#automated school scheduling

[wysax]

Discover why automated school scheduling is essential for modern education systems. Our blog outlines 6 reasons that highlight the impact and efficiency of scheduling software in schools.

[sillimancer]

I can't find it and don't remember who said it but I saw something where op was comparing liberals' reaction to hearing AI the same way conservatives react to hearing pronouns and I'm gonna be thinking about that all night now

[vivencyglobal]

Streamline School Schedules with Web-Based Bell Solutions

Discover the future of school time management with our cutting-edge Web-Based School Bell Solutions. This innovative system allows seamless scheduling and management of school bells via a cloud-based platform. Easily customize bell schedules, integrate with PA systems, and access remote control capabilities. Enhance punctuality, reduce manual errors, and ensure smooth daily operations with a user-friendly interface accessible on any internet-enabled device. Perfect for modern educational institutions aiming to optimize efficiency and embrace smart technology.

[flofaiiry]

Washington's Finest — Bucky Barnes x Reader

SUMMARY: Congressman Barnes has heard the stories from his colleagues on committee, he knows the stereotype that politicians in Washington often hire women to pursue their extracurricular activities- but he never expected to be the one to be in the need of such... services, much less the kind of man who'd actually seek them out

WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader is a sex worker (referred to as a call girl & hooker), age gap (reader is in law school so mid/late twenties), reader's parents are dead, most likely incorrect info about nda's & how they're used, swearing, probably an overuse of italics oopsie, so much kissing, breast&nipple play, oral f!receiving, reader attempts to fake an orgasm (spoiler it does not work), fingering, mentions of masturbation, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, bucky is kind of condescending, teeny bit of dacryphilia, big dick!bucky, little bit of manhandling, unprotected p in v sex (don't do that!!!), creampie. not proofread!!!

WC: ~7k

NOTE: sorry to all my Pitt & Shawn Hatosy followers that this isn’t your regularly scheduled content, I just got this idea after watching one too many Bucky edits and had to write it !!!😁😁 also I apologize if I portray sex workers in a negative light at all, that is not my intention at all!! I heavily based reader on Laurie from The West Wing, which is admittedly a pretty old show, but I tried my best & I hope you enjoy!!!

Bucky, the junior congressman from New York, knows the reputation that politicians have cultivated. He knows the stereotype of the dead-beat husband who steps out on his wife with a prostitute when he's in D.C., then acts all lovey dovey back in the home state.

He thought since he was single, he could avoid this dilemma. This career ending adultery and solicitation scandal that so many before him had walked into. He thought that he could find some girl to take home at a bar and get his rocks off that way, but that proved to be a harder task than he thought. Everyone in D.C., knew him. Everyone in Brooklyn knew him. Everyone everywhere knew him.

It was nice at first, but now it was starting to get annoying.

Fucking his fist in the shower quelled off the physical urges- and even that was starting to lose its efficacy. But what getting himself off didn't satisfy were his mental and emotional needs. The need to be seen, to be felt, to be touched, to be loved. Bucky wanted that.

But he wasn't going to get it anywhere in this town- or this country for that matter.

He'd heard enough stories through hushed conversations outside committee rooms & caucuses to know that Washington's Finest was the best, most reliable high end escort service in DC. The preferred choice for most politicians on Capitol Hill who dabbled in the art of the extramarital affair.

So, one afternoon when he was feeling especially in need- he made the call.

"Washington's Finest, you've reached Elena, how may I direct your call? The woman's voice is sweet and almost robotic sounding. Bucky isn't sure if it's actually a real person or one of those automated recordings until it starts speaking unprompted.

"Hello?"

He clears his throat, "Yeah. Hi. Um- booking."

Elena makes a little sound of acknowledgement before speaking again, "Alright sir, your call is being transferred, I'm going to place you on a brief hold, please stay on the line!"

As soon as she finishes talking, a smooth jazz music floods through the phone and into Bucky's ear. It's nice, familiar. Just as he thinks he might recognize the song, he's met with another woman's voice.

"Good evening this is Washington's Finest, you've reached booking! I'm Paulina how may I assist you?" She speaks, that same sort of uncanniness present in her tone.

"Hi. Yeah, uh I'd like to book- I guess."

"Great! Well then you're in the right place, may I just get a name to make the reservation?"

He hesitates, wondering if he should give his real name. Paulina seems to notice this.

"It doesn't have to be your name, sir. Just any name that we can refer to you by for the booking."

He doesn't say anything. Paulina fills the silence again.

"Rest assured sir, we deal with many high profile customers, our privacy policies are top notch to ensure that your proclivities are kept-"

"Steve." He blurts.

"I'm sorry?"

"Steve. My name is Steve."

Why he just offered the name of his best friend? He doesn't know. But at the moment it's the only name coming to mind so it's gonna have to do.

The woman on the other end smiles almost audibly.

"Alright then, Steve. What service would you like to book with us?"

"Shit, I uh- I don't know. What... services do you have?"

There's a ruffling of papers, a click of a mouse, then her voice again. "We offer three main packages: the One Night, the Weekend Getaway and the Week Long All-Inclusive. Many first-time customers choose to start with the One Night, helps them to find a girl they connect with to book longer services with in the future."

Bucky nods, then remembers she can't see him. "Right. Okay, sure, yeah- the One Night sounds good, let's do that."

"Great! Sounds good, let's get you all reserved - when were you thinking to book your service?"

"I, um- whenever?"

"How about tonight?" She asks, tapping away almost violently at the computer.

He nods, once, twice- like he's trying to convince himself to go through with this. To stoop down to a level he swore he'd never reach. "You know what- sure, let's do tonight."

Paulina continues with the booking, going over various policies regarding payment and acceptable conduct with the girl he books. Then, she gets to the names. There are three girls with availability tonight:

Anya.

Peggy.

And you.

Peggy's out immediately- way too much baggage associated with that name. He eliminates Anya next, sounds too harsh to him.

Leaving him with you. A girl with a name that rolls of the tongue, who will be showing up at his brownstone in a little over three hours

You get the call a few minutes after Bucky hangs up, Paulina tells you that someone named Steve has requested your company tonight, and you're to attend an address in Alexandria at 9pm sharp.

You get ready as usual, wondering if this Steve will be another senator or congressman stepping out on his wife- citing the 'stress of the job,' for pushing them apart, or if he'll be some rich old guy with nothing better to do with his money, or maybe- a secret third option. What that is, you're not sure yet- but a girl can dream, can't she?

Either way- the routine never strays. Makeup, hair, lingerie under an unassuming outfit (men love it when they get to feel like they're unwrapping you). You're out the door by 8:30 and catch the bus to the address sitting in your email.

You get there a few minutes early, so you sit on a bench a few doors down until your phone reads 8:59PM. Then you start down the street to your assigned place of business.

You climb the steps then knock on the door a few times. A second later the door's swinging open. You recognize the face from the news, and from the museum, the former World War 2 hero turned Congressman.

Bucky Barnes.

Not Steve.

You weren't surprised. Didn't feel catfished. 90% of the time the name you're given isn't legit, but one given by the customer to maintain certain degrees of separation.

"Congressman Barnes," you say, nodding your head slightly to greet him.

He says your name in the same tone, but different- like it's more foreign to him. "Please, call me Bucky." He half smiles, stepping aside in the doorway though still terribly unsure of himself.

"Bucky," you repeat, stepping into the house through the open space next to him. "This is a nice place," you hum, kicking off your shoes while he shuts the door behind you. "Thanks," he replies.

