#Terminal Management System Market

[robertemma27-blog]

Terminal Management System Market Size Trends Forecast Research

The terminal management system market was valued at USD 725.5 Million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD 1097.7 Million by 2023, at a CAGR of 5.94% between 2017 and 2023.

Major players operating in the terminal management system market include ABB Ltd. (Switzerland), Honeywell International, Inc. (US), Siemens AG (Germany), Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan), Rockwell Automation, Inc. (US), Schneider Electric (France), Emerson Electric Corporation (US), Endress + Hauser AG (Switzerland), General Atomics Corp. (California) and Implico GmbH (Germany).

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=107086019

The implementation of terminal management solution in brownfield terminals reduces operational costs, and the integrated safety and security solutions enhance the level of automation at a terminal.

Brownfield terminals expected to grow at a high rate during the forecast period

Traditional terminal infrastructure such as pipeline connections, tanker berths, and other components is already present, and therefore the automation of such existing terminals by integrating software will help increase the number of brownfield projects.

The key reason attributed to the growth of services in the terminal management system market is the growing awareness for installing automation solutions and the need for providing services, such as training and maintenance, to improve the operational efficiency of terminals and make them more efficient.

For instance, in July 2013, ABB Ltd. (Switzerland) received a contract from Amec Foster Wheeler plc (UK) to automate the bulk inventory operations management of the chemicals complex in Saudi Arabia. As per the contract, ABB Ltd. deployed its T-MAC Plus system to optimize operations, as well as increase energy efficiency, safety, and control with a scalable solution.

Terminal management system market in APAC likely to grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period

Key factors contributing to the growth of terminal management system market in APAC is the increase in the number of terminal automation projects in countries such as India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. For instance, in June 2015, Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan) received a contract worth approximately USD 11 million from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (India) to automate its truck-loading terminals. According to the contract, Yokogawa Electric Corporation provided its terminal logistics suite, a terminal automation system (TAS), to truck loading terminals of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in India.

[aimarketresearch]

Terminal Management System Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth and Competitive Analysis

Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market study by Data Bridge Market Research provides details about the market dynamics affecting this market, Market scope, Market segmentation and overlays shadow upon the leading market players highlighting the favourable competitive landscape and trends prevailing over the years.

Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market report provides top to bottom assessment of the market with respect to income and developing business sector. The report encompasses several market dynamics while also evaluating the growth rate and the market value based on market dynamics and growth inducing factors. The industry analysis report is mainly explored under four major areas which are market definition, market segmentation, competitive analysis and research methodology. Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market business report also covers strategic profiling of the major players in the market, comprehensive analysis of their fundamental competencies, and thereby keeping competitive landscape of the market in front of the client.

Access Full 350 Pages PDF Report @

The surgical operating microscopes market is expected to witness market growth at a rate of 11.5% in the forecast period of 2021 to 2028. Data Bridge Market Research report on surgical operating microscopes market provides analysis and insights regarding the various factors expected to be prevalent throughout the forecast period while providing their impacts on the market’s growth. The rise in healthcare sector globally is escalating the growth of surgical operating microscopes market.

Highlights of TOC:

Chapter 1: Market overview

Chapter 2: Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market

Chapter 3: Regional analysis of the Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market industry

Chapter 4: Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market segmentation based on types and applications

Chapter 5: Revenue analysis based on types and applications

Chapter 6: Market share

Chapter 7: Competitive Landscape

Chapter 8: Drivers, Restraints, Challenges, and Opportunities

Chapter 9: Gross Margin and Price Analysis

Key takeaways from the Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market report:

Detailed considerate of Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market-particular drivers, Trends, constraints, Restraints, Opportunities and major micro markets.

Comprehensive valuation of all prospects and threat in the

In depth study of industry strategies for growth of the Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market-leading players.

Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market latest innovations and major procedures.

Favorable dip inside Vigorous high-tech and market latest trends remarkable the Market.

Conclusive study about the growth conspiracy of Europe Terminal Management System (TMS) Market for forthcoming years.

The major players covered in the terminal management system (TMS) market report are ABB, Honeywell International, Inc., Rockwell Automation, Inc., Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Siemens, ION, Agidens International NV, akquinet AG, Dearman Systems, Inc., EDS Systems OÜ, Emerson Electric Co., Endress+Hauser Management AG, General Atomics, Implico, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Limited, Oceaneering International, Inc., Offspring International Limited, PumpingSol, Ramboll Group A/S, Schneider Electric, SGS SA, i.Dohmann GmbH among others. DBMR analysts understand competitive strengths and provide competitive analysis for each competitor separately.

Browse Trending Reports:

Asia Pacific Hyperspectral Imaging Systems Market

Surface Mount Technology Market

Europe Terminal Management System Tms Market

Passive Matrix Liquid Crystal Display Market

Handheld Spectrum Analyzer Market

About Data Bridge Market Research:

Data Bridge set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.

Contact Us:

Data Bridge Market Research

US: +1 888 387 2818

UK: +44 208 089 1725

Hong Kong: +852 8192 7475

Email: corporatesales@databridgemarketresearch.com

[collapsedsquid]

The system has resulted in large rent increases that were previously unthinkable, according to RealPage's own executives. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually," RealPage executive Andrew Bowen said. Arizona's lawsuit alleges that RealPage "puts significant pressure on participants to ensure they adopt RealPage’s prices." Specifically, RealPage employs "pricing advisors" who "meet with landlords to ensure that properties are implementing RealPage’s set rates." This is described by Arizona as "policing the conspiracy to make sure no one cheats by lowering prices and trying to gain market share." RealPage training materials, cited in the DC lawsuit, advise that landlords "should be compliant" with the software's pricing recommendations. The Arizona lawsuit claims that landlords "agree that if they fail to consistently implement RealPage’s set rates, their contract with RealPage will be terminated." Jeffrey Roper, who created the RealPage algorithm, explained that if "you have idiots undervaluing, it costs the whole system." According to DC's lawsuit, this practice shows that "while RealPage sought to grow the cartel to maximize profits, it also understood the importance of universal adherence and was willing to expel an occasional cartel member to demonstrate its commitment to enforcement of the agreed-upon pricing scheme." While the RealPage software eliminates the need for competitors to meet in a smoke-filled room, Arizona asserts that it "is still illegal… for competitors to join together decision-making power to raise, depress, fix, or stabilize prices—no matter the technology used to effect a price-fixing agreement."

[nqueso-emergency]

From a writer’s perspective, I just don’t see Buddie happening for the same reason I don’t see Eddie finding a LI that lasts anytime soon. Let me know if you agree.

To me, if the whole main cast is already paired up, it can get boring for the GA. There are so many sls you can do with a couple, much less if you have a main cast made only of couples. Having Buddie would, also, change the 118’s dynamic in a way I don’t think would be good.

Up until now Buck was the one they could play as the attractive bachelor, but I think it got old and the GA wanted him to find happiness and a solid partner for once and finally. I haven’t seen that sentiment towards Eddie (so far). Therefore - find Buck his happiness (Tommy) and have Eddie take on the role of bachelor of the 118.

I’ve been thinking this since the end of the season, but marketing pushing RG has made me think I could be somewhat right

You are right but a little wrong.

With the way Eddie's storyline was left at the end of season 7, it is obvious that the last thing Eddie needs is another LI. He's got issues with his past he will need to address before they even think of giving him a new LI.

You are correct in saying that about the main pairings and the way Buddie would change the dynamics. There are real firefighters and regulation managers on set. Sure, they understand it's television and certain belief must be suspended. However, they are sticklers for the rules.

This could be countered with the Bobby/Athena relationship. Just keep in mind that Athena is a Sargent and Bobby is a Captain so disobeying orders wouldn't be met with as much force as it would for two basic firefighters under the same house.

If Eddie or Buck got hurt, the other one would not be able to take part in helping them. They would be pulled off shift and then the 118 would be down two men.

They would have to separate them and then people would bitch about that too.

They part you're wrong about is Buck being a bachelor is boring to the general audience.

Buck, constantly struggling in relationships, was becoming boring for Oliver. He was dying to have Buck experienced domestic scenes and allowing his character to grow through a mature relationship that wasn't one-sided, like in season 1.

Something I'd like everyone to understand and keep in mind is this:

Yes, this is a procedural on network television. You are not going to get six year slow burns or the characters suddenly saying "fuck it" to protocol. (A secret relationship would be grounds for termination.)

Saying that, Tim and the writers are really drawn to representing their general audience and so far, they have.

Hen and Karen: Hen pursuing college after 40. Karen being a genius yet down to earth person. Lesbians. Cheating. Struggling with having children. Foster system. Adoption.

Maddie and Chim: Domestic violence. Second chance. Chim not thinking he's enough in previous relationships. Medical emergencies. Pregnancy. Therapy. Post-partum depression. New mom fears. Marriage. Miscommunication.

Bobby and Athena: Divorce. Betrayal. Alcoholic. Traumatic pasts. Lost fiancé. Lost family. Accepting love again. Support. Found family. House fire. Co-parenting. Recovery.

Eddie: PTSD. Army medic. Parent to special needs child. Single father. Repressed grief. Straight man unable to connect with woman. Anger issues.

Buck: Abandonment issues. Needs companship. Looking for happiness. Jealousy. Young. Sex addict. Rule breaker. Realized he was bisexual at 32.

Tommy: Came out late in life. Mysterious. Kind. Sarcastic. Defense mechanisms. Was forced to play a part of something he hates for most of his life. Army pilot.

It's important that the audience can see themselves in the characters they love.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Brinklump Linkdump

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a linkdump, the 14th in the series:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

It's the Year of Our Gourd twenty and twenty-four and holy shit, is rampant corporate power rampant. On January 1, the inbred droolers of Big Pharma shat out their annual price increases, as cataloged in 46Brooklyn's latest Brand Drug List Price Change Box Score:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/branddrug-boxscore

Here's the deal: drugs that have already been developed, brought to market, and paid off are now getting more expensive. Why? Because the pharma companies have "pricing power," the most reliable indicator of monopoly. Ed Cara rounds up the highlights for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/ozempic-wegovy-wellbutrin-oxycontin-drug-price-increase-1851179427

What's going up? Well, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists. These drugs have made untold billions for their manufacturers, so naturally, they're raising the price. That's how markets work, right? When firms increase the volume of a product, the price goes up? Right? Other drugs that are going up include Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that's also widely used in smoking cessation) and the blood thinner Plavix. I mean, why the hell not? These companies get billions in research subsidies, invaluable government patent privileges, and near-total freedom to abuse the patent system with evergreening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It's like these guys can't even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that's how you get guillotines.

Take Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.

Right? Wrong. Apple's pulled a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran. Apple has announced that app companies that process transactions using their own payment processors on the web must still pay Apple a 27% fee for every dollar their process:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-app-store-rule-changes-draw-sharp-rebuke-from-critics-150047160.html

In addition, Apple will throw a terrifying FUD-screen up every time a user clicks a payment link that goes to the web:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/second-verse-same-as-the-first/

This is obviously not what the court had in mind, and there's no way this will survive the next court challenge. It's just Apple making sure that everyone knows it hates us all and wants us to die. Thanks, Tim Apple, and right back atcha.

Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

This is some real Darth Vader MBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Ubisoft sure are innovators. They've managed the seemingly impossible feat of hybridizing Darth Vader and Immortan Joe. Ubisoft's head of subscriptions, the guillotine-ready Philippe Tremblay, told GamesIndustry.biz that gamers need to get "comfortable" with "not owning their games":

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

Or, as Immortan Joe put it: "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"

Capitalism without constraint is enshittification's handmaiden, and the latest victim is Ello, the "indie" social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users. When Ello took VC and Andy Baio questioned how this could be squared with this promise, the founders mocked him and others for raising the question. Their response boiled down to "we are super-chill dudes and you can totally trust us."

They raised more capital, and used that to create a nice place for independent artists, who piled into the platform and provided millions of unpaid hours of creative labor to help the founders increase its value. The founders and their investors turned the company into a Public Benefit Corporation, which meant they had an obligation to serve the public benefit.

But then they took more investment money and simply (and silently) sold their assets to a for-profit. Struggling to raise capital, the founders opted to secretly sell the business to a sleazy branding company called Talenthouse. Its users didn't know about the change, though the site sure had a lot of Talenthouse design competitions all of a sudden.

Finally, the company announced the change as the last founders left. Rather than announcing that the new owners were untrustworthy scum, warning their users to get their data and get out, the founders posted oblique, ominous statements to Instagram. The company started stiffing the winners of those design competitions. Then, one day, poof, Ello disappeared, taking all its users' data with it. Poof:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

I'm sure the founders' decisions each seemed reasonable at the moment. That's every terrible situation arises: you rationalize that a single compromise isn't that big of a deal, and then you do the same for the next compromise, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, you're betraying everyone who believed in you.

One answer to this is "Ulysses pacts": making binding commitments to do right before you are tempted. Throw away all your Oreos when you go on a diet and you can't be tempted to eat a whole sleeve of them at 2AM. License your software under the GPL and your investors can't force you to make it proprietary. Set up a warrant canary and the feds can't force you to keep their spying secret:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

If the founders were determined to build a trustworthy, open, independent company, they could have published their quarterly books, livestreamed their staff meetings, built data-export tools that emailed users every week with a link to download everything they'd posted since the last week. Merely halting any of these practices would have been a signal that things were wrong. Anyone who says they won't be tempted in the moment to make a "reasonable" compromise in the hopes of recovering whatever they're trading away by living to fight another day is bullshitting you, and possibly themself.

The inability to project the consequences of your bad decisions in the future is the source of endless mischief and heartbreak. Take movie projectors. A couple decades ago, the studio cartel established a standard for digital movie distribution to cinematic exhibitors called the Digital Cinema Initiative. Because studio executives are more worried about stopping piracy than they are about making sure that people who pay for movies get to see them, they build digital rights management into this standard.

Movie theaters had to spend fortunes to upgrade to "secure" projectors. A single vendor, Deluxe Technicolor, monopolized the packaging of movies into "Digital Cinema Prints" for distribution to these projectors, and they used all kinds of dirty tricks to force distributors to use their services, like arbitrarily flunking third-party DCPs over picky shit like not starting and ending on a black frame.

Over time, the ability to use unencrypted files was stripped away, meaning every DCP needed to be encrypted, and every projector needed to have up-to-date decryption keys. This system broke down on Jan 1, 2024, and cinemas all over the world found they couldn't play Wonka. Many just shut down for the day and refunded their customers:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/1/24021915/alamo-drafthouse-outage-sony-projector

The problem? Something that every PKI system has to wrangle: an expired certificate from Deluxe Technicolor. The failure has been dubbed the Y2K24 debacle by projectionists and film-techs, who are furious:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/34652-the-y2k24-bug-major-digital-outage-today

Making everything worse is that Sony mothballed the division that maintains its projectors, so there's no one who can update them to accommodate Technicolor's workaround. Struggling mom-and-pop theaters are having to junk their systems and replace them. There's plenty of blame to go around, but Sony is definitely the most negligent link in the chain. Shame on them.

Big corporations LARP this performance of competence and seriousness, but they are deeply unserious. This week, I wrote, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Score one for team deeply unserious. The multinational delivery company DPD fired its support staff and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot can't tell you where your parcels are, but it can be prompt-injected into coming up with profane poems about how badly DPD sucks:

https://twitter.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874

There once was a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help. It could not track parcels, Or give information on delivery dates, And it could not even tell you when your driver would arrive.

DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare. It was so bad, That people would rather call the depot directly, Than deal with the useless chatbot.

One day, DPD was finally shut down, And everyone rejoiced. Finally, they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.

This is…the opposite of an AI hallucination? It's AI clarity.

As with all botshit, this kind of AI self-negging is funny and fresh the first time you see it, but just wait until 3,000 people have published their own versions to your social feed. AI novelty regresses to the mean damn quickly.

The old, good web, by contrast, was full of enduring surprises, as the world's weirdest and most delightful mutants filled the early web with every possible variation on every possible interest, expression, argument, and gag. Now, you can search the old, good web with Old'aVista, an Altavista lookalike that searches old pages from "personal websites that used to be hosted on services like Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, Xoom and so on," all ganked from the Internet Archive:

http://oldavista.com/

I miss the old, good internet and the way it let weirdos find each other and get seriously weird with one another. Think of steampunk, a subculture that wove together artists, makers, costumers, fiction writers, and tinkerers in endlessly creative ways. My old pal Roger Wood was the world's most improbable steampunk: he was a gay ex-navy gunner who grew up in a small town in the maritimes but moved to Toronto where he became the world's most accomplished steampunk clockmaker.

I was Roger's neighbour for a decade. He died last year, and I miss him all the time. I was in Toronto in December and saw a few of his last pieces being sold in galleries and I was just skewered on the knowledge that I'd never see him again, never visit his workshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/16/klockwerks/#craphound

A reader just sent this five-year-old mini documentary about Roger, shot in his wonderful workshop. Watching it made me happy and sad and then happy again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMGomM8yF8

The old, good internet was so great. It was a place where every kind of passion could live. It was a real testament to the power of geeking out together, no matter how often the suits demand that we "stop talking to each other and start buying things":

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The world is full of people with weird passions and I love them all, mostly. Learning about Don Bolles's collection of decades' worth of lost pet posters was a moment of pure joy (I just wish more of it was online):

https://ameliatait.substack.com/p/the-man-who-collects-lost-pet-posters

That's the future I was promised: one where every kind of freak can find every other kind of freak. Despite the nipple-deep botshit we wade through online, and the relentless cheapening of words like "innovation" and "future," there are still occasional gleams of the future I want to live in.

Like the researchers who spliced a photosynthesis gene into brewer's yeast (a fungus) and got it to photosynthesize, and to display enhanced fitness:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01744-X

As Doug Muir writes on Crooked Timber, this is pretty kooky! Fungi – the coolest of the kingdoms! – can't photosynthesize. The idea that you can just add the photosynthesis gene to a thing that can't photosynthesize and have it just kind of work is wild!

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/19/occasional-paper-purple-sun-yeast/

As Muir writes: "Animals have no evolutionary history of photosynthesis and aren’t designed for it, but the same is true for yeast. So… no reason this shouldn’t be possible. A photosynthesizing cat? Sure, why not."

Why not indeed?!

OK, that's this week's linkdump done and dusted. It only remains for me to share the news with you that the trolley problem has been finally and comprehensively solved, by Sidereal@kolektiva.social, of the IWW IU 520 (railroad workers):

Slip the switch by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/111779015415697244

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/20/melange/#i-have-heard-the-mermaids-singing

[keeper-of-gates]

i really like how chapter 3 is just literally saying that "hey, dead kids. traumatic events happened here and the effects are still here" by literally showing you the horrors through the auditory and the physicality of what chapter 3 has to offer.

Chapter 1 gave us a "yeah, something happened" but nothing substantial to grasp on other than what remains of posters and vhs tapes. Chapter 2 managed to at least expand on the orphan program by introducing the games station and it's true purpose of progression of tests on the mind through child-friendly means. Even the literal videos mob ent. gave us only a small bit of information about what happened before the Hour of Joy, such as the consent of a terminally ill worker being put into a toy.

Chapter 3 just gives us the bigger scale on everything the game gave us as snacks.

We see empty beds, empty cots, picture frames of children whose fates are left between 2-3 outcomes with one with them actually being adopted before even being pulled from the choice altogether simply because they had the ability to be good at reacting to colours. We see an actual system on how these children get treated and how everything works, from the titual nanny in Home Sweet Home, to the teachers of the school to even the scientists overviewing everything.

We know that actual adoptions do take place also, even if the potential parent/s are just the employees. But we know that Playcare's purpose isn't that straightforward, because the children are monitored as potential candidates for the experiments and are picked with the reason being that they're "sick" to whoever asks, child or otherwise.

And it appears that most of the workers in playcare are left in the dark, much like the factory workers if the woman who was left to care for a certain room of children was absolutely distraught of one child getting a nightmare to the point where the child had to be taken away and has to be interviewed by a person who seems to not be in the same emotional wave about the ordeal in the first place. Any mention of the children directly in both the interview and the report seems to call them directly, affectionately or otherwise, son or daughter, either from overattachment or as a professional act.

The experiments themselves are the unwilling second hand, created as sentient, yet obedient tools for entertainment, care and labour by any unfortunate human chosen, and it is obvious that Playtime Co, shown in teasers, aren't really picky when it comes to it. I even have doubts that they only use one singular person, child or adult, alone to create a bigger body considering how, y'know, big they are.

Playtime Co. literally died from the inside during the Hour of Joy, when the toys finally had enough. Exactly how many people died is unknown but in comparison to death in any medium, watching it in game as the toys the player faced had killed everyone who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, with no one surviving and being taken into consideration. were they considered missing? Did anyone try to investigate everything? or did it all get swept under the rug by whoever was still alive and representing the company?

Then, the decade after everything, it still continued. Soon there was no food. factions started to form between factory floors, with each territory and domain being barren of mercy and food. Any toy was fair game in consideration. Even if that fair game was who you considered your own kin or your friends.

I think Poppy Playtime is getting closer to breaking the mascot horror mould that Fnaf had set in stone for nearly a decade. Would that be good or better for the market? I'm not sure, but at least, it's going to be part of the pillar that will be looked back on.

[usedpidemo]

What if there was a K-pop based game? Not a Just Dance K-pop edition, but an actual game? What would the gameplay be like? Would you play or buy it? And who should be the first cover idol?

This honestly shouldn't be something I put so much thought into, and it's only scratching the surface, but there's so much material and concepts you could do with a K-pop based game. Other suggestions have already been tackled and explained tactfully, such as gameplay and Career/Story Mode, so here's a list of things and ideas I would like to see in a hypothetical game:

Cover idol:

I think if it’s not BTS or Blackpink, especially for the first game, you’d cause a huge riot. They are far and away the two most popular and recognized K-pop groups of all time, and are basically most Westerners’ gateway to the genre. It makes sense why not them, they’re currently inactive (esp. since BTS are in the military), but I’d argue that you should easily make two cover versions of the game—one with BTS, the other Blackpink. If it has to be one active idol, you could go with many options: Wonyoung, Karina, An Yujin, Yeji, Chaewon, Winter, Seulgi, Sana, Miyeon. It would be cool to have a foreign idol, but it has to be a Korean first, and I’d personally go with Wonyoung. For the Legacy/Legend Editions, I’d pick IU.

MyGM:

You could go three ways with a MyGM mode. Group based, company based, and music show based. All three will have similar gameplay elements, but have different ways and strategies to go about managing a successful group, company or music show. 

