#Next Gen Fault Proofs

[empresa-journal]

Is Optimism (OP) worth $1.31?

Interest in Optimism (OP) is high. For example, both CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap gave OP a $1.31 on 21 September 2023. Optimism was CoinMarketCap’s 13th most trending cryptocurrency on 20 September 2023. Conversely, Optimism was CoinGecko’s seventh most trending cryptocurrency on the same day. Moreover, CoinGecko named Optimism the 42ndlargest cryptocurrency, while CoinMarketCap labeled OP the…

[allbluedepths]

Going Gray

(Gen | One Piece | Shanks & Benn | 525 words)

Read below or on AO3!

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For all of Shanks’ qualities, vain wasn’t one of them. He rarely took note of his appearance, keeping the same, ruffled look for years with no sign of changing.

So it caught his eye when he noticed Shanks staring into his cabin mirror, his focus completely caught as he tilted his head back and forth. “Huh.”

He backtracked, his own frame coming into focus behind his captain’s in the glass. “Hm?”

“I have gray hair.”

The oddly flat tone to his voice caught his attention. Indeed, upon peering down, he saw it: silver strands growing from the crown of his scalp, hidden between the shocks of red hair. It wasn’t much — he doubted anyone would notice in passing — but it was undeniably there.

Shanks pulled a few strands forward, ones particularly shining, his expression morphing into something oddly searching as he twisted them back and forth. “Didn’t expect to see that.”

It came out as barely more than a mutter, but it couldn’t have rang louder in Ben’s ears.

He wasn’t blind to what Shanks was implying. It wasn’t new knowledge; it was something that had long since settled underneath them, seeped into the foundation of Shanks’ captaincy. Of his self.

For years, Ben hadn’t been convinced Shanks would make it to his next decade without his intervention. Not even sure with his intervention. But he had. And slowly, Ben’s worries had receded, and the race had moved forward on once more.

A hand smoothed upwards from his shoulder into his hair. Another cluster of silver strands, hidden underneath the top layer of hair, was pulled forward by the fingers curling against his jaw. “It’s proof you made it this far.”

It was physical proof — proof he was granted permission to touch. They both had aged, and on the seas, that was a gift.

Shanks gave no words for a moment, silently leaning into the warmth of his hand. They often didn’t need words anymore.

“Guess you’ve got a lot of proof yourself, then.” His grin had its typical curl to it, but there was a softer edge to it, diffused.

“You’ve given me a lot of those, Captain.” And because there was no resisting the perfect opportunity for a quip, his other hand reached up to his own hair. “Definitely your fault I went gray this early, brat,” he chuckled, lightly tugging on his own lock of hair tangled in his fingers.

“Worth wrangling this brat for so long?”

“Don’t push it.”

The belly laugh from his captain was genuine and loud. “Just means I have a record to beat in our next life!”

“I’m sure you will, Captain,” he laughed, his eyes rolling. “Gonna go gray by my thirties at that rate.”

Even Benn couldn’t hide his own fond smile as Shanks’ laugh continued, rolling through the room. They still had much to do in their current life, but the idea of another go around settled well into his chest.

No reason for his pledge to be first mate to end after one lifetime, after all.

(But he absolutely was going to go gray earlier the next time around. He just knew it.)

[exitrowiron]

Trying harder to make life easier with Alexa

A little over a year ago I read a Bloomberg article that Alexa use had stalled and that users weren't adopting/integrating Alexa as quickly as Amazon hoped. The article cited internal Amazon data stating, "There have been years when 15% to 25% of new Alexa users were no longer active in their second week with the device." Another Amazon document said that new Alexa users discover half the features they will ever use within 3 hours of activating the device. Beth and I fall into that category... we mostly ask Alexa to tells us the weather forecast and occasionally ask other questions which she occasionally answers correctly. We also have an Echo device in the pantry and use Alexa to add items to a shopping list. When we lived in the apartment we used smart plugs and Alexa voice commands to control a few lamps. I also used smart plugs and Alexa routines to schedule/automate the Christmas lights at our old house.

When building our new house I tried to make it as future proof as possible. We have robust wifi to connect smart appliances (range, microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher, washer, and dryer) as well as Liftmaster garage doors, Moen shower valves, a Ring security system and Lutron lighting. When we moved in, I took the time to connect about half of these items to their 'brand' app but didn't bother with many others. According to the WSJ, I'm not alone. In a WSJ article last month LG Electronics said that less than half their smart appliances stay connected to the internet; Whirlpool said that more than half remain connected but declined to be more specific. This shouldn't be surprising because the process of connecting an appliance isn't very intuitive and it differs from one brand to the next.

The ROI on the effort to connect the devices isn't strong, especially if it is difficult to to do. For most appliances (washer, dryer, refrigerator, etc.) the primary benefit is notification of required maintenance, faults or malfunctions and limited diagnostic abilities. The refrigerator will also inform me if the door is left open, the dishwasher will remind me that the rinse agent is low, the dryer will tell me if the exhaust is clogged and I like seeing the notifications about my oven timer because I usually can't hear it.

Using Alexa to do things is even more difficult. First you have to add the appropriate 'Skill', oAuth into the app of the appliance, then discover the devices and build a routine. Creating the routine frequently requires an additional step of creating a 'Scene' in the subsidiary app, then discovering this scene in Alexa when you connect the skill. This isn't insurmountable for a Gen-Xr or younger, but again it isn't always clear that the juice is worth the squeeze. I made the effort, however and now I can start the dishwasher from my bed before I go to sleep (provided I already added detergent) and find out how much time is left on the dryer. Surprisingly, my life doesn't feel that much richer.

There are opportunities for complex, higher value Alexa routines but these are even more difficult. Leaving the house is a good example. With a great deal of effort, I've enabled the following:

"Alexa, we are leaving in the Subaru"

Open Liftmaster Center garage door

Execute Lutron Garage Lights Scene - On

Execute Lutron Goodbye Lights Scene (all house lights off)

Wait 5 minutes

Execute Lutron Garage Lights Scene - Off

Arm Ring Security System - Away

Arm Alexa Guard - Away

This was difficult because Liftmaster is trying to sell their own Alexa -type hardware so they refuse to integrate with Alexa. Likewise, Alexa refuses to disarm or change armed mode of Ring with a routine (even though they are sister companies). Solving both those problems required use of an intermediary Simple Commands/IFFT skill to backdoor the solution. I think this routine could get even better if I add a command to turn down the heat/ac and turn off recirc of the tankless water heaters but I will need to add wireless control to the Rinnai water heaters.

Having said that the Alexa Leaving and Arriving routines really are helpful and I like scheduling Alexa to automatically close the garage doors every night at 10 in case they've accidentally been left open.

When my Dad died last year I bought several Echos, smart plugs and a Ring system and installed them for my Mom. She loves being able to tell Alexa to turn on lights, show her who is at the front door and play Spotify. She couldn't have set up the system, but she is good at using it and that's what counts.

[dreadofthegrave]

augh. whinging about life events

this is something that would be in a circle in twitter dot corn but i don't have circles here so i will simply put it under a readmore and assume that anyone who doesnt care will simply scroll by as i gen hope they will <3

anyways. last week was vacation and coming back from vacation i got thrown in the metaphorical frying pan. person who was supposed to be watching the house fucked off w/o telling us thursday afternoon (we came back sat night) leaving our cats and her cats (inc. a 5 month old kitten in a separate room) alone. which the other cats would have been fine alone for a few days but the litterboxes were full which makes me suspect she did not clean up before she left. kitten was left with no water and no food (she gave him food but he scarfed it down immediately. because he's A Kitten) and she had the audacity to try to lie to us!! about when she left when we straight up had proof from the security system logs that she was gone for longer than she said she was <3333

did i mention this girl is supposed to be living with us for a few more weeks lol lmao

we spent an hour and a half cleaning the house from the misc toilet and vomit stains around after having already driven a collective 7 hours home from our vacation spot.

we grilled her pretty hard after she came back sunday nite at like 9:30 pm and she kinda gave a half hearted apology and i emphasized that. i agreed to the kitten staying over (which she had thrown on me like. night before we leave) (she adopted the kitten the weekend we left for vacation) with the agreement that she would be taking 100% care of him which she was Not.

and then she fucked off again for all of monday. i think she stayed monday night but she was gone the next morning. she also sprang on me monday nite that "oh do you mind if i stay at my friends house the days i have work because it's closer to my workplace" (by a magnitude of like. hours) and i said yeah because it was LATE and i was WORKING the next day so i didnt have the energy to have a long conversation. i shouldn't have said yes.

she was gone all tues and wed. she didn't have work today so she should have come back to my house but she didn't because she was with her mom. didn't tell us that btw.

now it is thurs night she's probably going to arrive back way too late for me to have a conversation with her because i go to bed early. because i wake up early for work. my sister called her and had a long convo and i sent her a text message saying the kitten has to be gone by the end of this weekend because my sister and i have been taking care of HER KITTEN this entire week basically. when i already gave her a warning for being negligent with the kitten.

tired of hearing the kitten yowling the whole day because my sister and i are both busy and we can't play with him. me because i have my desk job my sister because she's prepping for her job starting next week. regardless ITS THIS GIRLS KITTEN NOT OURS THAT WE DIDN'T AGREE TO TAKE CARE OF

i haven't even broached the topic of payment because i expected to charge her rent for the couple of weeks she was living with us but since she's only been here like. a grand total of 8 hours (when she wasn't watching the house the week we were gone) should i just charge her for using our house as a boarding house for her cats. lol. lmao. im getting some payment out of this even if i have to bug her for it

all that aside. getting grilled at work for things partially my fault and partially not my fault and feeling indignant about it. got told i wasn't communicating well enough when i have been responding to every single silly little email that was sent to me so idk. maybe check your inbox then? anyways i have to finish a report tomorrow i've been putting off for. a disgustingly long time so this is a situation i put myself in but im still mad and stressed about it

good thing i talk to my therapist tmmrw because im just gonna be like hi :) the shit hit the fan my dude

oh as an aside my brain has been bad enough this week that i decided to take a break from twitter since i figured spending my limited free time endlessly scrolling through a collapsing social media site wasn't helping my brain trying to self-cannibalize. tumblr is. Okay. for now. debating filling my queue and leaving for x amount of time but for now i need some outlet

what else. had an onslaught of flies in the house this week. killed about 20 or 30 tuesday and wednesday. thankfully there seemed to be a lot less today so i'm hoping it was just a freak accident and not a serious problem. clothes dryer has been broken (still turns, but no heat) for three weeks now. repairman has stopped by three times with a fourth time coming. i'm about ready to pull the plug after the next time he comes and just buy a new dryer even if that's going to be $$$$ because... it's an old dryer. maybe its time is just up

didn't mean for this post to be so long LMAO if you made it this far you get a picture of harley (my mom's cat). i just gotta make it through this week [pained smile]

NINJA EDIT BECAUSE AS I WAS TYPING THIS UP THERE WAS A NEW KITTEN DEVELOPMENT. after i texted her she got upset enough to decide to drive to our house and pick up the kitten and leave which i mean. lol. lmao. i gave you a warning and you decided to still fuck off so that's not my fault at this point. she's still an hour away so i will probably be going to bed when she comes home. don't have it in me to have another 10pm serious conversation lol lmao lol

[nickgerlich]

Clothes Horse

It’s hard to have sympathy for a company like Walmart, the largest retailer in the US with annual sales of about $500 billion spread across its 5330 locations. But all that glitters is not gold, at least not as golden as Walmart would like to be. Alas, there are numerous holes in their platform that leave opportunity for others, and produce a little angst for the retail giant.