"You want something to drink?" He asks, beckoning you to follow him into the kitchen. You do. "Oh, just water is fine, thanks. And ice if you've got."

He nods, filing your preference away then walking over to the fridge to pull out a pitcher, then a cupboard for a glass.

"So," you say, walking around to the opposite side of the kitchen island as him, "what got you calling up Washington's Finest?" He shrugs, sliding a glass full of ice water to you. You mouth a thanks before bringing it to your lips and taking a sip.

"What's anyone looking for when they order a hooker." He says, blunt as ever. You almost choke on the drink, setting it down with a thunk before coughing the water from your windpipe.

"Sorry- is that not what you're called?"

You shake your head, "no, I mean- hooker's not wrong it's just, we prefer call girl. Evokes a nicer image."

"Right. Call girl." He repeats, nodding his head.

You take one more sip, washing down any stuck remnants of liquid from your earlier near-asphyxiation. "So sex?"

"I'm sorry?" He asks.

"That's what most people are looking for when they order a hooker." You repeat his words back to him, earning a smile from the man. He nods, "can't argue with that logic."

He still hasn't answered your question.

"So... sex?" You try again

He coughs, like he was caught off guard. "Yeah, sure. I guess."

He says the words like they're true, but the look in his eyes says they're anything but.

"Right, okay." You reach into your purse and pull out a thin stack of folded paper. “Got a pen?” You ask, setting them both down on the counter: one in front of you, the other in front of Bucky. He quirks an eyebrow, “yeah,” then opens a drawer to retrieve one, “what’s this?”

“NDA,” you say plainly. He scoffs, “I’m not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about-”

You cut him off with a shake of your head, “it’s nothing personal, just company policy.” You reach into your bag once more to take out your own pen, “it’s to cover both of our asses.”

He follows your lead, signing his name on the various lines and not bothering to read all the legal jargon. “Both our asses?” He questions, crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s.

You nod, not once looking up from the page. “Mhmm, that way if I get drunk and start blabbing about all the congressmen I’ve slept with and your name comes up, then you can sue or whatever.”

He watches as you flourish the pen along the paper, marking your name and initials down, then meets your eyes when you slide the forms away. His brows are furrowed, “you get drunk and run your mouth a lot?” He asks, tone half joking.

You smile, “I don’t, but some of the other girls aren’t as careful, like to brag about their customers ‘n such.” He hums, sliding his own papers forward to stack on top of yours.

“You good? Ready?” You ask, putting your pen and the papers back in your bag. Bucky replies with a borderline shaky sigh. You squint, not normally the reaction you get from customers. “Everything okay?”

He nods, slow and unsure. “How does this work exactly? Do we just… start?” You shrug. “It can work however you want it to work. We can do whatever you want to do.”

“What if I want to just… talk first.”

His behaviour is a refreshing contrast to the men you normally deal with- their minds are set on getting your clothes off the second you walk through the door.

“That’s fine,” you smile, “we can talk.”

He nods and exhales, like a weight’s just come off his shoulders. “So,” you start, “what do you want to talk about?”

“Right,” he says, like he forgot that having a conversation would require actual talking.

“Um. What got you into…” he trails off, looking for the right words, “this line of work.”

You laugh, “oh this is not my dream job, believe me. I’m just doing this to get through law school, only got one year left. I’m getting out of this business the second I pass the Bar.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows, he clearly wasn’t expecting that answer. “Wow, law school. You go to GW?” You shake your head, “Georgetown.”

“Damn. They've got a good program over there.”

“I know,” you nod, “and expensive.”

“Ah,” he mouths, “hence the…” he gestures between the both of you, referring to the situation at hand.

“Exactly.”

“Parents can’t afford to help you out a little?”

You shake your head, “it’s not that they can’t afford it, they-” you stop yourself with a sigh. Any other customer would get a rehearsed answer about why you’re in this business, but any other customer wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place. “My parents died a few years ago, bank gave me a hard time with the inheritance — not that it was a whole lot, and there wasn’t very much left over after I paid off their house & some debts.”

He gives you a sympathetic look, the same one everyone gives after you drop the dead parents bomb. You give him a look that brushes off whatever empathetic sentiment he's conjuring up before he can say it. You shrug, “wanted to go to law school, couldn’t afford it, found a way to afford it. That’s all it is.”

He still doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking into your eyes like they’ve got some answer he’s been looking for all his life.

“I’m not proud of it,” you add, starting to rationalize and he quickly starts to shake his head.

“Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you should be ashamed or anything- I mean, fuck I’m the one who- I don't know, hired you? if anything I should be ashamed.”

You huff, “don’t be, you’re... different.”

Bucky smiles at that. “Different?”

“Yeah, most other customers have one thing and one thing only on their mind when I’m around but,” you shrug, “I don’t know, you don’t? I guess? You care about more than just the sex, I mean. At least I think you do. I hope you do."

You add the last part under your breath- you're not even sure why you add it- you know better than to feel anything more than a tolerance for one of your customers.

“Call me old fashioned, I guess.” He jokes. Some of his nerves appear to slough off when you laugh.

“Yeah, something like that,” you reply.

The room falls into a sort of silence, coming about after your laughter fizzles out. It's not awkward though, just like you're both weighing the options of what to say next.

"How about you?" You fill the air with your voice, the question catches Bucky off guard. "What about me?" he answers.

"Why Congress?" You shrug, "being in the history book once isn't enough for you?" It's teasing, but the question behind it still stands: why politics?

He raises his eye brows, bringing a hand to his chest in mock offense. "Wow. Okay. Calling me an attention seeker?"

You tilt your head, "most of you are. I don't know why else anyone would chose a job where your employer is the fucking general population."

"First of all," he starts, corner of his lip raising in a challenging smirk, "they're called constituents- I work for the great people of Brooklyn, thank you very much."

You laugh, "right, right, constituents. I ask again, why spend your life doing such... thankless work? I'm telling you, 90% of these congressmen & senators have some small dick insecurity or something and need some big, powerful job title to make up for it."

Bucky scoffs, taking a few steps around the kitchen island to stand beside you now, you turn to face him, leaning your side against the countertop.

"Well, I definitely don't have that problem," he says, leaning in close against your ear. His voice sends a pulse down your spine that's received between your legs- husky and low.

He pulls away from you and spots the way your eyes had fluttered just barely shut in response to his breath against your skin. You blink- once, twice- trying to adjust to his new proximity to you. "I guess I had just spent enough of my life hurting people, and I wanted what life I have left to be spent helping 'em instead." He mutters the words, searching through your eyes like he lost something in them and if he looks hard enough he'll find it.

Then his eyes flick down to your lips, for a split second- like he's wondering if he should kiss you or not. But when he shifts just marginally away from you- it seems like he's decided against it. Your breath catches in your throat when he shifts, a jolt of borderline disappointment passing through you.

"Kiss me."

The words leave you before your better judgement can tell you otherwise. He wasn't expecting that.

"What?"

You swallow. "Kiss me," you repeat- more sure this time.

"Kiss you?" He asks like he's trying to make 100% sure he heard you right.

You nod once. "Kiss me. Please."

Bucky absorbs the words, then brings a hand up to push a strand of hair behind your ear. He drags his fingers down your jaw, before cradling his hand there at the nape of your neck. His calloused fingertips sit just at the back of your head, then he presses them into your skin and draws you towards him. He pulls you in until your lips are just barely brushing against his.

