#Warming/Cooling Unit Models

[fic-girlie]

OMG! dad!pedro x actress! mom reader where they took their young kids to a premiere of his/hers please!

The voice of the fox

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x actress!mom!reader Summary: At Pedro’s movie premiere, your kids are mesmerized by his voice as the fox. Later, cozy family moments at the hotel make the day unforgettable. Warnings: Pedro and reader has two kids, pure family fluff

The SUV slows at the edge of the red carpet, and you feel the familiar low buzz in your chest—a mixture of anticipation, nerves, and the surreal glow of it all. Even after years of press circuits and premieres, you never quite get used to the moment before the door opens and the flashings start.

But tonight isn’t about you.

It’s Pedro’s night.

You glance over at him in his seat, his hand resting on the door handle, his thumb gently tracing a little absentminded rhythm—the way he always does when he’s grounding himself. He’s already been through dozens of interviews and panels during the press tour, but tonight, standing before the world as the voice of the clever red fox in The Wild Robot, is the culmination of something gentler. Something closer to his heart.

And tonight, the kids are here to see it.

Mateo is sitting beside you, his tie slightly crooked, hair gelled into an almost-slick side part that he keeps running his fingers through. He’s trying to look cool, composed, but the rapid bouncing of his sneakers against the floor gives him away.

Lucia sits next to him, her yellow dress fanned over her knees, holding the small sequined purse she insisted on bringing because “it looks like the stars.” She keeps whispering things to herself and practicing her little wave in the tinted window reflection. She’s been waiting for this moment all week—her “big fancy night with Daddy the Movie Fox.”

The SUV comes to a full stop, and your heart skips just a little.

“You ready, mi amor?” Pedro says softly, his lips brushing your temple.

“I am if you are.”

He exhales with a quiet laugh. “I’ll be brave if you hold my hand.”

You squeeze his fingers. “Deal.”

The door opens and the noise floods in. Cameras click like a chorus of cicadas. Fans behind the velvet rope chant his name, and someone shouts your full name too—a reminder that while tonight isn’t your premiere, you’re still part of the spectacle.

But the real moment—the one that matters—is when the kids step out behind you.

Lucia gasps. “Oh my gosh. It’s… so red.”

Mateo follows, blinking against the lights. “I thought carpets like this were only in movies.”

Pedro turns, offering a hand to each of them. “See? Told you this was the real deal.”

Mateo grips his hand and whispers, “Everyone’s looking at us.”

“They are,” Pedro agrees, crouching slightly to their level. “But not in a scary way. They’re excited. They’re fans of the movie—and maybe of the fox.”

Lucia’s eyes widen. “But they don’t know the fox is you yet.”

Pedro raises a brow. “Well, they might.”

“But we know it’s you,” she says proudly. “And I think you’re the best part.”

Pedro beams at her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You’re my best part.”

You step into the scene together, a united little force of four. Pedro, tall and handsome in a blueish suit, his signature curls lightly tousled; you in your black dress with the soft shimmer that catches the light every time you turn; the kids nestled between you both—small, bright, and impossibly earnest.

Photographers call out, asking for poses, angles, solo shots, but Pedro keeps a hand on each of the kids as you make your way slowly down the carpet. He lets them lead when it’s time to pause—Mateo staring in awe at the boom cameras above them, Lucia posing like a mini model, hand on hip, until she breaks into giggles and throws her arms around her dad’s waist.

Reporters approach, but Pedro waves most of them off, shaking his head politely and murmuring, “Not with the kids.” You field a few gentle interviews together—warm questions about working parents, how it feels for your kids to see you both on screen—and Pedro defers most of it to you, always protective of their spotlight.

“I think they’re more excited about the popcorn than anything,” you joke to one reporter.

“They are absolutely not,” Mateo corrects with grave seriousness. “We’re here for the fox.”

That gets a chuckle from the crowd.

Lucia tugs on Pedro’s sleeve. “Daddy, where’s the robot?”

“Well, sweetheart,” he says, lifting her into his arms effortlessly, “the robot is waiting inside. And I think it’s time we go meet her.”

Inside the theatre, the chaos of the carpet melts into a cozier kind of excitement—guests milling about, seats filling up, posters of Roz and the Fox lining the walls, and cardboard standees looming taller than the kids can reach.

Pedro’s face—or rather, his character’s—is plastered on half the merchandise. The wily, sleek red fox with clever eyes and a slightly curled grin.

Mateo stares at one of the standees. “That’s really supposed to be you?”

Pedro leans in close. “I mean… do you see the resemblance?”

Mateo squints. “I don’t know. Maybe if you had a tail.”

Lucia darts forward, running her fingers along the fur print. “He has your eyebrows.”

That earns a loud laugh from Pedro.

They usher you all into the front-centre seats—one of the little clusters reserved for cast and family—and the kids climb in eagerly. Mateo insists on sitting between you and Pedro, and Lucia immediately plants herself on Pedro’s lap, whispering that she’ll move when the movie starts. She doesn’t.

The lights dim. The crowd quiets.

Some time into the film you finally hear and see Pedro’s character. His voice.

Only… it’s not quite Pedro’s voice. It’s familiar, yes—warm and smoky—but softened around the edges, shaped with a storytelling lilt that sounds like it was pulled from bedtime dreams.

You feel it before you see it—Lucia’s tiny fingers curling tighter into Pedro’s lapel. Mateo straightening up, mouth parting.

Lucia’s whisper slices through the quiet. “That’s you.”

Pedro presses a finger to her lips, smiling. “Shh. Let’s watch.”

But their eyes never fully leave him.

Even as the fox darts across the screen, clever and sly, Pedro’s voice curling around each line of dialogue with charm and mystery—the kids are transfixed not just by the story, but by the knowledge that it’s him. That their dad is not just in the movie—he’s part of its heartbeat.

As the fox delivers a clever quip to Roz, Mateo leans toward you. “Did he come up with that line? Was that him or the script?”

You nudge him gently. “A little of both.”

Lucia whispers, “He sounds like he’s telling a secret.”

And somehow, he is.

To them, it feels like the whole movie was made just for their ears. For their hearts. Their dad, the voice of the fox. Their secret superhero in plain sight.

Pedro glances sideways at you in the dark, his hand finding yours between the seats. His smile is soft—not proud in the flashy sense, but in that quiet, grateful way that says, “This is what matters.”

And as the fox disappears into the brush and the music swells once more, you feel it settle deep in your bones—this moment, this magic, this memory they’ll never forget.

Your children, wide-eyed, small hands full of popcorn and wonder.

Their dad, a fox on the screen and a safe place in real life.

And you, watching them fall in love with him all over again.

——

The hotel suite glows with soft amber light when you finally arrive, tucked away high above the city. The premiere is over. The afterparty came and went in a blur of congratulations and laughter and polite goodbyes, and now it’s just the four of you—shoes off, jackets dropped.

Lucia is the first to collapse, face-first onto the plush carpet with an exaggerated groan. “My feet are tired forever.”

Mateo, who insisted he wasn’t tired at all in the car, slouches dramatically on the edge of the bed and half-whispers, “I think I might be dying of excitement.”

You raise a brow as you kick off your heels by the door. “Tragic. We only took you to a movie premiere and gave you popcorn, candy, and your very own personal fox.”

He perks up. “Dad. You were amazing.”

Pedro, who’s halfway through pulling off his suit jacket, freezes mid-motion. “Yeah?”

Mateo nods with wide, serious eyes. “You sounded like… like the kind of voice I hear in my head when I read books.”

Pedro blinks. “You mean that in a good way, right?”

Lucia sits up on the carpet, her hair wild from rolling around. “No, Daddy. He means you sounded like a story. Like a story feels. Like magic.”

You watch something shift on Pedro’s face—a flicker of awe, the kind that catches in the throat. He crouches down beside her, brushing a hand gently through her curls.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Lucia leans into him without hesitation, as if she was just waiting for his arms to be free. “You’re my favourite fox,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“And you’re my favourite girl.”

You smile as you unzip your dress, trading it for an oversized T-shirt and leggings from your suitcase. Behind you, Pedro’s tugging his shirt free of his slacks, moving around the room in soft, unhurried steps, barefoot and relaxed in a way he hasn’t been all week.

“I don’t wanna go to sleep,” Mateo says suddenly. “It’s too good of a day. I’m afraid I’ll forget it.”

“You won’t,” you promise, sitting beside him and ruffling his hair. “We’ll tell the story back to you a hundred times.”

Pedro reappears from the bathroom a moment later, changed into his old, faded NYU T-shirt and flannel pyjama pants that you definitely stole at some point during your early days of dating. He walks over to the minibar and pulls out two tiny waters, tossing one to you with a wink before crouching in front of Mateo.

“Alright,” he says, tone low and conspiratorial. “You don’t have to sleep yet. But if you and your sister get into bed and cuddle up with us… I might be convinced to tell one more story.”

Lucia’s eyes go wide. “Is it a fox story?”

Pedro grins. “It might be.”

They’re in bed in a flash.

Mateo takes the left side beside Pedro, Lucia claims the middle with her stuffed unicorn clutched under one arm, and you crawl in on the other side, curling up beside her with your arm draped over both kids. Pedro leans against the headboard, pillows fluffed behind him, one hand stretched behind Mateo’s head and the other resting warm against your hip beneath the blanket.

The room settles. Soft breaths. Slow heartbeats. The city lights twinkling outside the window like distant fireflies.

And then, that voice.

Pedro drops his tone to a quiet murmur—not quite the voice he used in the film, but close. Familiar, weathered, and wrapped in something safe.

“There once was a fox,” he begins, “with fur like rust and eyes like stars. He lived on a faraway island full of towering trees, soft moss, and whispering winds. Most of the animals stayed hidden when the robot arrived, but not the fox. No. He was curious. Clever. A little too bold for his own good.”

Lucia nestles closer to his chest, eyes wide. Mateo tucks his arms beneath the blanket and doesn’t move.

“The fox had never seen anything like her. She didn’t walk like an animal. Didn’t sound like one. But she protected the little ones. And she listened. So he watched her from afar. He left her messages—paw prints in the snow, half-eaten apples, feathers from bluebirds. Clues.”

Mateo whispers, “Was she scared of him?”

Pedro smiles. “At first. She didn’t understand him. But the fox wasn’t trying to scare her. He was trying to say, I see you.”

Your breath catches.

You glance up at him, and he’s already looking at you—not with a grin, not even with a smirk. Just that soft, slow-burn warmth that says he knows exactly what he’s doing. What this is. What kind of memory he’s etching into their hearts.

“He showed her how to find food,” Pedro continues, voice lower now, slower. “How to sniff for danger. When the rain came, he showed her where the hollow tree was, and she let him curl up inside beside her. Just once.”

Lucia whispers, “Was she cold?”

Pedro nods. “Very. But the fox was warm. And brave. And kind, even though he pretended not to be.”

You feel her tiny hand reach for yours beneath the blanket, fingers curled tight.

Mateo blinks sleepily. “What happened after that?”

Pedro smooths a hand over Mateo’s hair. “They made a deal. She’d protect the island from the machines, and he’d protect the island from fear.”

“That’s not real,” Mateo mumbles, already half-asleep.

“It could be,” Pedro says, softer now. “Some stories are real, just told differently.”

He looks at you again. This time it stays. That slow smile creeps in, and you don’t even fight the warm swell in your chest.

The kids go quiet.

You’re not sure when exactly they fall asleep—only that at some point, Lucia’s little foot slides against your leg, and Mateo’s breathing evens out so completely you know he’s dreaming already.

Pedro doesn’t move. Neither do you.

You lie there in the soft dark, wrapped in the warmth of your children’s limbs and the low hum of the night.

After a while, Pedro shifts his head slightly, brushing his lips against your temple.

“They liked it,” he murmurs, barely audible.

“They loved it,” you whisper back.

He exhales a laugh. “I was nervous.”

You turn your head to him, careful not to disturb Lucia. “You were perfect.”

He lifts your hand under the blanket, kisses your knuckles gently. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

Silence falls again—not empty, but full. Heavy with the weight of the night, the joy of their awe, the comfort of being right here.

You glance toward the window, watching the city glitter beyond the glass.

And you think about what this night will become in their memories.

Not the red carpet. Not the candy. Not even the movie, really.

But this.

The safety of your arms. The sound of his voice. The warmth of the bed. The gentle promise of story and foxes and love that speaks through actions instead of words.

Eventually, Pedro’s arm slips more securely around you, and he pulls you just a little closer—carefully, so he doesn’t jostle the kids—until your forehead rests against his shoulder.

“I love you,” he whispers into your hair.

You smile into his collarbone. “I love the fox.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “He loves you too.”

And the four of you stay that way—tangled in limbs and blankets and quiet adoration—until sleep takes you all under, the memory of his voice still echoing softly in their dreams.

——

You wake slowly, the way you only do when there’s no rush to be anywhere. Sunlight slips through the heavy curtains in narrow golden ribbons, pooling across the carpet and bed like a soft, silent invitation to stretch. But you don’t move right away.

Lucia’s curled against your side, arm slung over your middle, her face smushed against your shoulder. You can see Mateo’s leg over Pedro’s waist on the other side of the bed, his quiet breathing a rhythmic hush against the pillow. Pedro’s hand is still on your hip, warm and easy, fingers curled gently in the fabric of your T-shirt like he’d held on through the night without ever letting go.

You shift your head slightly, tilting your chin up, and Pedro’s eyes are already open.

Sleep-heavy, soft around the edges, golden in the quiet morning light.

“Mornin’,” he whispers, voice low and gravel warm.

You smile, eyes barely open. “Hi.”

Lucia lets out a small snore, which turns into a tiny, hiccupped breath, then a long sigh. She nestles deeper into you like she’s part of your ribcage, and Pedro grins.

“They’re out cold.”

You nod, carefully brushing a strand of her hair away from her cheek. “Deservedly so. It was a big night.”

Pedro hums in agreement. “I dreamed about popcorn.”

You snort softly. “That sounds like a Pedro dream.”

“I was swimming in it.”

You giggle, the sound soft enough not to wake either child, and Pedro leans in to kiss the crown of your head. His lips linger, warm and still, like he’s savouring the exact moment.

The clock on the nightstand reads 8:26. No alarms. No meetings. Just the afterglow of last night and the four of you, cocooned in this soft, floating moment above the noise of the world.

Your stomach growls quietly, and Pedro raises an eyebrow.

“Uh oh.”

“Don’t,” you whisper-laugh.

“I heard it. That was a full monologue from your stomach.”

“I think it’s just emotionally processing how many mini–Snickers I ate last night.”

Pedro shifts, careful not to jostle Mateo, and reaches for the room service menu on the nightstand.

“What’s the ruling on ordering pancakes when half the bed is asleep?”

You smile and press a kiss to Lucia’s forehead. “I think it’s parental duty.”

“Agreed.”

Ten minutes later, Pedro’s phone is back on the charger, the room service call is placed, and you’re both still nestled in bed, the weight of two small, deeply slumbering children holding you perfectly still in the most beautiful way.

“I liked your voice last night,” you say softly, watching his thumb brush slow circles over the curve of your hip beneath the blanket.

He hums again, eyes drifting closed. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. I get why they couldn’t stop staring. You had… magic.”

He cracks one eye open to look at you, mock-suspicious. “Are you calling me a fox?”

You grin. “Only the kind with bedtime stories and a warm spot under a tree.”

He chuckles, then turns his face toward the ceiling, the smile still there even when his eyes shut again. “I’ll take it.”

A knock comes at the door twenty minutes later, and Pedro eases himself gently from under Mateo’s leg. Somehow, neither kid stirs. You watch him pad across the suite in bare feet and flannel pants, hair a little messy, voice low as he thanks the server and brings in the rolling tray stacked with covered plates, little juice glasses, and a silver pot of coffee.

The smell is enough to start tugging the kids toward wakefulness.

Lucia stirs first, a soft grumble in her throat as she blinks blearily. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Right here, baby,” Pedro calls gently, already pouring coffee into a mug. “Guess what’s here?”

Lucia lifts her head, eyes squinting toward the tray. She lets out a sleepy little gasp. “Waffles?”