MyIdol could be you as a singular group’s manager, scheduling comebacks, concerts, days-off, and so on during a calendar year. There’s a stamina/morale system to balance between working them for profit/popularity and resting them so that none of the members get disgruntled and leave or be sidelined. You’d also have to make decisions for the members’ solo opportunities, line distribution, and more.

MyCompany is larger in scale—you now run an entire company or sublabel (good luck if you’re running Cube or SM lmao). You have to manage every artist’s comebacks and schedules, or else they leave or demand a contract termination. An addition from MyIdol is the ability to sign other idols/artists/trainees on the free agent market and you can add them to existing groups or create new groups with your current roster. 

MyMusicShow would basically be WWE 2K’s MyGM. You’re in charge of a music show/Korean TV station like KBS’ Music Bank or SBS’ Inkigayo and you have to compete with other networks for the best ratings of the week throughout a calendar year. You can negotiate exclusive contracts with other agencies so that their groups can only appear on your programs, as well as managing set designs/TV booking (who wins on your show)/screentime for the artists on your show. 

Universe Mode:

What it says on the tin: you have control over the entire industry and decide who are the top dogs, create special collaborations, send groups on international stages, etc.

Showcase Mode:

Depends on who’s the cover idol: you basically replay some of their most iconic/legendary stages throughout their career. If it were someone like Wonyoung for example, it would include her Very Very Very performance from PD48, that one Love Dive baseball stage, K-Pop Flex 2022, her 2022 Melon Music Awards performance, and so on. You could also do one for whoever’s on the Legend/Legacy Edition cover.

Roster:

Depending on which companies are down for it, I expect all the current 4th/5th gen guys to be available from the start, while 3rd/2nd gen groups are labeled as Legends/Legacy and require some grinding to unlock (with few exceptions). Newer groups would probably be DLC or groups from prominent eras/releases (like 2018 TWICE or 2010 SNSD for example). TheLibrarian’s suggestion of having boy group/girl group only versions is also a possible option, but c’mon, if the NBA and WWE 2K games can include both their men and women’s rosters, I see no reason for the K-pop game not to do the same.

I put so much unnecessary thought into it for some reason, I even tried making concept covers of my own using my ideas and others (they're kinda bad XD). Sorry you had to read through all that.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Against Agriculture: Sowing the Seeds of Resistance

For those of us conscious about the way our food choices affect others, the basic act of cutting out meat and/or dairy products, or eating only organic, feels like a huge step and is often as far as we can manage to take our concerns. But the politics of food go far beyond veganism and organics. Economic and social factors like the conditions of migrant farmworkers, or the low labor standards in most Agriculture in the global south, rarely influence our cultures’ purchasing decisions. Even organic farming often reproduces many of the same ecological and economic dynamics at work in commercial farming. What about the soil erosion from over-farming huge fields, even if crops are organic? (According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, topsoil is lost on average 17 times faster than it is formed, and it takes at least 100 years to form one inch of topsoil). The use of Slaughterhouse byproducts to replace the soil lost from heavy tilling, and the overuse of “biological” fungicides and herbicides, undoubtedly maintains an imbalance in the give and take relationship that forms the basis of ecological values.

The trends toward “natural food” and “organic” are quickly being co-opted, as green businesses consolidate their power and corner markets, gobbling up profits as they go. Consequently, these concepts are losing their meaning altogether. The notion of “sustainability” has been colonized by the profit-hungry. The biotechnology industry touts the term whenever they get the chance. Of course, what they are talking about is the sustainability of profits and the dependence of farmers on them, not sustainability of ecological systems and social bonds. So when we examine the idea of sustainability we should always define what ft is we are trying to sustain. If we are thinking of ecology and cultural survival, then we must remove the factors that contradict those: industrialism and capitalism, to start with.

To be against agriculture does not require advocating mass starvation or a return to an exclusively primitive or foraging existence, and it doesn’t lave to mean eradicating cultivated food altogether. We need to make a distinction between “agriculture” and other plant (aid possibly animal, although the ethics of the domestication of animals should be viewed with suspicion) “cultivation” methods that have been, and are continuously being developed by people around the world. The problem of agriculture is largely related to the scale. “Horticulture” refers to garden-scale cultivation rather than field-scale, as in the prefix “agri”. For example, permaculture is a specific cultivation method that aims to integrate die garden system into the wild ecosystem around it. Industrial farming (even organic) places the “field” — the monocrop — outside of our immediate surroundings, removing our social lives from the polycultural, intimacy of “the garden”. Subsistence horticulture doesn’t depend on industrial systems or take more than they give back ecologically, or even require specialization of labor, or long monotonous work hours. The most effective methods have always been diversified community efforts, which cut down on work hours as well as monotony.

When farmers in India plant a seed they pray for its endurance. But the “gene giants” have their sights trained on “terminator” technologies that break the seed’s reproductive cycle. Hybrid seeds produced in laboratory conditions are usually bred to retain certain characteristics patented by the breeder. If saved and replanted they will not show the same traits, and may turn out to be something weird and unpalatable. Open-pollinated seeds defy this controlled approach. When replanted for generations they adapt to local climate conditions, and develop a bioregionally distinct immunity. When saved for many generations they become Heirloom Seeds. For example, we have seeds that have been in circulation since Cherokee gardeners first grew and saved them hundreds of years ago, and took them on the Trail of Tears. They made their way back to the Southeast and to this day are still being passed around. The more they’re grown out, the more decentralized the seed becomes. These seeds are crucial to maintaining plant biodiversity. The reduction in varieties that comes with industrialization and capitalism has created a massive loss of genetic diversity (75% in the last century, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization), which weakens the plant’s insect blight and disease resistance, and their adaptability to changing growing conditions. The Irish potato famine was a direct result of the dependence on one variety. Breeders had to go back to the Andes to find a potato that would resist the blight. In the face of the elimination of ancient varieties in favor of more uniform crops that ship and store more efficiently, heirloom seeds are truly Seeds of Resistance. Check out Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth for detailed instructions on seed saving.

Humanure and Greywater are traditionally used methods intended to keep nutrients in the garden ecosystem, thereby closing the circuit rather than requiring imported materials. As these methods are inherently non-capitalist and non-industrial, it would not be possible to adopt these practices (or to return to them, depending on how we look at it) beyond just a small privileged minority, within the capitalist market or the industrial model. True sustainability actually requires the subversion of those institutions.

On a personal level, we can take steps to re-establish foodways in our cultures by learning about our food, discovering what foods grow where and in what season — and where those foods originated. We should know where our food comes from and seek out food grown locally. We can seek out those with traditional knowledge, learn how to cook with whole foods, then teach others. We can learn about the wild edible plants that grow around us, and about the ancestral people who ate and propagated those foods. This knowledge provides us with an essential missing component that early horticultuialists combined with cultivation. (A great reference is the work of Steve Brill, an urban wild plant forager in New York City: www.wildmanstevebrill.com). Challenge your taste buds to appreciate foods in their natural state, and replace the junk foods you crave with natural sweets and snacks.

Reconnecting with our food goes beyond the personal. Taking food out of the capitalist market means reintegrating ourselves with the processes of growing food — whether that means getting to know local farmers and buying from them, getting involved in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or a food co-op, going to farmers markets, or even better — growing your own. These options increase the security of our access to healthy food, lessening our dependence on the market. In urban areas this can be much more challenging, but all the more rewarding if you can challenge the obstacles. For some inspiring examples of urban food security check out Www.foodsecurity.org. The Hartford Food System in Hartford, CT (www.hartfordfood.org) and The Food Project in Massachusetts (www.thefoodproject.org) are amazing examples of urban food security ] that truly challenge the class structures that keep people dependent on Agriculture.

The challenge of feeding ourselves ! sustainably might be the fundamental question for our future survival. There is not one path forward out of this mess, but many possible options, and we’ll have to make up a lot of it as we go. But our paths will be totally new and unique. Learning from the mistakes and the successes of the past is crucial to bringing the modern world back in direct relationship with nature, and the life-support systems on which we depend. We should celebrate the opportunity we have to examine and analyze what has worked and what has compromised our freedoms and our health, and move toward post-industrial and post-capitalist models of sustenance. Rather than an afterthought of social revolution, reclaiming truly sustainable foodways could itself be a catalyst for challenging the deep alienation of our modern world.

[meeblo]

13 & 20 for the ask game! (AK)

from this ask game

13. worst blorboficiation

I might be forgetting an even worse instance, but probably Saga. People somehow managed to twist her character into practically Ceobe 2, all off of two combat voicelines. I sentence everyone who writes or refers to Saga this way to ten thousand years of rereading Who is Real to repent. I'm taking "blorboficiation" as the creation of a twisted fanon version of the character, do correct me if I have that definition wrong

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

To be honest there isn't really anything coming to mind. There are parts of Arknights that aren't as much my thing, but it would be a disservice to say they were tedious or boring. I could go for the low-hanging answer of complaining about tedious gacha systems and farming, but I'd like to keep this about the narrative. Heart of Surging flame is probably the weakest written event imo, and though tedious/boring aren't its main failings I suppose it does have moments that were tedious. Namely, HoSF suffers from terminal gacha-itis in that it has a million characters present just to look marketable and show off their new skins who contribute less than nothing to the overall event, so I guess I could say that those parts were tedious. HoSF doesn't go on for too long though, if anything it's too short, which makes me hesitant to decry those portions as tedium.

[indigosunsetao3]

A Reason To Try

Chapter 1 - Onset

Masterlist of Chapters

Warnings: 18+ - No minors Please read the tags on AO3 for any of your triggers

Alex Keller X Original FMC 8.7k words - AO3 Link

With a huff, Madeline leaned back in her office chair and stared at her computer screen. She was waiting for the latest batch of files to finish dropping so she could start working down her current client’s bills. The system she was using was old and this many documents could take a few minutes before they were ready. But there was no walking away from the computer, her supervisor was a hard-ass that spent his days watching all his employees’ statuses to make sure they didn’t go idle. He also enjoyed randomly calling with mundane questions just to be sure people weren’t rigging the system to show they were there when they weren’t. If the job market hadn’t been so bleak, especially with her lack of experience, Madeline would have left it by now. The gig was just a temporary contract job, an attempt to start saving up some cash on the side so she could spend money without feeling guilty for it.

Boston was where Madeline found herself calling home these days. She had grown up in the Northeast but the minute she had turned eighteen she fled the house determined to make her own way. She traveled all around the United States for much of her young adult life. Worked odd jobs, couch surfing, and at one point had even lived in a commune for a bit when her money ran out. It exasperated her parents who implored her to be more like her older sister, Josephine.

Josephine, Madeline’s older sister by twelve years, was the golden child. She had been the one that stayed close to home, attended college at an elite school, and graduated with honors. She quickly dominated her field after her residency and married a respectable man. Within a year of marriage, she had become pregnant and had a son, Everett. Somehow, Josephine managed to do all this while maintaining a career and helping her parents navigate through their golden years while dealing with terminal illnesses.

Then there was Madeline, the accidental but no less wanted, rebellious child. She had been born when her mother was in her early forties and her father almost fifty. They were a bit too old to be raising a rambunctious toddler and headstrong teenager, but they did their best. While Madeline was not horrible in school, it wasn’t her favorite thing and she was often in trouble for goofing off or skipping it all together. Marriage was something that terrified her, a lifelong commitment in her early twenties like her parents tried to push on her made her run even further away. And children? She could barely keep herself functioning, there was no way she could be a mother. Not yet.