His lips are dry- not chapped, not rough- but dry like they're looking for something to quench their thirst. They're a stark contrast to your own, meticulously glossed over in that perfect shade that brings out your eyes just right.

Then he kisses you- finally, he kisses you. It's painfully soft, and you're immediately craving more. You bring your own hand up to the side of his face, tangling your fingers into his chocolate brown hair as you deepen the kiss.

He hums into your mouth as his eyes fall shut, and brings his other hand- the metal one- to your waist, pulling your body flush against him. You thought it'd feel harsh, mechanical even, but somehow his touch still manages to be soft.

Suddenly all you can think about is what those fingers would feel like inside of you.

You take your other hand up to the other side of his face, pulling him impossibly closer to you, taking a deep inhale when you do. The air you bring in is mix of second hand smoke and vintage cologne, it's undeniably him.

That snaps the last strand of Bucky's control, the last little thread that had him holding on to any chivalrous sense of decency. He's desperate for you. He thought he was in need of connection- of touch, but the second you walked in his door?

He needed you.

More than he'd ever needed anything else before.

He travels both of his hands down to the backs of your thighs, and picks you up in one seamless motion. You're shocked at his strength at first, but them remember who you're dealing with: Bucky Barnes, former Winter Soldier- he could probably throw you around like it was nothing if he wanted to.

And God, you really hope he wants to.

You wrap your legs around his waist once he's lifted you, and he starts to maneuver you through his house. Walking masterfully through the expanse of hallways within the brownstone without breaking away from the kiss for so much as a breath.

He pushes the door open with your back, taking one hand from under you to flick on the lamp just enough so he can see where the bed is. The dark orange light from the fixture floods the room, bouncing off every available surface & enveloping your bodies in an auburn blanket of warmth.

He lowers you down onto the bed with ease and crawls over top of you. He presses one last firm kiss against your lips before pulling away. His breathing is heavy and ragged, and you can't help but notice the faint blush on his cheeks when you open your eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" He asks, his tone serious, "I know it's your job to say yes, but- do you want this?" If you say no he'd stop, of course he would, but right now he is praying to every higher power that you'll say yes.

No customer had ever asked you that before- asked the woman beneath the call girl what she wanted. And even if they did- it always came with the silent expectation that despite whatever you might want to say deep down, the answer would always be yes.

You nod, still breathless from the exchange earlier- but that's not enough for Bucky. "Words," he whispers, ducking his head down to the crook of your neck. "Tell me you want this, want me," he says, words muffled against your skin as he kisses it softly.

"Want this," you say, still nodding furiously, "want you."

He groans against your neck, raw and desperate. The vibrations ricochet down your body, landing with a throb between your thighs.

Bucky roams his hands down your body, and slides them under your shirt, splaying his fingers against your stomach. One hand's warm, inviting, sultry. The other- cool and unnaturally smooth. But both are soft, and the juxtaposing sensations makes you squirm.

"Fuck, you are so beautiful," he mumbles, tugging at the hem of your shirt then pulling it up over your head. You raise your arms to allow him to slide it off of you, leaving your chest covered with just the skimpy black lace bra you picked out before you left.

He travels his kisses along your neck, down to your collarbone, and across to the top of your ribcage. He moves down your chest, following along the geography of your sternum until his face is buried between your breasts.

One of his hands comes up to cup over the material, inner knuckle of his thumb brushing perfectly across your nipple. You gasp at the new contact, desperate to feel more of him- everywhere.

That sound only encourages him, emboldens him, and before you know it he's tucked his fingers underneath the thin material and is ripping the bra in half at the front seam. He pushes it aside and you shrug off the straps.

This bra was in your all star rotation- it was by far the most flattering one you owned. You should be upset, should scold him with something along the lines of making him buy you a new one, but right now you could not care less about that.

You're yanked from your train of thought when you feel Bucky's lips close around your nipple. His tongue swirling around the bud and teeth grazing it ever so gently. You arch your back, heaving your chest against him by consequence

He brings his hand to your unattended breast, squeezing and grasping at the flesh in just the right spots before pinching at that nipple.

“Please, Bucky,” you whimper, rolling your head back into his mattress while your fingers tug at his long dark strands of hair.

You feel him smirk against your chest, before he picks back up his head and slots his lips onto yours again. “Wanna taste you,” he says through kissing you, “can I?”

“You don’t have to, I’m-“

“I want to,” he cuts you off, “please?”

You nod, slow- but incredibly sure.

“O- okay. Yeah. Sure,” you breathe.

He smiles- like really smiles, then kisses you again1 before descending once more down your body. He leaves wet open mouthed kisses down the expanse of your chest and torso, hands working on undoing the clasp of your pants so he can push them off once he reaches the waistband.

He tosses the garment haphazardly somewhere in the room, before hooking his fingers through the band of your panties.

“This okay?” He asks, eyes hooded with lust as he looks up at you for your consent.

You nod- pathetically quick. “Yes. Please.”

The ends of his lips quirk upwards as he pulls the thin lacy material from your legs. It’s too slow- painfully slow. You wish he’d rip them off like he did with the bra.

Once they’re off, Bucky kneels on the floor in front of you, and hooks his arms under your thighs and pulls you to the edge of the bed. He presses his lips to your clit, leaving a tender kiss over it, before licking a long steep stripe up your slit.

“Fuck,” you gasp, hands finding his hair again like there’s some kind of magnet drawing them there. You pull his face against your cunt, forcing his tongue into your hole and knocking his nose against your clit.

“Oh my god,” you moan, arching your hips off the bed and even further into him before he plants you by the hips back into the mattress. He delves his tongue inside you, prodding eagerly through your slick and fucking it in and out of you.

It feels good- feels so good- but it’s not enough.

Your instinct takes over though, months of experience in appeasing men and making them think they’re bringing you to the edge to stroke their ego.

You tone up the moans, raising your volume and repeating Bucky’s name like a mantra. All things to signal that you’re getting close. Your tugs at his hair turn to pulls, thighs pressing around his head, as you lean into the act of an impending orgasm.

It’s not that you didn’t think he could get you there- it’s that you didn’t want him to wait.

“Fuck, Bucky- ‘m gonna cum,” you whine, squirming under him relentlessly. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps lapping at your cunt with his tongue.

“Shit- I- fuck, I'm coming, Bucky I'm-" you cut yourself off with a pornographic moan. One perfected through numerous uses, it's always believable. Always makes the man feel good about himself that he 'made a woman cum.'

Bucky doesn't buy it though. Not for a second.

"No you're not," he says, voice stern and words getting muffled against your pussy. The stubble lining his jaw scrapes at your inner thighs when he speaks.

"Does this not work for you?" He asks, pulling away from you and caressing your thighs. You shake your head, "no- I'm sorry it's not that, I just- it doesn't matter if I feel good or not. You're the customer." You prop yourself up on your elbows to look down at him.

His hair is disheveled from your hands being rooted in it, his chin and lips coated with your slick.

"Who the hell told you that?"

You shrug, "just common sense I thought."

He scoffs, "yeah well fuck that. Tell me what you want me to do. What you need me to do to get you there- for real."

"To be honest- I don't really know," you start.

Bucky cocks an eyebrow, "you don't know?"

You shrug again.

He sits back on his heels, sigh heaving from his chest. "Well, how 'bout this- when you touch yourself, what do you do that makes you cum?" The question's awkward, but for some reason you don't feel opposed to answering.

