are some of your key takeaways from this experience?

I worked on Parse, which was a backend for mobile apps, sort of like Heroku for mobile. I had never been interested in working at a big company, but we were acquired by Facebook. One of my key takeaways was that acquisitions are really, really hard, even in the very best of circumstances. The advice I always give other founders now is this: if you’re going to be acquired, make sure you have an executive sponsor, and think really hard about whether you have strategic alignment. Facebook acquired Instagram not long before acquiring Parse, and the Instagram acquisition was hardly bells and roses, but it was ultimately very successful because they did have strategic alignment and a strong sponsor.

I didn’t have an easy time at Facebook, but I am very grateful for the time I spent there; I don’t know that I could have started a company without the lessons I learned about organizational structure, management, strategy, etc. It also lent me a pedigree that made me attractive to VCs, none of whom had given me the time of day until that point. I’m a little cranky about this, but I’ll still take it.

Could you share the genesis story behind launching Honeycomb?

Definitely. From an architectural perspective, Parse was ahead of its time — we were using microservices before there were microservices, we had a massively sharded data layer, and as a platform serving over a million mobile apps, we had a lot of really complicated multi-tenancy problems. Our customers were developers, and they were constantly writing and uploading arbitrary code snippets and new queries of, shall we say, “varying quality” — and we just had to take it all in and make it work, somehow.

We were on the vanguard of a bunch of changes that have since gone mainstream. It used to be that most architectures were pretty simple, and they would fail repeatedly in predictable ways. You typically had a web layer, an application, and a database, and most of the complexity was bound up in your application code. So you would write monitoring checks to watch for those failures, and construct static dashboards for your metrics and monitoring data.

This industry has seen an explosion in architectural complexity over the past 10 years. We blew up the monolith, so now you have anywhere from several services to thousands of application microservices. Polyglot persistence is the norm; instead of “the database” it’s normal to have many different storage types as well as horizontal sharding, layers of caching, db-per-microservice, queueing, and more. On top of that you’ve got server-side hosted containers, third-party services and platforms, serverless code, block storage, and more.

The hard part used to be debugging your code; now, the hard part is figuring out where in the system the code is that you need to debug. Instead of failing repeatedly in predictable ways, it’s more likely the case that every single time you get paged, it’s about something you’ve never seen before and may never see again.

That’s the state we were in at Parse, on Facebook. Every day the entire platform was going down, and every time it was something different and new; a different app hitting the top 10 on iTunes, a different developer uploading a bad query.

Debugging these problems from scratch is insanely hard. With logs and metrics, you basically have to know what you’re looking for before you can find it. But we started feeding some data sets into a FB tool called Scuba, which let us slice and dice on arbitrary dimensions and high cardinality data in real time, and the amount of time it took us to identify and resolve these problems from scratch dropped like a rock, like from hours to…minutes? seconds? It wasn’t even an engineering problem anymore, it was a support problem. You could just follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the answer every time, clicky click click.

It was mind-blowing. This massive source of uncertainty and toil and unhappy customers and 2 am pages just … went away. It wasn’t until Christine and I left Facebook that it dawned on us just how much it had transformed the way we interacted with software. The idea of going back to the bad old days of monitoring checks and dashboards was just unthinkable.

But at the time, we honestly thought this was going to be a niche solution — that it solved a problem other massive multitenant platforms might have. It wasn’t until we had been building for almost a year that we started to realize that, oh wow, this is actually becoming an everyone problem.

For readers who are unfamiliar, what specifically is an observability platform and how does it differ from traditional monitoring and metrics?

Traditional monitoring famously has three pillars: metrics, logs and traces. You usually need to buy many tools to get your needs met: logging, tracing, APM, RUM, dashboarding, visualization, etc. Each of these is optimized for a different use case in a different format. As an engineer, you sit in the middle of these, trying to make sense of all of them. You skim through dashboards looking for visual patterns, you copy-paste IDs around from logs to traces and back. It’s very reactive and piecemeal, and typically you refer to these tools when you have a problem — they’re designed to help you operate your code and find bugs and errors.

Modern observability has a single source of truth; arbitrarily wide structured log events. From these events you can derive your metrics, dashboards, and logs. You can visualize them over time as a trace, you can slice and dice, you can zoom in to individual requests and out to the long view. Because everything’s connected, you don’t have to jump around from tool to tool, guessing or relying on intuition. Modern observability isn’t just about how you operate your systems, it’s about how you develop your code. It’s the substrate that allows you to hook up powerful, tight feedback loops that help you ship lots of value to users swiftly, with confidence, and find problems before your users do.

You’re known for believing that observability offers a single source of truth in engineering environments. How does AI integrate into this vision, and what are its benefits and challenges in this context?

Observability is like putting your glasses on before you go hurtling down the freeway. Test-driven development (TDD) revolutionized software in the early 2000s, but TDD has been losing efficacy the more complexity is located in our systems instead of just our software. Increasingly, if you want to get the benefits associated with TDD, you actually need to instrument your code and perform something akin to observability-driven development, or ODD, where you instrument as you go, deploy fast, then look at your code in production through the lens of the instrumentation you just wrote and ask yourself: “is it doing what I expected it to do, and does anything else look … weird?”

Tests alone aren’t enough to confirm that your code is doing what it’s supposed to do. You don’t know that until you’ve watched it bake in production, with real users on real infrastructure.

This kind of development — that includes production in fast feedback loops — is (somewhat counterintuitively) much faster, easier and simpler than relying on tests and slower deploy cycles. Once developers have tried working that way, they’re famously unwilling to go back to the slow, old way of doing things.

What excites me about AI is that when you’re developing with LLMs, you have to develop in production. The only way you can derive a set of tests is by first validating your code in production and working backwards. I think that writing software backed by LLMs will be as common a skill as writing software backed by MySQL or Postgres in a few years, and my hope is that this drags engineers kicking and screaming into a better way of life.

