#Operational Efficiency with Big Data | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bloatedandalone04 · 2 months ago

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Your Place or Mine

Summary: Levi is one of the two new operatives assigned to the watchtowers that overlooked The Gorge, and although he was strictly forbidden to contact the other watcher, you prove to be too tempting to pass up. Luckily for him, you just so happen to feel the same way.

Word Count: 6.3k

Warnings: not really spoilers for the gorge but can be ig, loosely follows the plot, fluff, swearing, smut, unprotected sex, pining, touch starved levi, this is lowkey a roller coaster.

It only took Levi a few days to fall into an efficient routine at his new ‘home away from home’, which was the biggest load of shit he’d heard in a while. This place wasn’t his home, he didn’t even know where in the world he was, for fucks sake.

But he’d make do, because he had literally nothing else better to do, and that was why he was picked for this. Well, that and the fact that he was one hell of a shot.

He fell into a pattern of walking the Western rim daily, restocking ammo, and checking the containment fence, cloakers and suspended mines and making sure they were all in order. It was pretty easy, and he’d already done his radio check he was required to do every thirty days.

His mission was to keep the contents of the Gorge inside the tall walls, but Levi still didn’t know what it was, exactly, he was keeping from coming out, because he had yet to witness it, and he’d been here a whole month already.

With that being said, the change of scenery was nice, and though he missed the beach, he didn’t mind the trees one bit. It was so quiet here, yet Levi wasn’t bored or antsy whatsoever. However, he was…curious about a few things; one being what the fuck he was tasked to watch over, two being who his Eastern counterpart is.

He hadn’t seen any movement at all across the Gorge, and he tried not to be a total stalker and use the binoculars to look over there and see what was going on on the East side. He assumed it was relatively similar, if not the exact same thing that was going on over here on the West side, which was a whole lot of nothing, but still, he was curious. There was nothing wrong with that, right?

One night in October, Levi was sitting outside on the observation deck of his tower, simply watching the world go by as he jotted down words in his notebook. Being away from his small room at home had really given him some inspiration, creatively, and he was sure he would have over a full book of poems by the time he was finished with this year long mission.

As he wrote, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and when he lifted his head, he saw that there was a light shining in his direction from the East Tower, but it wasn’t one of the watch lights. It was from the other person.

Levi set his book down and got up from the chair, his curiosity peaked as he moved towards the binoculars. What he saw was a woman who looked like she was in her late twenties, standing on the East Towers observation deck, holding up a big notepad that read, ‘HI, NEIGHBOR. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?’

As he read the words, Levi’s lips curved upwards into a smile, and it only grew when he saw the way your own lips had formed a small grin, and even from this far away, he could tell that you’d been as curious about him as he’d been about you.

And wow, you were fucking stunning.

While Levi preferred to live his life alone, he had been with his fair share of women and has had girlfriends before, but you were something else. You were so beautiful, and he could tell by your greeting that you were funny, and somehow that only made him feel even more drawn to you.

He wasn’t curious anymore. No, now he was full on intrigued to know more about his ‘neighbor’.

Levi looked around the deck for a few seconds before he turned and went inside, hoping he didn’t accidentally give you the wrong impression in his search for something to write on. He grabbed the whiteboard he’d been using as a chart, and carelessly erased the data he’d already re-written elsewhere.

He quickly went back outside and saw that you were still standing on the opposing deck, though your smile was a little smaller, and he hastily wrote back to you with his big, bold handwriting.

‘WE ARE NOT ALLOWED CONTACT’.

Levi held it up and hoped you didn’t take his message too seriously, because he was thinking that this might be a perfect way to pass the time.

You read the board and pouted a bit before you turned your back to him and flipped to a new page in your book. He watched you write something on it, before you turned back to him and held it up, ‘HAVEN’T YOU EVER BROKEN A RULE FOR FUN?’

Levi laughed to himself as he shook his head, wiping his previous message from the board with his sleeve before he wrote, ‘MAYBE ONCE OR TWICE,’ and went to go hold it up, but then he paused and had an inner debate with himself for a few moments. Fuck it. He added, ‘FOR THE RIGHT PERSON.’ and then held it up for you to read.

He watched your smile return as your eyes trailed over every word, and he was suddenly very glad he added that last part, because you were full on grinning now, and he was sure it was one of the prettiest things he’d ever seen.

But you didn’t turn away or make a move to write a response, so Levi once again erased his message and scribbled something else down, ‘HAVEN’T YOU?’

When you read his second message, you bit down on your lip, something Levi was able to see almost concerningly well from just how upgraded the equipment was, but he refused to let his mind wander any further than it already has.

He watched you flip back in your book and scribble something out, and a few seconds later, you were holding up your first question, but had crossed out the first part, leaving only, ‘WHAT’S YOUR NAME?’.

Alright, alright, he’ll play along.

He grabbed the whiteboard and sprawled his name on it before turning it to you, ‘LEVI KANE,’

Levi watched as you stepped away from the railing again, and he saw the way your lips moved as you tried his name out on your tongue, and now he felt a little desperate to be close enough to hear your voice. And to hear how his name sounded coming from your mouth.

You nodded slowly, pressing your lips together as you crossed your arms and leaned over the railing a bit, and he tried to not notice the way your chest was pressed together and exposed a bit of cleavage.

‘WHAT’S YOURS?’ he wrote once he realized he still didn’t know your name, but you seemed to be content with that as you peaked through the binoculars one last time before shrugging with a teasing smile on your lips.

Then you turned around and walked inside the tower, leaving Levi standing alone outside his own.

You were mysterious and challenging, and he liked that. A lot.

And now he couldn’t wait for the next time you and he found yourselves on your respective observation decks at the same time.

A few days went by, and much to Levi’s dismay, he hadn’t been able to communicate with you. But that wasn’t without multiple attempts.

He casually flickered a flashlight in your direction, left the lights on for a lot longer than needed when he really should’ve been sleeping, and even shot off his gun, which he pretended was an accident, but you weren’t even there to see him do it.

It was quiet tonight, like most nights, but Levi liked it. It allowed him to write without any interruptions, and as of lately, a certain person had been the main source of his inspiration.

Funnily enough, it was the same person who just fired off three rounds with her pistol, and Levi shot up out of the chair he was sitting in, similar to the way he usually shoots up out of bed when he has his nightmares.

His book was tossed aside as he leaned over the railing, his eyes flickering along the East wall of the Gorge to see what you were firing at, but when he saw nothing, he looked up at you and saw the sheet of paper held in your hands. When he looked into the binoculars, he was able to read what you had written down, ‘HEY, STRANGER,’

A slow smile formed on Levi’s lips as his heartbeat slowed down to its normal pace, and he shook his head as he turned around and reached for the whiteboard he kept on the table next to the chair.

‘HEY BACK,’ he wrote, then held it up for you to see.

You smiled back and then held up another note that said one word. ‘BORED.’

Levi let out a quiet laugh and he let his gaze linger on your features for a few extra seconds before he stepped away from the binoculars again. God, you were so beautiful. Definitely the prettiest thing in this place, and that was a hard thing to compete with since he was surrounded by beautiful scenery. Yet you were still at the top of the list.

He scribbled down a question on the whiteboard, and he hoped you actually answered it this time, because he was dying to find out if your name was as pretty as the rest of you. ‘ARE YOU GONNA TELL ME YOUR NAME NOW?’

Levi watched your teeth sink into your lip again like it did the first time you and he did this, and this time, he did let his mind wander a bit. He wondered what sound you’d make if he took your lip between his own teeth. He wondered if you’d let him find out somehow.

You looked like you were having an inner debate with yourself before you finally flipped to a new page of the book and wrote something down. That something wasn’t your name, though. ‘WHAT DO I GET IF I TELL YOU?’

The look you gave him as you held it up had Levi pressing his lips together to hold back a groan. You were teasing him like you did before, and fuck if he didn’t like it. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ he wrote back, and he watched as a genuine smile formed on your lips.

Then you wrote something else and lifted it for him to see. ‘Y/N,’

It was just your first name, but Levi was more than okay with that, because it lived up to his expectations. Your name was definitely as pretty as the rest of you.

It was December now, and although the weather made Levi’s routine a bit harder, he still found time to talk to you almost every night.

He still didn’t know your last name, but at this point he didn’t care, because he was very much into you, and you were very much into him.

From the first night you reached out to him, Levi was hooked, and that feeling only intensified the longer he got to know you. And the close call you and he had a few weeks back definitely solidified his feelings for you, because he hadn’t felt that panicked in a long time as he watched you fire off countless rounds towards his side of the gorge while he defended your side.

On a side note, at least he finally knew what he was keeping from coming out now.

Since it was now winter, it was significantly colder out, and there was only so much Levi could do to keep warm. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the tower was uncomfortable as fuck before, but now that it was snowing nearly every day, it just became damn near impossible to get any sleep.