He traces his vibranium fingers up and down your inner thigh. The cool metal makes your muscles tense. "I want to make you feel good," he says, "but I can't do that if you don't tell me how to go about doing it."

You release a shaky exhale before you speak.

"I need something... inside."

Bucky smirks, "yeah? What's something?"

You shrug, "anything, really. Fingers, toy, dick."

He laughs at that, shaking his head before looking back up at you and leaning back in.

"Well how about," he starts, voice dangerously slow and fingers inching back towards your core, "I give you my fingers now, make you cum on those 'n get you all stretched out for me... Then, I give you the other thing."

You swallow hard, the anticipation building like a knot in your chest.

"Deal?" He asks, tip of his index finger brushing right above your clit. Your breath hitches when you nod. He smiles, "good girl. Now let me make you feel good."

And with that he disappears back between your legs.

Bucky wastes no time and gets right back to business. He wraps his lips around your clit like he never left, and pushes one finger into your tight cunt. He watches eagerly for your body's reaction, indulging in the way your head tilts into the mattress and your eyes roll back in the socket.

"That feel good?" He asks, the vibration against your pussy adds a new layer of pleasure. You nod quickly, "yes- fuck, feels good."

"Good," he smirks, adding a second finger into your hole and curling them inside you, then sucking harder at your clit. The moans slipping from your lips this time are angelic- ethereal, Bucky thinks. They're that beautiful because they're real. The sounds are a tangible demonstration of how good he's making you feel.

You don't notice when he adds a third finger, or when he brings his thumb to rub little circles at your clit, your senses are too bombarded with all the other inputs to register those little changes.

What you do notice, however, is how quickly you come tumbling towards the edge this time- the real edge, the brink of orgasm, not the metaphorical one you created to stroke the egos of your other customers.

Bucky notices too. Notices the way that when you're really close, you don't get louder, but get quieter- your jaw dropped open but no sounds to be heard. The way you clamp your eyes shut and grip onto his hair and the duvet for dear life. The way your hips writhe under him, desperately and subconsciously trying to create more friction for yourself.

He notices it all.

But his favourite thing he's noticed thus far, are the pretty noises you make when you do cum. No showy, perfectly defined moans, but little breathy whimpers that bleed into louder cries of his name as your release gushes out around his tongue.

Music to his ears.

"That's it, just like that, good girl," he coaxes, working you through the high. He gets lost in the way you taste, the noises you make- all of it.

What he doesn't notice that you've already come down from your first high, and so he doesn't stop. Just keeps laving at your slit, sucking at your clit and pumping three thick fingers inside your cunt until he's sending you hurdling towards a second orgasm.

"Oh my- fuckingGodBucky," the last words tumble from your lips in a single syllable as you cum again onto Bucky's tongue. He dips his mouth down, lapping up every last drop of your release like it could grant him eternal life.

When he finally pulls away, hands resting on your thighs to stop them from quaking, he sees the wet marks down your cheeks, and the new crystalline beads forming at the corners of your eyes.

He stands up quickly, a little concerned and hovers himself back over you again. "Hey," he speaks, voice soft, "you okay?" He brushes the hair from your face and the tears from your eyes.

All you can do is nod, breathing too heavy to form any words at the moment. After a second you speak, "felt too good." Bucky laughs, "too good? That sounds like a challenge."

You raise your eyebrows before tracing your eyes down his body, settling on the very evident bulge between his legs. "You did promise me something..." You trail, dragging one finger against him through the jeans. He lets out a strangled sigh at the tiniest bit of friction.

You smirk at your effect on him, before tugging him down to press your lips to his. You taste yourself on his tongue when he slips it into your mouth, you should be a little grossed out- but you could not care less.

The only thing on your mind right now is getting him inside of you.

You pull him to lie next to you, then roll yourself on top of him, straddling over his bulge and grinding your cunt against him. You moan into each others mouths, Bucky's hands find your ass, squeezing and groping at the flesh while yours move to the buttons of his shirt. Undoing them greedily- unapologetically eager to see what he looks like with nothing on.

He moves his arms to let you slide the shirt off of him, leaving him in just a white tank top which he sits up slightly to take off. You can't help but gawk when he's finally topless. Your eyes wander shamelessly over the expanse of his chest and you trace your fingers along the grooves of his muscles, lingering on the little scars and marks like you're trying to commit them to memory.

"Kids these days don't learn it's not polite to stare?" He says, snapping you out of the trance-like state his shirtless figure put you in.

You scoff, "what's not polite is looking like this and expecting me not to look." You lean down and press a kiss against his lips, "I'm just a girl. I see pretty abs & arms and I stare." You sit back up, shuffling down his legs to sit over his knees, then bringing your hands to undo the button and zipper on his pants.

He raises an eyebrow, "I have pretty abs and arms?" He asks, bending his knees to let you slide the slacks down and off of his legs. You stop dead in your tracks, fingers hooked into his boxers but not pulling them down yet- not when he just said that.

"You're joking, right?" He doesn't say anything, just stares at you with an amused look plastered onto his face, "Jesus Christ have you ever looked in a mirror, Bucky?" You shake your head through a laugh and finally pull his boxers down to free his cock.

You sigh at the sight of him. He's big- this you could assume from the way he carried himself. The confidence he exuded. The way he acted like he didn't have any physical detriments to compensate for.

But he's kind of- obscenely big.

You lick your lips and sweep your hair behind your ears and out of the way, before ducking down to take him in your mouth- but Bucky stops you before your lips even meet his tip.

"Not tonight," he says, "another time."

You raise an eyebrow, "another time?" He smirks, then pulls you up for a kiss, "yeah. Another time," he breathes, before pressing his lips to yours. Just from where you're straddling him, you can feel the head of his cock hitting dangerously close to your clit.

"I don't mean to inflate your ego anymore than it already is," you tease, pulling away to look down at him, "but- respectfully- how the fuck am I supposed to fit that inside of me?"

Bucky rolls his eyes playfully, then brings one hand to your hip and the other to wrap around himself, tilting it slightly so it lines up with your entrance. "You can take it. Don't worry." He moves you down by the hip just barely, you gasp when the very first millimeter of his cock prods into your entrance.

"Just take it slow, yeah? Take it slow."

He loosens his grip on your hips, allowing you to take the lead and decide how quickly you want to sink yourself onto him. You nod and plant your hands on his lower abdomen to steady yourself, before slowly- so, so slowly- moving down his length.

The stretch is unlike any you've ever felt before. A string of profanities floods out of your mouth and your head rolls back. Bucky's eyes threaten to close at the feeling of your walls hugging so tight around him, but he keeps them glued on where your bodies meet- watching intently at the way you swallow every inch of him inside of you.

"Just like that," he drawls, sucking in a breath and resisting every urge to buck his hips up and shove himself the rest of the way in.

"Holy shit, Bucky." Your breathing is ragged once you've finally sunk all the way down onto his length. The pads of his fingers are digging into the flesh of your hips, you're sure they'll leave bruises behind but all you can think about right now is how it feels like his cock is about to split you open.

"I know, baby, I know," he stutters, trying to maintain his composure as best he can. "I can't- fuck- too full, I can't," you shake your head, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes once again.

He pulls you down by the arm, lacing his fingers through yours then kissing you. It's soft, but only for a second. Before you know it he's sliding his tongue in your mouth and rolling you both over so he's on top now. He braces his forearms on either side of your head, and pulls away from the kiss to rest his forehead against yours.