You’ve raised concerns about mounting technical debt due to the AI revolution. Could you elaborate on the types of technical debts AI can introduce and how Honeycomb helps in managing or mitigating these debts?

I’m concerned about both technical debt and, perhaps more importantly, organizational debt. One of the worst kinds of tech debt is when you have software that isn’t well understood by anyone. Which means that any time you have to extend or change that code, or debug or fix it, somebody has to do the hard work of learning it.

And if you put code into production that nobody understands, there’s a very good chance that it wasn’t written to be understandable. Good code is written to be easy to read and understand and extend. It uses conventions and patterns, it uses consistent naming and modularization, it strikes a balance between DRY and other considerations. The quality of code is inseparable from how easy it is for people to interact with it. If we just start tossing code into production because it compiles or passes tests, we’re creating a massive iceberg of future technical problems for ourselves.

If you’ve decided to ship code that nobody understands, Honeycomb can’t help with that. But if you do care about shipping clean, iterable software, instrumentation and observability are absolutely essential to that effort. Instrumentation is like documentation plus real-time state reporting. Instrumentation is the only way you can truly confirm that your software is doing what you expect it to do, and behaving the way your users expect it to behave.

How does Honeycomb utilize AI to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering teams?

Our engineers use AI a lot internally, especially CoPilot. Our more junior engineers report using ChatGPT every day to answer questions and help them understand the software they’re building. Our more senior engineers say it’s great for generating software that would be very tedious or annoying to write, like when you have a giant YAML file to fill out. It’s also useful for generating snippets of code in languages you don’t usually use, or from API documentation. Like, you can generate some really great, usable examples of stuff using the AWS SDKs and APIs, since it was trained on repos that have real usage of that code.

However, any time you let AI generate your code, you have to step through it line by line to ensure it’s doing the right thing, because it absolutely will hallucinate garbage on the regular.

Could you provide examples of how AI-powered features like your query assistant or Slack integration enhance team collaboration?

Yeah, for sure. Our query assistant is a great example. Using query builders is complicated and hard, even for power users. If you have hundreds or thousands of dimensions in your telemetry, you can’t always remember offhand what the most valuable ones are called. And even power users forget the details of how to generate certain kinds of graphs.

So our query assistant lets you ask questions using natural language. Like, “what are the slowest endpoints?”, or “what happened after my last deploy?” and it generates a query and drops you into it. Most people find it difficult to compose a new query from scratch and easy to tweak an existing one, so it gives you a leg up.

Honeycomb promises faster resolution of incidents. Can you describe how the integration of logs, metrics, and traces into a unified data type aids in quicker debugging and problem resolution?

Everything is connected. You don’t have to guess. Instead of eyeballing that this dashboard looks like it’s the same shape as that dashboard, or guessing that this spike in your metrics must be the same as this spike in your logs based on time stamps….instead, the data is all connected. You don’t have to guess, you can just ask.

Data is made valuable by context. The last generation of tooling worked by stripping away all of the context at write time; once you’ve discarded the context, you can never get it back again.

Also: with logs and metrics, you have to know what you’re looking for before you can find it. That’s not true of modern observability. You don’t have to know anything, or search for anything.

When you’re storing this rich contextual data, you can do things with it that feel like magic. We have a tool called BubbleUp, where you can draw a bubble around anything you think is weird or might be interesting, and we compute all the dimensions inside the bubble vs outside the bubble, the baseline, and sort and diff them. So you’re like “this bubble is weird” and we immediately tell you, “it’s different in xyz ways”. SO much of debugging boils down to “here’s a thing I care about, but why do I care about it?” When you can immediately identify that it’s different because these requests are coming from Android devices, with this particular build ID, using this language pack, in this region, with this app id, with a large payload … by now you probably know exactly what is wrong and why.

It’s not just about the unified data, either — although that is a huge part of it. It’s also about how effortlessly we handle high cardinality data, like unique IDs, shopping cart IDs, app IDs, first/last names, etc. The last generation of tooling cannot handle rich data like that, which is kind of unbelievable when you think about it, because rich, high cardinality data is the most valuable and identifying data of all.

How does improving observability translate into better business outcomes?

This is one of the other big shifts from the past generation to the new generation of observability tooling. In the past, systems, application, and business data were all siloed away from each other into different tools. This is absurd — every interesting question you want to ask about modern systems has elements of all three.

Observability isn’t just about bugs, or downtime, or outages. It’s about ensuring that we’re working on the right things, that our users are having a great experience, that we are achieving the business outcomes we’re aiming for. It’s about building value, not just operating. If you can’t see where you’re going, you’re not able to move very swiftly and you can’t course correct very fast. The more visibility you have into what your users are doing with your code, the better and stronger an engineer you can be.

Where do you see the future of observability heading, especially concerning AI developments?

Observability is increasingly about enabling teams to hook up tight, fast feedback loops, so they can develop swiftly, with confidence, in production, and waste less time and energy.

It’s about connecting the dots between business outcomes and technological methods.

And it’s about ensuring that we understand the software we’re putting out into the world. As software and systems get ever more complex, and especially as AI is increasingly in the mix, it’s more important than ever that we hold ourselves accountable to a human standard of understanding and manageability.

From an observability perspective, we are going to see increasing levels of sophistication in the data pipeline — using machine learning and sophisticated sampling techniques to balance value vs cost, to keep as much detail as possible about outlier events and important events and store summaries of the rest as cheaply as possible.

AI vendors are making lots of overheated claims about how they can understand your software better than you can, or how they can process the data and tell your humans what actions to take. From everything I have seen, this is an expensive pipe dream. False positives are incredibly costly. There is no substitute for understanding your systems and your data. AI can help your engineers with this! But it cannot replace your engineers.