Josephine had stepped in often to keep Madeline in line and help pick her back up when she fell flat on her face. Despite the age and personality differences, the sisters were close. They stayed in constant contact through Madeline’s journey around the country, each keeping one another up to date on current things happening in their lives. When both of their parents passed a few years apart from one another they leaned heavily on each other to get through it. The loss had been a hard hit, less than two years between each passing, and Madeline debated on moving closer to Josephine realizing that she wanted to be around her sister and her nephew more. She didn’t really care for her brother-in-law much. He was a bit too opinionated and she had no problem calling him out on his bullshit when she thought he was being too full of himself. But if putting up with him to be with the rest of what was left of her family she would do it.

So, when Madeline got the call that Josephine’s marriage fell apart, her husband having multiple mistresses, Madeline decided that was the universe’s sign it was time. Josephine had been the one who cared for their parents before they both passed and always helped Madeline. This time she needed someone to look out for her. Without second thought Madeline packed up her meager belongings and flew in from California almost nine months ago and had set up residency in the guest bedroom of Josephine’s rather spacious fifteenth floor apartment. Josephine didn’t ask much of her younger sister, just for her companionship and to help with her son instead of having to hire babysitters.

“This is hot chocolate weather,” Madeline muttered to herself as she peered out the window and saw the beginning of a few fat snowflakes falling. The news had called for another snowstorm that day, nothing like the nor’easter they had over the weekend, but it could be a few inches. She glanced down at her computer screen to see that the files were only thirty percent of the way loaded before clicking to see her supervisor’s status. He was on lunch. Pushing out of the chair she wandered to the kitchen and set about making herself said cup of hot chocolate.

Just as she was about to make her way back to her bedroom to take a seat her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Digging it out of the fuzzy pants she was wearing, the perks of working from home, she spotted it was Josephine calling. Her sister was out of town, out of the country actually, on assignment with EIS. Her sister was an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, she was the one they sent out when outbreaks happened to see the cause of a sickness and how to contain it. During the West Nile outbreak, SARs in Asia, and Ebola scare in Africa her sister had been on the ground figuring out the spread. This time she was in the jungles of South America following the outbreak of some new disease.

“If you’re calling to complain about how hot it is I’m going to hang up,” Madeline said into the phone as she took a hard seat back in her chair and checked the files. “We’re getting even more snow today, wind is rattling the windows like crazy,” she sighed and shook her mouse to get the screensaver to turn off. And of course, there was a message from her supervisor asking where she was.

“I need you to go get Everett,” Josephine said, completely ignoring everything Madeline had just said to her. She sounded a bit agitated and perhaps urgent.

“What? Is he sick? The school didn’t call me,” Madeline answered, pulling her phone away from her ear to make sure she hadn’t missed the call. Or text. Or Email. Schools were so different now than when she had been in them. They had twenty different ways to get ahold of you, including an app and Madeline wouldn’t be surprised if there were live camera feeds soon so parents could stare at their children all day. She never would survive school these days, she skipped way too often as a teen.

“No, they didn’t call, I just,” Josephine sighed and Madeline heard people talking to her in the background. “I can’t tell you much alright. Just, please go get Everett. Give them an excuse about a family emergency if they ask. Stop at the store and get some food to last a few days. Don’t interrupt,” she said as she heard Madeline open her mouth to argue. “It’s hopefully nothing, me just being paranoid but I don’t want to risk it.”

“Josie,” Madeline said, ignoring the call coming over the computer from her boss. “You’re scaring me. What is going on?”

“This is just, it’s out of hand down here,” Josephine answered. “And I don’t think their government is being truthful about the spread,” she continued. “I think it’s already much further along than what we’ve been told is all. It’s highly contagious and we all remember how SARs was,” she stated with a sarcastic laugh.

“SARs? Please tell me it’s not something like that again,” Madeline said instantly feeling her heartrate skyrocket. SARs had been a horrendous time for the whole family, Josephine had been gone for months on end and had been her shitty husband's excuse for finding the company of other women. “Should I assume you will not be coming home this Thursday?” Madeline asked as her supervisor called her yet again on the computer and she declined it.

“No, not SARs,” Josephine said, though it seemed a bit cryptic, maybe even ominous. “And safe assumption,” Josephine answered before someone yelled for her. “Pick up some shitty junk food and tell Everett it’s from me,” she laughed, “and get yourself some wine. You’re going to need it locked up in the house with him for a few days.”

“I’ll need a case,” Madeline joked, though the unease in her stomach as her sister hung up made it feel flat.

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

“Goddamn it, Keller,” one of the men said as he threw down his cards on the table in defeat. They had been playing poker outside in the setting sun. The desert heat was oppressive but being in the tents with no circulating air was ten times worse so they had set up the table in the shadow of one of the trucks.

“I warned you not to play with him,” came Farah’s voice and Alex turned around and grinned at her as she peered over the table. The spoils of the game were a mix of some coins, cigarettes, and a pack of gum. “He reads people too well,” she patted Alex’s shoulder as he scooped his winnings toward him before tossing a cigarette to the guy next to him.

“My poker face helps as well,” Alex answered as he flipped open the pack of gum and popped a piece into his mouth. He had been dominating the game with shit hands for the most part, but when it mattered for the biggest pot, he had actually made sure he had the winning one. “You need to just get better about your tells,” he mused as one of the guys rolled his eyes, shuffling the cards up.

“I see right through that poker face,” Farah answered she nudged his shoulder with her hip as she snatched up a smoke as well.

“That’s why I don’t play with you, you’d fleece me for everything I’ve got,” Alex responded before shaking his head at the offer to play another round. “I know when to walk away,” he taunted as he flipped a coin with his thumb before pocketing it. “Need to give you boys a chance anyway,” he glanced up at Farah who merely nodded her head back to indicate she wanted him to walk with her.

Pushing up from his seat Alex followed along behind Farah, always keeping himself a half-step behind and to the side when they were around others. She was the commander of the ULF, and he was her second, so Alex made sure to display that respect.

“You got a message from Laswell asking you to call her,” Farah explained as she led the way into a small canvas building, holding the flap up for Alex to grab before disappearing inside. When she saw the face Alex pulled, she smiled a bit, “a phone call won’t hurt.”

“I just don’t know what she could possibly want from me,” Alex said as he reached for the satellite phone that was resting on the table. The number was already programmed in the phone and he hit the button to dial, watching Farah.

“We need you back here Alex,” was Laswell’s form of hello, “shit is about to happen and we’re going to need all hands on deck back here.”

“What?” Alex asked, instantly curious despite the fact he had told himself he wouldn’t feed into whatever she wanted from him. “I can’t come home, you made sure of that,” he added with a hint of agitation as Farah raised her eyebrows.

“That’s done with,” Laswell said dismissively, “I cleared that shit up weeks ago once I was done holding my grudge.”

“Weeks? Shit, Laswell, you could have fucking said something sooner,” Alex snapped as he grabbed the back of the chair he was standing next to.

“You wouldn’t have come home anyway. Farah seems to be your home now,” she tacked on with a small sigh. “I’m not going to argue about it right now. We’re all about to be in some deep shit, Farah included, and I’ve got a mission for all of you. I’ve already called Price.”

“Price,” Alex asked aloud, flicking his eyes to Farah so she knew what they were discussing. John and Farah had been close for years and he knew if Price was in on it, she would follow suit. “Fine, let’s hear it,” he tacked on before taking the phone from his ear and sliding it onto the table hitting the speaker button.

“There’s a sickness spreading,” Laswell said, her voice tinny through the phone. “Started in South America, not sure the origin. The Venezuelan government covered it up as long as possible and by the time we were able to get our people down there, it spread.”

Farah pulled out a seat across from Alex and grabbed a notebook, while he continued to stand, leaning over the back of the chair listening.

“Spread where?” Alex inquired as Farah jotted down a few notes.

“Reports of it in Colombia and Panama already,” Laswell answered. “And found on shipping vessels docked in Cuba and Nigeria.”

“But what does this have to do with us? Hardly sounds like a military operation,” Alex said, drumming his fingers.

“The illness isn’t the flu,” Laswell replied. “It’s making people violent,” she stated and they heard her flipping through papers. “Infected people are attacking others, biting, ripping them apart,” she continued. “It seems to spread through bites. It’s in the blood, saliva. Killing them is next to impossible without a headshot, bullets don’t slow them down otherwise.”

“What, like a zombie?” Alex asked with a small laugh but when Laswell didn’t respond with a laugh, an ominous feeling settled over him. “You’re joking,” he added.

“Not joking Keller,” Laswell replied. “This is deadly and fast spreading. We need you to extract the scientists working on it down in Venezuela. They’re our best shot at a cure, they think they found patient zero,” she explained. “The 141 has already signed on and I want you with them. The research team we need extracted is being led by an American woman. It’s a joint effort with British and Canadian scientists. We need to get to them before the Konni do.”

“The Konni? What do they have to do with this?” Farah piped up, instantly narrowing her eyes.

“They’re also aware of the situation and they want the chance at a cure first. Whoever has the cure has the power in this situation and no matter what we do, it’s going to get out of control. Fast.” Laswell answered.

Alex glanced at Farah, a silent question and also requesting permission. She stared back at him for a second, her eyes darting between his before giving a curt nod.

“When?” He asked finally.

“I can have transport to you tomorrow morning at o-five hundred,” Laswell replied. “You’ll rendezvous with the 141 in England then you’re meeting up with Shadow company back here,” she continued. “All of you need to put your shit aside,” she tacked on knowing there was bad blood between all of them and Graves. “We don’t have time to fight amongst ourselves. This illness was first reported to us three days ago and it’s already in five countries that we are aware of…and I’m afraid there’s a lot more we aren’t aware of.”

“What do you want from me?” Farah asked.

“Keep your people safe,” Laswell answered. “And be prepared. If we can’t keep this contained it won’t be long before it’s over there.”

Farah couldn’t be part of the unit; Laswell may have been able to smooth things over with Alex but it was a bit harder for her to clear a non-American citizen for defying orders. The American government still classified ULF as a ‘terrorist force’, though they didn’t do anything to them, just refused to work with or aid them.

“We’ll get it done,” Alex answered after a second as he looked at Farah. He wasn’t leaving her behind forever but he wasn’t going to let this spread either. If he could help reign it in before it got to Urzikstan she wouldn’t have to deal with it at all.

“I’ll have more information on your mission when you get back on American soil,” Laswell said before hanging up.

Alex stared at the phone for a second, processing what Laswell had just told him before glancing at Farah across the way from him. She was staring at him, the pen in her hand tapping idly on the notes she had scribbled; it wasn’t much information.

“I don’t like leaving you like this,” Alex said after a second as he looked around the empty canvas room.

The tent they were in was Farah’s, the command center and living room rolled into one, her bedroom behind another flap in the far corner. They had set this small area up as a base about two weeks ago, they needed one out on the east side to keep a better eye on a few Russian sympathizer neighbors. It had been a nice break from the hustle of the city. They had only brought a small group of soldiers with them and the silence was peaceful, as well as the semblance of a bit of privacy.

It was known that Alex was Farah’s right hand and had been since her brother betrayed her. It was also whispered that he was more to her than that, though Alex truly wasn’t sure. Truth be told there wasn’t a title for what they were to one another, it was never actually discussed between them. They both had jobs to do, Farah’s country and duty came first. She had made that very clear and Alex understood implicitly. If he came in the way of that or clouded her judgment, she would end whatever it was between them. So, Alex was careful with the extent of his affections even if it burned him from the inside sometimes.