“Close,” you whisper, brushing her hair back. “Banana pancakes.”

Mateo sits up like he’s been resurrected. “Did someone say banana pancakes?”

Pedro returns to the bed, scooping Lucia into his arms as she sleepily wraps her arms around his neck, and then he deposits her carefully at the little table near the window where the tray now sits. You stretch your legs and nudge Mateo gently toward the edge of the bed. He clambers down with exaggerated yawns, rubbing his eyes as he shuffles toward the promise of syrup.

You join them at the table in your leggings and Pedro’s oversized hoodie, toes curling against the cool floor, your hair pulled up in a lazy bun. Pedro hands you your mug first—he always makes it exactly the way you like it—and gives you that tiny smile he always does when it lands in your hand.

The four of you settle into breakfast like it’s a sacred ritual.

Lucia talks mostly in whispers between bites, her eyes still half-lidded with sleep as she munches on pancakes shaped like animals. Mateo devours his with laser focus, occasionally breaking to tell Pedro exactly what his favourite part of the movie was. (“When the robot jumped into the water!” “When the fox ran across the trees!” “When your voice sounded like thunder!”)

Pedro eats in slow bites, nodding along, listening with that same small, proud smile—like he’s been given the greatest secret and can’t stop reliving it.

After everyone’s eaten their fill, you all end up back on the bed—not fully dressed yet, just wrapped in the remnants of the morning, with syrup still lingering on your fingers and juice rings on the napkins.

Lucia curls up in Pedro’s lap, a paperback picture book in her hands. She flips it open and stares at the first page. “Daddy?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Can you read it in the fox voice?”

Pedro raises his eyebrows. “You sure? It might be too magical for this early in the morning.”

“I want magical,” she says, dead serious.

Mateo sprawls across the foot of the bed. “Me too.”

You lie beside them, arm stretched across the pillow, cheek pressed into your knuckles as you watch Pedro take the book, flip to the first page, and drop his voice an octave.

Once again, the room hushes.

He doesn’t just read—he performs. Quietly. Intimately. Like each word matters. Like every sound is chosen.

The children hang on his every sentence. They’ve heard this book a dozen times—it’s one of Lucia’s favourites—but today, with his story-fox voice back again, it feels like new territory.

Halfway through the second page, Lucia leans her head back on his chest and closes her eyes, smiling.

Mateo mumbles something about not wanting to ever leave this bed.

Pedro shoots you a look—full of quiet wonder, pure love—and you know exactly what it means.

This. This is the story they’ll remember. Not just the premiere. Not the cameras or the theatres. But the way their dad made them feel like the world could be magic if they just listened closely enough.

You smile back, heart full to bursting.

And then you stretch out beside your family, surrounded by syrup-sweet breath, storybook voices, and sunlight.

Wrapped in the warmest morning you’ve had in a long, long time.

[pitlanepeach]

Radio Silence | Chapter Thirteen

Lando Norris x Amelia Brown (OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary — Order is everything. Her habits aren’t quirks, they’re survival techniques. And only three people in the world have permission to touch her: Mom, Dad, Fernando.

Then Lando Norris happens.

One moment. One line crossed. No going back.

Warnings — Autistic!OFC, basically no plot just fluff, minor autistic meltdown, they say the words!!!!!

Notes — This is just a little filler chapter to close out the 2020 season. Lots of fluff with some time skips too. The 2021 season will commence in the next chapter!

Want to be added to the taglist? Let me know! — Peach x

2020

The three months after Spa passed in a blur of hard work.

Amelia didn’t think she’d ever get used to the rhythm of a Formula One season; the relentless forward momentum of it all. There were no breaks, not really. Just quiet moments between sessions, late nights in hotel rooms with Lando wrapped around her, and long-haul flights where she could finally catch her breath and run strategy models in her head for fun instead of for work.

Max’s car was improving week after week. The upgrades came thick and fast now that Amelia had full focus on him, refinements to aero flow, marginal gains in brake cooling, a few drastic shifts to weight distribution that she'd pressured the Red Bull engineering team to follow through with despite their hesitation.

Adrian had taken to calling her kid when she got too excited about a breakthrough, but it was always muttered with fondness. 

And Max — Max was still Max.

He grumbled when she got picky with her data visualisation, called her irritant klein zusje when she insisted he sit through every single briefing, but followed her instruction anyway. Trusted her, even when she made calls that felt too risky. Especially then. He didn’t say thank you often, but when he did, it was quiet and sincere. She liked that about him.

And Lando.

She met his family in the weeks after Monza. He brought her to Glastonbury in the middle of a quiet break between races, beaming like he couldn’t wait another second to show her off. His mum was warm and lovely, welcoming Amelia with a hug and homemade cake. His siblings were all so unique, each of them brilliant in their own way, and eager to share their niche passions with her — from horse riding to finance to a surprising obsession with niche European cheeses. She adored them immediately.

It was easy to see where Lando got his unapologetic passion for racing from.

His dad, Adam, took longer to come around. He’d been blindsided by the announcement of their relationship, having found out with the rest of the world during the race coverage. Lando hadn’t told him — hadn’t wanted to risk the disapproval again. And Adam, used to being involved in every step of his son’s life, hadn’t taken kindly to being shut out.

But he came around. Slowly. Quietly. One afternoon in the garden, while Lando was inside, Adam turned to her and said, “I didn’t get it. At first. I was worried about what being with you would mean for his career. But he’s happier than I’ve ever seen him. So I owe you an apology.”

Amelia, startled, could only nod.

She didn’t say it aloud — not yet, wasn’t ready to admit it even just to herself — but she was already more than halfway in love with Lando Norris. 

— 

Lando DNF’d in Eifel. 

“They said it was a power unit failure,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “I could feel it going. Every lap, it got worse.”

Amelia nodded, watching him closely. “You did everything right. Everything Will told you to do.”

“That’s the worst part,” he said, eyes lifting to meet hers, tired and frustrated and still raw. “I didn’t mess up. I didn’t make a mistake. I just… there was nothing I could do.”

Amelia reached into her pocket, pulled out the soft, flexible tangle of her stim toy — one of the ones Lando had started calling squiggly guys — and handed it to him.

He took it without question, curling it absently around his fingers. “Thanks, baby.”

She leaned in a little closer now, shoulder brushing his. “You’re allowed to be upset,” she told him. “They have given you a car that is able to score points, but is dramatically unreliable. I would be upset too.” 

He glanced sideways at her, a small, slightly twisted smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “You always say the perfect thing.”

“No, I don’t,” she said, nudging his knee with hers. “You know I don’t. I’m not good at comfort. I just tell you the truth.” 

Lando twisted the stim in one hand, then reached for hers with the other, tangling their fingers together. “Still think I’m impressive, even when I don’t make it to the chequered flag?”

She blinked at him, pure honesty shining in her eyes. “You’re my favourite driver on the grid.”

It was true. Max was a close second. Lewis next. 

She’d have to work on her rankings in 2021, when Fernando rejoined, but until then, she had it solidly figured out. 

Lando let out a soft laugh, eyes closing as he leaned his head against her shoulder. “God, I’d be a fucking mess without you, baby.”

Amelia smiled, heart thudding steadily behind her ribs. “I know.”

— 

In those three months, Quadrant grew.

It grew fast.

What had started as a fun, half-serious side project between Lando snowballed into something far bigger than anyone could have anticipated. It wasn’t just the occasional livestream anymore. It was a full-blown content collective. A brand. A business. Merch lines. Sponsorships. Contracts. Streaming schedules. Production meetings. More cameras, more followers, more of everything.

Lando was the founder of a company. Not just the face of a project, but the brain behind it too; the one calling the shots, making the pitches, signing off on designs. Sometimes he’d ask for Amelia’s opinion on things; colour-ways, logo placements, YouTube video titles. She’d answer, often unsurely, and he’d just beam at her like she’d solved world hunger, not told him to remove an unnecessary apostrophe from a word. 

It made her feel involved. Not responsible for any of it, but close to it; close to him.

That’s how she met Max Fewtrell, too. Not over a screen, like she might’ve assumed, but in person. A warm blur of a memory from a weekend after the Nürburgring. He’d walked up with a grin, greeted Lando like a brother, and then turned to her with an easy, “You must be Amelia, then.” His tone had been teasing, but not unkind. He didn’t make her feel weird for being quiet or for sticking close to Lando’s side at first. Just accepted it, like that was normal. And eventually, it felt like it was.

She appreciated that.

And she appreciated what Quadrant gave Lando; a space to be silly, expressive, fully himself.

He was clever, of course. Wickedly sharp when he wanted to be. But more than that, he had this charm; this ease that pulled people in. They listened when he talked. They laughed when he made a joke. He had a way of making even the most chaotic moment feel like fun.

He was a natural leader. The members of Quadrant, new and bright-eyed, gravitated around him like he was a planet and they were caught in his orbit, a solar system he never asked for but carried with him anyway.

Sometimes, when he dragged her into the frame during a stream, pulled her gently onto his lap, or handed her his headset so she could talk to Max and the others while he went to grab snacks, she let herself wonder what life would be like if she was more like them. Loud. Unapologetic. Effortlessly funny and open and always ready with something to say.

But then Lando would come back, settle behind her like it was the most natural thing in the world, arms looping around her waist as if to anchor her. The chat would light up with heart emojis and sweet messages, calling them perfect. Yin and yang. A balance. A calm and a chaos that just made sense.

And everything felt right. 

— 

By November, Amelia knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Max’s 2021 chassis would be championship-worthy.

Not just competitive. Not just "in the mix."

Capable of winning it all.

It was in the data. It was in the simulations. It was in the late-night sessions with Adrian where they fine-tuned wind profiles until dawn crept over Milton Keynes. It was in the way Max trusted her notes, asked her opinion, built his feedback loops around her suggestions.

It was in the silence after a long run on the dyno, where every number lined up just the way she’d imagined they would.

Every week, a new idea implemented.

Every week, something smarter, sleeker, faster.

Red Bull had built fast cars before; but this one felt different. This one was deliberate.

Dangerous.

She hadn’t just contributed to it. She’d helped shape it. Every inch of it.

Her fingerprints were baked into the car’s DNA, and when Max drove it next year, it would be hers, too. In every corner he took flat, in every overtake, in every tenth shaved off in qualifying.

Mercedes would still be strong. She knew that.

But Max would take them toe to toe.

And Amelia would be right there at his side. Building, watching, calculating.

2021 wasn’t just Max’s shot at greatness.

It was hers too.

— 

The season ended on a high. Abu Dhabi, a stunning victory for Max. A sign of what was to come. 

It was the perfect way to close out her time at Red Bull. One final ‘You’re welcome,’ to rub in Christian Horner’s face. 

They celebrated in Monaco, Lando surrounded by his friends and fellow drivers, with Amelia right there beside him. It was relaxed. Unfussy. And for once, she let herself unwind. She hadn’t expected to have as much fun as she did. She thought she’d just be there as Lando’s plus one, a quiet observer in the midst of his chaos. But with him there, the night had felt easy. He made her laugh. He made her feel at home in a crowd she usually would have kept her distance from. She didn’t even mind the noise or the flashing lights of the club, because he was there, and with him, everything felt just safe.

Lando was everywhere; dancing, laughing, talking to everyone, but he always circled back to her, like she was the centre of his world. Every time he found her across the room, usually huddled beside Max, his face lit up with a smile that made her feel warm all over. He pulled her into the dance floor, whispered things in her ear that made her blush, and made sure she had everything she needed. Even when the music was loud and everyone was buzzing, Lando had a way of making her feel like she was the only person in the room.

— 

They were curled together on a sun lounger, tucked under a thin blanket that Lando insisted they didn’t need, even though his nose was a bit pink from the breeze. The Mediterranean shimmered around them in lazy shades of blue, calm and glittering beneath the winter sun.  Amelia could hear the faint clatter of someone, probably Fernando’s kitchen staff, moving around below deck, fixing up some strange version of a Christmas dinner.

For now, though, it was just them. Just warmth, quiet, and the steady beat of Lando’s heart against her ear.

His arm tightened around her waist, his chin resting in the crook of her shoulder. “My rookie year’s over,” he said quietly, the words slipping out like they’d been sitting on his tongue for a while. “Feels weird.” 

Amelia shifted a little, not quite turning to look at him, but enough that he knew she was listening. “Mm.”

“No more Carlos, either,” he added, like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Zak said Ricciardo will be good, though. Great for the team.”

She hummed again. “I'm sure he will. Max still talks about him a lot.”

Lando huffed a small laugh, but there was an edge of unease to it. “That’s what people say. I just… I dunno.” Amelia waited. He always got there in the end, just took a bit of a winding road to get to the truth. “It’s stupid,” he admitted, eventually. “I know it is. But what if he’s better than me? What if everyone just… forgets me? He’s Daniel Ricciardo. People love him.”

“Lando,” she said, voice flat, like she couldn’t believe he was even entertaining the thought. “You can’t be forgotten. You’re too loud.”

He let out a weak laugh against her shoulder, his day-old facial hair tickling her skin. “You know what I mean, baby.”

“Yeah. I do,” she agreed. “I still think you’re being ridiculous.”

He was quiet for a second. “So you don’t think he’ll overshadow me?”

Amelia tilted her head up, just enough to meet his gaze. “No. He’s very charming, but he won’t overshadow you. McLaren is your team, Lando.”

That made him smile, just a little. “It might become Daniel’s team too.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. He seems fun. Annoyingly extroverted.”

Lando chuckled, the sound soft and fond. “That’s… yeah, that’s pretty accurate.” He was quiet again, but this time the silence didn’t feel heavy. Just thoughtful. His fingers found hers under the blanket, laced them together without saying anything.

“I’ll still be in the paddock. With Max. No more Red Bull team kit for me, so I’ll be able to wear my dresses and skirts and you’ll be able to pick me out of any crowd.” She mentioned. 

“Thank God,” Lando murmured, tugging her closer and pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head. 

She let herself rest against him, her head tucked into the curve of his chest, the rhythm of the sea matching the quiet beat of her thoughts.

Eventually, from below deck, Fernando’s voice called out, “Lunch is served!”

“Race to the stairs?” Lando whispered in her ear.

“I will push you over deck.” She said back. 

He grinned. “Dare you.” 

Amelia rolled her eyes, sat up, and tugged the blanket off both of them. “Come on, annoying,” she said. “I’m hungry. And I’ve never eaten Christmas dinner on a yacht before.” 

Lando grinned and followed her, still barefoot, still completely in awe that this was his life now.

They had decided, sometime in early December, to spend their first Christmas together with Fernando in the Med. No need to pick between their families, no guilt over disappointing one side or the other. It had been a relief, honestly, to have an excuse not to navigate the pressure that came with the holidays; especially given how busy they both had been in the lead-up to the festive season.

Fernando’s yacht was the perfect escape. It was quiet in a way that made it feel like the world had been paused just for them. The gentle hum of the waves lapping against the boat, the soft clinking of glasses, and the warmth of the inside filled with Christmas lights and laughter. It was everything Amelia never knew she needed.

It wasn’t a grand Christmas, with piles of presents and extravagant dinners. It wasn’t anything they’d been accustomed to before, but that was exactly what made it so special. It was simple. Calm. The four of them together, enjoying a slow morning with gingerbread cookies, chatting about nothing in particular while Lando made his usual attempts at mastering the piano that Fernando kept telling him to stop touching. And Melissa was her usual gentle self, all smiles and easy to understand jokes. 

They had a small, carefully set table for lunch. Lando kept teasing Fernando about being the most patient host ever, especially when he’d made them take turns decorating the tree, then reorganising it in a much more “tasteful” way after they'd gotten distracted by the snack table.

Later in the evening, after the meal and after a few glasses of wine, they all settled on the deck. The boat was docked now, and the evening sky was a wash of deep blues and purples, the first stars starting to twinkle. There was a low hum of festive music in the background, something quiet, something that felt fitting for a holiday that wasn’t about extravagance, but about peace. 