And though he only slept for maybe three hours last night, Levi was wide awake tonight, and from the looks of it, so were you.

You were sitting on the chair on the observation deck, a blanket draped around your body as you watched the flames of a few candles you had placed on the railing flicker from the wind. It wasn’t snowing right now, so it wasn’t super cold, but even if it was, Levi didn’t think he could pass up the opportunity to talk to you. Of course, in the form of a whiteboard and marker.

‘HEY, BEAUTIFUL. CAN’T SLEEP?’ he wrote down, then caught your attention by flashing his light at you.

You got up from the chair and kept the blanket around you as you peered through the binoculars, and a pretty smile formed on your lips, which only served to prove his words. You wrote down something in your book before holding it up, ‘I CAN…BUT I DON’T WANT TO. I WAS WAITING FOR YOU,’

Levi smirked and jotted down his response, this part of his nightly routine definitely being his favorite by far. ‘SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING. YOU COLD?’

Your smile grew before you gave him a pointed look, and he laughed as you wrote down your answer. ‘A LITTLE…WISH I HAD SOMEONE HERE WITH ME,’ you held up the page for a few seconds before quickly flipping onto a new one and writing something else, ‘YOU KNOW, SO WE CAN SHARE BODY HEAT.’

Levi groaned at your words and felt a familiar stirring in his groin, but he made no move to relieve it as he simply wrote down another message to you. ‘YOU BETTER BE TALKING ABOUT ME,’

During the first month of knowing you, Levi would’ve never written something so bold, but after a few months, he knew where you and he stood with each other. He’d made his interest known, and you’d done the same. It was fair game now.

He watched as your shoulders shook a bit as you laughed, and fuck he wanted to hear that sound so badly. He wanted to hear your voice, see your gorgeous smile up close, and he wanted to see if you fit as perfectly in his arms as he thinks you do.

Most of all, he wanted to taste those lips of yours and tug on your bottom one in the way you do every time he looks over at you.

You leaned over the railing a bit as you held up your sheet of paper, and Levi felt another surge of desire run through his body. ‘OF COURSE I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU,’

He bit down on his own lip as he shook his head and wiped down the whiteboard before writing something else. ‘SO MUCH FOR STAYING PROFESSIONAL,’

Nothing about this was professional. None of it. Levi had broken the strict rule of absolutely no contact with the East side watcher, but how could he have possibly followed it after he saw you for the first time? You were far too tempting. Far too alluring and captivating and enticing. And Levi was all in.

‘WERE WE EVER?’ you held up the note, and Levi knew he needed to head inside the tower, because he was concerningly close to showing you just how much your words affected him.

Towards the end of January, the snow had already begun melting, and it wasn’t nearly as cold out anymore.

Levi was sitting on the edge of the tower, his legs dangling off the edge as the wind blew through his hair. His chin was propped on one of the bars as he looked down at the Gorge, but he couldn’t see much because of the fog.

Really, he’d rather not see the things that are down there again, because they were nothing short of nightmare fuel, and he didn’t need any more of those.

Nearly half a year here, surrounded by nothing at all but trees, and yet he didn’t feel lonely at all. Isolated, sure, but not lonely.

When a flicker of light caught his eye, he looked up and saw you shining the beam of sunlight that was bouncing off your knife in his direction, and Levi felt a grin form on his face as he slowly stood up and looked through the binoculars. ‘WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?’

A warm feeling took over his body, because you must have been watching him for a while, and that filled him with a sense of comfort he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He grabbed the whiteboard that was next to his book full of poems, most about you, and wrote down a simple answer. But he knew it’d make that pretty blush form on your face again. That was something else he was dying to see up close.

‘NOW? YOU,’

Levi was right in his assumption, as he saw your face break out into a smile and a soft blush, and you shook your head as you leaned against the railing.

Before you could think of anything to say back, he erased his words and returned your question, and you purse your lips as you peeked through the binoculars again.

You wandered over to your notepad and took your time writing something back, but Levi wasn’t impatient. Out here, with you just across the way from him, it felt like he had all the time in the world.

And you were worth the wait.

A few minutes passed before you lifted the page and revealed your words, and what pretty words they were. ‘YOU’RE A BREATH OF AIR, LEVI. AND I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF YOU,’

Levi felt a shudder run through him, because that was exactly how he felt about you. He hadn’t heard you say a word to him, hadn’t seen you up close at all, and yet he couldn’t get enough of you.

And you’d just given him your heart. He’d make damn sure he took care of it, just as long as you took care of his.

With a steady hand, he wrote his response to you on the whiteboard before holding it up, ‘I’M FALLING HARD FOR YOU,’

And now he’d just given you his heart, though something tells him he’d already given it to you a few months ago.

Your eyes closed once you’d read his message, and you pressed your lips together as you flipped to a new page in your book, and Levi watched as you scribbled something down onto it. ‘I KNOW WHAT I WANT. BECAUSE I TOLD YOU MY NAME,’

Levi was instantly taken back to the second night you and he exchanged notes, and how you expected something from him if you told him what your name was. He was more than willing to deliver on whatever it was you wanted.

You took your time again as you wrote something else down, then flipped onto a new page before you even showed him the first one, and a few seconds later, Levi watched you go back to the previous page and hold it up, ‘IF WE EVER GET TO SEE EACH OTHER FOR REAL,’ then you flipped to the last page, ‘THE VERY FIRST THING I WANT YOU TO DO IS KISS ME.’

Levi felt a smug grin form on his face before he pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. He could definitely do that. He’d definitely do that. One hundred percent. Because he wasn’t falling for you anymore. He had already fallen, and there was no going back.

He barely missed a beat as he picked up the marker again and wrote down a question, but it wasn’t really a question. It was more like…a promise.

Once he purposely ended his sentence with a period rather than a question mark, he held the whiteboard up near his chest, which was home to his heart that was secretly beating very fast.

‘YOUR PLACE OR MINE.’

A few days after that last interaction, Levi had been working on the easiest and most efficient way to get across the gaping ravine to you.

He was going to fire off a literal rocket launcher with a zipline attached to it and then would trust you to tie it tight enough to whatever you could find so he didn’t fall into the Gorge.

Once that was done, he made himself look as presentable as he could, which required him to shave a bit and smooth out his hair. Then he picked a small bouquet of wildflowers for you, and then he was off.

The journey across wasn’t so bad, well the first half anyway. The last half required him to pull himself the rest of the way across, but it wasn’t too hard, thanks to all his previous training in the Marines.

With that being said, he was a little breathless when he finally made it over to the East side and unclipped himself from the zipline. His heart was beating fast, and part of it was because of the extra work he didn’t account for just then, but also because he was finally, finally, seeing you face to face.

As he started walking towards your tower, he heard the metal door swing open, and a few seconds later, you turned the corner and met his gaze almost instantly. He moved closer, and you looked as nervous as he felt, which was a cute change to your usual playful and teasing personality.

When he stood only a few inches from you, Levi let his eyes flicker all over your face as he took in all the stunning little details he failed to see through the binoculars, and then he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours in a deep kiss. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close as he explored your mouth with his tongue, making sure he satisfied the one thing you told him you wanted him to do when you got to finally meet up.

The second his lips touched yours, it felt like everything had fallen into place. You kissed him back just as intensely, your hands reaching up to cradle his face, and he felt like he could easily become addicted to this.

Levi pulled you impossibly closer, his hands resting rather possessively on your lower back for this being the first time he’s ever touched you, but he couldn’t help himself. You fit against him perfectly, and you simply just felt perfect.

When he finally broke the kiss, he was breathing a little heavier, and he gazed into your eyes as a grin spread across his face. “That,” he whispered, “was definitely worth waiting for.”

You laughed quietly, and he tightened his hold on you even more as he heard your voice for the first time after months of passing notes back and forth. “Absolutely,” you agreed, your thumb brushing along his cheek and smoothing over the ridges that were there from his scars. Your eyes left his and you glanced down at the bouquet he’d tucked into his belt, and he nearly moaned when you bit down on your lip. “Are those for me?”

Levi’s smile felt permanent as he reached down to pull the flowers out and offer them to you. “Of course they’re for you,” he answered, watching as you took them from him like they were the most precious things you’d ever held. His hand went back to your waist as he leaned in closer again. “So…what do we do now?”

He’d technically done what he came here to do, which was to give you the best first kiss of your fucking life, but that wasn’t the only reason, and he hoped that was as obvious to you as it was to him.

You smiled up at him before leaning in as well and draping your arms around his shoulders, your chest pressing right up against his as you hugged him for a few seconds. Your fingers tangled in his hair as you pulled back to kiss him again, this one a little shorter, but still just as amazing as the first one.