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

[carterstarlight25]

Hi everyone! So I been thinking hard on a rather unique 3way crossover that I been considering about writing. Please feel free to give me your input.

The 3 way crossover consist of DC x DP x Halo Infinite. With the ships being Jason and Danny (Obviously). Master Chief and Bruce as the second ship to be included. And Tim Simping for Katrina. (Cortana 2.0 from Infinite)

I see these possible dynamics being cute as Chief will learn how to be human, and how to love. Him and Team Phantom Finding Family. Also I don't mean the bull Chief pulled in the god awful Halo TV Show!

Bruce will learn that killing isn't an act of God. It isn't you kill once, and become a mindless murderer. That there is a difference, between a Soldier doing his duty to protect humanity and his loved ones. And a mindless killer, enjoying the horror of its victims as the bleed out with please for mercy. Effectively stealing their innocent lives... Oh also learn to not be as emotionally constipated after Katrina effectively out smarts him into a therapy session with Jazz Nightingale. (Last name changed after she saved Danny from the their parents lab…)

Danny will learn what it means to be apart of a family. And how screwed the GIW are.~

Jason, finds out he’s ghost pregnant and a heavy underdeveloped Halfa. All while the Pit becomes a full ghost that he ends up birthing. Which is gonna be a Dinosaur that will be Jason’s “Nightmare.” To his Fright Knight. (I am really wanting to go for Altispinax, or Spinax Vivosaur from Fossil Fighters series. But idk, might just use the Giga from Jurassic World Dominion. Just to change it up from what I seen people have the Pits become.

How Chief comes into the story however, would be introduced via Clockwork leaving a very obviously placed Halo Infinite Xbox Game case with a unmarked disc inside it. In an Alley Danny was taking refuge in. With a sticky note of course. And a few chapters in, when he was alone in Wayne Manor decided to play the game. And by Play. I mean go ghost and jump into the game. But of course. With his Fabulous Phantom Luck (trademark pending.) A new power began to make itself known as the code latched on him on his way out. Bringing Master Chief and Katrina to life in the real world, with all his memories and Katrina with the entire UNSC Database.)

While that’s how I plan to bring in Chief and Co. the main gist of this will be an all out battle, to destroy the GIW. Outlaws, Sirens, Chief and the entire Batfam Team up.

Despite the JL repealing the Anti Ecto Acts. A few Private donors continue to find them to get their hands on Ectoplasm. The League of Assassin’s, Lex Luthor. And of Course Vlad Masters will be the main villains connected to the GIW.

I can see Jason and Chief getting along like wildfire. And when Bruce finds out Jason is one leading the squad his kids, trying to get them to go on a date with Master Chief. It leads to some funny moments I would think. And of course can’t forget Chief reluctantly surprise appearance in Civies at one of Bruce’s Gala’s. (I kinda wanna make him wear Olive Green suit and dress pants. Black Bow Tie with a white under suit. Black belt. And an Olive Green Military Cap to hide his Neural Implant. Maybe having all his Medals from the service pinned to his chest. At least the ones that match ones in this universe. So not all of them obviously.

And Jason would absolutely catch his father freeze up when he sees the handsome Spartan.

For looks regarding Chief’s face since we don’t know what he looks like. I was thinking Caucasian Male, short brown hair that could be the right height to spike it up at least. Not a complete buzz cut. Rather bright blue eyes. That do not glow like Danny’s. But at least around that color. Of course he will have some scars on his left Temple, his lip and across his right eye. Freckles too. His muscle mass would of course be a bit more built then Jason. Which says something. But, you know. Super Soldier and all. (Update: I did in-fact Draw it ^^. If you want to see. Let me know if you wanna see Master Chief in a suit at the Gala ^^)

The Ages I was gonna go for was as follows.

Alfred: Immortal (Thanks Clockwork!)

John (Master Chief): 46yrs (I know it’s not his cannon Age. But it’s what I want for the story.)

Bruce: 45yrs

Barbara: 29yrs

Dick: 26yrs

Jazz: 21yrs

Jason: 21yrs

Cass: 20yrs

Sam: 20yrs

Danny: 19yrs

Duke: 19yrs

Steph: 19yrs

Tucker: 19yrs

Val: 19yrs

Tim: 18yrs

Ellie: 14yrs

Damien: 12yrs

Katrina: 6 months old

And that’s the little Fanfic I been thinking about. Of course it’s just an idea. but I think it would be fun to write.

[megbritt]

Ok last job journal/productivity/studyblr-esque type post I promise ! Then I will return to my whimsy and return to the usual broadcast. Moving forward, posts like this will end up being on their respective blogs, but I digress. But for now, please bear with me.

I GET ASKED LIKE THE SAME THREE QUESTIONS ALL THE DAMN TIME (instagram dms, tumblr asks, even irl at every tech meetup imaginable what have you; im just directing you all here to this post from now on LOL)

questions like "how did you get into software engineering professionally"

"what is your technical background"

and arguably, more importantly "did you go back to grad school"

in this essay, i will sksksk

-

how did i get into swe

i have a bachelors degree in comp math, also known as applied mathematics - computer science emphasis. despite the name, i didnt really feel like i was a cs major regardless since most of my electives i chose as an undergrad were mainly theory.. I didn't take a lot of swe-centered courses. My courses in undergrad primarily focused on topics such as combinatorics in latex, n-color cyclic compositions, and linear algebra in r.

after my bachelors degree i ended up going to grad school to obtain a masters degree in theorical physics since i fell so daymn hard in love for physics as an undergrad- oof im !

missed coding for a few years.. ended up going to coding boot camp to sharpen my skills here we are <33

-

what is my technical background

basically answered above !