Like clothing, something that every Walmart has, but for which they are not especially held in high regard. When was the last time you heard someone say they wanted to go clothes shopping at Walmart? It’s almost as if any clothes they do sell are on impulse, an afterthought once the shopper is done grabbing all the things on their list.

But Walmart cannot be faulted for at least trying, something it has done numerous times in the past. They won’t take “No” for an answer, willing to keep trying until they find the magical combination of fashion and price. Their latest effort is aimed squarely at Gen-Zers.

It comes at a time when Walmart has been doing major overhauls of its existing stores, no small task when you have to do it and still keep the store open for regular shoppers. I have witnessed this transformation at the Canyon Texas store, each visit yielding a different work-in-progress look with inventory pushed around to make room for new boutique-like retail space in clothing and other items. Why, it’s almost like Walmart borrowed a page from the Target playbook.

The new emphasis includes the revival of Walmart’s No Boundaries private label. This time it boasts 130 items targeted at young women, but there are also Men’s items, shoes, and accessories. Lastly, the chain hopes to be more size-inclusive, with size options ranging from XXS to 5X in Women’s, and XS to 3X in Men’s. That should cover just about everyone.

There are challenges, to be fair, because thus far the teeming masses have turned their noses at pretty much everything Walmart has tried to do in clothing. But this time, by targeting younger shoppers who are not yet as entrenched in their ways, they might be able to fly the W. After all, it takes a miracle to woo someone in their 40s or older when they have been buying their clothes elsewhere for decades. When you are still relatively new, though, stigmas and habits are less likely to get in the way. Besides, this is, as one Walmart exec said, the next generation of Walmart shoppers.

Smart thinking there.

The fact that this is all with private label products speaks to the broader national trend in retail, which includes groceries, dry goods, and electronics. We can thank inflation for that. Clothing retailers have leaned heavily into the strategy of late. The value proposition must be increased if companies want to have a chance of making it. Aside from the basics, clothing is a highly discretionary item. If you want proof that clothing is discretionary, look in your closet. You probably have enough clothes for five people in there.

No Boundaries will also find a home on Walmart’s website, where the company has been scoring great success since the pandemic. That, too, has been a bone of contention for the company, because they spotted Amazon about a 25-year lead before mounting any kind of reasonable threat.

Walmart has tried other approaches in recent years by acquiring online clothing companies like Bonobos, the menswear retailer, and ModCloth, a retro-styled women’s clothing company. But Walmart was never able to find success with them, and both were sold off.

Whether Gen-Zers will buy into the latest strategy remains to be seen. Perhaps I should just watch my daughters, both of whom are Zers. For that matter, I can just ask you, my students, many of whom are Zers, or at minimum Millennials. What say ye? Is this a solid strategy, or will this land with a thud like their other attempts?

But like I said, it’s hard to have sympathy for the top dog. They just want more of the dog bowl, that’s all.

Dr “Sympathy For The Devil” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[sincerely-krp]

rich to say that when gen rp carries drama from one rp to another since the beginning of it, whilst having completely different muses, like it's normal, let's not put down either or pretend issues don't exist in both. next time stop and think harder, hope this helps! /

op here, sorry maybe i should have specified i'm an au krper who's just been hanging out on the sidelines since au has gotten so toxic and ive had to cut people off for supporting racists and the like. i'm just pessimistic in general now, and when i saw the insidigm thing pop up i was like 'here we go again' and i'm sure many others were too.

but the whole thing was very chill and relatively mature. it probably helped loads that sincerely was able to provide proof (in my opinion, even more damning than the canva) early on, but i also think a lot of the credit goes to the involved parties (other than the person sending death threats) for either not saying anything about it, seeing the issue and not using it as an excuse to dog on parties we already know are shitty, or at LEAST to the people here who saw the issue and managed to not tell anyone on the rupes side/insidigm side about it.

also, so many people here called out the au community for being toxic and mentioned they were gonna right wrongs, or join rupes, or confront the people who spread shit about rupes, and it's the only time on this blog i've seen the community realize that they might shit on insidigm all they want but they believe everything they say to date, despite what all the other aus at the time had been trying to say. including the one i adminned, which was only around for two days before one of them decided to pretend they knew who i was when they really didn't. i proved them wrong, but back then vent blogs posted whatever they wanted which wasn't even fun to the toxic people because it wasn't true and they knew it, but chose to believe it anyways. rupes was like one step, other krps hopefully, if the admins open new krps, will get the same relief in the future.

so anyways, hopefully you can see my point here, or why i would have sent that vent in. because this just makes me feel like it wasn't just insidigm at fault, it was the other cliques that were on the other side too. the same ones that believed all the shit insidigm said about them (meaning no one joined any krp), and killed my krp too. i hope everyone takes a page from the rupes group/the darkstt group in the future.

・❥・

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Army recruiting woes (AP) While some Republicans blame the COVID-19 vaccine or “wokeness” for the Army’s recruiting woes, the military service says the bigger hurdles are more traditional ones: Young people don’t want to die or get injured, deal with the stress of Army life and put their lives on hold. They “just don’t see the Army as something that’s relevant,” said Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army marketing. “They see us as revered, but not relevant, in their lives.” Addressing those longtime issues has taken on greater urgency as the Army tries to recover from its worst recruiting year in decades, a situation aggravated by the tight jobs market. The Army fell about 15,000 soldiers, or 25%, short of its 60,000 recruitment goal last year, when all the branches struggled to meet recruiting goals.

United States tells citizens: depart Russia immediately (Reuters) The United States has told its citizens to leave Russia immediately due to the war in Ukraine and the risk of arbitrary arrest or harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies. “U.S. citizens residing or travelling in Russia should depart immediately,” the U.S. embassy in Moscow said. “Exercise increased caution due to the risk of wrongful detentions.” “Do not travel to Russia,” the embassy said. The United States has repeatedly warned its citizens to leave Russia. The last such public warning was in September after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilisation.

Amnesty in Turkey for Construction Violations Is Scrutinized After Quake (NYT) On the campaign trail in 2019, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey praised legislation that his political party had pushed through allowing property owners to have construction violations forgiven without bringing their buildings up to code. The move was risky in Turkey, a fault-ridden land prone to earthquakes that had tightened those same codes to make buildings more tremor proof. But it appealed to voters. At rallies, Mr. Erdogan said the legislation had “solved the problems” of more than 438,000 property owners. Now, after last week’s devastating earthquake, those areas are blanketed with toppled buildings that entombed their residents when they fell. The death toll in southern Turkey and northern Syria passed 33,000 on Sunday, and survivors and building experts have said that poor construction most likely exacerbated the scale of the quake’s destruction, as well as the number of lives lost. The Turkish government has responded by arresting building contractors with ties to collapsed buildings, and the Justice Ministry has set up investigation bureaus for earthquake crimes across the affected area. But construction experts say the builders could not have completed their projects without approvals from a range of officials who have so far escaped scrutiny for possibly signing off on subpar work.

Quake survivors in Turkey ask what’s next (AP) Thousands who survived the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria a week ago are pondering what comes next. While many have been evacuated from the devastated region, others are staying by wrecked homes as the search for missing loved ones continues. A week after the quakes hit, many people were still without shelter in the streets. Some survivors were still waiting in front of collapsed buildings for the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved. In the village of Polat, in Malatya province, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing. Residents were trying to salvage refrigerators, washing machines and other goods from wrecked homes. Resident Zehra Kurukafa said not enough tents had arrived, forcing up to four families to share the tents that were available. In the city of Adiyaman, 25-year-old Musa Bozkurt was waiting for a vehicle to transport him and others to the city of Afyon, in western Turkey. “We’re going away but we have no idea what will happen when we get there” Bozkurt said. Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-farmer, was reluctant to leave his home in rural Adiyaman for Afyon despite the destruction, saying he didn’t have the means to live elsewhere and had fields that need to be tended.

They Are Russians Fighting Against Their Homeland (NYT) The soldier knelt in the snow, aimed a rocket launcher and fired in the direction of Russian troops positioned about a mile away. He was set up at a Ukrainian firing position, and looked just like the other Ukrainian troops fighting south of the city of Bakhmut in one of the most brutal theaters of the war. But he and his comrades are not Ukrainian. They are soldiers in a Ukrainian military unit made up entirely of Russians who are fighting and killing their own countrymen. They have taken up arms against Russia for a variety of reasons: a sense of moral outrage at their country’s invasion, a desire to defend their adopted homeland of Ukraine or because of a visceral dislike of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. And they have earned enough trust from Ukrainian commanders to take their place among the forces viciously fighting the Russian military. “A real Russian man doesn’t engage in such an aggressive war, won’t rape children, kill women and elderly people,” said one Russian fighter with the military call sign Caesar, ticking off atrocities committed by Russian soldiers that motivated him to leave his native St. Petersburg and fight for Ukraine. “That’s why I don’t have remorse. I do my job and I’ve killed a lot of them.” Nearly a year into the war, the Free Russia Legion, as the unit is called, has received little attention—in part to protect the soldiers from reprisals by Russia, but also because of reluctance within the Ukrainian military to highlight the efforts of soldiers whose home country has done so much harm to Ukraine. Several hundred of them are concentrated in the area around Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, officials said; they are always grouped with their own but are overseen by Ukrainian officers.

Pakistan on the brink (The Intercept) The last year has brought Pakistan to the brink. A series of rolling disasters—including catastrophic flooding, political paralysis, exploding inflation, and a resurgent terror threat—now risk sending a key, if troubled, global player into full-blown crisis. If the worst comes to pass, as some experts warn, the catastrophe unfolding in Pakistan will have consequences far beyond its borders. “This is a country of 220 million people, with nuclear weapons and serious internal conflicts and divisions,” said Uzair Younus, the director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. “The world didn’t like the outflows of refugees and weapons that came from countries like Syria and Libya. In comparison, Pakistan is magnitudes larger and more consequential.” It is hard to overstate the difficulty of Pakistan’s current situation. The country’s foreign reserves have reportedly dwindled to a mere $3.7 billion, barely enough for a few weeks of energy imports to keep its cities and businesses running, while its public debt has grown to a staggering $270 billion.