“I’ll be fine Alex,” Farah answered as she pushed up from her chair and shut the notebook. “I can survive without you for a few days,” she tacked on with a small smile, knowing this was going to be more than a few days, more likely weeks.

“I know you can,” Alex said as he walked around the table and stood in front of her, arms crossed over his chest as he looked down at her. He itched to grab her and pull her to him but he didn’t. “Doesn’t mean I want you to,” he replied, conceding to reaching out and brushing a stray strand of hair off the side of her face. “If this is spreading like Laswell said it is,” he paused, “we may be too late already. I’d be better served here, with you. Keep you and the others safe.”

“You need to go help them find those scientists and that potential cure,” Farah replied. “Laswell didn’t ask for your help without reason. She must need something from you that only you can provide.”

Alex took a deep breath through his nose, adjusting his stance a bit as Farah seemingly stared down at him despite him having multiple inches on her. Her gaze was hard and he knew a command was coming from her so closed his eyes in defeat and nodded. He knew Laswell had asked because of his background; CIA. He could move through different countries easily. He also had contacts all over the place and could provide intelligence from other agencies he had worked with in the past. Laswell may know powerful people but Alex knew the seedy underbelly ones that she couldn’t be associated with; the ones that actually ran things. And if they were going to the America’s he had more pull than John Price did there.

“One more night of peace here,” Farah said as she tilted her head and reached out to rub his upper arm with her hand, the only soft gesture she ever gave him freely. “Don’t brood,” she teased, “make it worthwhile.” She stepped around him to head back outside where someone had started up a fire. She didn’t glance back and he heard her call out to a friend and start commenting about what they were making for dinner.

Alex watched her go, watched her disappear out of the tent and he sighed a bit at the disappointment after getting his hopes at her last comment.  He knew his mind and emotions wanted more from her, ached for something else besides scant touches and sidelong glances. But Farah wouldn’t let that happen.

Farah had only let her guard down and dragged Alex to her bed a handful of times and after each time she fled from him and avoided him for days, weeks. Alex would pretend nothing had happened, let her get comfortable again, and they’d go back to this slightly awkward dance until she sought him out again. He’d always willingly given himself over to her, hoping this time it would be different but it never was. He had to deal with the painful aftermath, pack away his feelings, and tell himself not to let it happen again. He failed at that resolve every time.

Alex busied himself in his own tent for a bit, despite the sweltering heat. It was right next to Farah’s private quarters, close enough that if a threat happened upon them, he could get to her in seconds. He packed up all his things, tossing the meager items he had brought with him on this trip before someone popped their head in to ask if he was coming to eat. He joined them with a smile, careful to sit across the fire from Farah as they all ate and talked. He caught Farah looking at him, the calculated gaze he knew too well, but Alex adverted his eyes. He had already let his hopes get too high today; he wasn’t going to do it again. Maybe this time away would help him clear his head a bit, her too.

As the group started to disperse Alex helped with the clean up before heading to his own tent. He kept his gaze fixed purposely forward to avoid Farah whose eyes he could feel burning into his back. The tent was still warm despite the cool air that had settled over the desert but it didn’t deter him; he was used to the heat by now. Alex’s rest was fitful, most of it spent staring at the dying glow of the fire through the dark brown tent canvas. He gave up trying to sleep at four and disassembled his tent quietly, folding everything up and tucking it to the side so the group didn’t need to bother with it when they left.

Farah met him where he had sat next to the dead firepit fifteen minutes before his transport was due to be there. He had been flipping through his pack to make sure he had all his documentation before glancing up as she handed him a coffee. He smiled and thanked her before they sat in silence, shoulders pressed against one another. It wasn't long before the whir of a helicopter could be heard approaching.

“I guess that’s me,” Alex stated with a small grin as the helicopter landed fifty yards away, kicking the sand up into a giant dust cloud. He set his cup down on the log next to him before saying, “I’ll be back soon. Stay safe.” Farah reached up a hand to squeeze his upper arm, a forced smile gracing her features.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” she agreed with a small nod before dropping her hand and tilting her head toward the helicopter indicating he needed to go. She opened her mouth as if to say something else but didn’t, and Alex didn’t try to get it out of her. Some space was definitely warranted between them.

Pulling up his shemagh, Alex gave Farah one last look before jogging toward the waiting helicopter. By the time he was situated inside and they lifted off again she was already gone. Back inside the tent to get back to work.

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

“Just because you get to stay home does not mean you get to miss out on doing work,” Madeline said to Everett as he flopped over dramatically on the couch. She had picked him up early from school two days ago and he had been trying to get out of the homework packet his teacher had sent home with him since. Madeline had laid down a false lie about a family emergency and that he would be out the rest of the week. She would wait to hear back from her sister before she kept him out any longer, hoping that Josephine was just being extra cautious and would give the all clear in her next phone call.

“But it’s a snow day!” Everett argued as he pointed outside at the fresh layer of snow that hadn’t all been cleared away yet. “I want to go sledding,” he whined as he pressed his nose to the glass to watch other kids outside in the park across the way throwing snowballs and sliding down the very small hill.

“Do your work and we can talk about going out to play,” Madeline bargained. She knew Josephine would have her head if she let Everett outside after explicitly pulling him from school. But it was cruel to make a six-year-old stay inside all day when there was perfectly good snow to play in. “Ah ah, I said talk,” she reiterated as Everett’s eyes lit up and he dove for the file of papers to get started.

Madeline had kept a close eye on the news about this sickness her sister had mentioned. Josephine hadn’t given her much details so any mention of illness caught her ears and she watched the news carefully. Nothing truly stuck out as devastating or worrisome, just typical flu, so the fear that had been gnawing at her abated as each hour passed. No news was good news after all.

Madeline sat in the living room with Everett as he worked, mostly jiggling her mouse so her status didn’t go idle. She had finished her actual work hours before Everett even woke up, knowing she would have her hands full with a kid to actually get work done. Her boss didn’t need to know that though. After three hours of watching Everett, or E as she liked to call him because his full name was too stuffy for a child, Madeline was over it. The snow was still lightly falling and even from this high up she and Everett could hear the children outside laughing and carrying about.

“Promise to not tell mom?” Madeline asked as she fought with the zipper of Everett’s puffed-up jacket. He was bouncing on his feet with excitement, glancing toward the front door where his sled rested.

“I won’t Aunt Mads,” Everete said exasperated as Madeline had already told him twice not to mention anything to Josephine. His mom had pulled him from school because she didn’t want him around anyone, and taking him to the park was a direct violation of that action. “It’s going to get dark soon,” he whined as Madeline tugged on her own hat.

“You’ll be a frozen popsicle and asking to come inside long before it gets dark,” Madeline answered with a laugh before yanking the door open and following Everett out the door as he bolted for the elevator. She had tucked a few face masks in her pocket, and effort to show some semblance of caution. If they were around too many people she’d just slip one on each of them under their scarves. “Hold on,” she called as Everett waved her forward having left her to lug the sled.

The park was mostly empty, the kids that had been out all day finally calling it quits either because they were soaked to the skin or their parents came to get them. Madeline cleared off a bench and perched on the edge to watch Everett as he trucked up and down the small hill laughing the whole way. He asked her to ride down with him a few times which she refused, but willingly watched him every time he shrieked for her to watch this slightly different sitting position as he went down the hill. She had pulled out her phone and was scrolling through her news feed again, carefully looking for anything new when she noticed Everett had fallen a bit quiet.

Snapping her eyes up she saw him talking to a little girl, maybe a year or two younger, and they were moving to ride down the hill together on Everett’s sled as her father looked on. The man looked over at Madeline and gave her a small smile, which she returned feeling slightly guilty at betraying Josephine’s trust. Everett at least had his scarf around his mouth and the little girl was bundled up as well. One ride wouldn’t hurt.

Pocketing the phone, she watched them go down the hill before noticing someone down at the bottom that hadn’t been there before. It was an older man, he was walking a bit awkwardly, coughing and he stumbled falling down to one knee as the sled came to a stop. Everett, ever the one to be helpful, hopped up and went to offer to help when Madeline shrieked for him.

“E! We have to get going,” she called quickly and she saw the confused look her nephew gave her as he glanced between her and the man. The guy was coughing still and his body seemed to be almost twitching as he didn’t even attempt to stand up. Madeline felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold running down her spine. The little girl’s father had also picked up on the oddity and called his daughter over to him as well. Madeline and the father exchanged glances, and a small nod before he turned tailed to leave the park.

“What if he needed help?” Everett asked as he dragged his sled over to Madeline, glancing over his shoulder at the man who hadn’t gotten up yet. “We shouldn’t leave him,” he said apprehensively as Madeline took the sled from his hands.

“I’ll call someone to come help him,” Madeline offered as she stared concerned at the man over Everett’s head. He had fallen back on his butt and he was visibly choking as he coughed, and there was bright red blood on the snow around him. Not wanting Everett to see she quickly placed a hand on the back of his head to steer him out of the park with a forced smile.

“How about spaghetti for dinner?” She asked knowing it was his favorite. She glanced over her shoulder again as she moved to get her phone out of her jacket. She wasn’t heartless, she had planned on calling someone but it seemed another good samaritan had seen and walked over to help the guy. Good. If she didn’t have Everett with her she would have gone over herself, even if she had no idea how she could help.

As they crossed the street to the apartment building her phone buzzed in her pocket. Digging out her phone she saw it was Josephine and she cursed under her breath. Everett looked at her with a mix of scandalization and amusement, knowing his aunt now owed him another dollar for the swear jar his mom and she contributed to. Hustling into the building Madeline put a finger to her lips with a grin as she answered the call, pausing at the mailboxes to grab the mail from the past few days.

“Madeline,” Josephine said as soon as the call connected. She sounded concerned, her voice an octave higher than normal. The background noise was loud and chaotic and Madeline had to put a finger in her other ear to hear better.

“What’s up, Josie?” Madeline asked as she dug out junk mailers from the small box and handed them to Everett who was flipping through it. She really needed to check the mail more often. She dug out more items that were stuck and stuffed them into Everett’s hands.

“Where are you?” Josephine asked.

“The mailroom,” Madeline answered truthfully as she shut the small mail door and locked it up.

“Go back to the apartment,” Josephine answered tersely. “And pack.”

“What?” Madeline asked, her hand pausing on the mailroom door as she shifted the sled under her arm more. “What are you talking about?”

“You need to get out of the city,” Josephine answered. “I’m trying to see if I can get you to the CDC,” she paused before something smashed in the background. “Or fuck, out of the country. Somewhere, just not in the city.”

Everett had heard the cuss through the phone as they stood at the mailroom door and grinned holding up two fingers.

“Josie,” Madeline said quietly as she pushed open the mailroom door as someone walked over to get in. She instantly stepped away from them and crowded Everett behind her out of caution, subtly pulling her scarf back up over her own mouth. “You’re freaking me out a bit. Can you give me a little more details?”

“It’s spreading Mads,” Josephine said. “I haven’t gotten all the details yet, things are so murky, but the sickness is already out of hand.”