“How about I give you a tour? Show you what it’s like over here on the East side?” you offered when you pulled away and pressed your forehead against his, and he knew by the teasing tone in your voice that a tour was probably the last thing that was on your mind.

Still, he hummed and nodded slowly, letting you take his hand in your small one and lead him towards the door and up the stairs. He shamelessly let his eyes wander all over your backside as he trailed behind you, and he couldn’t believe he was finally with you after months of pining.

When you and he got to the top, he looked around the open space for a few seconds. It was about the same size as his tower, but he didn’t have a piano in his, which was a little unfair. “Quite the setup you’ve got here,” he observed, eyeing the mattress you had pulled all the way up here, just like he did with his.

You laughed as you walked over to the small kitchenette that was on the far side of the room, and he quickly decided that it was one of his favorite sounds. “I imagine it looks quite similar to yours,” you murmured as you filled a glass with water before placing the flowers in it and setting it down on the top of the piano.

Levi did another sweep of the relatively simple and clean room. “Can’t say it does,” he replied, shaking his head afterwards. “Yours is definitely better.”

You smile over at him before moving closer and reaching for his hand. “I’m so happy you’re here,” you whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his palm.

Levi’s breath got caught in his throat, and he swallowed quickly as his free hand reached up to cup your cheek. “I’m happy I’m here too,” he said back just as quietly as he stepped closer to you. “So fucking happy.”

The air had been thick with tension since the second he stepped foot on this side, and he tried not to give it too much attention, he really did, but it had only grown thicker, and now all Levi wanted to do was kiss you again, touch you all over, and completely give in.

You were so much shorter than him and moved with a lot more grace than he did as you led him over towards the makeshift bed, and he was content with letting you take the lead, because he was ready when you were, and though he couldn’t wait, he could wait for you.

He pulled you against his chest again, his hands settling on your hips as he looked down at you, and your eyes were so fucking gorgeous up close. Every part of you was. And he wanted to memorize every inch of you before he had to go back to his tower.

Your hands rested on his shoulders, and you gently dug your fingers into his skin as you guided him down until he was on his knees beside the mattress. You followed him down so you were kneeling in front of him, and you still had to look up at him as you caressed his face. “Tell me to stop and I will,” you whispered, your lips curving upwards into a teasing smile. “But I hope you know that I really don’t want to.”

“Then don’t stop,” he said back, his hands reaching for your hips again as he pulled you so you were straddling his lap. You were small in his arms, yet you felt absolutely perfect against him like this. His voice was a little rougher as he repeated the words he would be saying again soon enough, “Don’t stop.”

You let out a shaky sigh, your lips curling up into a relieved smile before you were leaning in and kissing him deeply, like the two before this one. Your hands gently pulled at his hair as you kissed him, and everything felt right. Like he already belonged here. Like he already belonged with you.

When you pulled away from his mouth, your teeth tugged at his bottom lip as you slowly rolled your hips against his, and Levi let out a soft groan. “Do you want to?” you quietly asked, your thumb stroking along his beard and chin.

Did he want to? Were you seriously asking him that right now? He couldn’t get enough of you, couldn’t stop his hands from touching every part of you he’s thought about over and over again while laying on his own bed across the Gorge from you.

“Do I want to?” he echoed, his voice a bit strained as he pulled you against him a little harder. “Fuck yes, I want to.”

You nod quickly and go to bite down on your lip again before Levi leaned in and connected your mouths once more. His big hands slid up your back under your shirt, and he could feel the goosebumps forming on your skin from his touch.

He helped you pull off his jacket and shirt, leaving his chest bare to your eyes when you pulled back to look at him. His thumb traced your bottom lip as your gaze flickered over every inch of his upper half, and you let out a soft sigh. “Fuck…you’re so hot,” you whispered and leaned in to press opened mouthed kisses along his shoulder

Levi groaned under his breath, his head tipping back a bit to give you more access as his hands pulled at your shirt until it was off your body, leaving your top half nearly bare. Your hands were running along his abs and chest when you pulled back and looked at him, your eyes hooded and unguarded.

“Touch me,” you encouraged quietly, and Levi finally let himself indulge in you.

His gaze dropped down to the tops of your breasts that your bra didn’t cover, and he was reminded of the teaser he got that first night when you leaned over the railing. Fuck the view from this angle was even better.

He slid his hands up your back as he leaned his head down and pressed soft kisses to your skin before he buried his face between your flesh. Your moan was music to his ears as he let his fingers fumble with the clasp of your bra, and he slowly guided the straps down your arms.

“God,” he groaned when the fabric hit the floor, and his hands immediately explored the newly exposed skin of your breasts. “You’re so gorgeous.” he breathed, his thumbs brushing over your nipples until they pebbled at his touch.

You were so beautiful, you took his breath away. Your skin was warm and inviting, begging to be touched and worshipped. By him, of course.

He leaned up and kissed you again when you reached down and unzipped his pants before pushing them down his legs. His tongue brushed against yours as he explored your mouth, and then you pulled away to tug off your jeans and panties, and his lips brushed against your hard nipples before you settled back down on his lap.

Levi was so hard for you, he knew you could feel him through his boxers as you rolled your body against his again as you kissed him and ran your fingers through his hair. You pulled away and tugged his boxers down his legs so you both were completely naked, and the setting sun casted golden hues onto your skin in a way that made you look like something straight out of Heaven.

He knew then that he loved you. He could finally admit it to himself. He loves you.

Levi sucked in a harsh breath when you lowered yourself onto him, your heat enveloping his cock like a glove. “Oh fuck,” he groaned at your tightness, one of his hands caressing your lower back while his other wrapped around the back of your neck.

He guided your face down to his so your foreheads were pressed together, and he was met with the beautiful sound of your moan when you started to slowly ride him. “Oh, my God,” you whispered, wrapping your arms tightly around his shoulders as your hips rolled against his.

Levi groaned, feeling your tight pussy squeezing him in a way that had him seeing stars behind his closed eyelids. Your chest brushed against his with every slow bounce, and he loved it. He loved all of it, the feeling, the sounds you were making, how good you felt in his arms.

“You feel amazing,” he rasped out, his hands moving down to your ass. “God…don’t stop.” he begged, repeating his earlier words as he met you halfway with shallow thrusts.

Your hands pulled at his hair as you let out loud moans and moved a bit faster on him. “Levi,” you whimpered, and he felt himself twitch deep inside you, because that was the first time he’d heard what his name sounded like coming from you. And he was already obsessed with it.

“Fuck,” he muttered, gripping you a bit tighter as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. “Say that again. Please, baby.”

You shuddered in his arms, and he had a feeling that you had a thing for pet names, which was definitely something he would keep in mind from here on out.

“Levi,” you moaned again, this time directly into his ear, and he growled lowly, deciding to give you a break as he rolled you onto your side and onto the mattress. He supported himself on his elbow as he began to thrust in and out of you in the new position, his other arm wrapping around you and holding you flush against his chest.

“So tight,” he murmured under his breath, his eyes dark with desire and utter adoration. “So good.”

You moaned a little louder and let him lean down to capture your lips in a messy kiss as he continued to fuck up into you. “Oh, God, you feel so good,” you echoed against his lips as you wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders.

Levi could feel you tightening around him, and his hand slid back down to your ass as he pulled you harder against him. “Fuck, I’m close,” he muttered, and you nodded quickly as you ran your hands down his back, your nails leaving faint red lines along his skin.

“Me too,” you whispered, and then he felt you tense up in his arms when he thrust a little harder. Your eyes were nearly shut as you moaned for him, and when he felt you tighten around him even more, Levi leaned in and kissed you quickly before he tugged on your bottom lip with his teeth, satisfying his own craving as you came around him.

The sound you made went straight to his cock, and his eyes rolled back a bit as he rolled his hips a few more times before pulling out and coming all over your stomach and thigh.

You were shaking and whimpering as you came down from your high, your body covered in a thin layer of sweat and him. You looked absolutely breathtaking.

He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close to him as he let out heavy breaths. “I’ve never felt anything like that before,” he confessed, his lips brushing against the top of your head as you snuggled against him.

“Me either,” you said back, and he never wanted to leave your side.

An unknown amount of time passed before you and he finally got up and showered together, and his hands never left your body for more than a few seconds. He accidentally let it slip up that he had written a handful of poems about you, and you begged him to read them to you, but he told you he would the next time he got to hold you against him after today.

That was his promise to you. That this was just the first time you and he got to properly see each other. It wasn’t the last.

When the time to go to sleep came, Levi held your body in his arms like you were always meant to be there, and for the first time in a very long time, his nightmares didn’t wake him up.

The next morning, when he was forced to return back to the West side, Levi kissed you until you were breathless, then he was making the trek across the Gorge and back to his own watchtower.

Later that day, just as the sun was starting to set, Levi was well past the point of missing you. He was cold without you, the quiet now louder than ever after the day and night he spent with you.