China says at least 10 U.S. balloons have flown over its airspace since 2022 (Washington Post) China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said the United States has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year, as the two countries feud over a Chinese airship discovered and shot down by the U.S. military earlier this month. Hitting back at allegations that Beijing had used the balloon, discovered floating over the central United States, for surveillance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a press briefing that it was “common” for U.S. high-altitude balloons to fly into other countries’ airspace. The National Security Council denied the allegation. The comments come after a U.S. fighter jet shot down another unknown object flying off the coast of Alaska on Friday. U.S. and Canadian officials then said a U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object in Canadian airspace on Saturday. A fourth object was shot down over Lake Huron Sunday afternoon.

Philippines says China ship used laser to hinder coast guard (AP) The Philippines on Monday accused a Chinese coast guard ship of hitting a Philippine coast guard vessel with a military-grade laser and temporarily blinding some of its crew in the disputed South China Sea, calling it a “blatant” violation of Manila’s sovereign rights. The Chinese ship also maneuvered dangerously close, about 137 meters (449 feet), to block the Philippine patrol vessel BRP Malapascua from approaching Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef that has been occupied by Philippine forces, on Feb. 6, the Philippine coast guard said in a statement. China claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety, putting it on a collision course with other claimants. Despite friendly overtures to Beijing by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in January in Beijing, tensions have persisted, drawing in closer military alliance between the Philippines and the U.S.

Arab leaders warn Israeli actions threaten regional turmoil (AP) Dozens of leaders and senior officials from Arab and Islamic countries warned on Sunday Israeli actions in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank could worsen regional turmoil, as violence surges between Israel and the Palestinians. The high-level gathering came amid one of the deadliest periods of fighting in years in Jerusalem and the neighboring Israeli-occupied territory. Forty-five Palestinians have been killed so far this year, according to a count by The Associated Press. Palestinians have killed 10 people on the Israeli side during that time. Speakers at the meeting condemned Israel’s “unilateral measures” in Jerusalem and the West Bank in statements, including home demolitions and expanding settlements. They also condemned visits by Israeli officials to the city’s contested holy site, which is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and has often been the epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian unrest.

Teen gives 16,000 valentines to people who might not otherwise get one (Washington Post) Patrick Kaufmann made 30 valentine cards along with some friends as a youth volunteer at a D.C. food nonprofit several years ago. His handmade cards were tucked inside home-delivery meal packages and sent to sick children and adults. Afterward, Patrick, then 10, said he couldn’t stop wondering if there might be other people who would appreciate a valentine but wouldn’t be receiving one. In the fall of 2020, Patrick asked students at his school to make 300 valentines to deliver on Valentine’s Day 2021 with meal packages provided by Food & Friends, a D.C. charity that helps people with cancer, HIV, AIDS and other serious illnesses. Then in 2022, he upped his game, enlisting the help of students at several D.C.-area schools to craft more than 3,000 cards. This year he supersized it: He organized making and delivering 16,000 valentines for people who otherwise likely wouldn’t get one. They were created by students at 62 schools in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, said Patrick, now 14, who personally recruits the classrooms that volunteer. In the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, the boxes of cards are picked up at his home in Potomac, Md., by delivery drivers and are taken to about 60 organizations Patrick has coordinated with. “They mean a lot to people who don’t have much family and are living alone,” said Patrick, a ninth grader at Washington International School in D.C.

[richenns]

Cloud computing in banking: All you need to know before moving to the cloud

According to a survey by O’Reilly, cloud adoption is rising across industries at a steady rate, with over 90% of organizations using cloud computing technology. The growth in adoption rate is evident from the last year survey that reported 88% organizations using the cloud across the globe. Now while industries have started relying on cloud services for their varied data and operational needs, there is one industry that is taking its sweet time to adopt the idea on a holistic level – Banking. 

With banks and financial institutions taking time to check every aspect of cloud from the security and privacy angle, cloud computing in banking is moving at an overly cautious speed.

However, if there is one thing that COVID-19 has taught us, it is the fact that consumers need services on their fingertips without visiting a brick and mortar shop – whether it is shopping for groceries online or managing their end-to-end banking needs. In light of this, banks, however slow they are in adopting IT cloud infrastructure and cloud computing virtualization, know that their 2030 version will be very different from what it looks now. And that they need to put strategies in place today to prepare for their future-self.

Better data security

With frequently updated software, cloud computing for banks proves to be a security-first approach for a bank’s operations. However, ensuring that the intent is met, it is very important to choose a cloud management service cloud management service that meets the following criteria:

Compliance and certifications

Performance and reliability

Next-gen technology inclusion

Migration support 

24*7 service support

Lowered infrastructure cost 

There are no fixed statistics, but the reliance of banks on on-premise systems remains a global phenomenon. Now, while through this reliance, they are able to safeguard users’ data, a big problem with it is the complex-level adaptability to organization-level changes. Any change in the IT infrastructure, workload management, etc. requires time – a time that leads to massive downtime on the customer’s ends. 

By adopting cloud services for banks, the IT infrastructure changes become more manageable, while they are able to scale their offerings on an immediate basis.  

Greater operational efficiency

Cloud environment increases the efficiency of a banking institution by manifold. By hosting their services on cloud, banks can enjoy benefits like:

Quality control

Disaster recovery 

Flexibility 

Loss prevention

Risk management 

By hosting banking portals on the cloud, the institutions are able to focus on bringing their fixed and variable expenses down with a guarantee of 99% uptime. 

Access to software applications 

Cloud computing in banking gives the institutions access to CRM and ERP software applications which are engineered to better their client relations and employee experience. Since these apps are a part of the SaaS model, the banks have complete control over them in terms of what data goes into them and scope of personalization.

Contributes towards business continuity

Through cloud computing, the banking firms get greater levels of fault tolerance, protection of data, and disaster recovery. Moreover, cloud computing provides a massive-level of redundancy and backup at low cost. The technology gives banking institutions every ingredient to make it future-proof. 

Since the cloud is on demand, the infrastructure investment gets minimized, which in turn lowers the set-up time. All of this lowers the development cycle for new products, leading to greater efficiency and expedited customer response.

Usage-based payment

For an institution as traditional as banking, the fear with technology is too deeply instilled. So, when it comes to adopting new technology, cloud gives them the freedom to adopt the service on a pay-as-you-go model.

Green IT

Transferring the banking services on cloud lowers the energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also leads to minimizing the idle time, which makes the utilization of computing power extremely efficient.

Now that we have looked into the glaring benefits of cloud computing for financial services, it is time to choose the best cloud services for banks. 

Cloud service models:

SaaS – The cloud type consists of business software and its related data, which the users can access through their web browsers. The business use cases that can be hosted on SaaS can include customer relationship management, invoicing, accounting, service desk management, and content management. 

PaaS – This cloud type is focused on providing a complete platform, for interface, apps, and database development, testing. It enables banks to streamline development, and lower the IT costs and the need for hardware, software.

IaaS – Instead of purchasing the software, data centers, and servers, this cloud model enables banks to use these resources on an outsourced model. 

Private cloud – This cloud infrastructure type is operated for a specific bank. It is usually managed by the bank itself or a third party who works from the premises. Banks are usually recommended to host their services on a private cloud as it gives them higher control and increased flexibility. A private cloud also minimizes the risk of security breach as it is deployed within the firewall of the organization.  

Public cloud – This infrastructure is open for the entire banking industry to share and is owned by the organization which sells the cloud services. Banks can opt for public cloud if they are looking for economies of scale.

Hybrid cloud – This infrastructure is composed of both private and public clouds which operate for their individual business use case. 

Cloud operating models:

Virtual captives – Under this model, there is a dedicated pool of centers and resources to help banks with their cloud operations, available on demand.

Staff augmentation – In this model, the banks gain cloud expertise by hiring people with the right skillset. The team is housed internally and allows for greater flexibility when it comes to meeting the demands in real-time. 

Outsourcing vendors – This approach makes use of offshore facilities and people to manage the cloud operations. The people and facilities, under this model, usually cater to multiple banks. 

These were the different cloud models available for a banking institution. Now, we understand that choosing between them can be tough for first-time cloud strategy. Let us make it easy for you. Here are the cloud options that we generally work around when we digitally scale a BFSI brand. 

Challenges of cloud adoption in banks

There are a number of roadblocks that stand between banks and their cloud adoption initiatives. Let us look at some of the key challenges. 

Latency

The physical distance between a data center and the cloud service provider can affect performance by introducing latency issues. This latency can lead to a delay in core banking activities like card authorization. In addition to the difference in geographical points, shifting the systems from the data center to cloud environment can also lead to extra latency. 

Data residency 

When data is hosted on the cloud, several issues of “data ownership” arise. Regulatory compliances add on to this issue as several financial institutions face government mandated limits on where they can store the data. 

Resilience 

Although the instances of outage are a lot less and widespread than the traditional IT environments, it happens. Now, unlike traditional IT outages, the impact of cloud outages are a lot more widespread as the banks face the probability of high-level data security breach and a downtime which is out of their control to manage in real-time. 

Source: cloud computing in banking

[magireco]

out of curiosity what do you think of the characterization of homura in rebellion? i hugely dislike it but get the impression you enjoy it which i think is interesting cuz we seem to have very similar thoughts on homura pre-rebellion (CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG)

THIS IS INTERESTING BECAUSE IT DEPENDS ON WHAT FLAVOR OF REBELLION HOMURA YOU MEAN. i really really like the way she was done in the first half of the movie but as for the twist at the end...? mmm...