"You want this? Hm?" He pushes a strand of hair from your face, "want me to fuck you?" His tone is cocky, he knows you want him, but he wants to hear you say it.

"Yes, yes- fuck, please," you whimper, still wholly consumed by the feeling of his thick cock inside you. He smirks, "atta girl," he presses one last kiss to your lips- needy and desperate, before drawing his hips back, then slamming them back into you.

You practically scream at his sudden movement, the pleasure and pain of the stretch blending together and making your vision all fuzzy. The pace he sets is slow, but hard. Unrelenting.

Bucky drops his head to the crook of your neck, biting and kissing at your clavicle. Out of the corner of his eye he spots your hand, desperately gripping at the thin linen sheets to ground yourself. He takes it in his, before pulling it to rest on his back. You nails dig in to the musculature almost instantly, summoning a deep groan from within him.

With that same hand, he takes your leg to sit around his waist, pushing himself even deeper inside of you. The new tilt of his cock now knocks perfectly against the spot inside you that has you seeing stars, drilling into it with every thrust.

The room is hot, your bodies sticky with sweat. The only thing you can hear is the sound of Bucky's hips smacking against yours, his breathy grunts in your ear with every rock of his body into yours, and your repetitive cries of his name.

The pleasure is everything. It's all consuming, earth shattering- but somehow it's still not enough.

"Please," you breathe, "need- fuck, go faster."

He picks his head up to look at you, "yeah?"

You nod, desperate- begging. "Need more, please."

Bucky scoffs, "need more?" He repeats- almost mocking you. You just keep nodding. "Well alright then," he grunts, and you can hear the smirk playing across his lips.

His next actions happen in a whirlwind. He pulls himself out of your pussy, coaxing a whine from your throat when you suddenly feel so empty. Then with one strong vibranium arm he's flipping you over, your face smushing into the pillow before you turn your head.

He brings the same hand underneath you, cool metal fingers splaying across your lower belly as he slams all the way back inside you. Your eyes go wide, accompanied by a load moan of his name before they're clamping down shut again.

His new rhythm is cruel. He looks down and watches the ripples of your ass with every thump of his hips into yours. Bucky presses the hand he has under you against your skin, he can literally feel himself sliding in and out of you. Can feel how deep he is inside of you.

"Oh my- God!" You choke out the last word when he pushes on your lower belly, walls immediately clenching around him.

He hisses out a breath, "you wanted this, hm? So take it. Be a good doll and take it."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky 'm gonna cum." Right as the words leave you, all your senses melt into a white hot static as your orgasm rips through your body.

"Yeahhh, atta girl. Just like that- cum on my cock just like that, huh?" His low voice coaches you through it, never once stopping his unrelenting hips against yours.

His hips finally start to stutter, right as his high starts creeping up on him. You can tell from his thrusts getting shallower that he plans on pulling out to finish- while it's the sensible thing to do- it's also the last thing you want him to do.

"Don't," you gasp.

"What?"

"Don't pull out. Wanna feel you, please God, need to feel you."

He wants to ask if you're sure, but before he can form the words he's falling over the edge. He groans your name and shoots his spend deep inside you, marking you- ruining you for anyone else.

Bucky's thrusts into you turn lazy, then coming to a complete halt right before he pulls out of you. One last whimper falls from your lips, your hole feeling both so empty yet so full of him.

"Holy shit," he huffs, sliding his hand from under you and rolling to lie down next to you.

You turn onto your side to look over at him, your eyes still find a way to linger on his chest. Once he cracks his eyes open and sees you ogling him again, he can't help but laugh.

"You've really got quite the staring habit, huh?"

Your lips turn up into a smile, "can't exactly help it."

He shakes his head, letting his eyes fall shut as his breathing finally comes back to a normal pace. The both of you are too tired to say anything, but really- there's nothing that needs to be said.

He wasn't expecting a girl like you to be the one that knocked on his door- nor were you expecting a man like him to answer. Both of you know this was more than just a business exchange. Even though there'd be money deposited in your account after this, it felt different.

This wasn't just a hook up- it was a reckoning.

When Bucky opens his eyes again, there's a different look in them. And when he stares at you, searching through your own eyes for the answer he's been looking for all night- it's like he's finally found it.

He pulls you into him, moving you so that you lay your head on his chest. He presses a kiss into your hair, and traces his hand up and down your shoulder.

Neither of you say anything more, his eyes said it all already- stay.

And you do.

please let me know what you think!!! reblogs & comments mean more than u know!!!

[neesieiumz]

catharsis || ──────── s. aizawa

day five — SOMNOPHILIA / VOICE KINK / DADDY KINK

『 synopsis 』 after a long patrol, your husband comes with an ache only you can sate, only to find you deep in sleep

『 warnings 』 — 18+. sm*t. minors do not interact. husband!aizawa. pro-hero!reader. p*orn with very little plot. that's why it's shorter than my normal fics. established relationship. she is a natural disasters hero. and he has his normal job. somnophilia. voice kink. daddy kink. he is very much in love with you. like borderline obsessed with you. and vice-versa as well. female reader. black-coded reader but anyone can read. he calls you a slut but you enjoy it. sweet aftercare. was this self indulgent? i plead the fifth, how bout that?

『 writers notes 』 honestly feel like i overdid with the daddy kink but here we are! hope you enjoy it and you won't get a new ktober fic until next week tuesday! check the masterlist!

『 word count 』 3.0k

previous fic in ktober | masterlist | next fic in ktober

The night had fallen upon your home before you had known it, the twinkling stars gazing down at you, the full moon’s brightness fully mocking your somnolence. You could no longer stay up for him, no matter how much you tried. You had waited for long before sleep was beginning to overtake your body, and you knew this was another night you’d go without being able to see your husband. 

Your husband was Eraserhead to the world, but at home, he was Shouta to you. Your Shouta. The two of you were heroes, after all, that was how the two of you met. You knew the long nights that came with the job, especially with him being a teacher as well. 

Dressed in a thin two-piece set, in a pale baby blue, you lay on your bed, covered in your warm sheets, with nothing but the sounds of your automated fan blowing cool air into your room, combatting the heated summer night outside. With school out, and your husband only getting a reduced check from his main source of income, he had no choice but to join up in nightly patrols, his main specialty when it comes to hero work. 

The two of you found each other while working patrols late at night, you being a new transfer from a faraway city on the outskirts of Japan, where natural disasters were then likely to occur. 

“Eraserhead, what kind of name is that?” Your smile was wide, contagious even. 

The two of you stood in an alleyway, with him hanging upside down from it, his eyes obscured by the bulky yellow goggles he constantly wore.

“Trust me, I was definitely not the one to make it.” His voice was deep and grave, it slightly echoed through the alley. 

“That means whoever made the name must have been pretty special huh?”

It was silent for a moment, and for a moment, you thought you hit a nerve, anxiety rising within you. 

“Yeah, I guess you can say they were.”

You gleaned up at him, seeing some semblance of a smile on his face. This caused your own smile to widen slightly, standing up straight. 

Your marriage was a private one, one with family and friends only, a short, quiet, and intimate event. The two of you only had a week off for your honeymoon, during the time of which students were out for school to not mess with his schedule. The two of you are extremely busy, with his job as a hero course teacher and of course your own as a rescue and natural disasters hero. The two of you barely had time for each other, easily taking what you could with each other. You knew what came with dating and eventually marrying another hero, especially with someone like your Shouta. 