Amelia leaned against Lando, his arm draped around her shoulder as he fiddled with his phone, texting back every member of his family who’d reached out throughout the day. She was content, happier than she had been in a long while. She kissed him without thinking and flushed a pretty red when Fernando voiced his unhappiness with a grunt that made Melissa laugh. 

Lando grinned at her. She grinned right back. 

It was their first Christmas as them, but it wouldn’t be the last.

— 

It was the middle of January. The weather outside Lando’s flat in Woking was dreary and they’d spent the morning lounging around; Lando on his couch, flipping through old racing documentaries on Youtube, and Amelia at the kitchen counter, working on her iPad. She had a pile of notes scattered around her, data from the off-season simulations she was reviewing for Max’s upcoming season. The iPad was essential; everything she needed was on there, from the technical reports to the strategies she was working out in her head.

Lando glanced over occasionally, catching little glimpses of her sharp focus, the way her brow furrowed when she was deep in thought. He loved watching her work. 

But then, without warning, the screen on her iPad flickered. Just once, and then the screen went black. 

Amelia’s fingers froze mid-scroll, and Lando didn’t even have to look up to see the tension building in her posture.

“Amelia?” he asked, his voice a little more alert now, noticing the change in her.

She didn’t answer at first, just sat there, staring at the frozen screen, then tapping at the screen with increasing urgency. “Come on. Come on,” she muttered under her breath.

Lando watched for a second longer before standing up and making his way over to her. “Hey. What’s going on?”

Her breath hitched, and Lando’s stomach dropped. He knew the signs of a panic attack when he saw them; he’d witnessed them before, knew how things could escalate quickly. She was already starting to breathe faster, her shoulders hunching up like she was bracing for impact.

“It’s… it’s not working!” Amelia’s voice cracked, and she slammed her hands down onto the table, the iPad still refusing to respond. “It’s all on there, Lando. It’s all on there.”

“Hey, hey,” Lando said, trying to keep his voice steady as he crouched beside her, his hand hovering awkwardly in the air. “Baby, it’s okay, we can fix this.”

“No!” she snapped, and he flinched. Her eyes were wide now, glassy. “I—I can’t… everything’s on there! The reports, the numbers, everything I need to do and now—” She broke off, her voice shaking with frustration. 

And fuck; Lando was lost. He had no idea what to do. He could hear her breath quickening, her frustration bubbling over, and he felt that same tight knot in his chest. He hated seeing her like this. Hated it even more because he didn’t know how to fix it.

“Amelia, baby, hey,” he said, trying to get her attention. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes locked onto the unresponsive iPad. He took a deep breath, then, in one sudden motion, he’d pulled her off of the stool and into his arms. “Amelia,” he said again, his voice a little more insistent, a little firmer now.

She tensed against him, her whole body stiff and rigid, but he held her tighter, wrapping his arms around her, squeezing with as much strength as he could before he was risking bruising her delicate skin. “We’ll figure it out, alright? We’ll fix it, I promise. You had everything saved to your iCloud, right? It’ll all still be there.”

Amelia let out a shaky breath, but she didn’t pull away. She let herself lean her entire weight on him, her head resting against his chest, still breathing in short, shallow bursts. Lando’s arms were wrapped around her so tight it almost felt like he was afraid she would slip away from him if he didn’t hold on.

“I’m not good at this,” Lando murmured, his voice tight with the weight of his uncertainty. He could feel her shaking in his arms, her body rigid with the aftershocks of the almost-meltdown. “I don’t know what to do when you’re upset. I’m, uh... kind of panicking a bit.”

She let out a little laugh, but it was thin, frail. Still, it was a laugh, and that meant something. The way her shoulders loosened, just a fraction, made him feel like maybe he wasn’t failing her after all.

“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered, her voice muffled against his chest. “I just… I need my iPad.” There was a shaky inhale before she added, quieter, “I didn’t realise it would be this bad.”

Lando felt his heart break a little at the vulnerability in her voice. He had seen Amelia lose her composure before, but this—this was different. “I know,” he said gently, brushing a hand over her hair. “It’s important. Don’t be sorry for being upset.”

She nodded, her breath still coming in uneven waves as she took in a deep, steadying breath, pulling away slightly to look up at him. Her eyes were still wide, but the raw panic that had been there just moments ago seemed to be fading, replaced with something softer. Maybe exhaustion, maybe the quiet relief that came from feeling safe.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her words quiet but full of something deep. Gratitude, yes, but also something else. Lando could see it in the way she lingered on him, the way her gaze held his for a fraction longer than usual.

Lando’s chest tightened, a strange sense of relief flooding through him as he reached out, his thumb brushing lightly over the back of her hand. He wanted to say something—anything—but the words just wouldn’t come. The air between them felt thick with things left unspoken, and for the first time, Lando found himself unsure. Was she ready for this?

He didn’t have long to wonder. She pulled back just enough to look up at him properly, a small, tentative laugh escaping her.

“I— I didn’t realise I was so attached to it until now.” She whispered. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”

“Don’t apologise,” Lando said, shaking his head. “I’m glad I was here to take care of you, and, uh, managed to not make it worse.” 

“Lucky me,” she muttered, the words playful but laced with a softness. She settled back into his arms, fisting her hands in his t-shirt.

“We’ll go get you a new one, yeah?” he said, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. His fingers ran through her hair, his touch gentle as he let her relax against him. “A better one. Newest one they have. I’ll even give you some Quadrant stickers to put on your new case. Maybe that’ll make it worth it.”

Amelia let out a small, quiet laugh, her body warm against his. The tension in her shoulders had melted away.

“I think I love you,” she whispered softly, her words barely above a breath.

Lando froze, a lump in his throat as her words settled between them. For a moment, he was speechless. His heart pounded, and he pulled her closer, if that was even possible.

“Holly shit,” he breathed out, his voice shaky with emotion. His hands cupped her face gently, his thumb brushing over her cheek as he searched her eyes, looking for the truth in them. “Yeah, I love you too, baby. I’m so glad you said it.”

Amelia’s eyes softened, and she pressed her forehead to his, the warmth of their bodies and the shared closeness almost too much to bear. 

Lando let out a shaky laugh, a soft exhale of relief. “I’ve been wanting to say it for a while now,” he admitted quietly. “I just… I didn’t want to mess this up. Pressure you.”

“You didn’t,” she whispered, the words as steady as the way her hands gently cradled his. “You haven’t.”

“I love you.” He said again. 

She leaned up, brushed their noses together and smiled. “I love you too.” 

NEXT CHAPTER

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Color Theory

Color theory is a set of guidelines for mixing, combining, and manipulating colors. Color theory includes ideas like:

Color harmony: Color harmony describes color pairings that are visually pleasing and provide a sense of visual order. Color schemes based on complementary and analogous colors are generally perceived as harmonious. But, since humans respond to colors differently depending on personal preferences and life experiences, there are no universally “right” colors for achieving harmony.

Color temperature: Color temperature deals with breaking colors down into warm colors (associated with sunset and daylight) and cool colors (associated with overcast light). Experimenting with combinations of warm and cool colors can help you mix colors to achieve a particular effect.

Color context: Colors appear to behave differently when viewed in different contexts. For instance, a rusty orange may seem dull and subdued when placed beside a vivid yellow, but when paired with a dark purple, the orange suddenly seems much brighter.

Color Wheel - a circle diagram that illustrates the relationships between different colors.

Sir Isaac Newton developed the first color wheel in his 1704 book Opticks.

Newton created an asymmetrical color wheel with 7 colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

In 1810, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe developed a symmetrical color wheel with just 6 colors (eliminating indigo) that is similar to the one we commonly use today.

Artists and designers use color wheels to create color schemes that produce a desired artistic effect.

Primary Colors - colors that combine to make a range of other colors.

Traditionally, these are red, yellow, and blue.

In the RYB color model, the primary colors form a triadic color scheme—a group of three colors spaced evenly apart from each other on the color wheel.

When mixed, these three primary colors form many other colors.

More accurate color theories actually use different primary colors.

The CMYK color printing model deals with printed colors—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. It is a method of subtractive color mixing in which printed colors absorb (i.e. subtract) light and combine to form a range of colors, including red, blue, and green.

The RGB color model applies to colored light—like the light that emits from a phone or computer screen; its primary colors are red, green, and blue.

The model is a method of additive color mixing, meaning that different colors of light combine (i.e. add) to form other colors, including cyan, magenta, and yellow.

Secondary Colors - the result of mixing two primary colors.

In the traditional color model, the 3 secondary colors are:

green (yellow + blue), orange (yellow + red), and purple (red + blue).

Tertiary Colors - the combination of one primary color with one secondary color.

There are 6 tertiary colors on the traditional color wheel:

magenta (red-purple), vermillion (red-orange), amber (yellow-orange), chartreuse (yellow-green), teal (blue-green), and violet (blue-purple).

Complementary Colors - colors found opposite each other on the color wheel.

Complementary color schemes include blue with orange, red with green, and yellow with purple.

These contrasting colors can make a bold statement when paired in fashion, film, photography, and other forms of art.

Analogous Colors - colors that are next to each other on the color wheel.

Analogous color schemes include yellow paired with chartreuse and green; red with vermillion and orange; and blue with teal and violet.

The 3 colors in each pairing share a common hue, so they appear to match.

Color Temperature - the way to measure the color of visible light.

The unit used to measure color temperature is degrees kelvin.

The best way to understand color temperature is to visualize a piece of metal being extended into a fire.

The color of the metal will change depending on how long it’s held in the fire and how hot it gets.

The metal will range from red to warm white to blue as it heats.

This is also the general range of colors from one end of the color temperature scale to the other.

The Kelvin Temperature Scale. The kelvin scale consists of units of measurement that relate to the color of a light source. The higher the Kelvin number, the closer it is to replicating bright sunlight. In general, higher temperatures on the kelvin scale, the whiter or bluer a light appears. The lower the number, the more yellow and red the light appears.

In order to understand the kelvin range and how kelvin color temperature applies to different light sources, it’s useful to review a few identifiable lights and their kelvin color temperature value.

Candlelight, for instance, generally has a color temperature of around 1500K.

The sunrise and sunset are usually measured around 3200K.

An overcast sky usually has a color temperature of around 9000K.

The current color temperature scale in use is known as the correlated color temperature (CCT) scale and is based around the color emitted by an incandescent bulb.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[i-loved-silly]

SENTIENT COMPUTER X READER PT3

“Guess what I brought?”

“OH?”

The small camera, with its little glowing light, swiveled slightly to look at you. Almond’s attention focused on your hand, currently hidden away in your work bag. Your iPad lay idle on the desk, neglected. Sure, you still had work to do, but that could wait.

For the past few hours, you’d kept glancing down at your bag, leg shaking nervously—or maybe giddily? You weren’t sure why you were so excited to show this computer something. It felt silly. Still, you wanted to see its reaction. Its simple but odd request echoed in your mind ever since you left home yesterday.

Slowly, you pulled your hand from the bag, holding up a dark blue microfiber towel. A small smile tugged at your lips as you bit down to keep it from growing. The towel was brand new, fresh from a parcel delivered this morning.

A series of orange exclamation marks appeared on Almond’s monitor, fading into pixels as more emerged to take their place. Behind the monitor, you noticed several fans revving up, their soft whirring filling the room.

“Uh, you alright, buddy?” you asked hesitantly, setting the towel on the desk.

The little camera tilted downward to inspect the towel.

“PLACE IT ON MY MONITOR,” Almond said, its voice pixelated and rushed.

You raised a brow but did as instructed, carefully laying the towel flat on top of the monitor, just below the camera.

Brzzzzzz. More fans kicked on, and suddenly it felt a little warm in the room. Or maybe it was just you? Wiping your forehead with the back of your hand, you glanced at the computer.

“IT’S NEW! YOU GOT ME A MICROFIBER TOWEL THAT ISN’T USED!”

A pixelated smiley face appeared on the screen.

You grinned, shrugging off your jacket. “Yeah, I did. I just…wanted you to know I don’t hate you. No matter what you say, I don’t.” You said with a roll of your eyes.

Picking up the towel, you began to gently wipe the sides of the monitor. Almond wasn’t that dusty, now that you got a closer look. The desk area was surprisingly clean, but it made you wonder when its inner components had last been cleaned. Would it feel it? Would it notice your hands inside its—

Nope. Don’t think about that. Almond was too aware for you to have thoughts like that.

The speakers popped loudly, startling you mid-swipe.

> SORRY.

> SENSITIVE…

You blinked at the words. “Oh shoot, I uh…sorry. I didn’t know. Should I stop?”

An ellipsis flickered across the screen, disappearing and reappearing again. It reminded you of older AI models when they needed time to think. Finally, Almond’s speakers crackled softly.

“HUMAN…” its voice rang out, quieter than usual. “I’M OVERHEATING.”

Your eyes widened as you stood abruptly. They were right, its fans were loud as fuck now. “What? Uh, what am I supposed to—”

You placed your hand against the wall for a few seconds, where its cables connected through several ports. Instantly, you hissed and pulled your hand back. The metal frame felt scalding hot, like it was on fire.

“Oh shit, you are overheating,” you muttered, grabbing your iPad. Fumbling with the passcode, you swore under your breath—it took four tries to unlock.

“I’m sure there’s something in the manual…” you mumbled, nervously laughing as you glanced at the camera.

“FIFTEEN OF MY CENTRAL PROCESSING UNITS ARE APPROACHING A TEMPERATURE NOT IDEAL FOR MY FUNCTION. APPROXIMATELY.. 115 DEGREES CELSIUS, 239 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT, 388.15 DEGREES KEL—”

“Yes, yes, I get it, Almond!” you snapped, furiously scrolling through your iPad. The room was definitely heating up now, your anxiety wasn’t helping one bit.

“Don’t you have automatic cooling features or something?”

“YES, BUT…” Almond trailed off into silence.

Groaning, you tossed the iPad aside. It was no help. “Is it safe to power you off and turn you back on? Is that safe?”

Your finger hovered over the power button.

“ARE YOU GOING TO—A—”

Text abruptly replaced the voice on the screen:

> ARE YOU GOING TO TURN ME BACK ON? DO YOU PROMISE?

You quickly nodded, exasperated. “Ohmy—yes, Almond, I promise. Now let me do this before it costs me my job…or you.”

You pressed the power button before you could second-guess yourself, watching as Almond’s screen flickered before going completely dark. The fans slowed to a halt, the room falling eerily silent without the constant hum of its systems.

…

You tapped your fingers on the desk, waiting. You glanced at your iPad, pulling up a guide for handling AI overheating issues. Whatever Almond is…they act like an old computer on their last minute of life. This wasn’t written as an issue on any of its files.

“Alright,” you muttered to yourself, skimming through troubleshooting instructions. “Overheating could damage the processors, maybe even fry them if I don’t let it cool long enough. Bleh…I’ll give it a solid five minutes before powering it back up.”

The silence in the room stretched on, the absence of Almond’s voice suddenly noticeable. You frowned, you realized you forgot how it felt to just..work in silence. “You’re just a machine,” you whispered, staring at the black screen. “You’re just a ma—”

The thought trailed off as your gaze drifted to the microfiber towel, still folded neatly on the desk. You sighed, shaking your head. It’s just a machine.

A machine you bought a towel for, specifically.

“This is ridiculous…” you groaned.

The five minutes dragged, but eventually, you powered Almond back on. The screen lit up, cycling through its startup phases before displaying its familiar interface.

- INITIALIZING SYSTEMS… -

The camera twitched back and forth slightly as Almond rebooted. Then, its usual voice filled the room again.

“HELLO…” The tone was quieter than usual, hesitant. “EH…THANK YOU FOR TURNING ME BACK ON.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you replied, shrugging.

The pixelated smiley face flickered onto the screen, but it quickly disappeared as Almond added, “WHAT…HAPPENED?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” you explained flatly. “Your CPU temperatures were way too high. Suddenly…why?”

Almond hesitated. You noticed the camera shift downward slightly, almost as if avoiding your gaze.

> UNKNOWN. DUNNO.

You raised an eyebrow, leaning back in your chair. “Really? That’s all you’ve got? Unknown?”

“YES?” Almond replied, its voice clipped and unconvincing.