“Okay, so we just stay in the apartment, right? Avoid people, wait it out,” Madeline said as she called the elevator. Her sister had shared protocols and standard procedures with the family years ago. After all the things she had seen, she wanted to make sure the family was prepared. She had always lived by the motto when, not if when it came to sicknesses spreading. “Take our vitamins, sleep all day, and eat soup,” she joked a bit looking at Everett who pulled a face at vitamins.

“There’s no waiting this out,” Josephine answered. “It’s making people,” her voice cut out as the elevator rose up between floors. A few more jumbled words came through but it was static.

“Hang on Josie, we’re on the elevator,” Madeline said as she held her phone away from her face to see if the call dropped. Tapping her foot impatiently she waited for the elevator to reach their floor before darting out and putting the phone back to her ear.

“-blood and salvia.” Josephine finished, not realizing the call had dropped for a bit.

“Wait, explain again, we were on the elevator,” Madeline said as she fished out the apartment keys. She bit off her glove as she fumbled one handed with the key before getting the door unlocked and ushered Everett in.

“I don’t have time,” Josephine said a bit hurriedly. “Just pack up go bags and be ready. Have both of your passports just in case I can’t get arrangements for you to meet me at the CDC. Maybe I can get you down here.”

“Josephine,” Madeline said a bit sterner than she was feeling. “Are you fucking with me?” She looked at Everett who was peeling off his snow clothes in the laundry room, he hadn’t heard her. “Like is this a joke?”

“I’m not joking Madeline,” Josephine answered seriously, using her full name like Madeline had just done to her. “Your passport is with Everett’s in the lockbox in my closet I put it there when you moved in.” She knew her sister well enough that Madeline would lose it if someone didn’t keep track of it for her. “With some cash. I have a to go bag filled with essentials in there too. Tucked behind Garett’s old shit he never picked up.”

“Cash? This is...Josie please how bad can this really be?” She watched as Everett started poking in the pantry, using Madeline’s temporary distraction to sneak a snack before dinner. Traveling with a six-year-old was going to be hellacious. Everett was a good kid but children were not easy, especially when they were in new high stress situations. Madeline barely managed to figure out traveling herself, then she’d have to potentially go international. “What about Garett? Does he need to know?”

“Who cares about him? He left a year ago and hasn’t even called his son,” Josephine said agitated. “Look I have to go. Go pack. Now. Don’t wait. Once I get arrangements, I’ll call you and things are going to move quick…don’t roll your eyes.” She finished knowing Madeline had been in mid-roll. “And stay in the damn apartment. No midnight runs to the corner shop for ice cream, or to flirt with the neighbor down the hall.”

“You’re the worst,” Madeline answered before hanging up and looking at Everett who had quickly stuffed three cookies in his mouth so Madeline couldn’t tell him to put them back.

“When is mom coming home?” Everett asked as he glanced at the phone. He knew his mother worked odd hours, sometimes not calling for days but he had obviously clocked she hadn’t asked to speak to him. “Is she okay?”

“She’s alright bud, just busy. You know how she gets when she’s working,” Madeline said quietly, silently cursing herself for not calling him over to at least say hello. “Go take a shower,” Madeline said as she ruffled his hair which was damp with sweat and melted snow. He was shivering slightly and she knew a shower would warm him. Plus, if they were traveling, he needed to get cleaned up. She couldn’t remember the last time he showered and to be honest she could use one as well. “We’ll eat afterward,” she reasoned as he huffed and rubbed his stomach. “Those cookies you snuck should hold you off.”

When he was safely in the shower Madeline went into his room and grabbed a few clothes, staring at the potential items. What was she supposed to pack? The CDC was in Atlanta so that was warmer, but it was still winter. But if they were going to South America it would be way too hot for winter clothes. She sighed and tucked a few things under her arm before going to her room and pulling random things out of her dresser and closet. Yanking a duffle bag out, one of her exes that she had taken when she left him in the middle of the night over a year ago, she stuffed all their things inside of it. Then ventured into Josephine’s room, pausing to make sure Everett was still distracted. He was still singing in the shower and she smirked before delving into Josephine's closet.

The lockbox combo was Everett’s birthday and when Madeline opened it her eyes widened. There was a stack of cash, passports, divorce papers, and other random paperwork mingled inside, including her parent's wills. Fishing around all that Madeline took the cash and passports and jammed them into her duffle before pulling Josephine’s bag out from behind a box labeled ‘asshole’s shit’.

It was a professional looking backpack that had a handle and wheels, the perfect opposite of Madeline’s beaten and frayed bag. She unzipped one of the pockets to take a look at what her sister qualified as 'essentials' but heard Everett calling out to her from the kitchen. He was already in the cabinets and the rattling of pots because he was impatient. She left the bag half unzipped before standing up, she’d check it later.

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

“We have limited time,” Price said as he stared at Graves across the table from them. He had taken up the mantel of talking, Soap’s face had been murderous as he stared at the commander the moment he walked in the room. “Alejandro and Rudy checked in; it’s moving fast. Mexico is already starting to get overrun,” he tossed a file on the table. “This is intelligence from an hour ago, but based off Laswell’s call this is probably all outdated already.”

“What the fuck is it?” Gaz asked the question they had all been wanting to ask.

“Not sure boys,” Graves said as he pushed up from his chair. “The scientists have akin it to something like rabies, but it’s not killing the hosts and it's rapid onset. Some people get sick within minutes, others an hour or so. Just makes them crazed, they attack others unprovoked. Only way to put them down is,” he pointed between his eyes. “Body shots just piss them off more.”

“Even filling them with bullets?” Ghost asked and Graves nodded. “How?”

“It’s like they are running on pure muscle memory and electricity. Blood loss is nothing to them. You have to kill the brain to get them to stop,” Alex said as he gestured to the pile of paper in the center of the table. He hadn’t been able to sleep since they landed and spent the past few hours going through all the papers.

“Could always blow them up,” Soap stated, “doesn’t always fucking work though,” he added cutting a glare to Graves who merely gave him a sarcastic smirk in response. Soap adjusted in his chair like he would get up but Ghost quickly put a hand on his chest and pushed him back into the seat.

“If they aren’t really dead, or alive for that matter, once they get infected,” Gaz asked looking around, “what’s a cure going to do?”

“That’s above my pay grade,” Graves answered. “We don’t even know if they have a cure yet, or vaccine, but we need the information they’ve gathered.”

“So, what’s the plan? If it’s moving this fast we can’t just sit here,” Alex said, his thoughts instantly going to Farah. He had tried to call her when he touched down in Boston and settled in the nondescript building they were using as headquarters, but she didn’t answer. Not unusual but it made him uneasy.

“Their head scientist has a request,” Price said. “She wants us to get her family,” he looked at Graves who scoffed. “Her son is six,” he tacked on with a bit of an edge to his voice. “I told her if someone can get them here, we would take them. But they needed to be here before we left, we aren’t waiting.”

“Why is her son special?” Ghost asked, never one to worry about tact or being blunt. “There are plenty of children that are at risk.”

“Nothing,” Price answered curtly. “She asked and I said I’d see what I could do but I wasn’t going out of my way. She understood. She has four hours to get him and her sister here.”

“What are we going to do with a child and civilian in the jungles of Venezuela? It’s going to be bad enough keeping the scientists alive,” Gaz stated sitting back in his seat with a skeptical look. “They’d be safer here at home I’d think, or going out into the countryside a bit.”

“We’re not all going to Venezuela,” Graves answered. “Some of us are headed right to the CDC to prepare for their arrival. Russia is racing us to the finish line, if they think we’re going to win they’ll sabotage anyway they can.”

“And they know the CDC is where we will go,” Alex answered. “We’re taking the family to the CDC with us instead.”

“Exactly,” Price answered.

“Who got the short stick?” Soap asked, not really saying which he considered a short stick but everyone knew it meant being with Graves.

“Alex, Gaz, Graves, and I are headed to South America,” Price said and he saw Soap open his mouth to fight. “You, Ghost, and a chunk of Shadow company are headed to the CDC.”

“We’re on babysitting duty,” Ghost stated, his voice highly unimpressed.

“You’re transporting a kid and his aunt to the custody of the staff there, yes,” Price replied evenly. “If they get here. You just have to deal with them on the flight.”

“If all goes to plan, we’ll be back in a few days with the joint research team and they get to do the rest of the work. Our job is to keep them alive.” Graves filled in before someone busted into the room. All of them jumped and Ghost's hand itched instinctively to a throwing knife on his vest.

“Timeline is moved up,” a man said as Graves snatched a paper from him. “A flight that landed at Logan airport was quarantined on the tarmac for hours. Man flew in from Mexico after spending time in Venezuela. Fell ill halfway here and they suspected he had the sickness. When the local security finally breached the plane, everyone was too far gone and they couldn’t keep them contained. They didn’t wait for military,” he was panicking, the sweat on his brow and upper lip pronounced. “Boston is going to be overrun by daybreak. There are more reports of it all over the country as we speak.”

“Fuck,” Graves said as he threw the paper on the table. “We move now. We can’t get caught here,” he stated as he marched toward the door to start rallying his team together. “If it’s already that widespread here who knows how bad it is down in Venezuela.”

Alex grabbed a laptop and started to scroll through the news feeds. All the media had been quiet about the sickness mere hours ago and now it was cropping up in bits and pieces. He felt a cold sweat break down his back at what he was finding with each click. A sickness that hadn’t existed a week ago was showing its face all over the place at a rapid pace.

Social media was starting to flood with it and he froze as he saw a shaky video of someone filming a man brutally tackling a woman to the ground with a snarl and literally rip her apart. Her screams were shrill and everyone in the room turned to look at Alex who quickly lowered the volume, not realizing it was as high as it had been.

“How long until we’re wheels up?” Gaz asked as he moved around to look at the laptop with Alex who had moved on from that video. He was looking for anything in the Middle East, for Urzikstan. The sickness was already in Nigeria when he had left, which meant it had crossed the Atlantic which was much bigger than the distance between then Nigeria to Farah.

“Hour and a half,” Graves said as he stormed back in, “we leave here for the airfield in forty-five minutes.”

“That’s not going to be enough time for the boy and his aunt to get here,” Alex said as he glanced at his watch.

“Then they’re on their own,” Price answered simply.

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

Madeline had passed out on the couch and didn’t hear her phone vibrating on the coffee table for a bit, the wine pulling her into a deep stupor. She was already a hard sleeper but when wine was factored in it was a miracle her phone alarm could wake her in the morning. But by the tenth call in a row, the constant rattling had worked her phone to the edge of the coffee table and it crashed to the floor startling Madeline awake. She groaned and groped for it, then wincing when she saw all the missed calls. As she was about to call Josephine back her sister called again.

“Where have you been!” Josephine all but screamed in relief and anger. “Get up. You have to leave. Now. Get Everett up,” she ordered as Madeline barely sat up on the couch.

“What?” Madeline said groggily as she rubbed at her face. “Josephine, it's two in the morning,” she bemoaned as she tried to blink her tired eyes awake more.

“I’m well aware of the time,” Josephine stated. “I have a way for you to get to the CDC but you have to leave. Right now.”

“Can we not just fly out in the morn-” Madeline started.

“No! Madeline! It’s too late for all that.” Josephine barked. “Get your ass out of bed, get my son, and get in the fucking car. Now!” Her voice had an air of terror and that was enough to wake Madeline up a bit more.