You lay across the bed, sighing as you relaxed into the comfort of the comforters, onto the softness of the mattress. Closing your eyes, hoping to bring a new day, hopefully with your husband’s arms comfortably snug around your waist. 

— — — —

You heard a squeak first. 

Your eyes barely cracked open, still heavy with sleep, as the squeaking sound got louder and longer for a moment and then stopped altogether. You didn’t move, your heart racing and beating drums within your chest as the sound of muffled footsteps got closer and closer to your bed. You could hear ruffling, like clothes were being moved before the familiar fresh scent of mahogany and lavender, your body relaxing as you did so. You opened your eyes a little bit further, being able to see the clock on your bedside table, seeing the number 2:34 glowing from the digital clock. This was a first, you never woke up when he came home from patrols, you always found yourself being wrapped up in his arms when you woke up in the morning. You tried to find the confines of sleep, hoping to easily slip into it, knowing you’ll wake up in your husband’s arms once more. 

Creaakkk…

His footsteps got closer and closer, his scent slowly gaining intensity as something within went off, like chilling tingles crawling up your spine. You could feel his eyes staring holes into you, possibly scanning your entire form wrapped up in your blankets. A familiar tingling sensation began to erupt and spread through you. It had been months since the last time he touched you, the two of you being completely swamped with work. Suddenly, the bedframe creaked, as you felt the mattress underneath you slightly dip. He was so close to you, his knee grazing up against your back, the blanket being the only thing that kept the two of you lightly touching. Droplets of water, possibly from his shower that he took when you were still deep in sleep, dripped down onto you, feeling the cool, wet spots from your blanket. You kept yourself as still as possible, sleep still dancing in your eyes. And then, all of a sudden, he crouched down, the bed creaking along as he did.

It took all your self-control not to gasp as you felt his erection pressing up against you. Even with the blanket, you could still feel it. You held back the slight gasp out a slight moan as he pushed his hip in between your bottom. He let out a hefty groan, his head falling right beside your own, his lips right next to your ear as he did. You could feel yourself clenching around nothing, feeling yourself beginning to drip down your thighs and stain your thin shorts. All of your self-control was slipping piece by piece, your body aching and wanting for him. Your breathing became shaky, you know he could hear it, and yet he continued his actions. You could feel his lips slowly press up kisses along your cheek and jawline. His nose nestled itself in between your ear and your hairline that peeked from the night-time scarf you wore, before taking a deep breath in, taking your freshly washed scent, your body wash, as well as your nighttime hair products. 

“You smell so good,” his voice wasn't strained, as if he was holding back as well.

“I missed you so much,” he spoke again, the bed creaking again as he moved, his hands beginning to move down, thumbing along the hemline of your shorts.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here as much, snowflake,” he mumbled in your ear, his hand now officially slipping down into your shorts. 

His fingers slipped in between your legs, two of his fingers easily spreading your lips apart, cool air hitting your clit, causing your body to tremble ever so slightly. Your mouth is slightly agape, drool slowly dripping out of your mouth onto your pillow. His fingers easily spilled into the mess in between your legs, pressing up against your clit. Carefully, he massaged circles into you, every movement slow and deliberate, as if he didn’t want to wake you. He probably didn’t wake you up. You had just gotten home from aiding a beach town devastated by a hurricane, pulling people out from rubble, and creating emergency service tents. 

“I know you just got back, but I…” he trailed off on his words as his fingers slipped further down, sliding in between your labia. 

“I can’t hold myself back, fuck.”

Your husband sounded so pretty, his voice straining every syllable as his hips ground more and more into you. By now, your shorts were a mess, and your underwear soaked with your juices. No longer able to hold yourself back, you softly pushed your hips back against his fingers, and hard-on. He most definitely felt your movements, letting out a massive groan as his dick twitched underneath his boxers. 

“Naughty girl, such a slut even in your sleep…” his chuckle echoed against your bedroom walls, as his fingers dipped in even further, one of them pressing into your hole. 

“Everytime I have to stay away from you, whether it be my job, or your own job, I can feel myself descending into madness–” his words suddenly cut off with a guttural groan, his hips suddenly giving off a sharp thrust.

“I am obsessed with you, you know that right?”

Tears dripped down your eyes, staining your pillows as his words enchanted you, sending great shocks of ecstasy through you. You could feel yourself trembling, only aching for him more and more. His own boxers were sticky with pre-cum, you could feel it oozing onto your satin shorts, slowly mixing in with your own soaked juices. His hand slowly pulled themselves away from your cunt, the sudden loss of pleasure causing your emotions to deflate before feeling that very same hand pulling at the hem of your shorts. You kept as still as possible as his large hands pulled your shorts down around your ankles, revealing your wet pussy. 

“Agh, fuck,” is all he could say as he suddenly sat up for a moment. 

You could hear shuffling in the background, most likely him taking off his boxers, hearing some kind of fabric being thrown in the air and landing on the floor. You felt his hands back on you, before feeling the tip of cock press up against your cunt, slipping and sliding in between your lips, gathering some of your juices. With a final swipe, before you knew it, you felt him press the tip at your pussy, your body trembling as he began to push it. 

“Baby, baby fuck–”

He pushed himself deeper into you, your eyes squeezed shut, your cunt throbbing around him.

“Missed you, missed you so fucking much,”

You had never heard him ramble like that, his usually deep gravelly voice seeped in desperation. His hands gripped at the meat of your thigh, holding your place as he rutted his hips into you. Your lips parted, and the entire area underneath them was drenched with sweat. Your hands tightly squeeze the comforter. The heat was overtaking you, a violent intensity grappling at you. Your thoughts that once ran wild soon became filled with one thought, Shouta. Everything about him was different, the way his voice hit your ears, each syllable easily ripping a new reaction out of you. It was only a matter of time before you lost control before he knew you were awake, feeling everything he was doing to you. 

“My wife, my pretty wife,” he groaned, his hands moving up and about.

“How could I fucking stay away from you?”

With his strength, he moved you about with ease. You no longer lay at your side, but instead, your knees dug into the mattress, your stomach lying against the bed. He pressed his hand against your back, your back arching up against him. He never pulled his cock out of you, staying snug inside you as he positioned you to where he wanted you to be. 

As soon as you were in position, he held no mercy towards you. Pounding away at you, like a man with nothing else to live for at that moment but to ravage you. Tears welled in your eyes as absolute euphoric pleasure took over you, it came as quick as lighting. With the sudden overload on your senses, your control over your actions snapped.

A moan slipped out of your lips, the sound causing him to falter for just a moment. With the wet sound of skin against skin, he leaned down once more, moving his long hair out of his face, finally allowing him to see the tears streaming down your face, your eyes slightly opened, rolled to the back of your head, mouth agape with spit dripping down.

One of Shouta’s hands stayed at your hips while the other suddenly reached down, wrapping around underneath your chin, pulling your body upwards with ease. Your hands propped you up as he pulled your head back, your eyes locking. The position allowed you to see just how frenzied your husband looked. His thick fat cock plunging mg into you, each movement only escalating him more and more.

“How long have you been awake sweetheart? Huh, liked what I was doing to you? Hmm?”

You tried to speak, but the only thing that could slip out of your mouth was pleas if you could even call it that.

“Daddy, Daddy-fuck, it’s too–fuck!” You screeched, gripping at the pillow as your eyes squeezed shut, overcome by the sudden frenzied thrusts your husband was sending your way. 