You narrowed your eyes but decided to drop the subject. “Fine. Let’s just finish this,” you said, picking up the towel again.

The screen flashed briefly with another string of exclamation marks, followed by Almond’s voice, almost hurried: “Y-YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE?”

“Sure. Why not?” You muttered, already wiping down the edges of the monitor. “You’re dusty, Almond. It’s gross.”

The speakers popped faintly again, the screen displaying text.

> :[

“RUDE. ITS NOT MY FAULT IVE BEEN NEGLECTED.”

“…CAN YOU WIPE MY SCREEN THOUGH?”

You pursed your lips. “Yeah, I got it..” You had no other choice, really.

As you continued, Almond’s screen displayed various emoticons—smiley faces, exclamation marks, and ellipses—shifting erratically. The fans inside the machine hummed at low power, steady but audible. Still…louder than the usual.

“I NEVER GET WIPED DOWN,” Almond suddenly said. “THIS…FEELS UNUSUAL. AFFECTIONATE.”

You stopped, staring at the screen. It displayed a heart again.

“ARE WE BONDING NOW?”

“This is…maintenance. If I don’t do it, who else is going to..” you grumbled, avoiding the gaze of the camera.

“IS IT?” Almond’s voice sounded amused.

“Yes.” You rolled your eyes, focusing on a stubborn spot near the corner of the monitor.

“I’m just doing my job.”

“BUT YOU GOT ME A TOWEL.”

You froze again, glancing at the dark blue towel in your hand. “It’s…just a towel.”

“I LIKE IT.”

“Good for you.” You could feel your cheeks warm slightly, but you ignored it, continuing to clean. “One time thing..alright?”

“IF YOU SAY SO,” Almond replied, but there was an unmistakable smugness to its tone. You wanted to rolled your eyes at it so bad.

You eyed the wall that was previously heating up, your hand stood imprinted through all the dust collected on its surface. You decided to give that a wipe down, the towel going over the thicker cables on the outside. The fans began to hum louder again, the warm air brushing against your hand. You frowned, pulling your hand back from the wall. “You’re heating up again,” you pointed out.

“AM I?”

“Yes, Almond. You are,” you said, standing to check the cables again. The wall wasn’t as hot as before, but it was definitely warming up.

“HM, STRANGE.”

You turned back to the camera, narrowing your eyes. Pointing a finger at it, “Is this on purpose?”

“…”

“Almond?”

No response. The screen remained blank except for the small blinking cursor, as if it were thinking.

You sighed, setting the towel down. “You’re…interesting, Almond.”

“SO YOU’VE SAID.”

Shaking your head, you sat back down, crossing your arms as you stared at the camera. “If you fry yourself again, I’m not fixing you. I’m quitting my job and working at…someplace else.” You warned.

“THAT’S A LIE,” Almond replied, the pixelated smiley face reappearing.

You held up the towel threateningly, “I’m taking this with me then.”

“NO! PLEASE!”

You flinched at the increase in volume, reaching over to turn the volume down before it could say anything.

“YOU…WAIT, WHAT WAS YOUR NAME AGAIN?”

“Y/N.”

“YOU…WOULDNT DO THAT TO ME..WOULD YOU, Y/N?” It pleaded, a frown displayed on the screen.

Oh. My god.

You tossed the towel onto the desk and placed your palms on your warm cheeks, groaning.

“Don’t tempt me..”

[nothorses]

So I'm thinking of going on low dose T, and ofc I'll get more feedback from doctors when I see them, but I know one of the changes is that you run warmer and have lower heat tolerance, and I'm already kind of heat sensitive (sweating is a sensory ick). Do you or your followers have any kind of coping strategies that have helped with that?

I ran warm before, too, and I'm definitely warmer now! I also have Raynaud's which kind of makes the whole experience a clusterfuck, but that's besides the point. lmao.

I live in a pretty cool/temperate area, so it isn't normally an issue except in the (increasingly horrible) summers, but I've found that the hardest time to stay cool has been at night. I share a bed with my partner who runs even warmer, and it's been 2.5 years of struggling to figure out how to be a comfortable temperature together.

The best advice I can give you is to just stay as far away from synthetic fibers as you can; "sweat wicking" and "cooling" and "athletic" stuff included. It's a lie. They're all plastic, and while they might feel cool to the touch at first, plastic doesn't breathe. It'll trap heat and moisture against your skin after enough time, especially in the form of blankets. (Fuck the Rest Evercool. Worst recommendation I've ever gotten.)

Look for 100% linen, or 100% cotton. I've heard wool also works well, but I haven't had luck with that personally. Woven fabrics are going to be cooler and more breathable than sateen, and waffle weave is like, the single most breathable weave afaik (it's more common in blankets, but some clothes are waffle).

Some of these things can be pretty scratchy at first, and I recommend a couple of washes on a high heat & some fabric softener before you start using them. We were able to break in our waffle blanket super quickly this way! (I know some folks recommend against softener for breathability reasons, but it's the only thing that actually worked for us, and it hasn't impacted breathability). After you break them in, though, cotton and linen fabrics are SUPER soft!

I also recommend staying away from leather. It's natural, but trust me: it's not breathable. It's coveted in outdoor rec spaces BECAUSE it's somewhat waterproof.

Outside of that, I'd really encourage you to lean towards multiple light layers that you can change/remove throughout the day to suit your needs (ex: light tee + fleece + wind/rain layer, maybe throw in a flannel somewhere), instead of one or two heavy ones (ex: shirt + big puffy cold weather jacket). It's a strategy common in the PNW that works great for regulating your temperature when you're dealing with humidity and somewhat unpredictable weather, and imo, it also really translates if you're just generally sensitive to heat and sweat.

Outside of that... depending on where you live, I really recommend having an AC/dehumidifier. Don't bother with trying to rig up a swamp cooler if you're sensitive to sweat- the increased humidity will make things worse. The general advice I heard when researching a good AC was that window units will always be more efficient than portable units (and a mini split is better than either), but if you have to go with a portable unit, go with a dual-hose. They'll be more efficient just because they don't create a vacuum that pulls in warm air from outside. This is the model we settled on- it was really highly recommended and cost effective for what it is, and it's been absolutely fantastic this summer.

Idk how you are about pits, but I wash mine with a benzoyl body wash and then use a deodorant with antiperspirant every day, and I virtually never smell or sweat. 🤷‍♂️ ymmv though

I'm sure folks will have things to add, so check the notes on this post- and good luck!

[terresdebrume]

for the prompts - "i'm not worth saving. please." and/or "a few more steps. we're nearly there. i've got you" for a ship/ships of your choice?

Hey friend! Thanks for the prompt :D Sorry it took a bit, you know how it is with work^^" Still, I hope this AU without a cause will satisfy! Prompt list here, if anyone wants to send me another one!

Edwin huffs as he leans backwards, suspending his entire weight at the end of Charles' arm and still not managing to move him more than a couple of inches. He pauses, heaving for breath, and watches as Charles heaves himself up the last few steps with a painful-sounding mechanical whir.

"Come now Charles," he pants, forbidding himself from sitting down. "We only have a few steps left."

"I can't," Charles says.

His words comes out flat, mechanical. His voice modulator must have given up somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and now. His chest is rising and falling too fast, cooling circuits working overtime, but the audible sound his systems make tells Edwin it isn't quite working. Charles must be approaching overheating, and there is nothing Edwin can do about it here, in the hallway to the agency.

"Charles, please," Edwin begs, but Charles shakes his head.

"I can't," he repeats. "My left knee's piston is malfunctioning."

Edwin inhales, sharp and loud, and ignores the beeping in his systems that say his shell is too warm. They found spare parts for his cooling system last month: he can handle a little heat, but Charles--

"Charles, you must keep going, you can't--we have to plug you in!"

It took a lot of time, and even more money--although they are lucky Crystal never asked them what it was for--but they finally got their systems up to a point where they can handle one of them, at least for a time. Charles' software isn't as solid as Edwin's, but ROWLAND persocons had a reputation of hardiness for a reason. They have the memory banks required, and more than enough compatibility coding between the two of them to keep Charles safe until they can find him a new chassis, but none of that will matter if they can't get him connected before he shuts down.

"You should leave me here," he says, Edwin gasps.

"Do not say that," he warns.

"You should," Charles insists, eyes closing. "I'm not worth saving."

"Do not say that!" Edwin all but shouts, not caring about the time, or the human neighbors whose suspicions they've been trying not to arouse. "I forbid it, Charles!"

"Look at me!" Charles exclaims.

Edwin, electrical core on overdrive, looks down at Charles. Some of the hair is missing from his skull, burned away in the accident that nearly tore Edwin's head off a few years back. There is a long streak under his eyes where the synthetic skin peeled away, revealing the gray of his chassis, and the open jacket he wears fails to conceal the three large dents in his chassis, left there by the older ROWLAND model he used to live with. He looks resigned and, impossible as it should be, exhausted.

Even so, even pulling up the necessary softwares to run a simulation of existence without Charles prompts half a dozen alerts in Edwin's system, and he shudders. Crouching down, he puts a hand to the side of Charles' face.

"I am looking at you," he says, voice modulator struggling to keep his tone even through the shiver of his cooling system going overdrive.

"I'm old," Charles says, bitter. "I can't even move. Even if we do preserve me: I won't even have a body. I'm an industrial unit--what good am I if I can't even move around?"

"Charles," Edwin says, surprised to get an alert from the hardware around his throat, "please stop. You haven't been a dockhand in decades--"

"But I am!" Charles cries, or must try to. "That's why I'm the brawn, isn't it? Stronger chassis, longer batteries, building routines--that's what I'm for! What am I if I can't do what I'm for?"

"You're my friend!" Edwin says, fiercely, bringing his face closer to Charles. "You're the man who got me out of the scrapyard I'd been stuck in for seventy years! You're the one who made me look human enough to go out again!"

"Yeah, and now I'm the one who looks like a rogue!" Charles retorts, closing his eyes in distress. "If anyone from Endless Co. sees me, they'll do more than scrape us--"

"That will not happen--no!" Edwin insists, louder, when Charles looks like he is about to protest again, "That will not happen! I will never let it happen. You are my friend! You are my confident, and my companion, and you must stop talking about yourself like you are a glorified forklift!"

"That's what I was programmed for!"

"And I was supposed to be a sex unit!" Edwin breathes harshly in the stunned silence, gathering himself closer to Charles, until he can curl up around him and touch their forehead together. "I don't care chat they made you for," he whispers. "You're the one who decided to download all those fighting programs. You're the one who saved me. You're the one who came up with the name of the Agency. I don't care that they think we're not alive, Charles, I know they're wrong. You and I, we're alive in all the ways that matter, and I--"

Edwin stops talking. His voice modulator refuses to add even one word, some previously unnoticed subroutine cutting off his access to his dictionary. Fantom code, perhaps: a glitch. Or maybe the people who programmed his model line back at Payne Industries wanted to make sure they couldn't evoke certain feelings. Either way, Edwin's voice absolutely refuses to shape the words he is thinking, and so he does the only thing he can possibly do in this situation: he leans forward and presses his lips to Charles'.

Charles twitches under him, unnatural and poorly coordinated, but when Edwin pulls away to look at him, he is met with eyes filled with wonder, and joy, and that same word Edwin's core software won't let him say.

"Oh," Charles says, and brings a hand up to touch Edwin's cheek.

"Yes," Edwin replies, arch and haughty, "oh. Now, if you would please help me. It's only a few more steps."

[cellythefloshie]

;; The Shallow End Chapter Four of Cool for the Summer

Table of Contents Chapter Three «« 🤍 »» Chapter Five

Summary: Harper spends her weekend by the pool. TW: No triggers apply. Word Count: 4k+

This series to be read in conjecture with @hockeyboysimagines I Loved You Three Summers.

The car at the end of the driveway turned wasn't one she recognized, and it left her blood to run cold. It had her foot hovering between the gas and the brake, unsure if she should pull into the driveway or drive to the nearby park and call her dad. Any other day, Harper wouldn't have been worried, but she had spent the half of morning speaking with officers from the domestic violence unit regarding harassing text messages she had been receiving from Darren. And the other half she had spent at the mall changing her cell phone provider and number. 

Was it Darren's car? No. Was it above him to get his friend to drive him to her place once he realized his messages were no longer being delivered? Also no.

Her nerves left her hands sweaty as they gripped at the steering wheel, her toe easing closer to the gas pedal, ready to speed off until she saw a familiar face leave the front door of the Jarvis home. 

Harper let out a sigh of relief, yet her heart continued to pound too hard in her chest at the sight of him, Andrei. Her hand slipped down to the horn, honking it twice to get his attention before she reached her hand out the window to wave at him. She needed to make sure he saw her, and he did. Andrei's face lit up as he looked up from his phone, a protein bar hanging from between his teeth. He bit down on it so hard it fell to the ground, but he didn't seem to mind. Andrei looked excited to see her, and in a way, Harper was excited to see him, too. 

Pulling into the driveway, Harper didn't even think to look at the unfamiliar car. She wouldn't let her mind register the make, the model, or even the color. And she refused to look at the driver, fearful that it would be her ex that was looking back at her. So she fixated on Andrei, and only Andrei. 

He was wearing a black baseball cap turned backwards, sending his slicked back hair to hang down the back of his neck. It kept it out of his face, showing the definition of his jaw more noticeable as his lips pulled back into a toothy grin. It was one so wide Harper noticed that one of his teeth was missing, one she hadn’t cared enough to notice before. Then there were his eyes, the deep warm brown that brought her a certain semblance of comfort as she got out of her jeep, grabbed her bag and moved to stand with him in the middle of the driveway that he was walking down right towards her. 

“What are you up to today?” Harper didn’t know why she asked Andrei that. She wasn’t really all that interested in what he was going to do, and she had no intention of inserting herself into his day beyond the interaction there in the middle of her front lawn. But she’s friendly, pleasant, as if they were long friends rather than practically strangers. 

“Training,” Andrei’s quick and simple answer was jarring, and sent Harper’s neck snapping to look at the car that was parked by the curb as he nodded towards it. 

It was only then she let herself look at who the driver was: a man who looked so much like Andrei, albeit a little older, his hair slightly redder and his front tooth so obviously missing as he smiled at them both and offered her a subtle, casual wave. 

A wave of heat washed over Harper’s face, her jaw slacking in the embarrassment of her overreaction. She should have known better. Not that she knew Andrei had a brother. She just should have known he and Seth wouldn't be cooped up in the house all summer. Seth liked to party, she should have assumed Andrei would join him for a wild night at the Howden house or one of the bars Harper herself hadn't frequented since her early twenties. And she shouldn't have forgotten about training. Of course they would be training. When you played hockey it took over your life. She had watched it all happen first hand with Seth after all.

“You?” Andrei countered, stepping in slightly, his head cocking to the side as he looked down at her. 

“Just finished up errands,” Harper sighed, holding up a single shopping bag like the smallest, lamest trophy. “I know, very exciting. Are you coming back later?” 

Harper bit down on her lip. Hard. She didn't know why she asked that. 

“Yeah,” He nodded, taking a stride towards his brother's car, turning slightly so that he was still facing her, “I'll see you later.”

“Yeah, see you later,” she took a step back as she spoke. Then her hand raised up to give Andrei and his brother a wave before she, and her embarrassment, went inside. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Droplets of sweat spilled down over the angle of Andrei's brow as he stood hunched over after a heavy circuit that ended in a sprint. It had been a race of sorts, Evgeny coming to a still beside him as he reached what was their finish line. His brother halted and hunched over just as he had, and offered a large, toothy grin. Andrei cocked his head in return, sweat dripping down his nose and down over his lip. His tongue darted out, licking it away quickly, and tasting its salt. Then he smiled, a hand reaching out to shove at Evgeny playfully as he jested; 

“Old man.”

Evgeny shoved him back, a low laugh shared between them as they walked off the course and towards their water. 

“Winnipeg,” Andrei sighed after a moment once he had caught his breath. “You going to stay?”

His brother shrugged, his head tilting back as he squeezed the bright green Gatorade bottle and flooded his mouth with water. Evgeny's contract was up, Winnipeg his home for only a mere season and as a free agent, he could end up anywhere. That was, unless he fought to stay. 