...okay, so... i've been thinking about saying this at some point but i keep avoiding it in fear of causing discourse and such bc... this is a really unpopular opinion apparently, but I really do not think devil homura was done properly. read under the cut if you wanna know why i feel this way!

the first issue i'm going to address is that there wasn't NEARLY enough buildup for it. i'm going to explain this from the perspective of a first-time viewer: what would you have thought would happen after the very last scene of rebellion leading up to them breaking homura out of her soul gem? when homulilly got purified and the flowers on her head turned to sakura flowers (y'know, the flowers that symbolize life and rebirth, homura being reborn from her witch)? did you think homura was suddenly gonna undermine madoka's godliness? because, uh, first-view me did not think that at all. and neither did almost anyone i know who watched it for the first time. not only is that poor setup but it's just so sudden and it feels so out of character compared to what we'd seen in the entire series as a whole, especially considering that the entire last part of the movie leading up until that was about purifying her... and saving her... there wasn't enough buildup. most people are like "but the flower scene happened!" but that's still way too vague...? it's hard to tell what conclusion homura comes to at the end, because we don't get to see any of her internal monologue... there is no other buildup after the flower scene... it just skips to homura realizing she's a witch. wouldn't that bring the viewer to think the flower scene was something that made homura realize she was a witch rather than her suddenly starting to form her plan? it always felt like to me the conclusion homura came to at the end of the flower scene was that she was validating madoka's bravery and telling her that if it ever came to that, she'd have the ability to make that hard decision. which is... so... weird? because i always interpreted that as homura coming to terms with what happened? i could just be interpreting it wrong though, but isn't that supposed to be our proof scene? our buildup scene? why would they make it so hard to understand? we need to know such important buildup points just as blatantly as the natural buildup to homura becoming a witch was. that's just from a moviemaking & writing perspective though.

secondly, i'm gonna discuss homura's motive. i actually ended up understanding were she was coming from after a while of being like "what the hell that makes zero sense!!!!". madoka is a 14-year-old girl who, in order to save the fate of every magical girl, literally had to sacrifice herself and erase herself from the world, and in the end, madoka just ended up saving homura again, and that must've made homura feel like her promise with madoka was never fulfilled. it's unfair what happened when you think about it and the law of cycles should not have been run by madoka herself because she, as any other 14 year old, deserves to be happy on earth. although it was said in magireco that madoka felt happy with what she was doing (and she felt like it truly gave her a purpose), she did admit to feeling lonely and homura probably made that assumption big time. but the way the writers went about it just made her seem so sinister... so out-of-character-ly sinister. what with the evil smirking and the deepened, almost... uh, sensual-seeming voice, and homura completely ignoring madoka's fear. it feels like they twisted her character extremely suddenly and it throws the viewer on a loop. they could've gone with that ending without making such drastic and sudden changes to homura's character, and if they were planning on doing that, why did they not give us more buildup? buildup that wasn't extremely cryptic that you have to scan and search every detail to get a clue? something i love about rebellion is that every time you watch you find something new, but how come some of the only clues illuding to devil homura's existence are in the op? it's odd. why didn't they go with something like making the incubators run the law of cycles? they were the ones at fault for causing it to be created. but honestly, the incubators cannot be trusted with anything, which is why it'd make sense for a magical girl to run the law of cycles, but if homura and madoka had the combined power to do so, what if they just remade the law of cycles so it was less unfair to madoka...? i don't know. either of those possibilites would make more sense than what happened.

something else that kind of irks me about it is that they demonized(literally, lol) homura's love for madoka. homura is very much a canon lesbian, and it's incredibly discomforting to me that they made her seem, outwardly to the viewer, so selfish...? please don't get me wrong, i'm not ACTUALLY calling homura selfish -- i know the entire akumura facade is a mask she put on, but like, it's so much more blatantly sinister than she is in the series when she's putting on the coolmura facade. it's going to really confuse the viewer and see every single one of her actions from the entire series in a completely different light, INCLUDING stuff that happened in rebellion itself. like the genuine sadness homura felt, the way we saw into her soul and felt her pain, that genuinely made a lot of people i've seen think that it was ingenuine upon first inspection... they made homura turn "evil" out of her love for madoka, as if it's a bad thing to fall in love, and as if love for another girl was what corrupted her soul gem... i understand that gen urobuchi probably wanted to explore that kind of path where love leads to obsession or whatever, but homura was selfless to a fault, constantly trying to force herself away from the others in order to not get attached, and deeply afraid of seeming creepy and predatory and scaring(she said this herself), which is exactly what she ends up doing at the end, and i feel so awful that they did that to her... how is the viewer supposed to know what her true motives are at that point? it gets all scrambled up after they did that huge plot twist. i'm going to address another thing super quick before people jump in my ask box over this, i understand also that it would make sense for homura to be obsessed with madoka, but in the series, it was never shown in this light, and like i said, if they were going to do this, why'd they even have the purification scene at the end at all? the buildup is all wrong . it also just made me upset that this ending caused SO many people to start literally believing homura is evil because of her actions at the end, and it made people become even more vehement on their beliefs that homura is obsessive and ps*cho...

i was really confused when i watched it for the first time (and also sobbing hysterically, literally, my funniest rebellion story as someone who has genuinely watched the movie 40-ish times, i remember vividly the first time i watched it i started sobbing on my hands and knees on a yoga mat in my mom's room). also like, just to prove my point a teensy bit more, the ending was so ambiguous and out of nowhere that one of the first google results to "madoka magica rebellion" is "madoka magica rebellion ending explained" because it shocked people so much that that was the first thing they needed to google. also, the fact they left us on such a vague cliffhanger and then abandoned the movie series for a total of 8 whole years only to make a sudden comeback in god's holy year of 2021 was almost cruel. LIKE GUYS I JUST FINISHED UP MY DEVIL HOMURA HEADCANONS IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!!

...anyways, um, i really have to address the sexualization. madoka magica, previously, was a series that avoided fanservice in the show, at least, but why did they make akumura's design look like that...? it shows an unsettling amount of skin and like, every three seconds in the end they're focusing intensely on her lips and her eyes and... it's almost like the writers forgot she was 14, but they never seemed to forget that in the series? what happened????? in the transformation scene, we get closeup views of homura's thighs and back and stuff and it's all open everywhere... they made her tights into thigh-highs... in the whole series, even when she went to school, she always wore tights, and she was wearing tights in her magical girl outfit too... they absolutely deliberately did that to sexualize her further so they could make official art with her thighs out. speaking of official art that unsettles me, why does so much of the official art make the whole outfit just glued to her body and you can see all the shading on her features... it's just. ugh. anyways.

i went off a LITTLE too much on this and i know this is probably gonna get me some weird glances in the fandom and i am open to hearing other people's opinions but i don't think i'll ever stop disliking the effect this plot twist had on the fandom's interpretation of homura and although i'm like UNDENIABLY incredibly hyper excited for the next movie, i'm kind of...nervous for what this is going to bring? i don't want this next movie to cause the same amount of discourse the ending of rebellion did and i legit just want to see homura happy. another one of my main issues with the ending is just that homura is SO unhappy when she literally deserves to be happy SOOOOOOO BAD and just take a break from all the loops ... i'm Praying to madokami out there that that's what happens.

i know this is all really funny coming from someone who draws devil homura on a regular basis and literally writes her, but like... i'm a lesbian i'm allowed to<3

ANYWAYS thanks for listening this was a fun ask!!!

[baconpal]

pokemon rant time

this one’s about the 2 new things, and is at least slightly intended for people actually excited/interested in them, click keep reading or perish

Gonna try and keep stuff short cus there's a lot of topics this time and I've already gone off about how pokemon Isn't meant for me or meant to be a good video game anymore, but gamefreak is right back on their bullshit, so I feel I need to at least point it out.

I'd like to preface all this with, if you are a fan of pokemon still, please realize you can ask for more out of this series. Expect perfection, even if you don't think you'll get it anytime soon. Pokemon won't go anywhere, the old games won't go anywhere, and gaming is a hobby, not a necessity; don't accept low quality products from a company just because you feel like you're supposed to.

With this next wave of pokemon games, gamefreak is clearly testing how little they can put in to a $60 game while still keeping the 2 major audiences they've cultivated. By responding to the most obvious and vocal complaints from the community, gamefreak is aiming to make games that seems like what most players want, without having to put in the work on quality products.

GEN 4 REMAKES Pokemon BS (I am not calling this shit BDSP) is intended for the audience that put up with let's go and RS remakes. The most vocal and obvious complaints for these games is their failure as definitive versions of the games they are remakes of, such as missing features/content, or drastically changed story/dialogue/style. In a way, the recent remakes are inferior versions of incredibly old games, which shows a lack of improvement in pokemon as a whole.

To address these issues, BS is very, very, VERY clearly aiming for a more 1-to-1 recreation of the DS games, but with fully 3d graphics. Clearly the map layout has been transferred exactly, and gen 4 already had mostly 3d environments to begin with, and everyone knows about the future-proof pokemon models at this point, so the amount of effort required to create something like this is absolutely minimal. Assuming dialogue, trainer teams, move lists, etc. are also lifted directly from DP, then this game could be developed in basically no time at all, leaving the team time to ensure the product is of decent quality and includes ALL of the content of the originals, if not more, like the earlier pokemon remakes did to ensure they were truly definitive versions of the games. That being said, it is unlikely the team behind BS has been making use of this saved time to improve the game.

One failing already clear is that the quality is not very good, at least graphical quality. The footage we have shows environments lacking in color compared to the original, with messy, unpleasant textures that contrast poorly with the simplistic environments. The characters especially do not work. As cute and fun the fanart of tiny dawn has been, BS dawn and all other characters look awful. They have gorilla arms that reach down to the floor and lifeless faces, as well as incredibly stiff/simplistic animations. As it stands, BS is a visually inferior game to DP, though most consumers will simply see it as 3D>2D without any understanding of what an artstyle is, so this might not be a problem for many, but that doesn't mean you should accept it.

What remains to be seen is what content will be added/missing from pokemon BS. It is very possible that massive parts of the game, such as the underground, variety of online modes, postgame areas, and content from platinum could be missing entirely. We also do not know if pokemon from after gen 4 will be worked into the region, or even supported. Gen 8 still currently does not support a large number of pokemon, and the remakes may continue this limited dex trend.

Even assuming the remake includes everything from the DS games and doesn't add anything that slows down the story or harms the experience, it will still only be an exercise in forced obsolescence. The main reason people can't really play DP still is that the online isn't supported anymore. If BS turns out to be exactly the same as DP, then you're buying the same game for at a higher price, only to play it until the online service goes away again, or the next game comes out, if both don't happen at the same time.

Don't let yourself buy a 13 year old game at twice the original price.

GEN 4 NOT-REMAKE KIND OF NEW THING On to legends now, gamefreak is targeting the people who put up with sun/moon and sword/shield. The obvious problem with those games to most people was simply a lack of change from the standard pokemon formula. Even when changing the gyms to trials or stadiums, most people still understand that the format and story structures are mostly unchanged. Of course, this problem has seemingly been addressed by changing the game structure a fair bit, but almost entirely by removal.

Trainer battles, and by extension, gyms and tournaments/elite 4 have been confirmed to be absent, meaning all battles are only vs single pokemon, in spite of the player likely having a team of 6 pokemon. Even if battle difficulty is increased to compensate (doubtful), this will still drastically increase the simplicity of combat and make it even less likely for the game to include any meaningful challenge. Exploring towns and meeting NPCs is also seemingly missing, as the game is confirmed to have only a single village, which frankly looks incredibly boring and we've yet to see a single NPC inhabiting the village.

Battles now use an ATB format instead of a turn-based format (for those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means nothing, it's still turn based, it just means the speed state determines who gets more turns instead of who goes first, that's it), but beyond that there seems to be no noteworthy changes, pokemon learn 4 moves with limited PP, type advantage will still definitely be the most important aspect to battle, and the player being able to walk around during battle provides no meaningful impact. While the little dash the pokemon do to approach each other is cool, it is already a sign that gamefreak will not be addressing the issue of lacking animations for pokemon battles, as they can't even be assed to animate and program pokemon walking around the environment during combat, and lucario doing 1 kick for a move described as a series of punches isn't a great sign either.