When he glanced over at your tower, he saw you already looking at him, your notepad held up in your hands, and he sighed.

He could live like this for a little while longer. But after this? After this, he was going to figure out a way to be with you properly. Because he was tired of being alone. He wanted you.

‘I’M COLD AGAIN…MISS YOUR WARMTH ALREADY. AND YOUR LIPS,’

Levi smiled at that and shook his head as he grabbed his whiteboard. He missed all of you already.

Once he’d finished writing down his own message to you, he held it up for you to read, and the smile you gave him was all the reassurance he needed to know that this was real. This was the real thing. And it was just the beginning.

After this, he’d never be alone again.

‘KEEP WARM, BABY. TIL WE MEET AGAIN…ALWAYS THINKING OF YOU.’

Thanks for reading x | @thetorturedpoetcalleddez @broosterradley @spookystitchery @afangirlfandom @different-tale-student @impossibleblizzardstudentposts @shanimallina87

#levi kane #levi kane imagine #levi kane imagines #levi kane x reader #levi kane fluff #levi kane smut #levi kane the gorge #the gorge #the gorge 2025 #the gorge movie #the gorge levi kane #the gorge miles teller #miles teller #levi kane fic

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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WASHINGTON ― More than 5,000 people got their jobs back at the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month after a government employee oversight board concluded they had been illegally fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The decision by that panel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, came after it restored the jobs of six other federal employees who had been similarly fired by DOGE.

Meanwhile, this month, a federal judge blocked DOGE from firing the president of a small federal agency, the U.S. African Development Foundation, in a lawsuit that provides the clearest details yet on how DOGE operates and how it may be routinely breaking the law.

All of these legal challenges came from the same group, a well-funded progressive legal organization, Democracy Forward.

At a time when the flood of litigation against President Donald Trump’s early actions is nearly impossible to keep up with ― his administration has already been hit with more than 130 legal challenges in the span of two months ― Democracy Forward has emerged as a leading legal organization that’s been slowing, if not stopping, some of Trump’s recklessness through the courts.

The group doesn’t just stand out for the number of lawsuits it’s been filing, which include more than 28 legal actions and 67 investigations since Trump was sworn in. Democracy Forward has shown it can move quickly to step in amid Trump’s chaotic, and often illegal, efforts to dismantle entire agencies, freeze federal spending, and fire thousands of federal employees. It has intervened on behalf of individual people, unions, nonprofit groups, health care professionals, educators, veterans groups and religious groups.

And importantly, it’s been winning.

On Saturday, Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Trump’s expansion of war time powers to deport immigrants using the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act. Within hours, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Trump from removing some people through this act ― and later that day, broadened the scope of his order to cover all immigrants in danger of removal under the act.

In another case brought by Democracy Forward, a federal judge last week reaffirmed the court’s nationwide preliminary injunction (i.e., a temporary court order to preserve the status quo) that halted Trump’s efforts to arbitrarily terminate federal grants relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, and accessibility programs. The judge reaffirmed that not only can Trump not do that, but that this temporary halt applies to all agencies in the executive branch.

The group also secured the first and only nationwide order preventing Trump from imposing a sweeping freeze on trillions of dollars in federal spending, blocked a Trump administration policy enabling immigration enforcement officers to indiscriminately raid houses of worship, and this week prompted a federal judge to slam the Trump administration’s defense of DOGE and grant a request by labor and economic organizations to get more details about the Elon Musk-led entity unlawfully accessing sensitive data at federal agencies.

The evidence the Trump administration put forward to avoid more transparency into DOGE’s operations “is not the panacea they hoped it would be,” this judge concluded.

A big reason this organization has been so adept at countering Trump in court is because it spent the last 18 months gaming out legal strategies for responding to countless policy plans laid out in Project 2025, the far-right policy blueprint that the Heritage Foundation put together in preparation for a second Trump presidency.

Democracy Forward staff indexed the entire 900-page policy playbook, broke it down into different categories, put it in a spreadsheet and meticulously laid out what legal actions they should prepare to take based on how the Trump administration was likely to proceed with various policies, whether it be through executive orders, statutes or regulations.

They also coordinated with more than 450 civil society groups and state attorneys general to prepare for different scenarios where certain groups would be impacted by Project 2025 policies, and figured out when they should team up to defend the rule of law.

Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail because lots of its plans are extreme and unpopular. But the policy guidebook was put together by former Trump administration officials and staunch allies, so it’s not surprising to see the president now moving aggressively to enact some of its proposals, like purging tens of thousands of federal workers for political reasons or abolishing the Department of Education.

In fact, late Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the education department. Minutes later, Democracy Forward announced it would see him in court.

“Trump’s playbook is a known playbook,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO, told HuffPost in an interview. “The Heritage Foundation wrote it down: Project 2025. We never believed it was a talking point or hyperbole. It is the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War.”

Democracy Forward also prepared for a second Trump presidency by gathering materials from his first administration to review what legal actions and litigation he previously pursued, whether they be related to his executive orders, immigration cases, impoundment or challenges to executive orders issued by former President Joe Biden.

The president has done some unexpected things in his second term, like tapping Musk to oversee DOGE and letting him gain access to millions of Americans’ personal data. But Perryman said her organization was primed to respond to something chaotic, and in the case of DOGE, they sued on day one.

“This is like basic stuff,” she said.

“They do not play within the rules. There is opportunity in their lawlessness,” Perryman said. “They make a lot of legal foibles.”

Democracy Forward currently represents the American Federation of Teachers in two lawsuits, one that aims to halt DOGE’s seizure of millions of people’s sensitive data from the Social Security Administration, and another challenging a new Department of Education policy threatening to withhold federal money from schools teaching accurate history about slavery and diversity.

AFT, which has more than 1.8 million members, had been preparing to fight Trump’s executive order to dissolve the Department of Education when the department unexpectedly announced a new policy of stripping federal funds from schools that support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, said Daniel McNeil, general counsel at AFT. So the teachers’ group asked Democracy Forward if they wanted to team up to fight that, too.

“They already had something ready to go,” McNeil said. “It took working through the entire weekend to get it done, but they weren’t fazed at all by the fact that something else happened.”

AFT is working with other legal groups suing the Trump administration, he said, and they’re also doing good work. What’s unique about Democracy Forward’s model, though, is that they have their own attorneys doing the litigating versus hiring outside firms, and they have experts on staff, like someone who previously worked in the general counsel’s office at the Department of Education. They’ve also just been anticipating specific legal fights, he said.

“Of all the groups that were warning about Project 2025, they were systematically planning for the legal fight in the event that Trump were elected,” said McNeil. “For months in advance, they were thinking in a way that was like, ‘How do we challenge an executive order that does X? Who is the right party to challenge if Y happens?’ I think that’s what makes them different.”

Democracy Forward first launched in 2017, in response to what it described as the first Trump administration’s “unprecedented” threats to democracy and the rule of law. By 2019, it had sued his administration more than 100 times and chalked up several wins, including forcing the administration to collect pay data from employers based on race, gender and ethnicity, and forcing the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes.

Both Democracy Forward and its nonprofit counterpart, Democracy Forward Foundation, are chaired by Marc Elias, who served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The nonprofit is funded entirely by individual donors and philanthropic institutions. Its major donors include the Sandler Foundation, which gave $16 million from 2018 to 2023, and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which gave $5.6 million from 2021 to 2023.

Democracy Forward was operating with a budget of about $12.4 million in 2023, the most recent year its tax filings are available.

The organization has been hiring up for Trump’s second term. Last month, it brought on more litigators, public affairs specialists and operations personnel ― several of whom are seasoned former federal staffers from agencies that Democracy Forward will likely be seeing in court amid its lawsuits against the Trump administration, including the Justice Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Interior Department.

One of its newest hires, Joel McElvain, was the acting deputy general counsel at HHS, where he was responsible for legal advice on all matters relating to Medicare and Medicaid statutes and the Affordable Care Act. Another recent hire, Michael Waldman, was special counsel at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where he advised the secretary on oversight matters and managed the department’s responses to congressional inquiries.

Shawn Phetteplace of Main Street Alliance, a network of roughly 30,000 small business owners that support left-of-center policies, has worked with Democracy Forward for years and is currently represented by them in three cases against the Trump administration. One case relates to the Office of Management and Budget’s freeze on billions of dollars on Jan. 27 in congressional approved federal grants being disbursed.

This funding freeze resulted in multiple small business owners having their money cut off, to the point where they weren’t sure if they could continue to operate, said Phetteplace. Within hours of OMB announcing its new directive, Democracy Forward requested a temporary restraining order in federal court. A judge granted that order on Feb. 3, and by Feb. 25, the judge granted a preliminary injunction, blocking the nationwide freeze from taking effect, for now.