-

did i go back to grad school

no.

I currently am enrolled in a grad school level computer science course at the moment. But I'm enrolled as a "non-seeking degree grad student", or at least that's what it says on my transcripts. Currently, I'm still trying to figure out if I'm ready to commit to a second round of grad school for a second masters or phd.

May or may not take a few more grad level cs courses in the fall & spring; we'll see!

I am enrolled for the fall to take a bunch of random community college courses, one of which is cs, the others of which are like art lol.

The programming language class will be quite nostalgic, cause it's the same programming language i learned as an undergrad.. aww 🫶 It's quite unfortunate I don't really use that language at any of my jobs though.. One of my jobs primary focuses on C# backend so yeah c:

-

how am i going to focus on all this whilst working multiple jobs

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

WE'LL SEE LOL

Quite frankly, I'm barely holding on as it is. Have already contemplated either deferring to the next cohort or dropping the class entirely and waiting until next year but LOL

Somehow it's working out rn !

I kind of blame this on the fact that no one told me classes started two weeks ago??? I basically registed for this class thinking it would start in about two weeks or something NOT THE VERY NEXT DAY I MEAN LOLOL we're like three weeks into the course already as I'm writing this

I kinda do feel like I was just thrown into the fire with this one. It didn't help that I answered a skills survey maybe a bit too accurately i mean x3 kind of regretting answering it TOO honestly.. I should've put I was a beginner at everything cause level 1's group project is to get a front-end only project up and running. easy peasy why cant i do that. BUT IM IN THE HIGHEST LEVEL at level 3 we're all professional devs and we have to turn in a fullstack app with aws lambda and the works.. a working database and everything WHYY?!? LOL

It's nice though that we all have similar schedules though cause we're all working devs in the team but

-

The transition from not going to school for a few years bc of work to full blown working full-time with multiple jobs on the side AND going to grad school again but this time its part-time

HAS BEEN ROUGH LOL no denying

But I will admit I'm having a lot of fun.

I'm glad that before this I was, ya know, going to disneyland on the reg, and/or raving, going to as many raves as I can. Attending concerts like the concert junkie I am lol

I still plan to do these things of course, but I think it'll be a significantly less amount than before.

-

tl;dr im a massive nerd (but i prefer scholar ! it sounds better lolol)

-

Lastly, I just wanted to plug my two new tumblrs I made recently!

You can find me there on those two, probably talking about my classes or work or other news. And productivity! megbrittstudies.tumblr.com & notreallystudyingcs.tumblr.com

　

Thank you for reading this far !! ily ! ♡

[misc-obeyme]

I'M ALIVE (BARELY) !! Work is kicking my ass. Also, lots of things went wrong for me this morning, but they all worked out in the end ?? Like I forgot to set my alarm, had to bring my mom's phone to her job bc she forgot it, my bus ended up running late because the doors would get stuck at stops. But I woke up on time, caught the bus after taking the phone, and made it early to work because the bus forgot to take the detour? My luck is insane (thanks Mammon.)

ANYWAY, i can no longer contain my thoughts about Mammon x Solomon x Mc. I'm just imagining my mc and Solomon who are both very curious, and love messing around with potions at purgatory hall, and finding alternatives to rare ingredients. This has definitely gone wrong a bunch of times (most days without a potion incident: 4)

and I'm imagining Mammon tagging along bc he misses mc and is jealous that Sol is taking up their time, but denies all claims - "I'm assigned to protect ya, ain't I?" "From Solomon?" "W-Well, he's a shady sorcerer!"

He sits on the floor by mc's feet, and will fetch them things because he can't say no to them. But he spends so much time listening to them brainstorm, he starts learning and will chime in randomly. Mc and Sol who are stuck on what to add, Mammon drops something in there, and they're both horrified until they realize the potion is perfect now. He just has a little database in his mind of what to add to something, and rare ingredients that the two wish they could get their hands on.

Thinking about Mammon doing a favor for a witch and she tells him to pick anything in her collection since she's low on money. He was about to be angry when he saw an ingredient that they've both been complaining is rare and hard to find. He asks the witch for that and then brings it to the two. He acts all nonchalant about it, trying to brush it off. Mc tackles him, meanwhile Solomon is in awe and staring with a twinkle in his eye.

Now Mammon starts requesting trades with witches, for a lower portion of grimm. Gets ingredients he knows they dream about, because the way mc and sol will get all giddy after he presents them with his earnings makes his stomach flip (he will never admit this)

"This is missing something" Solomon

"Yeah but I can't figure out what" MC

"Have you tried *insert seemingly common ingredient that doesn't work for most things*" Mammon

"But no one uses that, it's why we're always stuck with it" MC

"Couldn't hurt to try. See, watch." Mammon.

"WAIT, MAMMON DON'T- ... IT WORKED!?" Mc/Sol

----

"MAMMON HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET THIS, IT ONLY BLOOMS ONCE EVERY 100 YEARS" mc

"Dunno, got it from a random witch. Said she didn't need it. *spent two hours haggling with said witch*"

"...am I in love?" Solomon, reevaluating life

"Eh? What are ya mumbling about? If you're gonna thank me, I want it loud and clear!"

my crack ship <3 they mean everything to me. I caved and hunted down the plushies of them on ebay too. ALSO I GOT TWO OF MY COMMISSIONS BACK AND I'M 😭 they're perfect !!! I'm so so happy with them. Literally the lock screen is beautiful bc it's me and mammon cuddling (HIS MUSCLES CC!! IM DYING) and it looks like it was taken by like asmo or something who walked in to wake us up.

i think I'm also a hopeless romantic, I'm just scared of confronting my feelings lol (you're right in that it is worth it, I just need to figure out how to be brave </3). I throw myself into romance books and fanfics. Vaguely related, thinking about coffee shop au with barista!Mammon and college student!Solomon.