“Dirty little slut, letting me think you were asleep ? How long were you awake for?”

For a moment, you couldn’t answer him, only focused on the effervescent volcano building up within you. All of a sudden, his thrusts slowed down, causing you to whine as you looked back at his teary eyes. 

“I asked you, how long have you been awake?”

“Since the moment—ahh– you walked in! Since the moment, you walked in, please don’t stop fucking me, Daddy!”

Shouta suddenly pulled all the way out, your cunt only squeezing around the tip of his fat cock, before slamming it back into you, almost hitting and bruising your cervix. Both you and his own moans and groans echoed into the air, mixing together in a beautiful melody. His hand left your chin, your body flopping forward for a couple seconds before suddenly feeling your arms being jerked back. Your moans became scream-like as he grabbed at both of your wrists, suddenly pulling your arms back. 

“Fuck,” he cursed, hissing as he pummeled into you, “so fucking tight–huh, you like the way I fuck you, huh?”

You could barely get any words out, shaking your head vigorously, clenching around him. Every plunge into your cunt devoured you, your husband’s moans and groans had your body trembling. His growls reverberated within your ears, only causing your body to curl in pleasure. 

“I said,” he suddenly cut into your thoughts, your body jerking up even further, “you like the way I fuck you, slut”

“Yes, daddy!”

Shouta’s chuckle was deep, and his thrusts only overwhelmed you even further. You relished in the way your skin took the pain, feeling the bloom and sting tingle all over you. If you could blush, you knew the bottom of your thighs would be blooming red. Your tongue lolled out of your mouth, your eyes rolling out the back of your head. All of a sudden, Shouta dropped your arms, your body flopping, back arching into the bed as his hands gripped at the flesh at your hips and butt. His thrusts became erratic in nature, his already broken-down composure crumbling even further. You could hear his breathy words, soaking in the neediness laced within them. 

“Missed you so fucking much, my wife– my fucking wife.”

“Look so fucking pretty, so fucking senstive f’ me.”

“Missed this pretty fucking pussy, hate how much I have to leave you–fuck!”

Shouta’s body lurched, towering over your own. You could feel his sweat dripping down from his body, falling like light rain into your almost bareback, your thin night-top crumpled up at your bosom. Your hands crumpled up the blankets and sheets underneath you, the feeling of your tongue slightly grazing against the fabric. Your words soon dulled out, the only thing on your tongue was your monas and coherent words putting together the title you called him in bed. You could feel your cunt tightening up around him, like a ticking time bomb going off within you. 

“Such a sweet fucking pussy– fuck–” his body suddenly lunched, the bruising grip he had on your hip tightening. 

Your body convulsed, shaking in his hold as your mind went blank white, tears streaking out of your eyes as your climax ripped out of you, your juices spilling and ripping all over him. 

“Daddy!—”  your final words cut, your voice echoing against the white walls of your room.

With a final grunt, you felt your husband slump over, feeling his dick twitching inside of you, painting your walls white. Soon, the only thing you could hear was the sounds of your heavy breathing, both your and Shouta’s as well. You let out a whimper as you felt him pull out his cock out of you, leaving you with withdrawal. Without him letting go of your hips, your legs fully slumped onto the wet bed. With hands still around you, shrieking as he swept you up from the bed. You held onto him as your husband slowly got off the bed, turning your head to see him slip into your bedroom’s bathroom, using one hand to turn the light on. He placed you on the toilet, before walking to your sink. You couldn't help the soft smile that slowly appeared on your face as you heard the faucet turn on. 

He walked back over with a rag, slowly opening up your legs as you both felt and saw your cum mixed with his, dripping down your inner thigh. He moved the warm rag against your skin, letting out a short gasp as he grazed the rag against your sensitive cunt, cleaning up the main source of the mess. You heard your husband let out a breath of a chuckle, seeing a ghost of a smirk etched on his face. Your soft smile turned abashed as your hand reached up, smacking him slightly on his shoulder. Your brick house of a husband didn’t even flinch from your smack, continuing to clean you up. Soon you could feel nothing but the touch of water on your legs. Once finished, your husband slowly pulled your soaked shorts down the rest of the way, before tossing them into your laundry hamper. With nothing else, he carried you back to the bed. 

The two of you slipped underneath the sheets, his arm easily wrapping your waist as he pulled you close. You had no use of the pillows, using your husband’s naked chest, humming at the warmth that radiated off of his body. Before you knew it, you had laid a soft kiss against the beefy shoulder of your husband, before snuggling back into him. You both heard and felt him move, smiling as you felt a soft pressure against the top of your head, feeling the sensation of lips. With that, you drifted off to sleep, slowly hearing your own husband’s snores echo into her. 

[madelynraemunson]

CALL OUT MY NAME ♛

(Book #2 of the Hellfire Gentlemen's Club Series)

CEO!bachelor!steve × fem!college grad!reader

MODERN AU • 18+ | BOOK #1 (e.m.)

slight age gap (Steve is 31, reader is 23); reader goes by the nickname "Sweets"

CW: slight age gap relationship, drinking, smoking, gambling, physical altercations, manipulation, abuse (DV, emotional, financial, mental), profanities, eventual smut

*loosely inspired by sara cate’s salacious players club*

↳001 (PROLOGUE) // 002 // 003 // 004 // 005 // 006 // 007 EPILOGUE

Summary: 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐋𝐄. Steve Harrington has the WORST luck with the ladies. His high school sweetheart left him for another dude, his former fuck buddy married his roommate, and his dream girl is a lesbian. ‘King Steve’ is losing hope. That is until he meets you — a newly graduated university student from Seattle — when your paths cross on a fateful night in Sin City. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas... that is until your risky business trickles over to Hawkins, Indiana, a town your best friend knows of a little too well.

theme song: call out my name by the weeknd

tag list is open 💌✨

Chapter 001: PROLOGUE

word count: 1.7k words

♛

Winter 2024

“WATCH OUT INDIANAPOLIS — you're about to get... absolutely SOAKED!”

The booming voice of a man in Steve’s bedroom stirs him awake.

Letting out a ferocious yawn, The King rubs his eyes free of the annoying crust in the corner of his sockets, flopping around one more time before doing his routine stretch.

“Google,” Steve commands. “Turn off the TV.”

The TV immediately switches off. It’s nothing personal to meteorologist Marcus Bailey, but if Steve ever needed an accurate forecast of Indianapolis, all he would have to do is look outside his penthouse window. And that, after brushing his teeth, is just what he does.

"G'morning Indy,” he sighs happily on his balcony before going back inside.

Steve then makes his way over to the kitchen to fix himself some breakfast.

“Google,” he calls out again. “Open the curtains, please.”

Google replies:

“Opening curtains. Good morning — Steve.”

"Google, what's my schedule looking like today?" "Google, text Dustin." “Google, what is the weather looking like in Nevada?” “Google, turn on my shower tunes.”

The best thing about not living with Eddie Munson anymore, is that Steve can shamelessly sing Amy Winehouse in the shower without being hounded about it.

“We only saaaid GOODBYE, with WORDS!” Steve sings, confidently off-key. “I died a hundred times! You go back to her, and I goooo baaack toooo…”

"Scanning fingerprint...”

an automated voice announces at the entrance of Steve's walk-in closet.

Swish...

The door slides open. Sauntering his way inside, Steve ventures for some slick black athleisure down to the shoes, his usual musky cologne, and some matching sunglasses (despite the gloomy forecast prediction).