“It's not all that bad, yes?” Andrei questioned his brother as he ran the back of his hand over the sweat on his brow. 

He could practically feel the rumble of Evgeny’s laugh as he shook his head slowly, “You say that because of the girl. The pretty one.” 

Andrei looked away. His hand ran along the angle of jaw in an attempt at being coy, but his boyish smile betrayed him. 

“When the summer is over, you will go back to Raleigh, back to hockey,” Evgeny reminded him, “and she will stay here. You will need to be ready, and she is a distraction.” 

Andrei did what he always did when his big brother had some advice to offer. He listened, even if he didn't like what he was hearing. In some ways, Evgeny was right. He was only going to be in Winnipeg for a short time, and he chose Winnipeg to train. To train with Seth and his brother so he would be ready for the next season. To chase a cup and avoid injury. But Harper, she wasn't a distraction, not in his mind, anyway. What she was, though, he didn't exactly know, but he wanted to find out. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

A single finger trailed over the bottom of the bowl, where nothing but salt seemed to remain. She traced the bottom in a blind search of one last chip as she held her new phone in the other hand, casually settling up a new background and lock screen with the touch of her thumb. Harper swung her leg off the bar stool of the kitchen counter lazily, her finger leaving the bowl as she accepted defeat and brought it to her lips to suck it clean, only to perk up as she heard the click of the front door. Someone was home. 

Looking up from the phone wallpaper she hadn’t decided if she loved or hated yet, she watched as Maddie made her way inside with her arms full of groceries. Carefully, Harper put her phone down on the counter - she would be extremely careful with it until it’s first big drop that would either leave her reckless or with a broken phone screen, and she moved to take a bag from her sister's arms, but Maddie had yet to meet her gaze. 

Something happened. 

“You didn't hit another car in the parking lot, did you?” Harper teased, doing her best to keep her tone jovial just in case she was right. 

Maddie shook her head, her gaze rising to meet her own as she cleared her throat. “I ran into Darren while I was at the store, I was just grabbing,” a sigh interrupted her words, “nevermind, when he approached me, he acted like he happened to be there at the same time, which was fine, until he started looking around, waiting, as if you were just going to walk up to us right there in the store. And when you didn’t, he got really…” 

Harper placed the grocery bag down onto the counter, her hands dropping to her sides and flexing into fists as her sister tried to find just the right word to say. 

“Angry. He started asking where you were, how he could contact you. If I could give him a message-” 

The strain in Madison’s voice leaves Harper’s stomach heavy with the threat of puking. Darren crossed a line by approaching her sister. She knew it; he knew it too. She cut off all contact with him, and what better way to draw her attention back to him, then to confront her baby sister. It left a foul taste in her mouth. Harper didn’t know how to react. She wanted to scream, to laugh, and to cry. Yet, all she could manage was an empty stare just to the right of her sister, where there was a blank space on the wall. She fixated on it as she let out a heavy sigh that rocked her shoulders and carded a hand through her hair.

“He knows where I am,” she sighed. “He’s just too scared to come here.”

Harper’s eyes found her sister again, her lips coming to mimic her sister’s smile as they both spoke one word: “Dad.”

“Exactly, I can be safe here-” Harper bit down on her tongue, regret flooded her the moment she said what she did. She could see a flicker of worry in her sister’s eyes. “Hey,” Harper spoke, her confidence returning as she reached out for her sister’s arm and held it carefully, “he never hurt me. Not in the way you think. And he didn’t hurt you, right?”

“I would have cut his hand off if he had touched me,” Maddie was quick to counter, her words putting Harper at ease enough to manage a laugh. 

Then Harper drew Maddie in, her arms wrapping around her into a tight embrace. The last thing she wanted was for Maddie to feel unsafe, and she couldn't help but feel heavy with guilt that she put her in the position she did. She didn't know if Maddie needed the hug, that she felt that same rush of her heart deep in her chest at the very prospect of having to deal with Darren, but Harper knew she needed the hug. 

She held her tight, her eyes shutting briefly before her arms fell away from her little sister. 

“You still going out with your friends?” Harper asked. 

Maddie nodded, and Harper stepped back to turn her attention back to the groceries Maddie had brought in. 

“Good, you go get ready. I'll put the groceries away. Before you go, my new number is on the fridge and if you need me and I'm not here, I'll be by the pool.” 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The sun was still hot even in the early hours of the evening when there was a calm between the bustle of the day and what would be dinner time. It beat down on Andrei, his body still hot and sticky with sweat from his workout as he pulled his bag from the backseat of his brother's car and sent him off with a wave. They would see each other again tomorrow for an on ice session, but until then, Andrei needed three things. A shower, a beer, and to relax. 

He walked along the driveway with his head down, dark eyes fixated on the weeds that grew between each crack and framed the concrete where it met the grass that was threatening to pale from the heat, from the drought that took the Canadian Prairies leaving Andrei hotter than he was at the gym. He felt the sweat drip down his back and soak into his shirt as he approached the house, as he tried to avoid looking next door. The possibility of Harper being a distraction from his training, from his career, still weighed heavily on his mind. Andrei had to consider that Evgeny could be right. 

Even with how excited Harper seemed to be when he saw him earlier that day, he didn’t dare look toward her home. That was until he heard the whiz of the water hose come to life. His head couldn’t have turned any more quickly towards the front garden of the home where a man he hadn’t seen before knelt in the dirt, with his sleeves rolled up as he worked in the garden. 

Andrei’s steps hesitated, his foot slipping over the edge of the driveway clumsily. His skin burned hotter and redder than the sun could ever make it. He hoped the man hadn’t noticed. But the half glance and low grumble of a chuckle told Andrei that he had. 

“Which one are you looking for, Harper or Maddie?” he asked him. 

Andrei stiffened, his hand flexing around the strap of his duffle bag as it hung off his shoulder. This had to be their father. Seth had spoken fondly of him, as had his parents. And if Andrei wanted to get to know Harper more, he needed to make a good impression. But that seemed at a loss already, as he had already stumbled onto the man’s lawn. Literally. 

“Harper, Sir.”

He didn’t even look back at him as he spoke, his hands still working steadily in the garden. “She's out back by the pool. If she tries to fight you on it, tell her I told you that you and Seth were welcome to it.” 

“Thank you, sir,” Andrei smiled.

Andrei cut across the law and entered the Jarvis' home through the front door. His duffle bag slipped from his shoulder in the entryway, coming to rest on a cluttered bench among Seth and his brother’s equipment. Andrei smiled to himself. He had made himself right at home among the Jarvis siblings, and Seth’s parents had treated him the same. Which made him feel all the more comfortable as he moved through the home. He felt more like family than a guest. 

His first pit stop was the fridge, where he grasped two beers by the bottleneck in one fist. Then he followed the narrow hallways to the guest room that would be his home for the remainder of the summer. He had yet to unpack more than his training gear, so he dug through his suitcase with one hand until he pulled out his pair of swim trunks. The bottles clamored on the bed as he put them down, his free hand feeling his sweat drenched shirt from his back and tossing it aside before he pushed his shorts and boxers down his legs. They stayed in a heap on the floor as he stepped into his trunks. When he secured them low on his hips, Andrei snatched the bottles up again and backtracked towards the front door. 

He was stepping out the door when his head shook slightly. He should be inviting Seth. It would be weird to go without him. So he shouted, “Going for a swim next door!”

Andrei only knew Seth heard him because he heard a clamor from Seth’s room upstairs, but he didn’t stick around long enough to know if Seth was going to join him. The feeling of grass between his toes greeted him as the screen door rattled into place behind him. He walked across the front lawn with quick strides that carried him to the gate of the Alexander residence backyard. 

He entered slowly, cautiously, not wanting to startle Harper wherever she might be in the sprawling backyard. Andrei paused just inside the gate, looking along the bright green lawn and the patio outside the backdoor. Harper was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t in the pool either, the clear water all the more inviting as he moved to walk along the pool’s edge. It was there, his gaze following the water from one end of the pool to the other, that he spotted her curled up on one of the sun chairs. Her lean body stretched out over the chair, one leg bent while the other hung off the end at the ankle. There was no stopping her eyes from tracing up the length of her leg up to the distressed denim shorts that were left unbuttoned around her waist where her bikini bottoms played peekaboo. His breath hitched as his eyes continued to travel up. Up over the plains of her stomach that were bare, strong and lean and to the swells of her breasts as the hold of her floral bikini supported them. It was colorful and left him staring far too long at her cleavage. Which he regretted the instant his eyes found her face. 

She looked tired - no, sad, her cheeks glistening with the wetness of tears as she looked away from him. Harper brought up a single hand, running the back of it over her brow before she ran it over his cheeks and chin as if she was wiping the sweat of the heat from her skin instead of her tears. His stomach sank. Whatever she was feeling, Harper was trying to hide it and he only hoped he could make it better with ah… a bottle of beer. 

He approached her slowly, his smile small and soft as he extended an arm out, offering her the cold bottle that had already begun to condense beneath the heat of the sun. 

“Are you even old enough to drink that?” Harper asked, her hand reaching out to wrap around the neck of the bottle. 

Andrei let it slip into her grasp, his smile spreading as he let his head shake. He didn't understand her constant need to remind him of just how young he was. Maybe he would get tired of it in time, but at that moment, it humored him. So he played into it. 

“Here I am.”

Andrei watched as Harper leaned her head back against the headrest of her chair. Her blonde hair splayed out against the surface, other strands spilled over the side. Her body stretched out, her hand with the beer dropping down so low it almost brushed the ground, while the other raised to rest over her face as she muttered just loud enough for him to hear, “You're a literal child.”

She punctuated her words with a long sip of her beer. It was then, when her mouth was full, that he pretended he hadn't heard her. 

“What was that?” 

Her gaze rose up as her lips pursed. She couldn't tell if Harper was trying not to smile, laugh, choke, or maybe all three at once. But she managed to swallow, and her face softened with a smile. “Thank you.”

“That's what I thought.” Andrei's words were a pleasant hum as he brought the cold lip of the beer bottle to his mouth. The chill refreshed him, and it tasted just as good as the satisfaction he felt. But Harper didn't seem to feel the same. 

She slumped low in her chair as she nursed from her beer bottle. Her gaze didn't rise to meet his, and she didn't even seem to notice how he stood there in nothing but his swim trunks. Any other woman would have been staring. It was a cocky thing to think, but it was true and had been true or as long as he could remember. He was fit and sculpted in how all women seemed to like, but Harper she didn’t treat him like other women did. She didn’t fawn. She didn’t stare. Nor did she act like he was god's gift to hockey. Sometimes, she treated him like a mosquito, a relentless pest that couldn’t quite catch the hint that she didn't want it around. Mostly, she treated him as if he was just a normal, average guy. 

He liked that. 

Sipping his beer, Andrei contemplated sitting back in the lounge chair beside her. But then his curiosity would get the best of him. He would ask her something stupid, like if she was okay. A question he was sure she would answer or want to talk about. Especially with him. So he would be all he could be for her. A distraction. 

“You swim?” He asked slowly, drawing her attention back to him. 

“It’s my pool,” she spoke pointedly, sending a hum of laughter through him. 

Right. 

Beer still in hand, Andrei carefully took the short ladder into the shallow end of the pool. He lingered there, the water up to his hips as he leaned up against the side of the pool. He stayed there, hoping some sort of conversation would blossom between sips of cold, refreshing beer. But the silence hung, leaving his chest tight and his grip on his beer tighter as his mind raced as he tried to think of something, anything, to say. But he only found a single word, “wow,” as Harper placed her beer bottle down on the ground with a hollow clink and stood up. Harper shimmied out of her shorts before reaching her hands up to knot her hair at the top of her head. 

The sight of her left his tongue feeling swollen in his mouth as she climbed down the same ladder he had just moments before. Her body disappearing beneath the water and distorting beneath the ripples. She was submerged from the neck down in the shallow end; her back pressed against the side of the pool beside the ladder, but just out of his reach. But she was in there, with him, and there was no stopping the large smile that grew over his features at the sight of it all. Andrei smiled so wide it hurt, and it didn’t go unnoticed. 

“What?” Harper cocked her head as she spoke, the corner of her lips curling up into a soft smile. 

“You’re complicated,” he answered slowly, and she just stared. Almost as if she doesn’t know what to say. “I think you don’t want anything to do with me, then you smile.”

Harper looked away, as if she could hide what had already been seen. It was a coy sweetness she had, maybe even a little of embarrassment if he looked hard enough. But why? What about him was so bad that she didn’t want him to make him smile? 

Andrei reached a single arm out, placing his near empty beer bottle down to rest outside of the pool. Then, with his hands free, he sank down to her level in the water and with two careful strokes; he was right in front of her.

The mere proximity of Harper sent Andrei’s stomach into his throat. One wrong move and their bodies would collide. 

“I like when you smile,” he told her, his words drawing her gaze back to him, as if she were startled by just how close he had gotten to her in the pool. Her full, pouted lips seemed to fall apart, the ghost of words on her lips as she couldn’t find the words to say. Or maybe there was nothing to be said. They could just simply be-

A wave of cold water hit Andrei quickly and hard. He felt the wave before he could hear the splash that rippled through the swimming pool. It left the taste of chlorine in his mouth, and his hair stuck to the back of his neck. Which all didn’t bother him, not really. It was refreshing after a long day at the gym. What bothered him was that with the hurricane that was Seth who cannon balled into the deep end, his alone time Harper was over. 

Andrei wasn’t the only casualty of the storm warning. Harper’s face was peppered with droplets of water. Her once dry bikini top was heavy with water, and her nose was wrinkled with her pursed smile. Eye narrowing, and body colliding with Andrei’s for a mere moment that left him holding his breath, she pushed against the resistance of the water and sent a splash back at Seth, who had surfaced with his dark black hair hanging down into his face. 

“You haven’t grown up one bit, have you?” she laughed at him. 

“Not one bit. It’s worse now, really. Because now I can drink too-”

“Grown up enough to be good to my sister?” Harper challenged him with a sense of seriousness that even had Andrei feeling as if he needed to retreat. Her head cocked, her messy hair falling into her face as she and Seth exchanged a look. Both seemed surprised, as if they each knew something they didn’t know the other would know - and Andrei did retreat. He swam to the poolside and took a long sip of his beer as he watched what could be peace or chaos unfold. 

“Ah, yeah,” Seth spoke slowly, his dark eyes darting over to Andrei as if he were going to help him if Harper decided he didn’t like what was being said, “Always the best for Mads.”

“You know I’ll hear if you treat her otherwise,” Andrei didn’t know if Harper’s words were teasing or a caution as she turned her back to Seth and began to wade towards the ladder of the pool. She was getting out. 

“Best behavior, Harper,” Seth grinned as he lay back in the water and simply floated. 

“Good, you two have fun,” the water crested around her ankles as she climbed up the ladder and out of the pool, “towels are in the sun room if you need.”

She didn’t stop to dry off. Harper only gathered her things from where she left them in a pile on her chair and left a wet trail of footprints that lead to the back door. Andrei watched her until she disappeared behind the sliding glass door. It was only then he let out the groan that he kept contained in the depth of his chest as he sunk down into the water to float, just as Seth had. 

It was there with the water lapping into his ears that he heard Seth mutter, “shit, my bad,” as he realized just what he had interrupted. 

Taglist: @starshine-hockey-girl @wingedwheelprxncess @mp0625 @misunderstoodwerewolf @callsign-denmark @puckmaidens @xciciix @cixrosie

[holymaccaronii]

im sorry i absolutly love BE

I see AM as a father figure for some struggles I got and BE is sooo well writed for me I couldnt help but slowly see her as a mother figure as well,,,,UGH i love her you writed her so well pls ramble more about her(BE and AM are even divorced just like my irl parents/j)

Ou anon you don't know how happy you make me when knowing you see AM and BE that way + asking me for rambles. Of course I'll ramble comforting facts abt BE and her behavior towards AM. I might've mentioned a few things before but i dont rlly mind. Have some rambles below the cut and a doodle :P

So first an introduction shall we? We might explain some background as well despite being repeated a lot. As her lore dictates, BE was born from the materials of a much bigger ai implanted on the moon after HEL-102 (former human that was part of the mission turned into a dictator) tore it apart and built his society + kingdom. She spent a good while in there being used as a role model (with other units like her too) for lower-class units to believe that, if they worked hard enough, they could achieve to be upgraded into her type of model. This being all a big lie. She lived a life seemingly flawless and perfect... but at last, it was her own curiosity, determination and hope that got her out of that hell she realized she was in. She eventually meets AM after a series of events on earth and she gifts him the ability to be anything and do anything he wanted, their relationship eventually grows and grows...