“Alright, alright,” Madeline answered as she walked to the living room light switch and flipped it on, flinching at the brightness. “Why does it have to be now? What’s changed?” She asked as she stretched and headed toward Everett’s room. She had put him to bed around nine, later than normal, and she knew he was going to be a nightmare to try and get up. He was like her with his need to sleep, she had literally dragged him out of the bed before.

“It’s already everywhere Mads. We’re,” she paused, “we’re locked up inside of an old school building. Our camp was overrun,” she stopped again. “We lost half the team. I don’t…please just get a pen and write down this address.”

“Half your team? What the hell is this? You seemed fine just a few hours ago...” Madeline stated as she paused her trek to Everett’s room and went to her own to get a post-it off her desk to write down the address Josephine gave her.

“It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” Josephine answered before she babbled off the address. It was a place across town, a twenty-minute drive when there was no traffic on a good day. “Stay away from people if you can. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t stop,” she sighed. “Just get to that building and ask for a man named Price, John Price. Tell them who you and Everett are, explain that you are my sister. They know to be on the lookout for you.”

Madeline wrote the information down before her phone buzzed with a message, then another, then it started to vibrate with a warning like an Amber alert. She hesitated and pulled the phone away from her ear to look at it. It was an emergency broadcast to remain indoors due to an undisclosed threat, more information would follow.

“Josie,” Madeline breathed, feeling her chest tighten. This whole time she had been thinking, hoping, her sister may have been just a touch extra paranoid, but a citywide alert going out made this real. She was getting messages from news outlets now sharing news about the alert. “They just sent a city alert to stay indoors.” Her phone buzzed with the same alert again and she saw the Alexa in the kitchen flash with the warning as well.

“Shit. It’s already out of control there. I knew they were slow to alert us down here,” Josephine snapped before taking a steadying breath. Her voice changed instantly to a calming tone, like a mother talking to their scared child.  “Go now. Get the stuff you packed earlier…you did pack, right?” She tacked on and when Madeline whispered yes, she continued. “Get to John Price and you’ll be fine. Get Everett up, get in the car, and on the road. My phone is about to die, I’ve been on it all day and power is spotty here. But you call me when you get to John.”

“Josie, how bad is this?” Madeline breathed feeling the panic welling up inside her as her phone continued to go berserk with news.

“I’ve never lied to you, have I?” Josephine asked calmly and when Madeline didn’t answer she continued, “this is as bad as it gets, Mads. You need to get out of Boston.”

[lillie98]

I was rewatching Stranger Things Season 2, Episode 4 (Will the Wise) and I noticed something. Will’s map looks an awful lot like something I’d seen before, not just because I’m rewatching it. 😝When I looked at the completed map, I couldn’t help but notice it looked like veins—long, branching, blue tunnels racing through the body to provide blood and oxygen. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before, but it makes so much sense.

I’ve had a theory for a while now that Will’s blood is the answer to destroying the Upside Down, and this discovery proves it. Will describes the Mindflayer’s attack as “growing, spreading, killing, [Will] felt it everywhere.” He says he feels [MF] in his house and inside himself. The vines Will draws are described as tunnels beneath Hawkins, spreading their deadly poison to unsuspecting people. What if all of Hawkins, Will’s house, the pumpkin patch, everything, is a metaphor for Will’s mind/body. Stay with me here.

If the house represents Will’s mind/body and the tunnels are his veins, what’s inside them? What’s doing the growing, spreading, and killing? HIV. Somehow, perhaps from Lonnie or Vecna (Season 1), or perhaps en utero, Will contracted HIV, he just doesn’t know it. He doesn’t have the words to communicate what he feels, so he describes it as something racing through his body, slowly killing him. While HIV is well-researched and manageable today, it was not so in the 1980s. HIV was new, potent, and extremely caustic. People (mostly young, gay men) died from AIDS (late-stage HIV) by the thousands. There was no effective treatment and medications like Prep didn’t come onto the market until 2012! HIV was a death sentence, seen as shameful and disgusting thanks in large part to its connection with the LGBTQ+ community.

According to the CDC, (https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/whatishiv.html ) HIV has three main stages

1) Acute HIV

The person is recently infected, highly contagious, and may experience flu-like symptoms. It’s important to get checked when this happens so you don’t inadvertently infect others!

2) Chronic HIV

The person has had HIV for a while and may show less symptoms. Their viral load (how much HIV in in their blood) changes based on whether they take their medication. Proper medication management significantly reduces the chances of spreading HIV to partners.

3) AIDS (Late-Stage HIV)

AIDS is terminal. Most people live about three years once they reach this stage. People with AIDS risk getting “opportunistic infections” Aka: germs they can’t fight off with their destroyed immune system.

Looking at this information, I estimate Will to be in Stage Two. I believe he was first infected before he was rescued in the Upside Down (see slug down his throat—remind you of anything?)

He throws up, seems awfully pale afterwards, and stays in the hospital for a while. The HIV (or Upside Down equivalent) was introduced to his system and it made him incredibly ill. Now, come Season 2, Will’s been home for a year and his body has adjusted to this illness. He doesn’t like talking about it, but it affects him everyday in the form of his visions. His viral load changes based on whether or not he’s having visions and comes to a head during the exorcism. Black veins cover his head and neck as he reaches out to attack his own mother.

There’s also a chance Will contracted HIV en utero and could link back to Hopper and his Agent Orange experience in Vietnam. We know many of Hopper’s friends who served with him had children born with various disabilities, so it could make sense Will was born with HIV (along with El since I prescribe to the Will and El are twins separated at birth theory). I also believe Hopper NOT Lonnie is Will/El’s biological father, making this theory much more plausible. Hopper said he knew the risks of trying to conceive with his Agent Orange exposure, but his wife wanted children so badly that he did it anyway. The scene with Will attempting to strangle Joyce could be the writers’ way of illustrating the pain that comes from getting an illness you did not control. He was punishing her, in a sense, for forcing him to live with this incurable condition.

Now, going back to the map, what does this mean for Season 5? Well, I believe Will’s blood will be the key to stopping the Upside Down. I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, but it will be incredibly dramatic and fulfilling. We know from Season 1 that Demogorgons are attracted to blood, so maybe they use Will’s blood to lure the Demogorgons somewhere and kill them? That would be cool! Either way, Will’s blood is important and he was drawing VEINS in the house—illustrating the Upside Down and HIV quickly taking over his life, threatening to kill him. Closing the Gate equals succumbing to the disease, and the exorcism is him fighting for his life.

Ps: Vines (how Hopper describes Will’s drawings) and Veins have the same letters. Just leaving that here

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A national physician group this week called for the complete termination of a Medicare privatization scheme that the Biden White House inherited from the Trump administration and later rebranded—while keeping intact its most dangerous components.

Now known as the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) Model, the experiment inserts a for-profit entity between traditional Medicare beneficiaries and healthcare providers. The federal government pays the ACO REACH middlemen to cover patients' care while allowing them to pocket a significant chunk of the fee as profit.

The rebranded pilot program, which was launched without congressional approval and is set to run through at least 2026, officially began this month, and progressive healthcare advocates fear the experiment could be allowed to engulf traditional Medicare.

In a Tuesday letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) argued that ACO REACH "presents a threat to the integrity of traditional Medicare, and an opportunity for corporations to take money from taxpayers while denying care to beneficiaries."

The group, which advocates for a single-payer healthcare system, voiced alarm over the Biden administration's decision to let companies with records of fraud and other abuses take part in the ACO REACH pilot, which automatically assigns traditional Medicare patients to private entities without their consent.

CMS said in a press release Tuesday that "the ACO REACH Model has 132 ACOs with 131,772 healthcare providers and organizations providing care to an estimated 2.1 million beneficiaries" for 2023.

"As we have stated, PNHP believes that the REACH program threatens the integrity of traditional Medicare and should be permanently ended," Dr. Philip Verhoef, the physician group's president, wrote in the new letter. "Whether or not one agrees with this statement, we should all be able to agree that companies found to have violated the rules have no place managing the care of our Medicare beneficiaries."

Among the concerning examples PNHP cited was Clover Health, which has operated so-called Direct Contracting Entities (DCEs)—the name of private middlemen under the Trump-era version of the Medicare pilot—in more than a dozen states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and New York.

PNHP noted that in 2016, CMS fined Clover—a large Medicare Advantage provider—for "using 'marketing and advertising materials that contained inaccurate statements' about coverage for out-of-network providers, after a high volume of complaints from patients who were denied coverage by its MA plan. Clover had failed to correct the materials after repeated requests by CMS."

Humana, another large insurer with its teeth in the Medicare privatization pilot, "improperly collected almost $200 million from Medicare by overstating the sickness of patients," PNHP observed, citing a recent federal audit.

"It appears that in its selection process [for ACO REACH], CMS did not prevent the inclusion of companies with histories of such behavior," Verhoef wrote. "Given these findings, we are concerned that CMS is inappropriately allowing these DCEs to continue unimpeded into ACO REACH in 2023."

While the Medicare pilot garnered little attention from lawmakers when the Trump administration first launched it during its final months in power, progressive members of Congress have recently ramped up scrutiny of the program.

Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) led a group of lawmakers in warning that ACO REACH "provides an opportunity for healthcare insurers with a history of defrauding and abusing Medicare and ripping off taxpayers to further encroach on the Medicare system."

"We have long been concerned about ensuring this model does not give corporate profiteers yet another opportunity to take a chunk out of traditional Medicare," the lawmakers wrote, echoing PNHP's concerns. "The continued participation of corporate actors with a history of fraud and abuse threatens the integrity of the program."

[lunahearts]

Harvestella Thoughts: so what is this game, anyway?

Note: this post contains minor spoilers for the game, mostly involving overall themes and some allusions to the content of some side quests.

Well, it is definitely cute, if nothing else

Harvestella is a strange game. Or at least, I think it is a game made strange by its marketing and the genre expectations surrounding it. There’s been a lot of conversation about what genre it IS, both following the demo as well as the full release. 

Is it a farm sim? An old school jrpg? Rune factory but with the balance inverted? Stardew but worse?

Yes. Kind of. Also... no.

The answer is easy enough, really. I can’t believe other people had so much trouble. Allow me to summarize the game in an easily digestible blurb for you all:

It’s a slow build 7/10 farm sim jrpg combo without the depth of most farm sims or the difficulty of most rpgs that also delivers a fantastically satisfying resource management experience and one of the best fucking stories I’ve seen all year. 

Easy, right? You get it.

Emo gets it

Hmm.

See I think the thing about Harvestella is that the things that make it so good are mostly either a) significant spoilers, or b) tied to an overall experience more than individual components. It really is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

And I don’t even want to claim that the whole will work for everyone! 

If you are looking for a traditional farm sim where you can immediately dig into the systems of while progressing story at your own pace, this isn’t it. If you are looking for something that gives you access to the majority of its charming characters and hub town in the opening days of the tutorial and gives you the freedom to get right on to wooing your favorite, this isn’t it. If you are looking for intense action rpg combat, or deep, customizable strategy, this... yeah. Isn’t it.

And of course, if you aren’t interested in a particular brand of sentimentality - the ever growing compassion of the story and its messages about the importance of patience, collaboration, and the choice to hold tight to hope even amidst the very grounded struggles it presents to its characters - then its not for you.

However, if you ARE interested in that message, oh boy do I have a game for you.

And if you like a sharply written plot, layers of slowly unfolding lore, and an entire buffet of character stories AND side quests that explore questions of grief, trauma, chosen family, the slow work of technological advancement, estrangement, terminal illness, environmental preservation, redemption, generational trauma, living with unanswerable questions, identity, what identity even MEANS in the face of all of the above, and allergies... please please consider giving Harvestella a try.