OKAY SORRY IM DONE RAMBLING 😭 HAVE A GOOD DAYYYY

- ✨ anon

Wow that does sound like a crazy morning!! I'm glad it all worked out, though~ Mammon is totally watching out for you!

OKAY but all of that sounds exactly like Mammon! I mean, he's super smart, he just doesn't usually bother to apply himself to anything. So it totally makes sense that he'd just pick up things because he's spending time with MC and Solomon. And then of course he's gonna end up seeing rare ingredients and being like, okay yeah I'm taking that. That all sounds absolutely adorable~

I'm curious about whether or not Solomon and Mammon would make a pact in this situation? I mean, if it's both of them and your MC that are in the relationship, do you think they would? Do you think Solomon would move past his obsession with getting a pact with Lucifer and end up in one with Mammon instead?

I always felt like Solomon doesn't really get Mammon, you know? But that doesn't mean he can't learn. And oh man, Solomon is such a tease and Mammon is so not good at being teased lol. That idea is giving me so many entertaining images, I can't even handle it.

Anyway, I'm totally here for it! It sounds really cute~

I'm so glad you're happy with your comms!!! They sound amazing!

And don't worry, you'll figure it out. I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you have plenty of time! It's a balancing act, you know? It's important to be honest with yourself about your feelings without letting them control you. But it's easier to decide what to do about them if you know what they are. Anyway, not to get all philosophical over here lol. I think the key is to find someone you want to be brave for, you know?

AUGH I love coffee shop aus sooooooo much!!! I was very obsessed with the idea of barista!Mammon for a while, mostly because of a daily chat where he was working at a cafe and then got into a fight with customer. He's good at finances, so I think he could be pretty business minded if he wanted to be. So I was thinking about a situation where he owns his own cafe, but when the customers get rude with one of his fellow baristas, he gets into a fight with them lol. I hadn't really considered who that other barista was, but it could be MC.

Anyway, I could ramble about coffee shop aus all day because I love them aklsdlkfjdfjkl

I hope you have a lovely day/night, too!!

[ladytauria]

another terrible hurt phrase

angst 17) “stop making empty promises!” really sounds like a relationship falling apart, or someone once again promising to stay safe but both know it's a lie

thank you!

so, i didn’t… actually end up including the dialogue phrase on this??? but a plot bunny grabbed hold of me & refused to let go, so? here we are!

warning for hurt no comfort <3

Read it on AO3

Tim’s arms are wrapped snugly around his waist. The pressure feels like the only thing holding him together. In the next room over, he can hear the low murmur of Jason’s voice—a sound that normally soothes him, but now makes his stomach twist painfully. He feels—like he’s unraveling.

Jason falls silent. The quiet hangs over their apartment. Tim swallows. The click of his throat is almost overwhelmingly loud.

Then, he hears footsteps. Jason’s shadow falls over him. Tim looks at him. He looks at Tim. Something that feels an awful lot like defeat hangs between them.

“That, uh. That was Roy. It’s… I gotta be outta here at six am,” Jason says carefully. There’s a wariness in his eyes, tension in his shoulders—like he’s bracing for a fight.

Tim is too tired to give him one.

Even if he wasn’t…

Even if he wasn’t, Tim wouldn’t argue with him. Not about this.

“Okay,” he says.

At least he won’t have to get used to sleeping alone. Jason hasn’t slept in their apartment since they started fighting. Hell. Tonight was the first time he’s seen him out of uniform in almost three days.

Tim doesn’t even know where he’s been sleeping. He thought— He thought he knew all of Jason’s safehouses. Hadn’t realized just how little he’d been keeping track—how much he trusted Jason to keep their… to keep Tim’s database up to date.

“Okay?” Jason echoes.

Tim lifts his shoulder. “Okay.” He pauses, and adds, quietly, “Be careful.”

He sees Jason swallow. Watches the way his eyes dart around, searching Tim’s face. Tim doesn’t know what he sees—only that it makes his face pinch. “I… I don’t want to leave things like this,” he says. “Is… How can… What do you need from me, Tim?”

The ache in his voice hurts.

The way he hasn’t moved any closer hurts worse.

Tim doesn’t know how to tell him he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know how to say he’s not sure there’s anything left to fix. So instead he says, “Just come back.”

He won’t.

Why would he?

Jason’s tolerated him for longer than most, but even Tim’s parents couldn’t stand to live in the same house as him for more than a few weeks at a time. It was a mistake to move in together. Tim never should have agreed; never should have let himself fall for the conveniently placed rental ads, never should have even started taking up a drawer at Jason’s old place.

He knew better. Or—he should have.

This would have happened anyway, of course, but maybe it would have taken longer.

“I will,” Jason promises. “I— Fuck, Tim. I swear I will. And I’ll call, every chance I get.”

Tim could almost believe him. Might have, if he hadn’t lived a lifetime of empty promises. “I’ll be here,” he says.

He doesn’t know how to be anywhere else.

[primus-why]

More on the MegOp-centric Orion Pax arc we deserved 😤

Okay but imagine during the Orion Pax arc in TFP if it lasted longer. Imagine if Orion started to get to know some of the Vehicons (or even another large truck like Breakdown?) and would periodically hang out with them in the mess hall during fuel breaks.

Imagine, if you will, that Orion had also taken the time to research his own frame schematics. The change from his old frame was visibly obvious, but what other secrets did it hold? Turns out he is well-stocked with weapons, and has an increased stamina to accommodate them. Clearly, he is built for battle and for hauling large loads, no longer a mere archivist. And because of this, he thinks he could be doing more to help out Megatron and their cause...