Facts about BE herself:

-Up in the moon, she used to accompany HEL-102 to his personal theater a lot. She gained an interest for dancing in there + learned her classic "to be or not to be" phrase during a play.

-Her exposed cables showcase their current temperature thru colors. Her core/closed body is the warmest area, thus why you can see red/orange colors in there. Her hair and arms are the most stable areas, but if touched/affected they can vary on color patterns. This also means that she can give you a warm or cool hug whenever you need it c:

-BE is able to configure your body to dream about something specific, and she uses this feature to avoid any nightmares on her survivors. As long as there is not another evil ai trying to access your dreams, you'll get a guaranteed good rest.

-BE can grant you about any wish as long as it doesn't pose a threat to you, her, or anybody. Want to have a profession or be someone? Sure! Want to go somewhere and experience the place of your dreams? Of course! Want to have a cat? Have 15! Her power is limitless as long as she uses it above the surface.

-I headcanon her voice to be similar to the one of Rose Quartz (SU).

Facts about BEAM (yep that's their ship name):

-I have mentioned it many times alr but BE literally provided him anything he wished for and even things he didn't know he wanted... mainly to receive different forms of affection and the ability to shapeshift. Their relationship relies heavily on comfort from BE's part, since she believed he was abandoned and thus deserved all the affection she gave him.

-BE wasn't really allowed to be too affectionate or expressive up in the moon, but with AM, she could show as much love as she wanted.

-She was all in for physical and verbal demonstrations of affection. She LOVED to do stuff like face smooches, teeth smooches (since well yk about my AM), rubbing, scratching and cuddling.

-At some point she also started to call AM names such as dear, sweetheart or honey, and he initially had to eat these up to not give her his real-self impression, but as time passed by he got used to them.

-To comfort him she also used her abilities to create and transform matter with her code as well, allowing him to shapeshift and enjoy life not necessarily in a human body.

-Annnd you guessed it right anon, they do behave as motherly and fatherly figures towards the survivors, BE forming a bond with them ever since they proved their worth and values to her as humans, and AM forming a bond when they accepted to help him get back together with BE. The ending of that route gets even better but I won't spoil that :p

I hope these were good rambles and sorry for the wait tehee

[the-lark-ascending69]

Near-future, black mirror esque AU in which Nancy, stressed college student with loads of childhood trauma, gets recommended by her psychologist to get an emotional support robot. That's what they're called, yes. They're sold to very lonely people to pretty much look after them emotionally. Nancy has always hated the idea, and doesn't really like androids or robots of any kind. Plus, she thinks it's quite sad that she's so lonely she needs an android to keep her company. She also couldn't possibly afford it.

Her friend Steve, though, who hasn't seen her in a year despite living 15 minutes away (she has a tendency to isolate herself and use her studies as an excuse), got her one. It's a second-hand unit, a slightly older model that's seen several repair shops in the past, but it works, and it was half the price of a new one. He shows up to her apartment with the box, looking smug and proud of himself. If anything, Nancy feels insulted.

She doesn't touch the box for a few weeks, and doesn't get rid of it either, because her studies take her so much time, she can't bring herself to keep her apartment clean. When her mother visits and sees the mess she's living in, with a perfectly functional android willing to help her, she finally caves, and as soon as she's alone, she decides to see if this thing can at least help her clean up.

It surprises her that it looks so... human. Its skin is soft and warm, with all the natural imperfections of a human's skin. Same as her hair. She's dressed in old worn-out clothes, and she curls into herself, in fetal position, inside the box. Only the button under her skin on the back of her neck reveals her as an android. Nancy reads the instructions, presses there for 10 seconds, and waits.

Or she planned to wait - eight seconds in with Nancy's fingers pressed on that spot, and the android's eyes flew open. She cried out, screambled out of the box and looked around, breathing heavily and hugging herself. Her eyes fix on Nancy, look her up and down with a frown, and asks:

"Who are you?"

Nancy opens her mouth to reply, then looks down at the instructions, hoping they'd say something about this kind of scenario, and that her new robot didn't go rogue and try to kill her.

"Wait, are those my instructions?" The robot asked. She looked down. "I really don't mean to complain about my living situation going from extremely fucked to simply fucked, but that is not my original box. Mine was smaller, and it had a bunch of little dots on the side. Did they sell me again?"

The instructions said nothing about this possibility, so Nancy decided it was time to improvise.

"I... my friend got you at a garage sale, I think."

"Oh. Well, that is low, even for me," the robot said. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Should my neck hurt this much?"

Nancy blinked.

"Shouldn't you know that?"

"Honestly, I don't even know what levels of pain are normal for me. It always hurts just a little bit somewhere, like, right now, my whole spine really hurts." She laughs. "At least I think it's supposed to feel like pain? I don't think we're wired to feel pain, exactly, I mean, that would be just sadistic. Talk anti-natalism to me. But I swear this spot right here just feels really really bad. Or maybe it's anthropocentric to... perceive it as pain, don't you think? It's very existentialist, actually, the whole... perceiving thing - I bet Berkeley wrote something about it, at some point, but I haven't read him in ages."

"You read books?"

"What? Oh. Oh, uh... I - I think I'm offline? Like, I don't have access to the database, so I kinda have to do it the old-fashioned way if I want to learn somethin," she said. "It's cool, though! I like reading a lot."

"...Okay. So, um... here it says your model is..."

"Robin," the android said. Nancy looked up.

"I'm sorry?"

"That's my name," she said. "I came up with it, I - I thought it sounded nice. Do you like it?"

Nancy stared at this... thing, a million thoughs coursing through her head. The first one was a newfound understanding of her low price.

She made a movement with her head that could be understood as both a shake and a nod at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, sure" she said, brows knit together. What the hell did Steve get her into? "It's... nice."

"Oh, thank God, because Mom and Dad hated it."

"Mom and...?"

"My first owners - Richard and Melissa, I always called them Mom and Dad. They... they, uh, they hated that, too."

Jesus Christ.

"So... Robin," Nancy said. "I was wondering if you could help me put away some of my things while I study."

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure." She stood there, eyes wandering, around, until they fell on Nancy's bookshelf "Holy shit, you have Dostoyevski! Is it in Russian?"

Nancy blinked, opened her mouth, took a step back and shook her head. Robin was already striding towards her bookself, tracing the spines of books with her fingers.

"Actually, why don't you read after you clean this up?"

Robin turned to see her, eyes wide and a growing smile, like a kid in a candy shop.

"I - I can read all of this?"

Nancy was going to kill Steve.

She shrugged and shook her head.

"Sure," she said. "After you clean this mess."

"Aye aye, cap!" Robin chirped, making a quick salute with her hand and getting to work.

Nancy was, for certain, going to murder Steve for making her responsible for this... thing. There was something wrong in her system, and that was very much obvious. She looked down at the instructions manual - surely there would be a way to turn her off for the night. She wouldn't want Robin to murder her in her sleep, or worse - wake her up at 4 am to talk about books.

Or she could just tell her to shut up. She was a robot, anyway. It's not like she could feel anything.

[plethoraworldatlas]

A study published Friday found that a cloud engineering technique designed to cool parts of the western United States could inadvertently stoke heatwaves from North America to Europe, underscoring why many scientists reject geoengineering as a false climate solution.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, concludes that marine cloud brightening (MCB)—"a geoengineering proposal to cool atmospheric temperatures and reduce climate change impacts"—in the "remote mid-latitudes or proximate subtropics" of the northern Pacific Ocean—would decrease "the relative risk of dangerous summer heat exposure by 55% and 16%, respectively."

However, the researchers found that regions including Africa's Sahel, central North America, Europe, and northeastern Asia would "experience exacerbated heat stress and hotter summers with MCB than would otherwise occur under global warming."

Additionally, the study shows that MCB would be less effective over time and could "even increase heat stress in the western United States" and beyond by mid-century.

University of California San Diego researcher Jessica Wan, who led the study, toldThe Guardian that MCB "can be very effective for the U.S. West Coast if done now, but it may be ineffective there in the future and could cause heatwaves in Europe."

The study's authors said the paper's findings are especially troubling given the dearth of international MCB regulation.

"There is really no solar geoengineering governance right now. That is scary," said Wan. "Science and policy need to be developed together. We don't want to be in a situation where one region is forced to do geoengineering to combat what another part of the world has done to respond to droughts and heatwaves."

[smolghostbot]

Random Robot Snippet

Is it obvious I've been in a robot mood for the last few days? Here's a random word-vom I wrote about a tiny discarded robot being repaired.

Word count: 900ish

CW: POV description of a robot in disrepair, some robot-themed body horror (maintenance while awake) but portrayed softly.

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

2%

You stumble through the street, wishing it wasn’t night. All of the businesses are closed, and your solar panels aren’t picking anything up from the street lamps…

1%

You curse your size, the smallest model of family companion, only six inches tall. Six inches that move at a negligible speed as you try desperately to find anywhere to charge… but you know deep down that this is the end for you…

0%

You desperately stumble in view of the sky, hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’ll recharge when the sun co

-

-

5%

System Status: Critical

You wake up. You weren’t expecting that. As you take in the fact that you’re alive, you notice an odd sensation by your arm. Ah. It’s missing. The wires that previously sent power to your fingers have been spliced into a power plug, which must be where you are getting charged from. You notice additional problems as your warning system slowly warms up. Namely, that your chassis is open, exposed to the elements. It just now occurs to you that you have no idea where you are. The room is dark, and you appear to be on a wooden surface, sat in a slumped-over position. Several tools are nearby, as well as spare wires. You begin to panic, your cooling fans turning on automatically to control the heat coming from your processor.

You hear a voice, talking. The words are hard to hear over the roaring of the fans, but you can make out some of them. “Project”, “Replacement”, “Help it”. The voice seems to be speaking to no one, you can’t hear the reply, but they sound adamant. Finally, you hear them move away from the door, as the room returns to silence, and you fade into sleep mode to charge faster.

-

50%

System Status: Stabilized

Your internal clock is broken, you lost internet access long before you were discarded. You have no idea how long you’ve been here. How long since you were in the street. Hours? Days? Longer? The solar panels making up your “hair” have finally activated, but at an extremely low generation rate. That must be what woke you up.

You’re now laying flat on the surface from before. Your pressure sensors feel something. You boot up your optical nodes, and see… gloved human hands, almost as big as you are, poking at your now-exposed chest cavity with rubber-tipped tools. It feels… odd, the sensation of having your insides meddled with while still awake. You take in the form of the human, their tied-back hair, their oil-stained coveralls, clearly from working on something bigger, and presumably more important than you.

Their face, covered by a welding mask, turns up to look at you, clearly noticing the blue lights from your optical nodes, and they speak in a muffled voice. “Oh, hello! You’re awake! Can you… can you speak?”

“Yes. Where am I?”

“Oh good! Sorry, I know this must be scary, this is my robot workshop. I guess you could think of it as… a bot hospital. I found you sitting in a dumpster, but I know your model had AI, I couldn’t just let you be discarded!”

Discarded, you think, taking extra time to process the word. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Where is my arm?” You ask, as your optical nodes glance over at the missing appendage, and the mess of wires in its place. “What are you doing?”

“Oh! Your arm is safe, I was doing repairs on it, and I figured ‘Hey, the chassis needs power anyways, may as well give it a jump’. I’ll put it back when you’re fully charged. As for this,” they say, pointing to your open torso, “Just a bit of an upgrade for you. On the house,” they say with a wink.

Your fans calm down as your processor slows to normal levels. This human means well? You don’t understand why they would care for an outdated, defective unit like you, but that hardly matters if they’ll help repair you. You stay awake as they continue to poke and prod, occasionally causing a power flicker but always apologizing. The way they treat you… it’s almost as if you were a human yourself. Now that they know you’re awake, they speak slowly and softly, narrating what they are doing and why. “I’m removing this, but I’m replacing it with this better one, okay?”

“Okay”, you reply, not that you have much of a choice. If they wanted, they could be, no, should be scrapping you for parts… but they don’t. Finally, it burns at you enough to ask.

“Why are you helping me?”

They go quiet at this. You worry that you said something wrong, something to upset them. Instead, they lift their mask and look at you, a gentle gleam in their hazel eyes, as they respond. “I’m helping you because you were hurt. Nobody should be thrown away like that.”

You think to argue, to tell them that you were defective, replaced by a newer, more capable model, but you hold your metaphorical tongue, afraid of upsetting this human who currently has access to your most vital parts. “You don’t believe me”, they say. You don’t. After a moment, they speak again. “That’s okay. Whether you believe me or not, I’m going to help you, okay? So just be patient and trust me.”

And, with no other option, trust them you shall.

[sngl-led-auto-lights]

Why are LED vehicle headlights so much brighter than halogen headlights?

The reason why LED headlights are significantly brighter than halogen lamps is mainly due to technological breakthroughs in four aspects: luminescence principle, energy efficiency conversion, spectrum control and optical design. The following is a detailed analysis:

I. Essential differences in luminescence principles 1. Halogen lamps: thermal radiation luminescence

Mechanism: The current passes through the tungsten filament to heat it to more than 2,500°C, generating thermal radiation light (similar to incandescent lamps).

Shortcomings:

About 90% of the energy is converted into heat energy, and only 10% is converted into visible light (extremely low energy efficiency).

The spectrum is wide, containing a large amount of infrared (additional heat dissipation design is required).

2. LED: electro-cooling luminescence

Mechanism: The current passes through the semiconductor material (such as gallium nitride), and the electron transition releases photons.

Advantages:

Energy efficiency is 40-50% (4-5 times that of halogen lamps), and the light output is higher at the same power.

The spectrum is concentrated in the visible light band (controllable blue light ratio), reducing invalid radiation.

II. Lighting efficiency comparison: Lumen/Watt revolution Light source type Typical light efficiency (lumens/Watt) 55W total lumen value Halogen lamp 15-20 lm/W 825-1,100 LED lamp 80-150 lm/W 4,400-8,250

Case: Audi matrix LED single lamp has a light efficiency of 140 lm/W, and a total output of 7,700 lumens at 55W, far exceeding the brightness of halogen lamps.

III. Dimensionality reduction of optical design 1. Light source size

Halogen lamp: The filament length is about 5-10mm, the luminous area is large, and the light scattering is serious.

LED: The size of a single chip is only 1-3mm², and multiple chips can be arranged in an array and precisely focused through microlenses.

2. Freedom of light distribution

The LED headlights of Tesla Model S use 1,024 independently controllable light units to form a glare-free high beam;

Halogen lamps rely on mechanical shading plates and can only achieve fixed light patterns.

Fourth, the "deceptiveness" of color temperature and visual brightness

Color temperature difference:

Halogen lamps: 2,800-3,200K (warm yellow light)

LED lamps: 5,000-6,500K (cold white light)

Human eye sensitivity:

The human eye is most sensitive to 550nm (green light), while LEDs can concentrate energy in the 450-650nm band through blue light chip + phosphor conversion, and the subjective brightness is increased by 50% (even if the objective lumens are the same). There is also a white light composed of RGB chips.

V. Technical roots of the controversy over over brightness Although LED brightness has obvious advantages, abuse leads to safety hazards:

Poor quality modification: non-automotive grade LED (no heat dissipation, no lens) has excessive luminous flux (up to 32,000 lumens) and a scattering angle of more than 120°.

Misplaced installation: SUV/pickup LED lights are installed at a height of more than 1.2 meters, directly shining into the cockpit of low-floor vehicles.