“They keep winning,” Phetteplace said of Democracy Forward. “For our members, this isn’t theoretical. This is whether or not they stay in business.”

He chalks up some of the group’s success to the public-facing push it makes on the cases it’s fighting. He gave the example of Main Street Alliance members reaching out to the group to talk about how their businesses were hurt by Trump’s policies, and then how litigation has helped them. Democracy Forward has been incorporating those stories into its public statements as it moves forward with various lawsuits.

“They understand that it is really important to shape the public narrative around the issue and educate the public about the stakes,” he said. “That helps them make a stronger case.”

To be sure, Democracy Forward has faced setbacks in stemming Trump’s chaos, and that’s due to at least some of its victories being temporary. Last month, it filed emergency litigation in response to Trump’s plans to unilaterally defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a financial watchdog agency. Their quick legal action resulted in the administration backing off its plans, instead agreeing to wait until a related case was heard in court.

A federal judge has since heard that case ― and this week denied the plaintiffs’ request to halt the administration’s plans for CFPB.

Temporary wins are still wins. When a judge issues a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, it immediately blocks an action and buys time. Preliminary injunctions in particular can drag on for a long time. Democracy Forward and other groups have already demonstrated that collectively taking these legal steps has a real effect on slowing Trump’s unlawful, everywhere-all-at-once approach to dismantling the federal government.

Democracy Forward chalked up another temporary, but significant, victory in one of its cases late on Thursday: A federal judge blocked DOGE workers from accessing Social Security systems, calling the Musk-led efforts at this agency a “fishing expedition.”

“This is a major win for working people and retirees across the country,” said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “This decision will not only force them to delete any data they have currently saved, but it will also block them from further sharing, accessing or disclosing our Social Security information.”

Some Trump allies are mad at the success that Democracy Forward and other groups have found in the courts, particularly in cases where judges have issued nationwide injunctions halting some of the president’s actions. In a nonsensical show of fealty to Trump, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Thursday vowed to introduce legislation to prevent U.S. district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions ― something that is, in fact, their jobs.

“That is not a power that I think district courts have,” Hawley, a Yale Law School alum who knows better, claimed on The Charlie Kirk Show, a far-right podcast. “Either the Supreme Court needs to intervene and make clear there’s only one court that can issue rules for the whole country … and/or, if they won’t do that, Congress needs to legislate and make clear that district courts do not have the ability to issue these kinds of injunctions.”

For her part, Perryman said one reason it’s important to slow things down in the courts is because it creates transparency on what Trump is actually doing. Doing so gives Americans a better understanding of the illegality of his actions, she said, and forces his administration to keep answering for what it’s doing.

“Understand that chaos is part of the strategy,” she said.

“Every day in litigation, what we see in this administration is they back off,” Perryman added. “Because really, the purpose is to see what they can do quickly. They don’t hold great conviction. There is opportunity in that.”

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ecrivainsolitaire · 3 months ago

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A summary of the Chinese AI situation, for the uninitiated.

These are scores on different tests that are designed to see how accurate a Large Language Model is in different areas of knowledge. As you know, OpenAI is partners with Microsoft, so these are the scores for ChatGPT and Copilot. DeepSeek is the Chinese model that got released a week ago. The rest are open source models, which means everyone is free to use them as they please, including the average Tumblr user. You can run them from the servers of the companies that made them for a subscription, or you can download them to install locally on your own computer. However, the computer requirements so far are so high that only a few people currently have the machines at home required to run it.

Yes, this is why AI uses so much electricity. As with any technology, the early models are highly inefficient. Think how a Ford T needed a long chimney to get rid of a ton of black smoke, which was unused petrol. Over the next hundred years combustion engines have become much more efficient, but they still waste a lot of energy, which is why we need to move towards renewable electricity and sustainable battery technology. But that's a topic for another day.

As you can see from the scores, are around the same accuracy. These tests are in constant evolution as well: as soon as they start becoming obsolete, new ones are released to adjust for a more complicated benchmark. The new models are trained using different machine learning techniques, and in theory, the goal is to make them faster and more efficient so they can operate with less power, much like modern cars use way less energy and produce far less pollution than the Ford T.

However, computing power requirements kept scaling up, so you're either tied to the subscription or forced to pay for a latest gen PC, which is why NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and all the other chip companies were investing hard on much more powerful GPUs and NPUs. For now all we need to know about those is that they're expensive, use a lot of electricity, and are required to operate the bots at superhuman speed (literally, all those clickbait posts about how AI was secretly 150 Indian men in a trenchcoat were nonsense).

Because the chip companies have been working hard on making big, bulky, powerful chips with massive fans that are up to the task, their stock value was skyrocketing, and because of that, everyone started to use AI as a marketing trend. See, marketing people are not smart, and they don't understand computers. Furthermore, marketing people think you're stupid, and because of their biased frame of reference, they think you're two snores short of brain-dead. The entire point of their existence is to turn tall tales into capital. So they don't know or care about what AI is or what it's useful for. They just saw Number Go Up for the AI companies and decided "AI is a magic cow we can milk forever". Sometimes it's not even AI, they just use old software and rebrand it, much like convection ovens became air fryers.

Well, now we're up to date. So what did DepSeek release that did a 9/11 on NVIDIA stock prices and popped the AI bubble?

Oh, I would not want to be an OpenAI investor right now either. A token is basically one Unicode character (it's more complicated than that but you can google that on your own time). That cost means you could input the entire works of Stephen King for under a dollar. Yes, including electricity costs. DeepSeek has jumped from a Ford T to a Subaru in terms of pollution and water use.

The issue here is not only input cost, though; all that data needs to be available live, in the RAM; this is why you need powerful, expensive chips in order to-

Holy shit.

I'm not going to detail all the numbers but I'm going to focus on the chip required: an RTX 3090. This is a gaming GPU that came out as the top of the line, the stuff South Korean LoL players buy…

Or they did, in September 2020. We're currently two generations ahead, on the RTX 5090.

What this is telling all those people who just sold their high-end gaming rig to be able to afford a machine that can run the latest ChatGPT locally, is that the person who bought it from them can run something basically just as powerful on their old one.

Which means that all those GPUs and NPUs that are being made, and all those deals Microsoft signed to have control of the AI market, have just lost a lot of their pulling power.

Well, I mean, the ChatGPT subscription is 20 bucks a month, surely the Chinese are charging a fortune for-

Oh. So it's free for everyone and you can use it or modify it however you want, no subscription, no unpayable electric bill, no handing Microsoft all of your private data, you can just run it on a relatively inexpensive PC. You could probably even run it on a phone in a couple years.

Oh, if only China had massive phone manufacturers that have a foot in the market everywhere except the US because the president had a tantrum eight years ago.

So… yeah, China just destabilised the global economy with a torrent file.

#valid ai criticism #ai #llms #DeepSeek #ai bubble #ChatGPT #google gemini #claude ai #this is gonna be the dotcom bubble again #hope you don't have stock on anything tech related #computer literacy #tech literacy

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ayeforscotland · 9 months ago

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What is Dataflow? Part 3: Doing the Practical

Apologies for the delay in getting this next section up - past few weeks have been super busy and then, hilariously, I was ill last week.

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

In Part 2 I wrote about how important diagrams have been throughout history. Understanding the 'big picture' has been important for every triumph of engineering. From bridges to skyscrapers to oil rigs and wind turbines, all of these have had diagrams backed by international standards which enabled them to be built.

The digital world hasn't quite managed that yet. In the other posts I've tried to drill home the point that modern digital businesses are often extremely siloed, communication and documentation isn't there and there is a lack of a common language between 'Business' and 'IT'.

This lack of understanding means organisations do not understand how data flows through their business and their supply chain.

It's the understanding of dataflow that's important here because it enables organisations to focus on optimising, securing and maintaining flows across an organisation rather than siloed teams patching things up where they can and not understand the upstream and downstream impact on the business.

Method and Layers

Going to preface this by saying that this may come across as complete common sense, and to some extent you'll be completely correct!

This is an example of how to create a very basic dataflow. But I will first start with understanding all of the People, Processes and Technology that I use to post on Tumblr.

So I start with six layers:

Ownership

Business Process

Application

System

Hardware

Infrastructure

What is important to remember here is that you do not have to be a specialist in every single layer.

A Business Analyst will feel much more at home in the Business Process Layer, while an Infrastructure Manager will be much more knowledgeable about the Infrastructure layer.

The important thing is that this Business & IT Diagram allows them to communicate more efficiently.

Let's Build a Dataflow!

In this example - There's an 'AyeforScotland' Element (the rectangle!) at the top. I'm the owner of everything below that element. The black lines are 'connections' representing the connectivity between the different elements.

Following the example, I'm responsible for' managing my blog 'Blog Management' which breaks down into smaller processes: Draft posts, schedule posts, answer anon abuse, and reblog shitposts.