Fast forward a bit, and Orion decides he wants to help move some of the energon ore that has been mined that day while on a fuel break. He assures the other Vehicons that it's no trouble at all before stepping through the ground bridge to the mine.

Suddenly, as if lured to their location, the Autobots arrive and make a direct assault on the mines! Orion ducks behind a part of the cave, preparing to online his weapons and defend his comrades...

... only to find that he can't!

His processor races, trying different commands to release the weapons, but they won't engage. A pair of Vehicons spot him while hiding in a similar spot, and they urge Orion to run back to the bridge.

"We'll cover you!" One of them says, just as the other steps out of their hiding spot to return fire.

Orion doesn't really get a chance to answer. He didn't want to leave without them, so he doesn't move right away. In that moment of hesitation, he watches as the other Vehicon is struck by blaster fire, and their companion steps out to pick up where they left off.

Orion is moving before he even realizes it. As other Vehicons pull back to retreat to the bridge, Orion moves across to reach the wounded Vehicon and their companion, who is now one of the last Cons still providing cover fire.

"Pax!" They say, "You need to get outta here! Megatron will--"

"-- Not without you! I won't leave a fellow Decepticon behind." And he means it. Orion doesn't care that he can't activate his weapons, he can still bring the wounded to safety.

Just as he scoops up the fallen Vehicon, some blaster fire catches the remaining Vehicon on the arm, grazing them and coming extremely close to Orion. He feels something shift, and before he knows what he's doing he's pointing one of his servos in the direction of the blast...

... only, it's not just a servo! He's got a blaster now too!

Orion acts on instinct, providing some additional cover fire while he and the rest of the Vehicons eventually escape. Once back, he delivers the Vehicon in his arms to the medbay and they thank him, their voice full of awe.

(Once out of audial range Knock Out advises the Vehicon to not let Lord Megatron catch them looking at Orion like that, as he doesn't tolerate "challengers" of any kind. 🙃)

Orion of course gets an audial-full from Megatron on how he is not to go into battle. It's far too dangerous! And Orion agrees somewhat-- he explains that he's learned of his weapons schematics, but since his servo transformed back after they returned to the ship he hasn't been able to re-engage the blaster.

"Perhaps... you could train me? To use my weapons, this frame more effectively?" says Orion. He sighs, "... I just want to help."

"And you are helping." Megatron assures him, "We need that database decoded--"

"-- Soundwave can do it just as well, yet he enters the field from time to time." Orion pouts, which is an expression Megatron hasn't seen in a very long time.

The silver mech chuckles. "Soundwave was a gladiator. His frame might be different than it once was, but as you say-- he's effective."

Orion slumps in defeat.

"Tell you what," says Megatron, "if you reach a point where you can reliably engage and disengage your weaponry on command, I will train you in the basics of combat."

Orion perks up at that, looking more determined.

"I'll get there. I promise, Megatron-- I won't let you down."

Megatron holds his gaze, smiling softly, "I know. You never disappoint, Orion."

Fast forward again. Orion is talking to the Vehicons about built-in weaponry (since they have blasters in their arms similar to his own schematics.) He still can't seem to do it on command, however.

One of them suggests he recreates the circumstances that brought it out the first time. (Another helpfully reminds everyone that would involve Orion facing down angry Autobots, which isn't likely to happen since Megatron has banned him from leaving the Nemesis until he's combat-ready.)

Orion offers to let them fire upon him in one of the training rooms, to which they all vehemently refuse.

"If Lord Megatron heard you were in the medbay because we shot you?? He'd snuff our sparks!"

Then one of them proposes that perhaps it wasn't actually blaster fire that caused them to activate, simply the encroaching threat.

"What if all Orion has to do is convince his frame he's in danger?"

After some more thought, they put a plan into action a couple days later: Orion will jump from the highest level of the engine room, and the threat of impact will cause his weapons to engage. He will study his frame's reaction in a controlled environment, ideally being able to remember how it feels to engage his weaponry, and therefore would be able to (in theory) recreate that feeling. Of course, before he hits the ground one of the flight frames will catch him, or at the very least slow his fall so he's not hurt too badly. It's brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?

After gathering some courage, Orion finally takes the leap, careful to study his internal reactions along the way.

"So... aren't you gonna go after him?" He hears one of the Vehicons above him say.

"What?!? I thought you were gonna--"

Wait... what?

Oh scrap. Scrap!! They're not flight frames! He's falling to his death for real!!

Orion scrambles for purchase on the sides of the smooth walls, to no avail. Sparks fly off his servos as he tries desperately to slow his fall in any way he can, knowing no one is coming to save him.

Suddenly, he spots a maintenance team emerging on the ground floor below, clearly there to do a routine inspection.

"Look out!!" Orion yells, "Move out of the way!!" He would hate to see anyone get sent to the medbay due to his own foolishness...!

Just as the Vehicons scramble back from whence they came, another figure emerges casually sipping energon, entirely unphased by the commotion.

"Megatron! Watch out!" As Orion calls out to his friend, he can spot the exact moment Megatron recognizes him. The silver mech's optics flare to their widest setting and he drops his cube, spilling precious fuel on the ground. His arms move up, as if to catch him...

... just then a ground bridge appears below Orion, which he goes through immediately (not that he had much of a choice in the matter.) When he comes out the other side, he discovers he is... falling upward?? And significantly closer to the ground from where he last left off, at that. Soon gravity takes hold and he falls back down again, but not nearly as drastically. With his descent successfully slowed, the bridges wink out of existence as quickly as they came, and Megatron swiftly catches him.

"Yes. Thank you, Soundwave." The silver mech says into his comm before turning to the mech in his arms, "Orion, what in the Pits possessed you to jump down the main engine shaft?!?!"

"I-I... uh..." was all Orion could manage to stutter. His processor was still overwhelmed, having just narrowly avoided a painful injury or worse.