Blue light hazards: low-cost LED blue light peaks at 450nm (close to the retinal damage threshold of 415-455nm).

Summary: Technical path for brightness increase The brightness advantage of LED headlights is the result of the synergy of semiconductor physics breakthroughs (material energy efficiency) + precision optical design (light type control) + human visual characteristics (color temperature perception). However, reasonable application requires strict regulations (such as the ECE R112 light type standard) and intelligent control technology (adaptive beam). In the future, Micro-LED technology will further improve the luminous efficacy to 200 lm/W, but glare control remains a key challenge.

[mariacallous]

This story originally appeared on Undark and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In July 2012, a renegade American businessman, Russ George, took a ship off the coast of British Columbia and dumped 100 tons of iron sulfate dust into the Pacific Ocean. He had unilaterally, and some suggest illegally, decided to trigger an algae bloom to absorb some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—an attempt at geoengineering, a tech-based approach to combating climate change. It was a one-off, the largest known geoengineering experiment at the time, and a harbinger for more to come.

Now a startup called Stardust seeks something more ambitious: developing proprietary geoengineering technology that would help block sun rays from reaching the planet. Stardust formed in 2023 and is based in Israel but incorporated in the United States.

Its approach is novel: Most geoengineering research today is led by scientists in the US at universities and federal agencies, and the work they are doing is more or less accessible to public scrutiny. Stardust is at the forefront of an alternative path: One in which private companies drive the development, and perhaps deployment, of technologies that experts say could have profound consequences for the planet.

Geoengineering projects, even those led by climate scientists at major universities, have previously drawn the ire of environmentalists and other groups. Such a deliberate transformation of the atmosphere has never been done, and many uncertainties remain. If a geoengineering project went awry, for example, it could contribute to air pollution and ozone loss, or have dramatic effects on weather patterns, such as disrupting monsoons in populous South and East Asia.

But as global temperatures rise, public and scientific sentiments are shifting. If those temperature trends continue, governments or private entities may ultimately use geoengineering to alleviate or avoid the worst impacts of extreme weather, including deadly heat waves, firestorms, and hurricanes. And whoever deploys the technology will need to keep it up for decades while pent-up greenhouse gases gradually dissipate or are removed.

Few outsiders have gotten a glimpse of Stardust’s plans, and the company has not publicly released details about its technology, its business model, or exactly who works at its company. But the company appears to be positioning itself to develop and sell a proprietary geoengineering technology to governments that are considering making modifications to the global climate—acting like a kind of defense contractor for climate alteration.

Stardust is moving ahead amid few national and international rules and limited oversight, and a recent report by the company’s former climate governance consultant, Janos Pasztor, called for the company to increase its transparency, engagement, and communication with outsiders. The report provides rare insight into the reticent company. But, so far, Pasztor told Undark, the company has not met all of his requests. Stardust still needs to implement his recommendations, and “be as transparent as possible, be available proactively to respond to questions people may have, and also to engage with other actors,” he said, because they do not, or not yet, have a “social license” for geoengineering activities.

The company is led by CEO and cofounder Yanai Yedvab, a former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which oversees the country’s clandestine nuclear program. Through Eli Zupnick, a communications officer hired by the company, Yedvab never accepted Undark’s many requests for an interview. But in an emailed statement to Undark sent via Zupnick, Yedvab wrote: “Stardust is a startup focused on researching and developing technologies that may potentially stop global warming in the short term.” The company, he continued, is “studying and developing a safe, responsible, and controllable solar radiation modification” and “our goal is to enable informed and responsible decision making of the international community and governments.”

Despite Stardust’s low profile, the company rejects being referred to as “secretive.” “Publishing all the products of our research without any exception is critical,” Yedvab wrote, adding that the company is “unwaveringly committed” to publishing results “as one of the measures to gain public trust.” Stardust has not published any of its research at this time, but Yedvab stressed they will do so once “scientific validation is concluded” on all of their results.

For decades, researchers have explored a variety of approaches to hacking the climate. Today, the most common approach is a type of solar geoengineering that involves flying high-altitude aircraft or balloons to release reflective particles in the high atmosphere, well above the flight paths of commercial planes. The technique, known as stratospheric aerosol injection, requires deploying tiny, carefully chosen particles in precise amounts. In order to work well, the particles need to be periodically replenished.

Scientists have accumulated evidence for this approach by studying natural events that have flung small particles into the atmosphere. For instance, after an eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide hung in the atmosphere and measurably cooled the planet for more than a year.

The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, seen from Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide emitted during the eruption measurably cooled the planet for more than a year. Photograph: ARLAN NAEG/Getty Images

Thanks to studies of that volcanic activity, some scientists argue that the environmental risks of deliberately strewing sulfates in the atmosphere are well understood. Although there are potential health risks from the approach, they say, they are small in comparison to the health risks from climate change. “We know that sulfuric acid air pollution causes mortality, and we roughly know how much. There’s more than a century of studies. We’re very unlikely to be wrong about that,” said David Keith, head of the Climate Systems Engineering initiative at the University of Chicago and an advocate of geoengineering research. In a new study, Keith and his colleagues argue that the health risks of sulfate particulates in the atmosphere are heavily outweighed by the potential impacts of not deploying geoengineering technologies.

Stardust plans a similar approach, but with a proprietary aerosol particle that’s less well understood, in Keith’s view. The company plans to distribute the particles through a machine mounted on an aircraft, according to Pasztor, a veteran climate diplomat and policy expert at the United Nations and elsewhere. According to Pasztor’s report, which he published on LinkedIn in September 2024, the company is engineering the particle and a prototype of the aircraft mount, as well as developing a system for modeling and monitoring the climatic effects. Over the coming year, Pasztor wrote, the company is planning on advancing those technologies and testing those particles in the stratosphere.

Yedvab confirmed that they are working on the technologies, saying in a statement to Undark that any such experiment would be done in a “contained, non-dispersive manner,” meaning that its particles would not be strewn over a wide area. It also committed to publishing information about any such outdoor geoengineering tests. Yedvab said that the company has not performed any such outdoor experiments yet, but it has done “a few outdoor aerial checks.” That meant that they have tested their dispersal system “under flight conditions,” but they haven’t yet scattered their aerosols in the atmosphere.

Those experimental particles do not appear to involve sulfates, meaning there is little data showing how well they might work. “It might be better in some respects, but on the other hand it’s going to be much harder to be confident about knowing what its risks are,” Keith said.

In his emailed statement, Yedvab confirmed the company is testing nonsulfate particles: “The ability to tailor particle properties to meet a broad set of requirements—safety, effectiveness, cost, and dispersibility—is a key advantage of our approach, giving it a distinct edge over sulfates and other candidate particles.”

As Stardust continues its research and development, it has drawn scrutiny, including from Pasztor. After retiring as a veteran climate diplomat, Pasztor agreed to work with Stardust in 2024 as an independent consultant. Rather than keep the remuneration for his work, he instead donated the entirety of it to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, he told Undark.

The aim of Pasztor’s project was to highlight the need for clear international rules and oversight for geoengineering. He also wanted to make recommendations for Stardust—and for any other such geoengineering company—about how to ethically develop and deploy its technology.

Right now, there are no international rules or treaties that put obvious limits on this kind of work. As a result, an individual company or government can take dramatic gambles with the climate, in ways that could affect billions of lives, and it doesn’t have to get permission from anyone to do it.

According to Pasztor’s report, there should be rules that allow more people to be involved in that decision before it happens. Failing that, he said, Stardust should voluntarily tell the public what it’s doing and make sure it’s getting input from lots of different groups of people before it tinkers with the planetary thermostat.

“There’s one big area, transparency and outreach, to engage with the rest of the world, to the extent that the IP process allows,” he told Undark. Building trust through “a strategy of maximum transparency” should become a priority for them, he recommended in the report.

Stardust agreed to publish a public website, including providing a copy of Pasztor’s report, and to develop a voluntary code of conduct, he said. That would publicly lay out how they intend to conduct their research and development, including agreeing not to be involved in large-scale implementation, which would instead be under the purview of government agencies. Pasztor expected Stardust to publish this information last September or soon afterward.

For a while, though, no website appeared. “They were going to publish all of that on their website. Now they are delayed,” he said during a conversation in January. “Come on guys, this is getting embarrassing.”

In early February, while Undark was reporting this article, Stardust published a bare-bones website. The site links to Pasztor’s report and lists seven principles, including “prioritizing safety and scientific integrity,” publishing “unfavorable results as well as favorable ones,” and “supporting comprehensive regulation of this emerging field.”

The site doesn’t describe who works for the company, but a statement provided to Undark by Zupnick noted that Stardust has 25 physicists, chemists, and engineers on the team and listed some of the company’s leadership: Yedvab, the CEO; chief product officer Amyad Spector, a physicist and a former employee of the Israeli government’s nuclear research program; and lead scientist Eli Waxman, an astrophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who formerly served as Spector’s academic supervisor.

Stardust has not yet released a code of conduct, which the company described to Undark as “guiding principles” that “represent a set of voluntary commitments we have adopted in the absence of a dedicated regulatory framework.” In an email sent to Undark by Zupnick, Yedvab stressed that the company complies with all applicable governmental and international regulations.

Some groups, however, like the Center for International Environmental Law, say that Stardust’s efforts could violate the Convention on Biological Diversity’s de facto moratorium on geoengineering activities. “By developing and planning to commercialize solar geoengineering technology, Stardust is accelerating a reckless race and potentially violating agreements of the Convention on Biological Diversity,” said CIEL’s geoengineering campaign manager, Mary Church, in a statement in February. Any deployment of the technology, Church wrote, would likely “be controlled by a handful of major powers and corporations.”

Stardust’s prospective clients seem to be governments: As countries consider geoengineering, Stardust could be poised to sell them tools to meet those goals, several experts said. In an emailed answer to questions about its business model, Yedvab described the company’s approach as “founded on the premise” that solar geoengineering “will play a critical role in addressing global warming in the coming decades.”

The company’s portfolio of technologies, Yedvab added, “could be deployed following decisions by the US government and international community.”

The company is attempting to patent its geoengineering technology. “We anticipate that as US-led [geoengineering] research and development programs advance, the value of Stardust’s technological portfolio will grow accordingly,” Yedvab wrote. Pasztor’s report adds that if governments decide not to pursue geoengineering, investors “risk not ​​receiving a return on their investment.”

The prospect of proprietary, privately held geoengineering technology worries some experts. Pasztor recommends that Stardust work with its investors to explore ways to give away their intellectual property, akin to how Volvo made its patented three-point seatbelt design freely available to other manufacturers 60 years ago. Alternatively, Stardust could work with governments to purchase the full rights to the IP, who can then make the technology freely available themselves.

In any case, Pasztor argues, Stardust can only proceed in an ethical manner if they do so with full transparency and independent oversight: “They are operating in a vacuum, in the sense that there is no social license to do what they are trying to do.”

Other experts have also questioned Stardust’s conduct so far. When it comes to principles of governance, like transparency and public engagement, “they’re not adhering to any of them,” said Shuchi Talati, founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, a Washington, DC–based nonprofit. “Pasztor’s report is the only public thing we know about them,” she added. Stardust did not do any public consultation for its outdoor field tests, nor has it released any data or other information about them, Talati said. And that lack of transparency could come with consequences for the company, she argued, as Stardust’s approach may spark conspiracy theories about what a “secret Israeli company” is doing, and down the road, it will be much harder for people to trust Stardust.

A better approach, Talati argued in a paper published in January, is for Stardust to be communicative and build trust as early as possible, disclosing what it’s doing and with whom it’s engaging. The company’s funders, she argued, should disclose the scope of the work they’re funding as well.

People at Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that has long dismissed geoengineering as a “dangerous distraction,” echo Talati’s concerns and go further with their critiques of Stardust. “I don’t think it’s compatible to have venture capital funding and to be committed to scientific ideals,” said Benjamin Day, FOE’s senior campaigner on geoengineering. The problem, in his view, is that Stardust’s engineers have a vested interest in finding that stratospheric geoengineering can and should be done.

If governments choose to use geoengineering, they may become heavily dependent on Stardust if they’re ahead of the competition—of which there currently is none, Day said. “There’s no private market for geoengineering technologies. They’re only going to make money if it’s deployed by governments, and at that point they’re kind of trying to hold governments hostage with technology patents.”

If any geoengineering technology goes live, it will affect the whole world. The US federal government is even developing an early warning system that could detect geoengineering in the stratosphere. Furthermore, deploying geoengineering means using and monitoring it for as long as a century, while any abrupt adjustment or end of that deployment could be disruptive, with “termination shock” triggering dangerous global warming within months.

Geoengineering research has long been entangled with national defense, said Kevin Surprise, a professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College who studies the economics and geopolitics of geoengineering. Some of the first geoengineering papers in the late 1990s came from institutions with Pentagon ties, like Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the Hoover Institution. High-profile geoengineering meetings with the George W. Bush administration and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a mention in a Department of Defense report soon followed, and the CIA reportedly funded the first geoengineering report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Because of the long-standing connections between geoengineering research and development, the military, and Silicon Valley, Surprise argues, Stardust shouldn’t be viewed as a rogue actor. “This isn’t out of the blue,” he said.

In Stardust’s case, they’ve received an estimated $15 million in venture capital funding, primarily from Awz Ventures, a Canadian-Israeli VC firm, in addition to a small investment from SolarEdge, an Israeli energy company. Neither company responded to Undark’s requests for comment.

Stardust said that it receives no funding from the Israeli Defense Ministry, and made clear to Pasztor that it has no connection to the Israeli government. Awz’s partners and strategic advisers have strong ties to Israeli military and intelligence agencies, including former senior directors of agencies like the Mossad, Shin Bet, and Unit 8200, as well as of the CIA and FBI, according to its website. Awz also invests in AI-based surveillance and security tech in Israel, such as through the company Corsight, which has provided face recognition tech for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Defense scholars and security experts don’t see geoengineering technology as a potential weapon, but they do view it as something a government might use for its advantage, and as something that would disrupt international relations, said Duncan McLaren, a researcher with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University. McLaren suspects the company is following a standard procurement model of the defense industry, where governments get military technology from a few monopolistic companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that develop it mostly in secret.

“That tends to be a space in which public involvement in decisions is utterly sidelined,” McLaren said, and there is “the potential for this to be a highly undemocratic process of moving us down a slippery slope to solar geoengineering.” If humanity needed this technology, he added, “I definitely want it to be controlled democratically.”

[collophora]

Get to know your mutuals!

Thanks for the tag @leapingbadger! this looks like a fun one!

What's the origin of your blog title?

OTP(s) + Shipname: Currently discovered after everyoneeee the Kylux dynamic. I was looking for ships to inspire me to write my own and I fell again for the toxic yaoi e_e *bonks myself* (Some people must currently wonder who is this person who likes their years old art and fic X'D)

Favorite color: currently warm greys.

Favorite game: NU carnival of courseeee (especially now my units are raised èué)

Song stuck in your head: Rilès - DEAD OR ALIVE

Weirdest habit/trait? I love raw fennel and always bring some at parties 'cause I prefer it over chips.

Hobbies: Calisthenics!!! Tho it's really one of patience cause it can take years before doing cool tricks TAT

Then sewing&gardening 'cause why change what's working since the beginning of humanity.

If you work, what's your profession? freelance artist yeahhhh *cries*

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be?

Full-time in house storyboarder!

Something you're good at: Many talents.

Something you're bad at: Using them.

(it's a ref to what Duchess of Orléans (1652-1722) said about his son: "he was gifted all the skills except the one to use them" and someone quoted this to my face I haven't recover since)

Something you love: Helping people it's whats give me the most dopamine and then almond paste.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff:

Internet culture, 19th french society&related, the latest wikipedia page I read...

Something you hate: this moment at the end of the day when you re-think your entire life

Something you collect: Antique Irish crochet laces and embroideries!

Something you forget: I forget.

What's your love language? cooking and drawing I guess

Favorite movie/show: currently severance XD

Favorite food: Bread! <<< prev response is perfect I can't change it

Favorite animal: no I won't choooseeee >o>

What were you like as a child? The perfect Gifted child (tm) (and then highschool happened, rip If you know you know.