Coming down to the Application Layer (red) - You can see that I draft and schedule posts using Tumblr Desktop and I'm using Firefox Web Browser for that.

But for answering anon abuse and reblogging shitposts, I'm using the Tumblr App.

In the Systems layer you can see I'm using Windows 11 on my PC (Hardware) and I'm using iOS on my iPhone.

Both my PC and iPhone connect to my BT Router.

And that's it for this Business & IT Diagram. I've shown clearly how I'm responsible for the processes and how I use the technology to perform those processes. I don't necessarily need to show everything on a single diagram because it would lose clarity.

This next Business & IT Diagram is much smaller, and establishes the relationships and dependencies on Tumblr to provide the service. And that's because we're complying with the laws and rules of a methodology.

In this diagram (probably need to zoom in to see it) I'm at the top left as 'AyeforScotland' and my 'BT Router' is spatially below me. Following the rules and laws of the method, that maintains the relationship that I have with the BT Router, I own it.

But I don't own the small 'Internet' that's next to it horizontally. I've simplified the concept of the internet for this example.

There's also two owners - 'Automattic' which owns and operates 'Tumblr' below it, with Tumblr being responsible for the 'Provision of Tumblr Services'.

Now naturally 'provision of Tumblr services' will break out into loads of sub-processes. Tumblr could map out their entire organisation (and if they need a hand, they can DM me!) But for this dataflow it's not really required.

Now both diagrams above are not dataflows. But close your eyes for a second and you can visualise what they are.

But because we've created our two diagrams, we understand the connectivity and using the software we can create the dataflow.

Now again, this is very basic. But when you put things into a dataflow context, you can put this down in front of a wide range of people from different business disciplines and they can start to optimise how the business works.

Here's a much larger Dataflow example, that you won't be able to read because it exceeds A0 printing size, but it should convey the scale.

If any of the connections or elements fail along this dataflow - The dataflow stops.

This costs organisations time and/or money.

So understanding dataflows allows IT people to articulate to business people "Hi boss, if this server goes down it will bring down this dataflow and cost the business $10,000 an hour" - Suddenly it's in a language they understand.

It helps with strategic decision-making, it helps with communication, it helps document how things *actually* work as opposed to how people think they work, and once you switch to thinking in terms of 'dataflow' it's hard to stop.

Conclusion

I can't wait to answer all the questions on the back of this.

Also one area I didn't go into is that each of the elements (rectangles) can also hold data (Financial data, Technical Specs, Risk & Cybersecurity metrics, Governance documentation etc).

It's also really easy to get started with it. You can start in any of the layers based on your area of work.

#ayeforscotland #dataflow #digital engineering #diagrams #crowdstrike

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kyova · 19 days ago

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From Alt National Park Service in n FB:

tl;dr:

DOGE accessed all those systems - IRS, Social Security, DHS, every office in the U.S. - not to promote “efficiency”, but to gather and control our electronic lives so they can ruin us if we step out of line in any way. Or if they just feel like it.

Alt National Park Service:

“DOGE has quietly transformed into something far more sinister — not a system for streamlining government, but one designed for surveillance, control, and targeting. And no one’s talking about it. So we’re going to spill the tea.

From the beginning, DOGE’s true mission has been about data — collecting massive amounts of personal information on Americans. Now, that data is being turned against immigrants.

At the center of this effort is Antonio Gracias, a longtime Elon Musk confidante. Though he holds no official government position, Gracias is leading a specialized DOGE task force focused on immigration. His team has embedded engineers and staff across nearly every corner of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

But it doesn’t stop there.

DOGE operatives have also been quietly placed inside other federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services — agencies that store some of the most sensitive personal data in the country, including on immigrants.

DOGE engineers now working inside DHS include Kyle Schutt, Edward Coristine (nicknamed “Big Balls”), Mark Elez, Aram Moghaddassi, and Payton Rehling. They’ve built the technical foundation behind a sweeping plan to revoke, cancel visas, and rewire the entire asylum process.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this plan? Flagging immigrants as “deceased” in the Social Security system — effectively canceling their SSNs. Without a valid Social Security number, it becomes nearly impossible to open a bank account, get a job, or even apply for a loan. The goal? Make life so difficult that people “self-deport.”

And if you’re marked as dead in the Social Security system, good luck fixing it. There’s virtually no path back — it’s a bureaucratic black hole.

You might ask: why do immigrants, asylum seekers, or refugees even have Social Security numbers? Because anyone authorized to work in the U.S. legally is issued one. It’s not just for citizens. It’s essential for participating in modern life — jobs, housing, banking, taxes. Without it, you’re locked out of society.

Last week, this plan was finalized in a high-level White House meeting that included DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Antonio Gracias, senior DOGE operatives, and top administration officials.

In recent weeks, the administration has moved aggressively to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants and international students — many of whom have been living and working in the U.S. legally for years.

At the core of this crackdown? Data.

DOGE has access to your SSN, your income, your political donations — and more. What was once sold as a tool for “government efficiency” has become something else entirely: a weaponized surveillance machine.

And if you think this ends with immigrants, think again.

Antonio Gracias has already used DOGE’s access to Social Security and state-level data to push voter fraud narratives during past elections. The system is in place. The precedent has been set. And average Americans should be concerned.”

#alt national park service #doge #elon musk #donald trump #student visas #immigrants #authoritarianism #us politics #trump #fuck trump #fuck elon musk

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fearfulfertility · 5 months ago

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PATERNITY COMPOUND FINANCIAL SAVINGS

DRC, Facility Operations Command, Compound Oversight Unit

Date: [REDACTED]

Subject: Paternity Compound 124 Creative Cost-Saving Efforts

Executive Summary

Paternity Compound 124 in [REDACTED], Idaho, has demonstrated exceptional productivity and cost efficiency this quarter, primarily due to implementing creative new budget policies to optimize management. The data indicates significant savings and output increases, positioning Compound 124 as a model for future compounds.

Total revenue saved this quarter: $[REDACTED]

I. Implemented Cost-Saving Measures

Clothing Elimination Initiative

After an exhaustive review of material costs, the decision was made to eliminate medical gowns and paternity clothing for surrogates. This measure, dubbed the "Bare Necessity Protocol," is based on the premise that clothing offers no functional benefit to surrogates who are perpetually growing or confined to medical beds due to mobility issues.

Rationale: Eliminates clothing costs entirely and simplifies laundry operations.

Savings: Reduced laundry, textile, and replacement costs by 98%.

Revenue Saved: $[REDACTED]

"Honestly, it’s just practical. They’re swelling up fast, and we’d need new gowns every other day. It simplifies things for us." - Staff Feedback

“They’ve taken everything—my freedom, my body, my dignity—and now they’ve taken my fucking underwear too. It's embarrassing! Thank god this belly is a furnace!” - Surrogate Feedback

"One Size Fits All" Feeding Solution

The compound replaced most surrogate food options with a cost-efficient pudding substitute nicknamed "Big Berry Bliss." Each serving contains a carefully calibrated mix of high-calorie nutrients, tranquilizers, appetite stimulants, and growth hormones to promote fetal growth and docility.

Rationale: Simplifies meal prep, reduces dishwashing needs, and ensures surrogates receive consistent nutrition. Eliminate the need for personalized meals or cafeteria staff while ensuring continuous weight gain and docility. Minimize pharmacy visits by delivering hormonal therapy directly in the food.

Results: Food service costs were reduced by 82%, pharmacy staffing by 65%, and food waste by 20%. Staff food options will be maintained. With revenue saved, high-quality options can now be considered.

Revenue Saved: $[REDACTED]

"Big Berry Bliss is so easy—just scoop, serve, and go. Hell, we just hand them a tub of the stuff, and they choke it down, then ask for more." - Staff Feedback

“This stuff tastes like sugar mixed with cream. A few of us complained, but they told us we didn't have to eat it. But we need so many calories for these pregnancies... most of us lasted until dinner.” - Surrogate Feedback

Wheel-In Baby Showers

To reduce the need for consoling services and bolster surrogate morale with cost-effective activities, staff introduced a celebratory “babies shower” where surrogates are wheeled out of the paternity ward before being removed for childbirth. Activities include:

Rationale: Boosts surrogate morale and reduces the need for psychological services. Staff wearing party hats and blowing noisemakers (repeat usage). Playing uplifting music like "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa and "Baby Got Back."

Revenue Saved: $[REDACTED]

"The baby showers are kind of fun. A little music, some confetti, and you’re done. Their pregnancy brain is so bad they are more confused and distracted than anything, which makes rolling them out all the easier." - Staff Feedback

“They roll me out in front of everyone, playing stupid songs and yelling, ‘Congratulations!’ like I’ve won some prize. All I feel is pain and exhaustion. It’s not a celebration—it’s a mockery.” - Surrogate Feedback

Open-Air Hygiene Zones

Replace bathrooms with “communal hygiene areas,” which repurpose the fire suppression systems to allow for high-capacity showering. Now, entire paternity wards of surrogates can be cleaned en-mass, reducing the need for staff to move surrogates for cleaning and reducing personal toiletries requirements.