Among his racing thoughts, an unbidden memory file queued up-- one where Megatronus was holding him in a similar fashion during one of his many visits to Kaon. The gladiator had literally swept him off his pedes, insisting he carry Orion the rest of the way to their destination, lest the archivist get too tired. Orion knew he could have protested-- he wasn't tired in the least-- but he wanted... by Primus, how he had wanted to be close to Megatronus...

Back in reality, the parallels of the situation sunk in, and Orion felt a blush creep onto his faceplates-- again, not unlike that particular memory. He had been smaller then, much easier to excuse being picked up by his larger companion, but now his frame was bigger and stronger. It should have been embarrassing. There was no reason to be carried, so he had accepted early on that there was no chance of repeating such an indulgence. Yet, here and now, Megatron was holding him; he had caught him, and Primus below it's like he was an archivist again, back when he weighed practically nothing to the gladiator--

"... I'm sorry." He said lamely, acutely aware of all the optics on him now. His blush deepened, wishing not for the first time he could hide behind the facemask that came with his new frame. "There's no excuse, I was being foolish. It won't happen again."

Megatron regarded him for a moment. "Your servos..." he eventually said, and Orion finally noticed just how badly he had scraped up his digits.

He let out a hiss as he flexed, inspecting the damage. "Right... I should probably visit the medbay." He made a move to get down, but Megatron simply readjusted his grip and turned around.

"Uh... Megatron?"

"I'll see to it you get there." Said the silver mech, like it was the easiest, most logical thing for him to do in the world.

"... Oh. Thank you, I... but I can still walk." He huffed out an awkward laugh, "Besides, I think we can agree I've troubled you enough for one day."

Megatron stopped walking and looked at him.

"Do you... want me to put you down?"

Surely he doesn't mean... he's not actually giving him the choice, is he??

"I-it's just that... I don't want you to strain yourself! I'm not as light as I used to be..." Orion couldn't bear to meet Megatron's optics, because he feared his friend might see right through him.

But the silver mech simply shrugged, "You're not that heavy. I don't mind." He paused for a moment, as if waiting for something.

"... If that's your only objection, then..." and with that he continued down the hall, making sure he took the long way to the medbay.

Megatron continued to steal glances at Orion when he could, noticing his flushed faceplates.

'... Cute.' He thought. 'Reminds me of that time I picked him up in Kaon. He blushed nicely then, too.'

Eventually the mech in his arms relaxed enough to rest his helm on his chassis with a small sigh, making his spark flip. However he was still aware of his archivist's bleeding servos, and the fact that Orion would probably start to wonder why he hadn't called for another bridge into the medbay. Megatron stayed his course, but picked up the pace a little.

'Forgive my indulgences, Orion... I want to stay by your side just a little longer...'

[burnwater13]

Boba Fett listening to Krrsantan speak near the exit to Garsa Fwip's Sanctuary. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 4, The Gathering Storm.

Conversations

Grogu always wondered what other people talked about. Was Krrsantan apologizing? Was the Daimyo asking him to account for himself? Or were they sharing the latest recipe for roast scurrier? Maybe they were discussing the weather? That seemed likely, if a bit dull.

“Hot today.”

“Hot yesterday.”

“Hot tomorrow.”

That’s right, Tatooine was hot. Two suns tended to create situations like that. Of course you had to be just in the perfectly correct orbit. Too close and they had choices: burn you up or tear you apart with their gravity. Too far away and part of the planet was just warm while the other bits were too cold. It was just lucky that Tatooine was in that sweet zone of hot and dry. Grogu liked hot and dry. It beat hot and wet by a klick. 

Sure, other people thought hot and wet was wonderful. Opens your pores. Helps crops grow. That sort of thing. But how open did your pores need to be? And the crops that liked hot and wet also were the sorts of things that supported huge critters that found small green boys delicious. Things like rathtars and Ice-gators. 

Okay, ice-gators also liked ice, which most hot, wet planets didn’t have a lot of, but they didn’t only like ice. They also liked hot and wet and Grogu had read about them during a course on ‘Unusual creatures and where in the galaxy you could find them’. As he recalled from the course they were from Dalna and it was close to no other planet of any interest what so ever. Strange the things you learned when you least expected to learn anything at all. 

Despite that, the ice-gators reminded him of the turtasaur that the Mandalorian Tribe had lucked into when they selected the location for their new covert. Grogu understood why other people hadn’t gone there. He had just been surprised that the Mandalorians from the Tribe hadn’t seen giant aquatic critters as a bug and not a feature of the planet. Beskar might not taste good (it was awful, don’t ask how he knew), but he didn’t think that turtasaur cared about that, even a little tiny bit. Hot or cold, wet or dry, that critter was more than a little scary and Grogu had to wonder about the conversations the Mandalorians must have had with each other when they found that place. 

“No outposts. No landing zones. No signs of inhabitants.”

“What about fauna? Anything like shriek hawks, trinitaurs, mythosaurs, reptavians?”

“Negative. Lots of little islands in the ocean, but we won’t be anywhere near there.”

“Great. Let’s land this thing.”

Of course, they had been wrong about most of that. Not just about the turtasaur not being an island. They were also wrong about there being an absence of shriek hawks. Apparently the sensors on their ship blanked out critters that had been listed as extinct in the general field database. Grogu had no idea if that had been updated, but he hoped someone remembered to do that. He’d really thought shriek hawks were much, much smaller critters.

Now, that was something he wished had been included in the course ‘Unusual creatures and where in the galaxy you could find them’ when he’d been at the Jedi Temple. He could have warned his dad. Or the Armorer. Or anyone who felt like listening to him. At least he could have pointed to the information on his data pad. Maybe one of them would have at least looked at the entry and realized that they made a mistake selecting a place simply because it was hot and dry, despite all the water that seemed to be everywhere on that planet. He could just imagine having that conversation with his dad.