On the topic of lacking animations, the new "pet simulator feature" for legends seems to be an advancement on the ride system from sun/moon, which presumably people missed from sword/shield. Being able to ride on your pokemon to do stuff sounds cool, but in all likelihood, this system will be limited to only a select few pokemon who will each do a select few actions, and is not a reasonable replacement for all the other pet raising features that have been removed in the past. Similar to BS, the total number of pokemon included may also be limited arbitrarily, in spite of the fact that no new pokemon need to be added, as these games are not claiming to be a new generation.

The largest issues I personally have with this new game is the horrible technical quality and gameplay quality shown in the initial trailer. Unfortunately, these types of problems seem to be difficult to explain to the average consumer, even though the issues seem incredibly obvious and inexcusable to people like me.  Most people were able to understand the problem with the berry trees in gen 8, because it was easy to explain, "this tree doesn't look like the other trees, and it sticks out, isn't that weird?", and so gamefreak has eliminated any immediately obvious issues like that, sticking with a very consistent artstyle for legends, making it almost impossible to easily explain its faults to the average pokemon fan.

People have been really quick to compare legends to BoTW; the game that invented grass, trees, and mountains. In spite of these comparisons, nobody seems to point out that legends looks dramatically worse than that almost 5 year old game from the previous generation. Plants are stiff and lacking in energy, draw distances are poor, colors are drab, and textures are messy. Many parts of legends seems to ape BoTW on just the surface, essentially just following market trends. Even the controls seem to follow after modern 3rd person shooters/stealth games, including a seemingly pointless roll and a clunky looking ball lobbing arc that feels unfun before even getting to play it myself.

The largest issue, painfully obvious to some, and impossible to explain to others, is the framerate. The trailer clearly was ran on actual switch hardware, and not prerendered, which would be a good mark for gamefreak if it didn't result in a trailer that never once hit 30fps. Even with empty fields, with only 1 or 2 characters on screen, the game was incapable of meeting the target speed, and had to resort to optimizations like reducing the frame rate of pokemon only inches away from the player to stop-motion levels of choppy. If situations with almost nothing going on result in slow-down, how will the game perform during actual gameplay? Even though slow-down is something everyone can feel, many people aren't capable of identifying it.

The major things to wait and see for legends is if the removed aspects of the series are made up for by some additional systems or content, and definitely wait to see if the performance improves. As with BS, preordering a game like this only shows that gamefreak only has to market the game by saying it's different, not improved, like they've been doing for years now.

TL;DR FUCK GAMEFREAK One major thing of note is that gamefreak is releasing 2 games based on gen 4 at the nearly the same time, meaning they have no obligation to design new pokemon or even include pokemon not from sinnoh, and also that the sales of each game can be used as an indicator for which of their 2 audiences is more loyal to them. Both BS and Legends are in a position to be pushes aside if they fail, but if either succeeds, gamefreak can continue in the direction of the more successful game and reap the benefits, without any need to innovate, improve, or adapt to criticism.

The last thing I feel I have to remind people about is that gamefreak is a company; you don't need to be "grateful" to them. I've seen that word thrown around far too much by people who seem to buy pokemon games like its a tax, and not something they want to do. You don't have to suck up to a company that made games you liked as a kid if the games aren't what you want anymore. Pokemon is so wildly successful that it can't possible die, so don't buy the games out of pity, or out of some feeling of obligation. Buy the video games you want to play and nothing more.

Basically, if you are considering getting any of these new games, please wait until the games are out before purchasing them, and decide for yourself if they are worth your money, and more importantly, your time. Preordering these games only lets gamefreak know their audience will buy and put up with anything. They have no real competition at the moment, so the only thing the audience can do to encourage improvement is show some of restraint.

[chibinekochan]

Angel in Hell Season 2 part 3

 part 1  | 2  |

Gen. reader insert.

Words 2k

Taglist:

@gothjuulpod  ; @purgatoryhall ; @sibit360  ; @a-personnamed-ace   ;  @romy350-romyakari 

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Simeon comes not long after. You have never been so glad to see his concerned face.

Your face lights instantly up, strange how Simeon simply entering a room brightens your day so much.

  Simeon lets out a deep, relieved breath when he sees your smile. He must've been so worried about you.

He looks at Beel and Belphie, who are laying on the bed without a care in the world. 

Then Simeon looks at you. "What happened?" 

Belphie answers nonchalantly. "Satan lost it and is now a danger to our angel here."

Simeon is very surprised. "Wait, I don't quite understand."

"I don't think anyone can completely understand him right now, but he suffers from this obsession with MC being back. He just can't grasp the truth." Beel casts his eyes down, concealing all his sadness. He folds his hands, like this will prevent him from falling apart. 

You nod. "It must be so hard for him to see me." Your heart feels heavy. 

"This is not your fault," Simeon reassures you. 

You find this hard to believe.

  "He is right. Even if you would look different, I don't think it would change anything. Ever since MC… Ever since that day. Satan has been getting more and more obsessed with finding their soul, bringing them back. I tried talking sense into him, but he is like a black hole." Belphie sounds frustrated. 

Beel nods. "Yeah, he only hears what he wants to hear. That's what caused him to get so angry before you came… he just wouldn't stop about MC coming home. When I notified him that it's not like that at all, he just lost it. It was frightening." Beel looks defeated, guilty like he somehow did something wrong. 

Seeing his own brother like this must be so painful. You feel bad for Beel. 

"This must've been very scary for you. I have already made arrangements for you to stay in our room, just in case. After the stunt that Lucifer pulled yesterday, Diavolo came personally and put an extra bed in the room. It's a bit cramped now, but it will be best for you to stay with us. At least until Satan and Lucifer see reason again." Simeon seems very troubled, but at least he has taken action.

"I think you are right." You don't know if it's the right choice, it's just the best thing right now. 

You know with Simeon and Luke you will be safe. 

"He is right, and don't think too harshly of Satan right now he is…" Beel tries to find the right word. 

"Crazy." Belphie chimes in. 

"He is so sad it consumed his mind." Beel can't seem to find the right words, but you get the sentiment. 

"I don't think he is bad. He is just lost." You can't really understand how much this must torment Satan, but you feel deep in your heart that he wasn't always like this. In moments like this, you are grateful for your connection with your former incarnation. 

"You are so kind." Simeon smiles at you, with mingled emotions on his face. 

"Don't worry, I will talk to him again. He will eventually understand." Beel gives you a light smile. 

"Better give him a good beating." Belphie shakes his head. 

"I will do that if it's necessary." Beel doesn't even hesitate. 

You didn't expect Beel to go this far. "I hope it won't come to that. "

Simeon shoots you a glance filled with sympathy. "I hope so too."

  Beel nods in agreement, none of you want to fight. Especially not your family. 

There must be a better way. You clench your hands. 

Simeon places a hand on your shoulder. This somehow causes your body to relax.

“Don't worry there are many people here that will support you no matter what," Simeon speaks with a soothing tone. 

The warmth of his hand assures you of his support, and you feel grateful. 

"Thank you, Simeon, and thank you too." You look at Simeon and the twins, not wanting to neglect them for their help. 

You have to put together something delicious for Beel once everything has calmed down.

  "No problem, make sure to eat something later." Beel has seen the food you left behind in the kitchen. 

"I will try. Take care of yourselves." You smile at both brothers. 

Belphie casts a slight, troubled smile, your way. Beel nods with a light smile. "We will."

With this, you and Simeon leave. 

Simeon looks around, he must be on edge with the latest threats. You feel like a considerable burden to him. He has been nothing but kind and supportive, but here you are causing problems. 

Simeon notices the look on your face. "No one is blaming you for this mess. Don't think you have to fix it in any kind of way."

  You look at him, unsure of what to say. You know he is right but yet you have this deep urge to fix everything. Deep in your hearts are feelings that don't seem to be your own. Probably from the human that you once were. It's painful. 

You barely nod. 

Simeon adds nothing else until you are in his and Luke's room. 

The room is indeed a bit crammed with the extra bed squeezed in between the other beds. 

It almost looks like one huge bed.

  "Hey Luke, I'm sorry to intrude. I didn't even ask you for permission to stay." You feel guilty about this. 

"Don't mind it. I think we should have done this from the start." Luke is very supportive, which gives you immense relief. 

"It seemed to be the right move at the time." Simeon has a complicated expression. 

"How about some tea. I have some freshly made cake." Luke has everything already prepared. He made your favorite cake and has this hopeful expression on his face. 

You can't say no to this. "Sure, thank you, Luke." 

In your head, you apologize to your body and sit down with them. 

You eat some very delicious cake, but you just can't shake this feeling. It's been nagging at you ever since yesterday, maybe even earlier.

  "Don't you think it would be best for me to return to heaven?" With pleading eyes, you glance at Luke and then at Simeon. Your eyes linger on his face. He bites his lips. 

"I don't want to tell you what you should do, but you should know that would mean they will cleanse you." Simeon is very conflicted about this. 

You look at your own hands. "Wouldn't that be best for everyone?" Your heart aches. With you being here how will everyone ever heal?

"No, it wouldn't be best for everyone," Simeon says sternly as he almost yells, you are surprised by his sudden tone shift. It's almost like he is upset by this thought.

You are confused as to why this would trouble him. 

Simeon notices your surprise. "Sorry, I don't want to get loud." He looks away. 

"You might not know this yet, but cleansing would mean your memories will be completely erased, and you will be retrained. You might never see either of us ever again, and even if you do, you wouldn't recognize us…" Luke ends with a pained tone in his voice. 

Your eyes widen. "I had no idea." Your memories with Simeon and Luke are so precious, you don't want to lose them. 

"He is right. That is why I don't want to take you back to heaven. At least not without the archangels agreement to leave your current memories intact." Simeon looks at you with a complicated expression. 

You draw a sharp breath. This means that Simeon is currently defying the rules of heaven for you. "Why would you do that?" You know very well what this could mean for Simeon. He could receive severe punishment, even if the archangels agree to Simeon's request. 

"I simply don't want to lose you." Simeon gives you the saddest smile that you have ever seen.

  A simple answer that bears so much weight. Your mouth opens and closes, unable to say anything. Your head is a mess. 

"I feel the same way. You are a precious friend to both of us, right Simeon?" Luke chimes in. 

Simeon hums in agreement. The word friend makes you feel complicated. You don't know why. Maybe you just don't want to know.

  You finish your cake. A swirl of thoughts in your head.

  You excuse yourself to take a shower. 

Your head just starts to go off all on its own. 