Rationale: Centralized hygiene reduces staff requirements and water waste.

Revenue Saved: $[REDACTED]

"The open-air hygiene zones are genius. Just hose everyone down at once, and you’re done. It saves so much time, and I don't spend entire days scrubbing them down. And honestly, it’s kind of fun to watch. Like a pregnant car wash." - Staff Feedback

“They never warn us when they're going to shower us! One minute, you're watching TV... the next, they blast us with water like we’re livestock. No privacy, no warmth, nothing!.” - Surrogate Feedback

II. Efficiency Metrics

Cost Per Surrogate: $[REDACTED] (down 23%).

Medical: $[REDACTED] (down 19%)

Nutrition Services: $[REDACTED] (down 30%)

Housing: $[REDACTED]

Security: $[REDACTED]

Psychological Support: $[REDACTED] (up 18%)

Maintenance & Facility Upkeep: $[REDACTED] (down 16%)

Logistics: $[REDACTED]

Entertainment: $[REDACTED]

Administrative: $[REDACTED] (down 14%)

Conclusion

Paternity Compound 124 has demonstrated exceptional efficiency in meeting and lowering costs. While surrogate morale remains an area for improvement, the cost savings and output gains achieved through innovative strategies set a benchmark for other compounds.

"Efficiency is the cornerstone of progress. At Compound 124, we’ve shown that we can achieve extraordinary results with a little creativity and focus. While some may view these changes as unconventional, the numbers speak for themselves—every dollar saved is another step toward securing our future."

Report Submitted By: [REDACTED], Administrator, Paternity Compound 124

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

Sending...

Read...

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

To: Chief Operating Officer, Internal Affairs

From: Director [REDACTED]

Date: [REDACTED]

Subject: Investigation into Administrator [REDACTED] and Misappropriation of Funds at Paternity Compound 124

Chief [REDACTED],

It has come to my attention that while Administrator [REDACTED] has implemented a series of operational changes at Paternity Compound 124 that have resulted in documented cost savings of $[REDACTED], evidence has surfaced indicating the potential misappropriation or embezzlement of these funds.

Emerging discrepancies in financial records suggest that a significant portion of the funds saved through these initiatives has not been reinvested into compound operations or returned to the DRC’s central budget.

Effective immediately, Administrator [REDACTED] is to be placed on administrative leave pending a full investigation.

Internal Affairs will oversee a comprehensive audit of his financial transactions, operational decisions, and any personal accounts associated with him.

Administrator [REDACTED]’s measures to reduce operational costs have yielded undeniable financial benefits, and these measures should not be dismissed out of hand. I am directing that the relevant improvements he initiated be thoroughly assessed and, if appropriate, rolled out on a trial basis at other compounds.

Internal Affairs will take care of this quickly and without bias. If Administrator [REDACTED] is found to have misappropriated DRC funds for personal gain, I expect full disciplinary action.

Regards,

Director [REDACTED]

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Click Here to return to DRC Report Archives

#mpreg #mpreg kink #male pregnancy #mpreg belly #pregnant man #mpreg morph #mpreg caption #mpregbelly #mpregstory #mpreg birth #mpreg art #mpreg story #mpregnancy #ai mpreg #mpreg roleplay #male pregnant #latinompreg

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probablyasocialecologist · 10 months ago

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Consider the ways oil and gas are already entwined with big tech. The foundation of the partnership between Big Tech and Big Oil is the cloud, explains Zero Cool, a software expert who went to Kazakhstan to do work for Chevron and chronicled this in Logic magazine. “For Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as a few smaller cloud competitors like Oracle and IBM, winning the IT spend of the Fortune 500 is where most of the money in the public cloud market will be made”—and out of the biggest ten companies in the world by revenue, six are in the business of oil production. What are oil companies going to do with the cloud? Apparently, Chevron—which signed a seven-year cloud contract with Microsoft—generates a terabyte of data per day per sensor and has thousands of wells with these sensors. They can’t even use all that data because of the scale of computation required. “Big Tech doesn’t just supply the infrastructures that enable oil companies to crunch their data,” explains Zero Cool; they also provide analytic tools, and machine learning can help discover patterns to run their operations more efficiently. This is another reason why Big Oils need Big Tech; they have the edge when it comes to artificial intelligence/machine learning. “Why go through the effort of using clean energy to power your data centers when those same data centers are being used by companies like Chevron to produce more oil?” Zero Cool asks, also noting that one of the main reasons oil companies are interested in technology is to surveil workers.

Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough

#fossil fuels #Ending Fossil Fuels #big data #big tech

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canmom · 10 months ago

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how much power does tech really use, compared to other shit?

my dash has been full of arguing about AI power consumption recently. so I decided to investigate a bit.

it's true, as the Ars Technica article argues, that AI is still only one fairly small part of the overall tech sector power consumption, potentially comparable to things like PC gaming. what's notable is how quickly it's grown in just a few years, and this is likely to be a limit to how much more it can scale.

I think it is reasonable to say that adding generative AI at large scale to systems that did not previously have generative AI (phones, Windows operating system etc.) will increase the energy cost. it's hard to estimate by how much. however, the bulk of AI energy use is in training, not querying. in some cases 'AI' might lead to less energy use, e.g. using an AI denoiser will reduce the energy needed to render an animated film.

the real problem being exposed is that most of us don't really have any intuition for how much energy is used for what. you can draw comparisons all sorts of ways. compare it to the total energy consumption of humanity and it may sound fairly niche; compare it to the energy used by a small country (I've seen Ireland as one example, which used about 170TWh in 2022) and it can sound huge.

but if we want to reduce the overall energy demand of our species (to slow our CO2 emissions in the short term, and accomodate the limitations of renewables in a hypothetical future), we should look at the full stack. how does AI, crypto and tech compare to other uses of energy?

here's how physicist David McKay broke down energy use per person in the UK way back in 2008 in Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air, and his estimate of a viable renewable mix for the UK.

('Stuff' represents the embedded energy of manufactured goods not covered by the other boxes. 'Gadgets' represents the energy used by electronic devices including passive consumption by devices left on standby, and datacentres supporting them - I believe the embodied energy cost of building them falls under 'stuff' instead.)

today those numbers would probably look different - populations change, tech evolves, etc. etc., and this notably predates the massive rise in network infrastructure and computing tech that the Ars article describes. I'm sure someone's come up with a more up-to-date SEWTHA-style estimate of how energy consumption breaks down since then, but I don't have it to hand.

that said, the relative sizes of the blocks won't have changed that much. we still eat, heat our homes and fly about as much as ever; electric cars have become more popular but the fleet is still mostly petrol-powered. nothing has fundamentally changed in terms of the efficiency of most of this stuff. depending where you live, things might look a bit different - less energy on heating/cooling or more on cars for example.

how big a block would AI and crypto make on a chart like this?

per the IEA, crypto used 100-150TWh of electricity worldwide in 2022. in McKay's preferred unit of kWh/day/person, that would come to a worldwide average of just 0.04kWh/day/person. that is of course imagining that all eight billion of us use crypto, which is not true. if you looked at the total crypto-owning population, estimated to be 560 million in 2024, that comes to about 0.6kWh/day/crypto-owning person for cryptocurrency mining [2022/2024 data]. I'm sure that applies to a lot of people who just used crypto once to buy drugs or something, so the footprint of 'heavier' crypto users would be higher.

I'm actually a little surpised by this - I thought crypto was way worse. it's still orders of magnitude more demanding than other transaction systems but I'm rather relieved to see we haven't spent that much energy on the red queen race of cryptomining.

the projected energy use of AI is a bit more vague - depending on your estimate it could be higher or lower - but it would be a similar order of magnitude (around 100TWh).

SEWTHA calculated that in 2007, data centres in the USA added up to 0.4kWh/day/person. the ars article shows worldwide total data centre energy use increasing by a factor of about 7 since then; the world population has increased from just under 7 billion to nearly 8 billion. so the amount per person is probably about a sixfold increase to around 2.4kWh/day/person for data centres in the USA [extrapolated estimate based on 2007 data] - for Americans, anyway.

however, this is complicated because the proportion of people using network infrastructure worldwide has probably grown a lot since 2007, so a lot of that data centre expansion might be taking place outside the States.

as an alternative calculation, the IEA reports that in 2022, data centres accounted for 240-340 TWh, and transmitting data across the network, 260-360 TWh; in total 500-700TWh. averaged across the whole world, that comes to just 0.2 kWh/day/person for data centres and network infrastructure worldwide [2022 data] - though it probably breaks down very unequally across countries, which might account for the huge discrepancy in our estimates here! e.g. if you live in a country with fast, reliable internet where you can easily stream 4k video, you will probably account for much higher internet traffic than someone in a country where most people connect to the internet using phones over data.

overall, however we calculate it, it's still pretty small compared to the rest of the stack. AI is growing fast but worldwide energy use is around 180,000 TWh. humans use a lot of fucking energy. of course, reducing this is a multi-front battle, so we can still definitely stand to gain in tech. it's just not the main front here.

instead, the four biggest blocks by far are transportation, heating/cooling and manufacturing. if we want to make a real dent we'd need to collectively travel by car and plane a lot less, insulate our houses better, and reduce the turnover of material objects.