“Huh.”

“That’s right Grogu, the other boys are beginning their training as Mandalorian warriors.”

“Eh.”

“Yes, you’ll be learning these same things. Hey, anyone have a spare pair of vambrace trainers?”

“Meh.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not as complicated as it seems.”

“Uff.”

“You should put that datapad away. You don’t want it to get damaged during the battle training.”

Uff. That’s exactly what those conversations had been like with his dad. It was too bad that Grogu really disliked Gal Basic. He supposed it would be easier to talk about the weather if he at least used words like, hot, danger, and critter. Well, they were Mandalorians. They’d figure it out somehow.

[novafire-is-thinking]

(If you're still doing the headcanons) Chromedome?

Headcanon A: realistic

Sometimes, Chromedome’s old conjunxes show up in his dreams. They repeatedly show up in small roles, but he fails to recognize them even though they feel oddly familiar.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Back in the day, Chromedome used to carry around a dart gun with him; he would shoot Prowl every time he was annoyed or just wanted to be annoying.

Prowl would sometimes walk around with stray suction darts in hard-to-see places, and wouldn’t realize it until someone pointed it out or laughed and pointed at him.

Soon, Chromedome was getting the same treatment by Prowl’s personal dart gun. lol

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

After Rewind’s death, Chromedome gradually isolates himself from everyone. Eventually, he disappears, and no one can find him.

One day, Prowl receives a message. It’s Chromedome, who explains that his health is declining. All those years of mnemosurgery are catching up to him, and his mind is failing.

CD doesn’t say it outright, but he wants Prowl to be there for him until the end. Does he still hate him? Of course. But that’s the point: he doesn’t want anyone important to him to witness him slowly losing his mind. He’s counting on Prowl to feel just sentimental enough to come to his aid, yet detached enough that he won’t fall apart when the inevitable happens.

Remarkably, Prowl shows up—ready to be there for Chromedome.

Old hurts inevitably rise to the surface. They fight. They laugh. They fight again. Chromedome kicks Prowl out a few times.

But Prowl keeps coming back.

Eventually, Chromedome’s condition declines to the point where he’s nearly catatonic, and can’t tell the difference between reality, his personal memories, and acquired memories. Prowl can no longer leave CD alone.

Prowl does his best to keep Chromedome comfortable. He ends up confessing the majority of his crimes to Chromedome, since CD can’t tell the difference between reality and memory anymore.

One night, during a final moment of lucidity, Chromedome types up a note to Prowl while he’s asleep.

The next morning, Prowl wakes up and finds the note on a datapad under Chromedome’s lifeless hand:

“Nice stories, asshole.

You were my favorite person to hate all these years.

Good luck.”

Prowl saves the note. He personally oversees the removal of CD’s body and registers the death. Chromedome is buried next to Rewind. There’s no funeral; just Prowl saying his goodbyes.

The only way anyone else from CD’s past finds out about his passing is by doing a search on Cybertron’s death record database or by visiting Rewind’s grave. After the shock wears off, they wonder what happened and how he spent his last days.

Prowl tells no one. He takes the secret to his grave.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Chromedome Tumbler once looked up to Pharma.

In fact, judging from the fact that Tumbler wasn’t bothered by Prowl’s arrogance, bluntness, and know-it-all attitude, I’m going to say that, at the time, he got along with Pharma better than anyone else (besides Ratchet). After all, JRo made it a point to show Pharma addressing him by name at least once.

Happy to have someone who did more than tolerate his presence out of politeness, Pharma would take the time to listen to Tumbler. Amongst other things, Tumbler would talk about the latest developments in mnemosurgery. Trepan certainly wasn’t going to share any of that.

Tumbler discovered that if someone gained Pharma’s respect or fondness, the doc was weirdly good at giving advice, or at least saying things that could be translated to helpful advice. In fact, Pharma was the one to give Tumbler the final push needed to leave the New Institute.

While recovering from his run-in with Overlord, in a moment of vulnerability, Tumbler confessed to Pharma that his spark was no longer in his work at the New Institute, and that he was considering quitting and starting over.

Always one to follow his own passion to the point of obsession, Pharma didn’t hesitate to tell Tumbler he should go through with it (1) if he had a practical plan to transition to something else, and (2) if it was what he really wanted.

After all, the war was only beginning, and they’d all need to find things to give them reasons to hold on…

[thenightling]

I just saw the annoyingly popular meme that claims every face we dream of is one we've seen in the real world. This is not entirely true. We dream up new faces all the time, it's just the features are borrowed from various sources. And as we actually encounter thousands of faces within our lives through interactions, movies, TV, various crowd scenes, and artwork... of course we can create new faces from the near infinite number of features most humans have stored in our mental database. Ever dream of a creepy monster with no eyes ala The Corinthian in The Sandman? Or a man made of goo? Well, you didn't see that in the real world. Or your grandmother with a hideous clown nose or your best friend but now with dog ears, or someone who looks an awful like like a celebrity but with fangs and red eyes and that actor was never a vampire movie? Or "She looked just you only with a more round face and blue eyes instead of brown." We mix and match features all the time. The idea that the human mind can't make up new faces is a myth, otherwise no artist would ever make a new fictional character. Jack Skellington's face didn't exist until Tim Burton wrote the poem that became Nightmare before Christmas. Just because we borrow from things we already know doesn't mean we don't create new faces. This is a myth, like the idea that you cannot see color in your dreams. It's strange how easy it is to debunk "scientific fact" that limits the potential of human imagination and dreams, and how readily people believe those "facts" without question. https://www.neuwritewest.org/blog/2ziwctdnh0wehgdq1iqyo3eextkrvm