Leaving might be the best for the brothers but yourself? You aren't sure about that. 

There seems no way out of this mess. If you stay you hurt people and are in possible danger. But if you leave you will lose yourself and the people dearest to you. 

Then there is Lucifer's threat. You can't be sure he wouldn't try to get you back no matter what. 

That seems to be the biggest issue right now. 

The last thing you want is a celestial war. Could you prevent that by regaining the memories of MC? 

It doesn't sound like it would be easy at least. 

What would happen if you would remember all the old memories? You would essentially become two people. 

It probably would solve some issues but what about you? 

You might lose yourself. 

Unable to let that thought go, you finish up and approach Simeon once more.

  Luke has gone somewhere else. 

"Do you feel a bit better now?" Simeon still sits at the table. 

"I couldn't shut my brain off." You feel almost bad about this. 

"It's alright you are dealing with many things right now. Take your time." Simeon gently offers you a seat next to him. 

You gladly take the offer, even when you also feel like you could just curl up and sleep for the next hundred years. 

"Something kinda bothers me." You sigh and look at Simeon. Where should you even start? 

"You can tell me anything. You know I have your back no matter what." Simeon gently encourages you.

  He is right, there isn't anything that you can't tell him. 

You take a small breath. "What Satan said about getting the memories from my previous life back… Is that really possible?" You anxiously bite your lip. 

Simeon thinks for a moment. "Usually it's impossible, but your case is different. I'm not sure why but the connection between your current and your previous life wasn't completely severed. The proof being your looks but also the fact that your pacts remain. Frankly, I have never seen or heard about anything like this. So to make a long story short it could be possible." Simeon himself seems unsure about this. 

"If it's possible what would, that mean for me?" Your eyes waver when you look at Simeon. His expression mirrors your uncertainty. 

"I'm unsure. You might end up losing your mind, or your memories will just flow into each other. This is completely uncharted territory. I think I will have to call an old friend for some information on that." Simeon isn't sure what to say, but he has an idea. 

"An old friend?" You wonder who it is. 

"He was an exchange student here before. He is a very powerful magician from the human realm." Simeon smiles with a slight hint of fondness. 

"So this wizard knows about MC?" You wonder what kind of person he might be. 

"Yes, we all got along pretty well." Simeon nods. 

"Will he help Lucifer or us?" You aren't sure if you can trust him. 

"Well, he will definitely find this very interesting, and I'm certain he will leave the ultimate decision to you." Simeon smiles, somehow that gives you some confidence. 

"Sounds pretty good." You smile weakly and suddenly you start yawning. 

"You must be very tired. You should rest." Simeon feels bad he just noticed. 

"You are probably right. I just don't think that I will be able to sleep." Your head feels all jumbled, just as much as your heart. 

"That's alright, just lay down and try to rest. I will watch over you." He speaks so softly, yet his words have a deep impact on you. 

"I will do that. Thank you, Simeon." You almost add more, unsure of what more you want to tell him.

  You lay down on your brand-new bed. The sheets smell and feel unfamiliar. It's hard to get comfortable. You fight with the blankets, trying to find a way to get comfortable. 

The issue isn't the bed; it's you. 

"Want me to sing you a lullaby?" Simeon sits on his bed. He is very close, you can see him with his usual smile when you peek from under your blanket. 

You laugh softly. "You know I'm not a child right?" 

"Of course, I just thought it might help. It's alright if you don't want it." Simeon almost seems offended when you call yourself a child. 

You are unwilling to miss this rare opportunity to hear him singing. "Please sing for me, Simeon." You plead with him, even giving him some puppy eyes. 

Simeon laughs a little. "Alright, I might be a bit rusty." He clears his voice. "Close your eyes first." Simeon is uncharacteristically embarrassed. 

You smile and do as he tells you. 

His song is an old angel lullaby, he is singing so softly that it soothes your head. Slowly your breath calms down, and you find yourself fast asleep. You must be very exhausted. 

Before your consciousness fully slips away you can hear Simeon whisper, "Good night." 

It also feels like he caresses your head but that might be nothing but wishful thinking on your part.

  ---------------------------------------

  Coming next: Our favorite shady wizard boy. 

[twokinkybeans]

The Arachnoids: ROCK BAND AU [STARKER] - Chapter 17: HAMMERED HEARTS

READ “CHAPTER 17: HAMMERED HEARTS” HERE ON AO3

Find the masterpost with all the chapters linked here!

Taglist: @crystallinecrimsonmoth​​ & @staticwhispersinthedark​​ (Let me know if you want to be added!)

Notes:  Y'all have no idea how anxious I was to write this chapter a a a aa a? I must admit, I had no CLUE what would happen so it was a lil hard to get into. BUT IT WORKED OUT. Wrote this on a little weekend trip (in our own country and definitely covid proof), and now that I'm back home; enjoy!!! -Kim

ps. I'm way too pleased with the small pun in this chap's name alsdjfalsdjf

-

Chapter 17: Hammered Hearts

Tony feels like he’s about to pass out. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t do this,” he says hesitantly and stares at Bucky’s front door intently. Pepper is there. Pepper. He can’t believe that Bucky’s been able to persuade her into this conversation. Peter, who’s standing next to him, sends him a comforting smile.  “Just remember why you’re doing this. Everything else will follow. I gotcha, remember?” “Right,” Tony mumbles. Why. Why-why-why. 

The image of Morgan’s sweet little laugh appears in his mind’s eye, and an instant smile plays on his lips. His daughter. He owes it to her and himself to do this, and hopefully, that means they’ll be reunited.

Tony bridges the small gap between him and the front door and presses the small black button of the doorbell. In the distance, he can hear the ringing sound echoing through the hallway- and then there’s footsteps headed towards them. Tony doesn’t dare to look at Peter. One more of those gentle smiles and he’ll fall apart crying.  When Bucky opens the door, everything seems to suddenly set into motion by itself. Bucky greets them and steps aside to let them in. Tony does so, knowing that Peter follows along. “We’re in the living room, this way,” Bucky says. It’s clear he wants to get started on this sooner rather than later, the tension probably uncomfortable for him too.

And as easily as it seemed to step inside... When Tony enters the living room, time seems to freeze. 

“Daddy!”

Tony is nearly knocked down by the force of Morgan running straight into his legs and wraps her little arms around them. His eyes sting, and he stares down in disbelief. Morgan has buried her face against his jeans and tightens her grip. “Hey little monkey,” Tony whispers and gently takes her arms to unfold them so that he can crouch down. Morgan’s eyes sparkle with pure joy when their gazes meet.  “I missed you. I’m so happy you’re home!” Morgan says and giggles, rushing forward again to hug his neck this time. Tony laughs and lifts her, her legs clamping around his waist where he holds her. “I missed you too.” Tony doesn’t know what Pepper told her, and he would never want to set her up against Pepper or make her feel like she can’t trust her parents. He’ll play along with this game if that’s what it takes to restore this mess. “You’ve grown into such a big lady already!”

“She definitely has your appetite,” Pepper chimes in. Tony’s gaze warily finds her seated on the couch, and his smile falters a little. He tries to contain himself, though and focuses his attention on Morgan again. “Mmmh, that’s my girl.” Tony pokes her belly. “I bet there are lots of little pop tarts in there!” Morgan laughs and squirms where he tickles her, and when he stops, she pokes his face in return. “Daddy, who’s that?” She looks at Peter behind him and Tony blushes. Peter and he have never quite established what they are. When exactly they became friends, he still doesn’t know. When they became somewhat more? Still immensely confusing.  “That’s Peter. He’s a rockstar too!” “Oooh!!!! Just like you?” “Just like me.” At that answer, Morgan squirms out of his grip. When Tony puts her on the floor, she runs over to Peter - staring up at him defiantly. “One day,” she says proudly, “-I’ll be the biiiiiggest rockstar in the whole world!”

“Oh my,” Peter says with a grin. “I’m sure you’ll be a legend.” “See, Mommy?” Morgan sprints around and runs towards her mother. She climbs onto the couch next to Pepper and slumps down against one of the fluffy throw pillows that Bucky has on there.

“You guys want something to drink?”

-

Tony doesn’t know where to start. Pepper and he are seated outside on the small porch of Bucky’s house. Bucky and Peter are playing with Morgan in the garden. Her shrill giggles are music to his ears, and every time she turns around to wave at him, his heart clenches. He’s missed her so goddamn much, and even now that she’s actually here, he can still feel that sense of not having had her in his arms for so long.

“Why?” He asks eventually. Pepper sighs and clasps her hands tightly around the cup of tea she’s holding.  “It was… A lot of things,” she whispers. “Tony, I never meant for this to get so out of hand. I don’t…” A sob rises from her chest, and Tony looks up, surprised. Instantly his worries take over, and he scoots a little closer. All this time, he thought she’d simply wanted him out of their lives. But could it be that he was wrong all these months?

“Pep…” He whispers and frowns at himself for already resorting back to her nickname. “What happened?” “You know Justin, right?” “Your boyfriend?” “Eh, ex-boyfriend now… But yes.” Pepper sniffs and sits up straight, using her sleeve to wipe away her tears. “I never told him that you were Morgan’s father,” she continues. “But he got jealous either way. He said he’d kick us out if I let Morgan see her father again. I didn’t have anywhere else to go- I-” “Pep, you could’ve… Oh, God. Why didn’t you ask me for help?” “You had your medication problems already. I thought if I told you… Well- I didn’t want to send you off into an even worse place.”

Tony can feel a slight hint of anger wash over him. All this time, she made him think it was his fault. This problem could’ve been so easily fixed. He swallows and tries to suck it up. If he gets angry now, who knows what’ll happen. Pepper is finally opening up, and while Tony may be angry… He knows how difficult it can be to leave an abusive household- his own parents are the very proof of it. As much as he doesn’t know whether he wants to, he should try to support her here. “So… What happened to Justin?”

Pepper snorts angrily. “That asshole left for some young chick he met at a bar. Said he hated me, hated Morgan, and he kicked me out after all. I’ve been… Staying here, actually. Bucky was so kind to take me in. He didn’t know the full story, obviously. I swear, I never told anyone about your relationship to Morgan.” “Good riddance.” “I… I guess.” Pepper takes a deep breath. “Tony, I didn’t realize how bad this whole thing had spiralled and when Bucky talked to me… I… God, I’m so sorry.”

“I,” Tony hesitates. “I won’t say ‘it’s alright’ cause it isn’t… But, well, I understand why you did it…” “Tony-” “No, I really do.” After that, it’s silent for a moment. Tony glances at Morgan again, who is currently getting a piggyback ride from Bucky. He smiles faintly.  “What’d you tell her?” “That you were touring.” “Didn’t she ever tell Justin about it?” “No, I made it very clear to her it was a secret. She may be playful and mischievous, but she’s smart. She always felt the gravity of the situation even when she didn’t understand why.”