#ai #energy #environment #physics

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darkmaga-returns · 2 months ago

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The truth is that Elon Musk and his DOGE team are beginning to scratch the surface of the greatest heist of all time, and the Democrats are starting to get very nervous. If they are allowed to complete what they have started, the American people will finally learn what has really been going on in Washington and nothing will ever be the same after this.

According to the Washington Post, Musk and his team have been “disrupting operations in at least 14 government agencies” so far…

Staffers and allies of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service have fanned out across Washington in recent days, seeking access to sensitive data and disrupting operations in at least 14 government agencies in pursuit of a dramatically smaller federal government. DOGE, which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, has not disclosed the names of its staff. But The Washington Post has identified more than 30 people working for or closely with it by examining the internal directories of multiple agencies and interviewing numerous federal workers, virtually all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The Washington Post is attempting to put the activities of Musk and his team in a negative light, because the Post stands to lose quite a bit of revenue as their government contracts get canceled.

But millions upon millions of ordinary Americans are thrilled about what Musk and his team are doing, because we are finally learning what has really been going on behind the scenes.

One of the latest agencies to get visitors from DOGE is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The DOGE team must have discovered something big, because the acting director of the agency has ordered virtually all work to come to a standstill…

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trooper1023 · 19 days ago

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From Alt Park National Service on FB:

DOGE has quietly transformed into something far more sinister — not a system for streamlining government, but one designed for surveillance, control, and targeting. And no one’s talking about it. So we’re going to spill the tea.

From the beginning, DOGE’s true mission has been about data — collecting massive amounts of personal information on Americans. Now, that data is being turned against immigrants.

But it doesn’t stop there.

And if you’re marked as dead in the Social Security system, good luck fixing it. There’s virtually no path back — it’s a bureaucratic black hole.

Last week, this plan was finalized in a high-level White House meeting that included DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Antonio Gracias, senior DOGE operatives, and top administration officials.

At the core of this crackdown? Data.

And if you think this ends with immigrants, think again.

#america #government #america under dictatorship #surveillance #mass surveillance #doge #doge is dodgy #immigrants #dissenting citizens are next #alt national park service

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spark-hearts2 · 2 months ago

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QUESTION THREE:

If servers take up so much space, then does the warehouse they’re in just have to be Big Enough or can you wire servers together over multiple floors with long enough cables? Does this impact processing time? With huge server systems like Google, do they even HAVE an access point or a central node or is it just one, MASSIVE conglomeration of processing power?? Are there different types of cable for different purposes of what the servers are doing?? Im going insane. Madam I’ve been struck with The Ailment (ADHD)

OK! This one is really interesting because it's the reason why I don't believe that the Circus is abandoned. I mean that in the way that if TADC is following any kind of realistic standards, then the physical hardware behind the circus can't be just tucked away in an abandoned building somewhere. The demands for power and cooling are high. Even if we assume that automated systems take care of that, hardware WILL fail over years of operation.

(Sorry this took so long) Once again, long post under cut

Have you ever seen Google go down? Maybe Youtube? In the past when they were a small website, sure, but not anymore. If you can make a connection, then you will be able to reach those servers. I assume that the circus has a similar setup, as No matter what, there is a digital space for the humans to occupy. That means that there is ZERO downtime.

But these devises live in the real world, connected to the very real power grid. How can they be powered 24/7? A bad storm hits the area and a tree takes out the power lines, do all of the websites hosted on those servers have to wait the hours, possibly days for that line to be fixed? Nope! These centers advertise 24/7 service and they mean it. What this means is that typically, they will have ON SITE generators that can run the ENTIRE center at a moments notice. Some even have an extra generator on standby in case one of the generators malfunction. Redundancy is the name of the game. If something is essential to function, then there WILL be an exact copy on site as a backup. That is why these big websites never go down for service, there is ALWAYS something available to connect to.

But what most people don't realize is the water requirements. Have you ever seen the statistic that chatGPT consumes like 2-3 THOUSAND liters of water every day? And thought, why the fuck does a computer need water? Isn’t water a bad thing for computers? But water has a very useful ability in the way that it handles heat. It’s the same way how your sweat evaporating cools you off. Think of cooling as just removing the heat instead of actually making cold. So water is used in the cooling of these data centers, which is to say, water is used as the refrigerant. It’s a similar concept to how your fridge works, except the refrigerant is lost over time. The water is allowed to evaporate and leave the building because it makes for more efficient cooling. Here’s a video that goes more into detail about water loss cooling for data centers specifically.

As for the actual building, data centers with multiple floors do exist! The reason one may be a single story has more to do with the cost of land vs the cost to build a building with multiple floors that can support the weight of all of those machines. If land cost more than the steel and concrete needed for multiple floors, then. yes, the shorter the cable the more efficient the data transfer, but the time loss is so short that it’s pretty much unnoticeable to the human eye. Some places also standardize their wire lengths, so every server gets the same load time regardless of the actual placement of the server.

But the people who care about that are insane stock traders (not gamers believe it or not) and advancements have made it so that time delay only starts to matter when a cable reaches miles long in length. And those advancements are Fiber Optics! Fiber being literal fibers (either glass or plastic) and Optics as in lenses or reflection. This is because fiber optic cables carry light instead of electricity. Because light is fast as fuck. So then where does the delay come from? Turns out even with the most reflective, chemically perfect fibers, light scatters and eventually data is lost. So repeaters are put in to repeat the input signal, refreshing it. But these repeaters aren’t perfect, so lag is eventually introduced, so modern fiber optics use amplifiers. Amplifiers strengthen the original signal instead of repeating it, making for faster transfers of days.

But you want to know about how these things are wired in terms of electricity! How these things can fit so much electricity in one building? The answer is industrial grade wiring! It's different from the power cables that you find in your house. Well, the wires themselves may be the same, the difference comes in at the fuse box. Here’s a lady plugging all of the wires in a house into the fuse box. The box itself is then plugged into the power line, which provides the electricity. Multiple lines or higher gauge lines will be ran from the power plant to the data center. The exact set up depends on where the data center is in relation to the power plant, who’s building it, and state laws.

Also, for industrial wiring, they usually run the wires through metal pipes instead of letting the wires sit against the insulation. Here’s a guy who wired his house like this. He doesn’t go into detail about what everything means but you don’t need to know all of that to appreciate the pipe work. If you want me to go into electricity as a form of power and the different phases of AC... I'm going to be honest just call me on discord so I can get out the whiteboard. I will give you a whole college grade lecture about how electricity works.

Servers don't have a central node, their operation and purpose is different from computer clusters. While each unit is wired together in a cabinet, each unit operates as it's own individual machine. So, a computer cluster will be spreading one load over multiple machines, a server takes many small loads (<- terrible oversimplification but it works). Everything around it exists to route the right requests to it, power it, cool it, and monitor its operation. But they do have access points! As in, you can connect to it directly or use SSH shell to remotely connect to it. SSH shell is just a secure way to connect to the server, as a maintenance level of access is usually not something that you want anyone to be able to pick up on.

Last but not least, YES! There are many different kinds of cables made for different tasks! Or just to be cheap. The more you get into engineering the more you realize half the shit that we do is because it's the cheapest option that still meets requirements! I left some interesting videos in the bottom of this if you are really curious, but I honestly think that figuring out the exact wires is getting a little too into the weeds for this.

So, to summarize, data centers need generators, water for cooling, and have spare copies of pretty much everything. That’s why it’s so god damn rare to see big websites like google docs down but Ao3 goes down every now and then. He's a bunch of helpful videos that I uses when writing this.

Why the Internet Is Running Out of Electricity

I Can't BELIEVE They Let Me in Here!

Data Center Cooling

How Does LIGHT Carry Data? - Fiber Optics Explained

fiber optic cables (what you NEED to know)

What Ethernet Cable to Use? Cat5? Cat6? Cat7?

How I wired my house.

How I wire a panel (an in-depth tutorial)

Troubleshooting an outlet (interesting video)

Computer science slander

#tech #technology #tech question #server racks #servers #youtube link #mmm #electricity #electronics #ask

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