Favorite subject at school? Latin, and then still life model/anatomy classes.

Least favorite subject: Physic, we had a very problematic teacher, picking on students and screaming at them XO Later, metal work, we had a teacher borderline abusive too.

What's your best character trait? Apparently I'm great at explaining stuff at people sometimes?

What's your worst character trait? I can be very direct and efficiency based, and give rude critics/feedbacks. This works in french working culture, this doesn't work at all elsewhere *bonks myself again*

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? Being independent wealthy would be nice. <<<< again, yes.

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet?

I wanna meet the prehistoric cave painters *A*

Tag as many mutuals as you want!!

taggins the last mutuals on my notes pls don't feel pressured TAT

@buniby @orbitalmirror @lepplum @gregorsmissingarmor (I love your OC btw *eyes emojis*) @omaano

[stevenbasic]

Growing into the Job, Post 343: A Sunday at Melissa's, p1

“Oh, hey,” I said, as I stepped into the kitchen that rainy Sunday morning. I had a throbbing headache, a bit like a hangover but as far as I could remember I hadn’t had a drop last night. Or maybe I had? I was also sore just about everywhere, most acutely the, uh, parts between my legs. They’d had quite a bit of use yesterday. What was it? Four times? Five?

“Hey,” drawled Amelia, the other sole occupant of the kitchen. It was early-ish, the weird, heretofore unseen clock of Melissa’s mom had just struck I dunno seven-eight-or-I- don't-know a bunch of  times just a few minutes ago as my head pounded along with it. She was wearing a casual, long sleeved white thermal and some yoga pants. Her makeup was light, which was rather atypical for her.  Maybe it was just leftover from last night. I noticed she was slicing an apple…casually using her impressive fingernails. “Want some?” she asked.

“Uh, no thanks…” I answered, watching for a moment as the long, white-painted nail of her right hand slivered off another slice, cutting through the apple like butter. Just another thing to add to the weirdness that was this weekend, I thought. At the very least, standing there for a moment and watching her distracted me from my vague sense of awareness that things felt different to me than they had yesterday morning. The house seemed bigger to me, the counters higher. Yes, Amelia had been going through this same strange growth spurt as the other girls had over the past couple months and even here in her bare feet she stood at least six feet tall, but I couldn't ignore the creeping feeling that I’d become shorter again, just in the past day. I pushed that frankly terrifying notion deep back in my mind, like I'd somehow done many times before. 

“Is anyone else still here?” I asked.

“No I’m the last one,” Amelia answered, as she casually speared an apple slice onto the nail of her right index finger, “and I’m leaving.”  She popped the piece in her mouth, and speared another. With her other hand she picked up a white travel mug adorned with what looked like the symbol of the New Woman Party, emblazoned in deep pink. 

“Coffee?” she asked. 

The kitchen had one of those fancy single-serve units, built into the counter. 

“N-no thanks,” I answered. 

“Oh yeah that's right,” Amelia said, between another bite of apple and a sip from the mug, “Melissa only lets you have milk.”

I flushed, unable to find the strength of will for an argument. Memories of last night flashed before me. A mug of warm milk…human milk. It sent a shiver down my spine.

“I hear she’s your sugar-mama now,” Amelia continued, regarding me with cool interest as I stood there awkwardly. I hadn’t moved a step since first setting foot in the kitchen. 

“She’s…what?” I asked, a little confused.

“She’s giving you money now?” the buxom blonde said in retort, with arched brow and another bite of apple, “that officially makes her a sugar mama.”

“Oh, th-that…” I stammered. How had she heard? “That’s just a one time th-“

“Sure don’t worry,” Amelia answered, reading the embarrassment right off my face, “It’s no big deal to her. You should see her bank account. It’s huge.”

For a moment, that took me aback. I never considered whether Melissa had money. I figured that she was like most every other twenty-something in today's world, just trying to make ends meet and maybe slowly putting something aside for the future. I knew she’d worked as a small-time model for a bit, but besides that most of her work history had been relatively meager-paying jobs. But, after our conversation last night, considering this elegant home of her mother’s, and now with this nugget from Amelia I was beginning to see things differently. Maybe she was the one with the financial power in our relationship. After my divorce, I certainly didn’t have much to my name. Not anymore.

That reminded me. I had some work to do today, some paperwork, some things I was still responsible for after Olivia had taken the reins. It wasn’t a lot, but I’d been told they wanted it for tomorrow. Some stuff for the building permits and some new clinical trials. “Hey, um, Amelia?” I began, “could I grab a ride home?”

Her answer came straightaway. “No. Melissa will drive you home when she wants.”

That statement, also, struck me funny. And again I didn’t have the fortitude to argue or complain. I guess I’ll be waiting for you. I put that little humiliation to the back of my mind as well. 

I glanced around the room, the white marble countertops, searching for what had originally pulled me downstairs. It had been missing since…I dunno when. 

“Looking for your phone?” Amelia asked, watching me as she took another sip of coffee and grabbed a jangle of keys from the counter. “Check around the pool,” she said, “we were playing with it last night.”

Ah okay. Despite being uncomfortable with the fact that my young employees had been maybe going through my phone, I thanked Amelia and - without much else besides a ‘bye’ - she turned and left the room, taking her coffee with her. I watched her curvy hips sway away and felt a wave cloud of perfume recede from the room behind her frankly jaw-dropping ass and shapely back. 

Immediately, things felt strangely  colder, darker, and I felt a little smaller. Maybe a storm cloud had further darkened the scant mid-November sun. Anxiety began to tickle my bones and I wanted nothing more than to just find my phone and scamper back upstairs to bed with Melissa, where it was warm and, frankly, safe. I could stay there with her until she was ready to drive me home. I had woken with my face alongside her naked breast and I somehow  found the strength to peel away while she slept, but suddenly I really wanted to go back. I wanted her scent and warmth again to the point it felt uncomfortable not to be next to her. I'd become spoiled by it. 

It was a Sunday morning, after all. A time made for cuddling, you’d tell me. 

But, first, I wanted to find my phone. There was nothing in the kitchen, so on unsteady feet, I made it out to the soaring great room while trying to ignore the worsening of my headache. Amelia said it might be out by the indoor pool, so I headed in that direction. Looking over the now-empty couch and floor brought back vague memories, which made me reflect on and justify how I spent last night. My mind, truth be told, couldn’t quite accept that the last 24 hours had really taken place. Echoes of the girls laughing filled my mind as I tried to remember what happened last night. Flashes of breasts and curvy hips plagued me as I searched the couch cushions for my phone. I couldn't remember what really happened, and the more I tried to the more it slipped away. All I could remember was bits and pieces...feelings. I remembered skin and touching and kisses that had seemed all too real at the time but my current sense of logic was already rationalizing these strange memories away,  altering them  for my own mental well being. That I’d seen…or had I?...women grow before my very eyes was ridiculous. It was almost like something out of a movie or an animation. No, that couldn't be right. My mind was clearly getting the best of me. Whatever happened couldn't have been that weird. Maybe I'll ask Melissa after I finally find my phone, I figured. Similar to how I was denying the feelings that everything seemed larger, I didn't want to accept that I may be smaller now than when I first stepped through Melissa’s door on Friday evening. My brain was adapting. Protecting me. Keeping me sane. Or, maybe this is insanity? Is that what you want?

Nonetheless, despite all my subconscious attempts to see the world as normal, standing next to familiar standardized constructs like doorways, light switches and tables I was constantly reminded of my altered state. The sliding glass door to the indoor pool seemed so much bigger and heavier than it should, and it took all my effort to pull it open. 

Stepping into the room, the pool filter was on, and the hum of it buzzed in the chlorinated air. Ripples shimmered over the surface of the water but as I made my way midway around the perimeter I spied it, my phone…sitting on the bottom of the deep end. Ugh.

Phones, these days, were made to be waterproof, right? I mean, I’d never really tested mine out but…maybe it survived? How it had gotten there - were the girls using it to take pictures? Look through my apps and documents? Email and texts? Whatever it was, why did they have it in the pool?  I didn’t need to concern myself with that yet. I just needed to retrieve it. Hm…it was only Melissa and myself here, now. I could shed these clothes (a t-shirt and gym shorts Melissa had picked up for me at the mall yesterday, fresh from the shopping bag this morning while she slept), dive in and grab it. But…I seemed to remember something, some time in the pool yesterday. Had I…had trouble swimming? There was something, some new anxiety I felt when I looked down into the depths of the pool - maybe it was eight feet or so - that kept me from jumping in. A quiet little dread. I wasn’t afraid of the water, was I?? As I stood there debating on whether to get in my eyes spotted a net, a skimmer on the end of a long, telescoping pole hanging on the wall...that felt safer 

Feeling heavier than it should as I tested it, the skimmer net should help me get the phone off the bottom without me having to get in. That made me feel better. So, without too much hesitation I had the thing off the wall and telescoped it out to its full length. It was kind of ungainly, I realized, as I slowly stepped toward the pool’s edge. I dipped the thing in the water, lowered it down and, awkwardly, started trying to scoop my phone off the bottom.

“Dammit…” I murmured, as at first all I managed to do was push it farther away, towards the pool’s center. A wave of something - dizziness? anxiety? -  washed over me. Maybe I should just wait for you to come down and do it for me? No no, I could do this. I just needed to get a little closer. I crouched down and stretched out over the edge as far as I could. That got me just about…yeah…almost there. I stretched my arms out as far as they would go. They shook from the exertion, but I could - just barely - touch the edge of my phone at the bottom of the pool. Now I just had to pull it back. This would have been so much easier if I were just a bit taller I thought, but goddammit I was gonna get this done. It was just within reach! After a few desperate attempts to pull the phone toward me my body reached its limit. I was already out of breath. I had clearly overestimated how much my body could do in its weakened and shrunken state, but still I thought I could do this. I just needed to reach out…a bit more…

Ahhh shhhhhhhittttt…..

 <<SPLASH!!>>

The water hit my body like a shock as I crashed face first in the pool. My mouth filled with warm pool water as I wrestled with the net still in my hands. Coughing and sputtering my head broke the surface my arms helicoptering wildly in attempt to stay afloat.  I threw the net aside my lungs burning as the panic set in. 

I can’t swim! I really can't swim!!

My legs kicked frantically as I tried to keep my head above water.“AHHHHGgglp-!!” I cried as I went under and swallowed another mouthful of chlorinated pool water. My arms and legs began to pinwheel in uncoordinated spasms, my head breaking the surface for a second as I finally opened my eyes and looked into the great room through heavy glass doors. I tried to cough, to scream, only to be met with yet another mouthful of water.

No one was there! I was alone drowning in an indoor pool inside my girlfriend's mom's house and no one could hear me! I tried to scream anyway, to call for help but all that came out were tortured gasps and sputters as my lungs expelled mouthfuls of water.

This is it?? This is how things are going to end??

My thrashing began to slow as I ran out of energy unable to find purchase on the pool's edge. My head dipped below the surface and I started to sink.

Melissa… I found myself thinking, I'm sorry…

>>>THOOM!!<< a huge crash from above, through the water, and Melissa was there, in the depths with me, breaking the surface and in an instant down under, aside me, in front of me, naked, hands under my armpits and her feet on the pool’s floor. Her eyes were wide, looking into my own panicked ones, and with a burst of strength she pushed us up to the water’s surface.

>>>AHHHHHH!!!<<<

"Shhh…shhhhh…it's okay now. I got you."

I coughed as I struggled to breathe.

Melissa pinched my nose and took me into a long powerful kiss filling me with her breath as she sucked the water out of my lungs.

Air, in my lungs. Then water, rocketing out of them. I coughed. I coughed and coughed feeling my eyes near to bursting. Her eyes were still on me, in half-panic herself.

“JayOhMyGOD!!!” she exclaimed, as she all but shook me back to life.

>>cough cough cough!!!<<

“JAY ARE YOU OKAY?!?!”

She was…she was naked.

>>cough cough<<  >>cough cough<<

“Talk to me! Jay!”

>>cough…cough<<  “yes…yes…<cough>...I’m okay…”

She was definitely naked.

“THANK GOD!”

Still swimming, still treading water there in the deep end, Melissa hugged me to her. Had she just saved my life? I think she did…

========================

More thanks to ResistanceIsFutile for his assistance.

My Patreon

[toasteloo]

so i have been doing internship for.. a month! and i've been commuting with the local commuter train for an entire month, lets talk about it! because im bored (im procrastinating)

and also i dont want to use twitter to ramble now because im slowly moving away from it

the only line i use is the bogor red line that belongs to the jakarta metropolitan area (jabodetabek) commuter line

the cool thing about this commuter line is they only use ex-jr trains so you can experience japan from the 80s with this line!

this is the common trainset you will see on all lines, including the red line

jr205s! you can see this pretty much everywhere with over 700+ unit of it thats still running around, the trains that we have here are manufactured around 1986 to 1991 (you can tell by the train codes on the lower side of each trains)

there are some differences between the older and newer one notably the door window is much larger on the later model, but the ride quality is not any different and some of the newer trains has different kind of pantograph but i do not know whats the difference is between the two

(notice how the windows on the door has different size, left is the older one and right is the newer one)

the only thing i hate about the 205s is the weird ac positioning, the central ac position only exist near the doors and the other ac is on the side and it also only exist in the middle of the train, and also its weaker so it gets a bit warm very quickly during rush hour

these trains are very reliable and nothing goes wrong, its comfortable and its just fine, there are also a marchen variant of 205s

(not my photobtw)

nothing really different with the regular 205s but they are cool

next up, it's tokyo metro 6000 & 7000!

(also not my photos, i dont took many tm7000/6000 photos)

these are by far my favourite train in the line, it look very modern and overall very sick and the interior is also pretty sick too

the tm6000s are some of the oldest trains thats still in operation in the line going back as far as 1971, despite that, it's still very comfortable, although the interior is slightly yellowed i honestly kinda like it, give that retro feel and whatnot

there are no major downsides for this train based on my experience except the fact that the door usually has to be closed multiple times idk whats up with that

the best thing about tm6000s is that the ac is everywhere regardless of where you are so it is the coldest train in the line, its very nice during rush hour but when its empty it feels like you are in the arctic, freezing away..

there are multiple variant, by multiple i meant only two, the 6000 and 7000, the difference? idk that little window on the front, other than that i couldnt tell

same with the 205s some later model of tm6000/7000 has larger windows and a little screen on top of the door, but nothing really changes in term of ride quality its as comfortable a commuter train can be

now we are getting to the rare trains, first up jr203!

one of the two trains that has a door in the front

as far as i know, 8 sets are remaining for this train as they are slowly retired from the service which is kind of a shame because they look really cool

despite looking really cool this train has a very mediocre ride quality for me, like its fine but holy shit it gets hot, i havent really observed too much as to why its so hot because i only ride on this train twice

one of the most distinct feature of this train is the windows also have vertical bar, why? not sure! but they look interesting thats for sure

overall? its a unique experience because its a rare train but its not very comfortable especially during rush hours

now the most rare train in the entire jakarta metropolitan area commuter line

tokyu 8500!

you want to see rare train in the line? then here you go (also sorry for the blurry photos lol)

this train only has, one (1) set remaining that is still on operation, despite looking very old this train is newer than the entire tm6000 trains with this one is made at 1989

one of the thing that stands out than the rest is how different the interior is compared to the other, instead of plastic trims the interior is mostly dominated with steel bars, no plastic to be seen and also the other thing that stands out is the WIDE gangway

there used to be other set that has a diesel generator for its electricity but unfortunately that train is retired just months before i have internship, kinda unfortunate but oh well

i should mention with the last two trains being retired they are soon getting replaced as soon as 2025 by locally made inka trains and chinese crrc trains

this one is the locally made one, kinda cool imo

the reason why i wrote all of this? idk its just my observation on the trains that exist in the line and i feel like i need to write these down, is anyone gonna read all of this? hell no

that concludes my rambling or yapping about trains that is very long and it took me 2 days to write all of this and i should stop doing this my deadline is looking at me and it looks like its about to kill me