Tony chews on his bottom lip.  “I wonder how long we can keep this up- keeping her away from the spotlight.” “I don’t know Tones, but we’ll keep on trying.” “We will.”

After another short silence and Pepper finishing her tea, she smiles slightly.  “Thank you.” “What for?” “For… Being so mature about this. I won’t lie, this whole talk gave me some sleepless nights.” “Mmmh, I definitely don’t recognize that.”

Pepper chuckles, and Tony can’t help but chuckle along with her. It’s obvious that there are many things left to discuss. Pepper’s housing situation, where to go from here… But for now, Tony feels a strange hint of calmness washing over him. 

“So, who’s Peter?” “He’s in our opening band. The Arachnoids; cool, eclectic rock sound. Sorta 80s vibe and definitely a hint of Gen Z stuff that I can’t quite put my finger on. And-” “Tony, you know that’s not what I meant. Clearly, you don’t just bring a random dude from your opening band to a talk like this.” She eyes him with a curious glimmer in her eyes, and Tony groans, playfully exasperated. “I don’t know who Peter is, then,” he answers with a shrug. “I think I like him. And he likes me too? But we haven’t… Y’know, nothing’s happened yet.”

Pepper smiles, and Tony can tell she’s starting to relax as well. For a moment, it almost seems like this shitty mess had never happened at all. As if they’re just two friends again who simply happen to have a daughter together. 

“This is nice,” he whispers. “Yeah,” she mumbles back, casting her eyes down. “I’m… Really glad Bucky talked me into this. He, eh, told me some stuff about your meds too. It still isn’t sorted, right?” “Nope. Doctors don’t think it ever will. We’re finishing our second leg of the tour in three months from now, and I think I’ll take some time off after that to do some form of extensive therapy.” “Oh, Tony, that’s- That’s good.” She takes a deep breath and takes his hand. “I’m proud of you.”

The praise fills his chest with warmth, and he smiles at her fondly. He may have slept with her once, even though he’s definitely not into women, but he can still see her charm. He never realized that besides missing Morgan, he missed his effortless friendship with Pepper as well.

He hopes they can build on it again.

[rametarin]

We deal with this, “fiction is reality” shit EVERY. GENERATION.

And I mean it comes back among authoritarians playing to sheep EVERY fucking generation on different pretenses.

It always boils down to a bunch of people that are insecure about the effects of culture and media on other people, and as a flimsy pretense/pretext to restrict access to things to other people “in society” for their own safety and sense of security.

And when it comes to, “obscene literature” or illustrations, the source is always jealousy, insecurity and an attempt to reduce other people down to a demographic statistic. Whether it’s reducing black people to a caricature and acting like hip-hop just turns the kids into violent, drug abusing, psychotic felons, or imagining pornography is what turns people into horny fucking do-nothings, it’s always about control.

And we’ve put it off for so long. We’ve put off the conversation about just what demographic these people play to in order to get traction and followers and staying power and warm bodies for their movements. They’re the demographic that makes antis- work, the demographic that screams for censorship because illustrations “hurt them personally,” or “cause men to hurt them.”

I’m talking about women. Particularly, cis women, as trans women are not in numbers enough to affect anything, and it is EXPLICITLY IMPORTANT that the source of the offense and complaint come from the population that are the gateway through which the next generation is born and brought up.

Individual men may be so clueless as to assume the way degeneration works is a person is left improperly or negligently nurtured, and so just make bad decisions because, “they were never taught better.” They embrace the idea that people only do bad shit because, “the society,” isn’t paying attention, or that individual people are just blank slates beholden to the righteousness and morality of the cultural hivemind of said society. That Society is an objective effect, and if bad people exist, it’s proof to them that there’s something wrong with said society.

But individual men know that the bad actions of other men are not caused solely by “male culture,” or the absence of it, or shitty “role models.” They see the shitty natural inborn attitudes of other men, and despite being raised in shitty conditions, naturally develop a good head on their shoulders, and despise actions like that. As men you can’t HELP but grow up watching boys around you make shitty decisions based on shitty impulse control and, no matter how often they’re punished, how much they’re loved, how much they’re compassionately talked to, STILL act the fool and wind up as terrible, stealing, violent adults. As men you can’t do anything BUT reconcile that some people are just fucking shitheads, and the idea as a man YOU should be punished or treated like the “association” of men itself is at fault, smacks of sexism. The same sort of sexism women’s lib supposedly is against- at least, when it happens to women.

Women, however, are not men, are not privy to the thoughts and feelings of men. Men are abstracts to these women, many of whom are so solipsistic or gynocentrist that they just see men as a class of monsters in a videogame. Just a pattern of individuals that surely must all get their code and culture from “society.” Clearly, when there’s bad men about, it’s proof this “society” isn’t doing everything it can to mollify and gentrify those horrible beastly men to make them safe and not dangerous and productive.

These women that see men like living aggregates for society, imagine that in order to “keep men working properly,” they need to not have “bad moral influences,” treating pornography and access to drugs and literature like a cleaning lady treats dirt on linen. They imagine that the only reason rape or murder or theft by men occurs is because “there’s a problem with men, thinking that is okay.” Like the only reason your average man isn’t running around violently raping people or killing them is because they sang enough hymns at church- by force. Or because they were prevented from, “getting deranged by wrongthink.”

So with this in mind, how do they imagine porn affects men, male minds, and this big abstract-turned-monolithic-concept called, “society?”

Well, they imagine fiction is reality. That if “people of lesser intellect” read a thing, then they’ll inherently believe it, because, “it presents itself as factual and reality.” When.. no. That’s not how it works. They believe, absolutely, that without some mechanism there to go, “BUT WE’RE JUST PRETENDING THO, IT’S NOT REAL!” that will inherently make people, whom all have tenuous and toddler-like grasps of reality and object permanence, think a thing in fiction is real and applies to reality.

And naturally, they see men as people of lesser intellect. So they reason, those dangerous statistical anomalies are just men that haven’t been browbeaten, and whom are subject to any given negative influence or writing or opinion or culture that preaches values and ideas incongruent with their preferences, as women. Therefore, they conclude, fiction that does not preach their “good values” is in fact advocating bad ones, bad habits, bad moral character, bad mental health- call it whatever you want based on your generation. It’s ALL THE SAME SHIT. All the same knee-jerk moralism based on justifying societal and institutional use of force to restrict and arbitrate and judiciously enforce and justify dictating censorship and good-think. It’s just a question of where that basis comes from.

And theres’ ultimately no reasoning with that culture of women when they grasp hold of a thing that appeals to them, flatters and justifies their prejudices and biases. You can sit there colorfully or dryly explaining the ways in which this shitty point of view is wrong, much as you can try to walk back a persons beliefs in their homophobia that they base on religious purism or use the purism to validate their homophobia, but you cannot just get them individually to give up those nice, comfortable beliefs.

And when grouped together for mutual support and validation, it becomes this negative-thought, field of fucking SHEEP braying “Nuuuh-uuuh!” and arguing for restriction of content and sanitation and disbarrment from certain subject matter to be in consumable porn or literature or even just art. The only thing keeping them in check being the consequences for vandalism, and the ability for a community or institution to police out the bias usurpers that would seek to enter their foundations and run them on behalf of the values of these easily upset, insecure sheep.

every FUCKING generation, it manifests in some manner. Be they from church ladies, to radical feminists, to intersectional feminists. If you capture the imaginations, insecurities, jealousies, foster and sanction them, interpret them, get young women believing them, participating in the romance that tells them the way to change the bad things or take the edge off the bad men is to foster and enable authoritarianism (be it regional social, regional institutional, or federal institutional) then you have this neverending avalanche of unending support for it. Be it from dictators, or just from pure ideology from a doctrine. They’ll do it. And stubbornly and obstinately believe in whatever compliments their biases, to the contradiction of everything.

And while you can remove a man and his influences on the next gen from the home, from the social radius of the next generation to be a significant source of culture and how they relate to young people, removing women from the equation, from whom the next generation comes from, is virtually impossible. So a male zealot, already susceptible to scrutiny and punishment for being so wild and zealous with their beliefs, can be retaliated against, muted, beaten and removed from relevance until they censor themselves or change their tune.

But you cannot do that to a female human, or women/mothers as a sex, without both women AND men taking it as an attack on humanity at their most prime and kernel. It has to be done with disproportionate authoritarian state power that does not fear mass dissent and violent retaliation, or it isn’t done at all.

So these zealous Karens that embrace wholly these ideas enabling authoritarianism under a banner they approve of, are allowed to propagate unchallenged, and even if challenged, cannot be subdued or subverted. Their own little cliques and echo chambers and lack of desire to even consider their positions are wrong. Any attempt to point the fingers at this very real, disproportionate and characteristic, objective power female humans have just on the basis of their sex and how that relates among them socially, can and will be trash binned arbitrarily as, “sexism.” Despite the fact, it’s absolutely true.

So long as women that believe “society” is an objective, monolithic thing from which, “that other sex” and other women get their marching orders on how to BE what they are, and don’t see them as billions of individuals with their own ambitions, instincts, inborn personality and character flaws, independent of “society’s failures,” believing those people can be saved or corrected IF ONLY WE CENSOR EVERYTHING or make all media “good thing,” we’re just going to have people with illiberal beliefs asserting their dominance and insisting it’s for the soul of the species, society and the planet.

I mean yeah there are male antis and shit, but honestly. Tell me honestly. How many fucking deranged fandom people that are doing shit like mailing cookies with sewing needles backed into them are male gendered or male sexed, either? As uncomfortable as it may be to acknowledge or consider this might have a sexual grounding, I’m sorry. Not acknowledging it is simply rejecting reality.

[wajjs]

Hey Blob! So I noticed that the first prompt on the list you posted (you faked your death and ate all my cereal) was definitely channeling Dick Grayson. Maybe jaydick or gen with any preferred character please:)

“Who wouldn’t be angry you ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years!”

-

wound that makes you scream

  Tomorrow’s the anniversary, that is all Dick can think of as he goes through the rest of the day - as he finishes his coffee, while he starts getting ready, when he’s running and leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Tomorrow’s the anniversary of both Batman and Bruce’s greatest mistake, the one that was the final thing to send him down spiraling, to have the man crash down. And down. And down. Not even rock bottom had been enough.

  Because three years ago Bruce, not enough Batman, had been demanded to make a choice, put right in between the sword and the wall, and he had acted. He had acted, only for everything to crash in right over his head. The wound, the blood, the explosion. The laughter, the silence, the absence. The trail of crimson, the hint, the void. Nothing left behind.

  Like the miracle that had turned into a nightmare to then promptly go up in smoke and mirages. Like he had never been there, he had never come back, like- like-

  They have the proof, though. The empty, destroyed coffin. The DNA samples. They have everything to know, to be sure, that he was as real as he could be and now he’s all gone and it’s all…

  It’s Bruce’s fault.