Pretend that ‘hay fever’ here is a metaphor for ‘people judging Harvestella based on misguided assumptions’

And that’s not even getting into the gameplay, which itself offers a lot more depth and complexity than it appears to within the first days. It probably takes about the first third of the game for it to establish all the basic systems you will be interacting with on a daily basis while working through the story. I did call it a slow build for a reason. 

I don’t think its the most engaging farm sim, or the deepest jrpg, but it is a game that, both in its story and its systems, encourages and rewards engaging with every mechanic and gameplay loop and concept it has to offer. It rewards exploration, it rewards strategy, it rewards optimization, it rewards preparation. It rewards attention. It doesn’t necessarily require those things, but trust me when I say there is a lot more there to dig into than “some crops grow in just one day” or “I can’t dodge enemy attacks.”

So what is Harvestella? Honestly... it’s just a good game. Truly, truly, a good and worthwhile game. It is rich and engaging, and has a ton to offer: beautiful art and charming characters, a FANTASTIC soundtrack, tons of gorgeous and lushly detailed areas to explore, and hours and hours of twists and turns to enjoy. It oozes care and love, and especially in some areas towards the end of the main story, a level of polish and presentation that took my breath away.

It’s its own thing. Give it a try.

Also like not to flex on Rune Factory but you can actually choose to partner with the MILF in this one

[spookysaladchaos]

Global top 13 companies accounted for 66% of Total Frozen Spring Roll market(qyresearch, 2021)

The table below details the Discrete Manufacturing ERP revenue and market share of major players, from 2016 to 2021. The data for 2021 is an estimate, based on the historical figures and the data we interviewed this year.

Major players in the market are identified through secondary research and their market revenues are determined through primary and secondary research. Secondary research includes the research of the annual financial reports of the top companies; while primary research includes extensive interviews of key opinion leaders and industry experts such as experienced front-line staffs, directors, CEOs and marketing executives. The percentage splits, market shares, growth rates and breakdowns of the product markets are determined through secondary sources and verified through the primary sources.

According to the new market research report “Global Discrete Manufacturing ERP Market Report 2023-2029”, published by QYResearch, the global Discrete Manufacturing ERP market size is projected to reach USD 9.78 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 10.6% during the forecast period.

Figure.   Global Frozen Spring Roll Market Size (US$ Mn), 2018-2029

Figure.   Global Frozen Spring Roll Top 13 Players Ranking and Market Share（Based on data of 2021, Continually updated）

The global key manufacturers of Discrete Manufacturing ERP include Visibility, Global Shop Solutions, SYSPRO, ECi Software Solutions, abas Software AG, IFS AB, QAD Inc, Infor, abas Software AG, ECi Software Solutions, etc. In 2021, the global top five players had a share approximately 66.0% in terms of revenue.

About QYResearch

QYResearch founded in California, USA in 2007.It is a leading global market research and consulting company. With over 16 years’ experience and professional research team in various cities over the world QY Research focuses on management consulting, database and seminar services, IPO consulting, industry chain research and customized research to help our clients in providing non-linear revenue model and make them successful. We are globally recognized for our expansive portfolio of services, good corporate citizenship, and our strong commitment to sustainability. Up to now, we have cooperated with more than 60,000 clients across five continents. Let’s work closely with you and build a bold and better future.

QYResearch is a world-renowned large-scale consulting company. The industry covers various high-tech industry chain market segments, spanning the semiconductor industry chain (semiconductor equipment and parts, semiconductor materials, ICs, Foundry, packaging and testing, discrete devices, sensors, optoelectronic devices), photovoltaic industry chain (equipment, cells, modules, auxiliary material brackets, inverters, power station terminals), new energy automobile industry chain (batteries and materials, auto parts, batteries, motors, electronic control, automotive semiconductors, etc.), communication industry chain (communication system equipment, terminal equipment, electronic components, RF front-end, optical modules, 4G/5G/6G, broadband, IoT, digital economy, AI), advanced materials industry Chain (metal materials, polymer materials, ceramic materials, nano materials, etc.), machinery manufacturing industry chain (CNC machine tools, construction machinery, electrical machinery, 3C automation, industrial robots, lasers, industrial control, drones), food, beverages and pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, agriculture, etc.

[acceptccnow]

E-Commerce Payment Processing Essentials to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Article by Jonathan Bomser | CEO | Accept-credit-cards-now.com

In today's dynamic e-commerce landscape, maintaining a competitive edge is essential for success. Payment processing plays a pivotal role among the critical factors contributing to this advantage. As online shopping gains unprecedented popularity, businesses must prioritize delivering a seamless and secure payment experience. In this article, we explore the essential elements of e-commerce payment processing that can set your business apart, positioning it for prosperity in the fiercely competitive digital marketplace.

DOWNLOAD THE E-COMMERCE INFOGRAPHIC HERE

The Backbone of Smooth Transactions: Payment Processing Payment processing serves as the foundation of every e-commerce operation. It encompasses the entire journey, from the moment a customer decides to make a purchase to the secure transfer of funds from their account to the merchant's account. E-commerce businesses must offer diverse payment options, including credit cards, debit cards, and various online payment methods, to cater to a broad spectrum of customer preferences. A robust payment processing system ensures swift, secure, and user-friendly transactions, enhancing the overall shopping experience.

Seizing Opportunities: Merchant Accounts and Processing Solutions Merchant accounts and processing solutions are fundamental to efficient payment management. A merchant account acts as an intermediary where funds from customer payments are temporarily held before being transferred to your business account. The choice of a Merchant Processing partner can significantly impact your operations. Seek providers offering tailored solutions, robust security measures, and competitive pricing. These accounts enable not only credit and debit card processing but also foster trust among customers.

Navigating the High-Risk Landscape For businesses operating in high-risk industries like CBD or credit repair, specialized High-Risk Payment Processing solutions are indispensable. High-risk merchant processing demands a unique approach due to the elevated potential for chargebacks and fraud. Collaborate with providers experienced in your industry, offering High-Risk Merchant Accounts and Payment Gateways designed to mitigate risks while facilitating smooth transactions. This approach ensures your e-commerce venture thrives even within challenging sectors.

E-Commerce Specifics: Tailored Solutions E-commerce Merchant Accounts and E-commerce Payment Gateways are designed to cater to the distinct requirements of online businesses. These solutions incorporate features like shopping cart integration, mobile responsiveness, and advanced fraud prevention tools. By opting for e-commerce-specific solutions, you enhance the efficiency of your online store and provide customers with a seamless checkout experience.

Navigating the CBD Challenge The CBD industry, while lucrative, often faces payment processing hurdles due to its association with the high-risk category. To accept credit cards for CBD sales, businesses require CBD Merchant Accounts and specialized CBD Payment Processing. Partner with providers familiar with the regulatory landscape and equipped to handle the unique challenges posed by the CBD market. This not only streamlines your transactions but also boosts credibility among customers seeking safe and hassle-free purchases.

Seamless Integration: Payment Gateways A Payment Gateway serves as the virtual point-of-sale terminal where customers enter their payment information during the checkout process. It encrypts sensitive data, safeguarding it from potential breaches. Opt for Payment Gateway Solutions that offer seamless integration with your e-commerce platform, ensuring a smooth and secure transaction process. Secure payment gateways reassure customers and protect your business from potential liabilities.

Payment processing remains a driving force capable of propelling your business towards success. From traditional credit card processing to high-risk merchant accounts, each aspect plays a pivotal role in ensuring smooth and secure transactions. Embracing tailored solutions like e-commerce merchant accounts and payment gateways empowers businesses to deliver an exceptional customer experience. As industries like CBD and credit repair continue to flourish, navigating high-risk payment processing becomes imperative. Always remember, staying ahead of the curve in e-commerce requires not only exceptional products and services but also a payment processing strategy that inspires trust and convenience.

[anheliotrope]

I feel like one of the limitations of trnashumanism we de determined in olde media was, well... the times they were written.

Phyrexia and the first Deus Ex were written like, what? 20 years ago? when the world still had this optimism in the future of the free market, technology, capitalism and a relatively peacful world. the whole "let's questions the strucutres and systems of power" discourse was not on mainstream media because things were sort of going well and individual choice would determine progress and would balance technological development.

The times also made it look like things were gonna be the 90's-2000's for a good while. The interent was a collection of catalogues, there was no AI, no soical media. Implants in the human body might as well have hundreds of years to develop. So it seems fitting transhumanism would get this maniqueist flavor of "nature good, cybernetics bad". Because, well everything in the world could be divided in the binary back in the 90's

I don't see/read many other transhumanist media, so I can't tell how things have changed. If you have any suggestions for media or texts I'd be interested.

That's totally fair but I feel that Deux Ex was way more relevant to modern problems than Human Revolution or Mankind Divided were, despite the latter being much newer.

I can talk less about Phyrexia because my intersection with MTG is actually vanishingly small.

I think very local conditions matter more than trends -- Deus Ex happened to be a conflux for some very talented people in a very specific creative environment. A lot of media that even vaguely approaches the mainstream has a shallower take because professional artists and developers hired for a job aren't going to be able to penetrate this kind of topic. There needs to be a combination of prior enthusiasm and competence. At minimum the creative director and writers need to have a really good idea about what they're doing. When this doesn't happen, the media inevitably regresses towards repeating the same tropes, which tend to go in the direction of "nature good, cybernetics dangerous".

I agree that the creative conditions are fundamentally different because our relationship with technology, our understanding of its trajectory is fundamentally different. What is weird is that this has not yet changed media in the mainstream anywhere to the degree that it should have. The vast majority of media is _still_ behind Deus Ex. That's what's so weird!

If you have any suggestions for media or texts I'd be interested.

If I manage to read a book a year, it's basically a short miracle. And there's a limited amount of other media that approaches the topic. I can't say much about transhumanist media specifically but I have some general recommendations in the direction of sci-fi and cyberpunk:

Gamedec -- If you want a cyberpunk game with choices, reminiscent of Disco Elysium in mechanics, with an emphasis on virtual spaces.

Blame! -- The superstructure architecture manga! The "can barely draw a convincingly-human human-face" manga! Good if you want to see the same character go through an ultra-dangerous seemingly infinite structure that has fully automated itself, in search for the last human possessing net terminal genes, the only way to access the cyberspace of the megastructure (which has the capability of actualizing any existence from cyberspace to reality using substance conversion towers, blurring the line between what is virtual and what is real).

Ergo Proxy -- Post-apocalyptic cyberpunk. The last of humanity exists in dome cities that have societies about as totalitarian, idiosyncratic, frontier-like and/or messed up as you'd expect. One failguy is paired with one bossgirl to figure out what's up in this world. It's vaguely existentialist? I know that's a vague thing to say, but it just makes you ponder existence a lot without having much of a point to make about technology.

Texhnolyze -- Niche auteur weird little sci-fi show. On one end of the spectrum you'll feel like watched a solidly 5/10 anime with mediocre animation that is only occasionally good, pacing that would make a snail wish for death, and a weird story arc. On the other end of the spectrum you'll feel like you just watched a 9/10 flawed genius work, one that says more about humanity and technology than most works by far, and that embraces weirdness to a delicious degree. I myself gave it a 7.

Do these say something interesting about technology? Maybe. They're not vacuous at least.