  He sighs, stopping next to a ledge and looking out over the buildings around him. For once, the night holds no threat of rain and the wind carries no ungodly stench. Even the activity is surprisingly low, calm, something he’d comment on if he didn’t fear the real threat of jinxing it. He still allows himself one moment, just one moment, and sits right on the border of the ledge, lets his legs hang over it, feet facing the deadly drop.

  Bruce has yet to recover. He’s yet to be anywhere near a semblance of what he once was. Not even Tim, god, poor young and hopeful Tim, not even his passion and stubbornness were enough to make the old man move on. Dick doubts anything will ever be enough. Dick doubts he himself will ever be able to make himself understand why Bruce did that, why did he-

  His comm comes to life just then, making him sit up just a tad bit straighter, bracing himself for movement once more.

  “You should head home,” Tim speaks clearly, no rush to his words, “everything’s quiet. A and I will keep an eye on B tonight.”

  It’s what they always do when that date rears its ugly head upon them. He still nods, swallows past the sudden knot in his throat.

  “Alright,” he says, stands up and stretches his arms over his head, “I’ll keep my comm on just in case. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

  “I will,” Tim promises even though they both know it’s unlikely any call will be made. With that, the communication ends.

  No one is a fan of words in the eve of Jason Todd’s second death.

-

  With his thoughts all scrambled, filled with memories, regrets and crushed dreams, Dick slides into his apartment from the window. There is no need to turn on the lights as he reactivates all the locks and security measures, and no need to stop himself from sagging under his own weight as he peels off his mask, starts working on the top of his costume. His instincts only come back online when he’s two steps into the living room, fluorescent glow coming from the kitchen’s open door. 

  Dick doesn’t stop to think. He picks up his escrima sticks, activates them, and with silent steps walks towards the entrance. He sure as hell hopes upon hope it’s one of his old Titans teammates, or a friend, because he does not want to fight right now, he is in no mood, his heart is gone, six feet under, right where the tomb of his lost- of, of Jaybird is.

  And maybe it’s because he’s so deep in longing and grief that his eyes trick him in such a painful way. Because he slides into the kitchen to be face to face with a young man sitting on the counter, bowl of cereal in his hands, spoon halfway to his mouth. Because the young man has the same features of the one he’s missing, the same eyes, the same lips, the same eyebrows. Everything is a carbon copy of him and Dick discovers right then and there that he can’t handle any more heartbreak. He can’t take any more of it. He’s had enough.

   “Who are you?,” he makes himself ask, feels his chest seizing, throat constricting, and it’s a herculean task to keep himself pulled together. “How did you get in here?”

  The man blinks once, twice, begins to frown in confusion as he sets the bowl next to his thigh on the counter, licks away any remaining of milk and cereal from his lips. Dick braces himself for the sound of his voice, fearing that it will sound just like Jason’s, but it never comes. The voice never comes. Instead, the man lets out the smallest of sighs before lifting his hands, signing away with ease that betrays lots of practice.

  You don’t recognize me?, the man asks with a barely there hint of a pout, Thought you’d be thrilled to see me.

  “Answer me!,” he demands, giving another step forward and shifting into a fighting stance. This is too much. “Who are you!”

  It’s me, dumbass, the other’s hands move fast, almost too fast for Dick to fully finish understanding the signs, I’m Jason.

  “That’s-,” he has to swallow, clearing his throat because that, that is impossible, isn’t it? They all believed him dead. Again. Bruce himself showed them the video recording from the cowl. No one could survive that kind of cut to the throat. No one, no one, but… but… “No,” he breathes out, shaking, “no, you died.”

  I didn’t, with a small smile, the man, no, Jason? God, Jason, stands up, looking at Dick in the eyes, I mean, I did, once, but I came back and you were there. Or you forgot?

  He doesn’t- of course he didn’t! But if he’s here, then, then.

  By the way, Jason, it’s really him, Dick feels a whole lot like screaming, even more like crying, you ran out of cereal. I invited myself to some but it was barely enough for a single bowl.

  Dropping his escrima sticks to the ground, Dick allows himself the luxury of laughing. Laughing till there are tears in his eyes and the rattling in his chest has gone full bomb, about to explode and curse everyone in the immediate blast radius. His hands close into fists, his whole body is moving and next thing he knows he’s got Jason trapped against the counter, one hand closed tightly around the neck of his red sweater, the other raised, ready to strike.

  Dude, Jason snorts, eyes impossibly clear, pinning Dick to his place, it’s just cereal. Don’t be mad.

  “Don’t be mad?!,” he yells out, mildly succumbing to hysterics. “Why wouldn’t I be mad that you ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years?! Three fucking years, Jason!! Do you know what it did to Bruce? What it did to me?!”

  I’m sorry, in the small space between them, Jason barely has room to sign properly between their faces. His expression is sad and haunted, and filled with just too much regret. I needed time. To heal. And. To accept.

  “Accept what!,” he knows he should probably pull away, bring his voice back to decent levels, but he can’t, not when everything feels too surreal, when air escapes him to never return. “Accept what!”

  That B would hurt me like this, Jason says, thumb hovering over the thick, gnarly scar crossing his throat, That I cannot speak anymore. That I needed to learn. Learn how to communicate again.

-

  It’s been three years. Three years since the return and the loss of the prodigal son.

  Dick still needs to gather his thoughts, his heart, hell, maybe even his soul. But one thing is clear. On the third year, he’s the one guiding Jason back home. Hand in hand, step by step. And this time, he’ll make sure there won’t be any more harm to come.

[splashdragon]

Search For Meaning

The Promised Neverland Manga, gen, 1k-ish words. Emma-centric but Ray’s in it too because he’s funny and I like him. Set sometime after the Goldy Pond arc.

AO3

There are times, in between the chaos of searching for the seven walls and the organized disaster that is running the shelter and her family, that Emma finds herself alone.

She’s always moderately surprised when it happens, since there’s always someone who seems to want to show her something or otherwise needs her help. Emma doesn’t mind, she never does. She’s happy that way, and it’s harder to worry.

But there are still times when she finds herself alone, and Emma can’t help but think.

The most constant topic is their strategy, the next steps, what they need to be doing. More effective ways to carry it all out, to not get caught. Every possible action she can take to protect her family, to achieve their goals. To be better. Smarter.

But even that can’t occupy her thoughts forever, and eventually she finds herself thinking about death. About the strange morality of taking lives to live. How the only thing life really seems to promise is pain, and all the rest of it is icing on the cake.

She doesn’t like that thought. It reminds her too much of Ray’s personal philosophy, though he’s getting better. There has to be something else.

If pain is a given in life, there must be other principles, other things to balance it out, right? That can’t be the only one.

________

She asks Ray about it, and he gives her the kind of look that says he’s not sure why she’s using brainpower on something like this. He humors her anyway, leaning back in his chair to look at the ceiling when he says, “Of course there are other principles. Physics. Psychology. Biology. The world’s made of laws, isn’t it? We couldn’t live if it wasn’t.”

“I know that,” Emma says, a bit frustrated, because as much as Ray doesn’t tease her for her intelligence anymore he still talks like certain things should be obvious. And maybe they are to him, but she’s still trying to get to the bottom of it all. “That’s not what I was asking, anyway. If pain is a law, what are the others? There have to be happier laws to balance it all out, right?”

Ray gives her a long look, head still leaning over the back of his chair.

“I hope so,” he finally says.

At the look on his face, Emma feels a sudden need to say something, to reassure him that things aren’t as bad as he always thinks they are. So she tells him, “There are,” and then, “I’m going to find them.”

Ray laughs and sits up straight again, looking back at his book. “I don’t know why you asked me if you’ve already made up your mind,” he says. “Seems kind of redundant.”

“It’s your fault for being helpful,” Emma replies. She grins at him, and then picks up the stack of children’s books, because she’s on bedtime story duty and she’s gotten sidetracked again. “Thanks, Ray,” she says as she heads for the door.

“Yeah.” He pauses. “. . . Tell me what you find out.”

______

Emma wishes she could ask Mujika what she thinks, but her friend is most likely hundreds of miles away in some forest somewhere, so that’s obviously not an option. She makes do instead by lying awake in bed and thinking about the conversations they’ve had before, watching the pendant of her necklace twirl from the chain.

Around her, the room is dark, her family sleeping peacefully, and Emma wonders how it is they can manage that after all the horrors they’ve seen. They’re not without their share of nightmares, of course, but for the most part, they’re happy.

Somehow they pick each other up and keep going. She’s done it herself, too, but why? Why does it work?

People working together are stronger than apart.

Is that a law?

The necklace slows to a stop, but she’s not watching it anymore, staring into space as she tries to think.

It seems so simple. So obvious. Is it too obvious? She knows it’s true, she’s seen it work before. They wouldn’t have escaped from Grace Field House without each other, and it’s the same with Goldy Pond. It’s what Yugo couldn’t understand, before, and what Lucas had understood.

Abruptly Emma realizes Norman must have understood that too, understood that he couldn’t escape on his own and they couldn’t do it without him. It hits her like a sack of bricks, but even though it’s suddenly hard to breathe, she can understand a little better now.

Stronger together than apart.

She smiles despite the sadness. That’s a better law.

Are there more?

_______

The answer, it turns out, is yes. Laws about growing, about learning, about, as Ray puts it, “return on investments of effort.” Laws about what’s possible (more than she expected) and what isn’t (less than Ray thinks).

Emma starts keeping a notebook. It’s small, pocket sized, and she doesn’t write a lot in it, but she writes enough to record what she finds. And, since the notebook isn’t for her, she writes her evidence along with it.

It takes a lot to convince Ray, after all.

_______

“Here,” Emma says, tossing the notebook at Ray’s chest. He fumbles with it, finally catching it just before it hits the piano.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Read it,” Emma tells him, folding her arms. Ray gives her a look that says he’s not sure what she’s up to but it better not cause him a headache, then opens the notebook.

He gets about two lines down the first page before glancing at her. “Law one?” he asks. “‘My best friend is a butt who can’t be convinced of anything without significant proof?’”

“I’m justifying my methods,” Emma says. “Keep reading.”

He does, periodically reading phrases or bits out loud to himself like he’s confirming their accuracy. Or questioning it. Emma’s honestly never been sure which it is, with him. She can’t usually keep up with his comments enough to tell either way.

“Not bad,” Ray says when he’s done, leaning back against the wall. “Aside from the obvious ideological bias towards happiness and the way ‘feelings and intuitive leaps’ somehow count as fact.”

He shrugs away from the wall and tosses the book back at her with a smirk. “Also, your proof for the first law is severely lacking. Were you trying to be nice to me?”

“Ray,” she says, scowling. His smirk widens.

“I know,” he says. “Emma?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

[adolfsunny01]

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