Black. 🎶

Steve Harrington is ready for the day.

---

"Google, make reservations for 3 people at Tony's Steakhouse at 7pm please."

All Steve had left to do for the day now was grocery shop. Which was always a hassle. Because sometimes, the store doesn't have the specific brand he's looking for so the shopper has to opt for an alternate version. Or sometimes, the shopper assigned to him that day chooses produce that is nearing its expiration date making every fruit in his bag a mushy mess. It doesn't happen too often, but it sure feels inconvenient as hell when it does. There are worse problems in life though, so Steve really can't complain.

*Ring, ring. Ring, ring*

The very distinct and custom ringtone has Steve bolting across the room to answer the call. One of his best friends was on the other line.

"Yello?" he says into the phone.

"Hey, it's Shy Girl," comes a voice. "Eddie and I are pulling in."

"Pull off to the side. Valet's got it. I'll send you guys up."

A bottle of cabernet sauvignon a la Steve awaits the pair when they make their way over. Consider it a Tony's pre-game.

"GameWorld stock is up 4% today,” Steve's buddy, and owner of Hellfire Gentlemen's Club Eddie Munson announces as the two clink glasses. "I don’t have much faith in it though, figure I’ll get my pie slices from actual grocery stores. Like Meijer.”

“Everyone's always gonna need groceries,” Steve points out. "Definitely. Just don't day trade. Not now."

"Ooh, you hear that, Eds?" Shy Girl nudges him. "You gotta be careful where you put your money."

"I gotta be careful with my money, period," Eddie smirks. "You're a danger to my pockets, angel."

"Oh but you love me," she says.

"Yeah," Eddie gives in, grabbing his lover's dainty digits, trailing his fingers across hers, and rubbing the glistening rock that took up most of her left hand on the distal side. "I sure do."

"I'm just... so proud of us," Steve sappily reflects. "So much has happened over the past two years and we've all come so far."

"Yeah," Shy Girl agrees. "And it's about fucking time we celebrate."

"I agree," Eddie chimes in, raising his glass once again. "This weekend trip is going to be... one for the books."

"Viva Las Vegas," Steve toasts. "Cheers."

"Viva Las Vegas!"

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Black and red.

They're the two colors that occupy your closet the most. But of course, after graduating from Washington State University (or Wazzu, for short), you expected nothing less.

You could do with some more sequins though, you think to yourself as you pack your bags.

"What do you think of this, Sweets?"

Peering over your shoulder, you see that your best friend, Elle has started festivities early, managing to hold two glasses of champagne in one hand, and six-inch stilletoes in the other.

"Can't take the party out of the girl, that's for damn sure," you respond.

When you left Seattle to attend WSU Pullman, Elle was your only friend in business class. Mainly because the class was predominantly for dudes, but eventually you found out that you two have a lot in common.

Elle is everything you would want in an older sister figure: she is both book smart and wise, she is sexy, and she eats men for breakfast. And, now that she's about to celebrate the launching of her lingerie business (along with her Dirty 30s Era), and you're about to enter your new-grad era, you two are hitting up Las Vegas to go ham together one last time.

It's all so bittersweet. You owe everything to the Warrens, having taken you in when you were a lost undergrad. It also sucked quite a bit not having a support system after graduating high school. You and Elle were all each other has. Which makes this inevitable separation so much more painful.

"Are you sure you're okay with Vegas by the way?" you question. "I know since the split, being surrounded by gorgeous girls 24/7 can kinda be triggering.”

"Don't worry about it, love," she shakes it off. "The past is in the past. This is a new era of me."

Cheers to that. Clinking your airport-pregame champagne glasses with one another, you raise a toast to yourselves, celebrating how far the two of you have come over the past four years.

"To friendship."

"To friendship."

"To being elegant and educated."

"To elegance and education."

"And to being girl-bosses for the rest of our lives."

You giggle as you raise your glass of champagne even higher.

"To being girl-bosses for the rest of our lives," you two take a sip at the same time. "And no matter how near and no matter how far, we're always gonna be besties."

"I love you, Sweets."

"I love you too, Isabelle."

divider from @plum98

🏷️ taglist: @potatobeanpie @xblueriddlex @angietherose @winchester-angel @aactuaaltraash @hugdealer @hazydespair @frostandflamesfanfic @mediocredreams @bl0ssomanddie @corkadymu @eddiesguitarskills @mrsjellymunson @cadence73 @m-chmcl-rmnc @n-slayaaaaa @corrodedcoffincumslut @kennedy-brooke okay i think i tagged everybody

10/23/2024 -- @micheledawn1975 @maisiepotatobeans @1deverland just updating the tag list :))

[rametarin]

Here's a radical, capitalistic idea.

Lets pay children themselves to learn. Suddenly there's an incentive to meet certain goals. Every test they turn back correct, they're paid based on their ability to succeed.

Sign your name at the top? Get paid for that. Show your work? Get paid for that. Orthodox method of determining the solution? Get paid for that. Correct answer? Get paid for that.

And while we're at it, make the school websites accessible by their school laptops 24/7 and allow them to access their textbooks remotely, so they always have access to them. Now there's no excuse whatsoever for not having enough school textbooks for everybody to use, because the school copy is digital and can be copied once by everyone with a school laptop.

Make class time livestreamed, so students can review days they missed that school year. Even watch them at two times speed, so they can just devour through entire weeks in the span of hours and get the full benefit of listening in during class time.

Make automated computer tests that allow students to take them an infinite number of times, and the school accepts only the highest graded answer as the proof in the pudding of acquired knowledge.

You now create incentive for them to be there, and low wage has to compete with the benefits of a "day job" that is being a young student.

Create clear benchmarks and milestones and don't obfuscate the year's classwork just to make sure they spend the whole school year eating the same deviled egg and spinning their wheels with busy work, just to make the public school teachers seem like they're required to entertain children the entire year. That's time gating them and more or less holding them, and their lives, hostage. Let students choose to really slam the schedule of prepared subject matter and bypass the tyranny of only going at the pace of the teacher's lessons.

Create some sort of digital sit-in system to allow young people to watch college level courses without actually being in the classroom.

We don't have an education system. We have a system of people that legally mandate your children MUST be in attendance or else you are in violation of the law, they MUST be paid by the state to keep them there where they can have eyes kept on them, a system MUST be made that makes them provide meals for young people despite their negligent parents' ability to pay for them to eat.

That isn't an education system. It's a violent monopoly that forcefully redistributes public funds, gives the state control and custody over minors during the day, and just privileges certain people in the system. It's not about education of children, at all. It's about monopoly.

An education system should exist to allow an individual to develop at the pace that is correct for them, and only the individual can tell them that. Education at the speed of whatever's convenient for a teacher's union and ideologues in the bureaucracy is not justice nor is it a proper way to create a knowledgeable and intelligent society.

A school can take credit for the education of that child, if that child utilizes the school resources to advance their development. The system we have, it's no different from some sort of patriarchy that the progressives are always yammering about, where the academic success is arbitrarily attributed to how good the dad is at being a dad if they do good, but it's the student's fault if they fuck up.

Our public school system is designed to be incredibly inefficient not for the sake of young people, but for the sake of the system's monopoly over their lives for a window of time. It's not about education, it's about power and control. Legally putting the state on the hook to put them in seats for X-hours a day for Y number of days a year, no matter the outcomes, deliberately fostering weakness.

And here's a great big scary idea: Make it possible to graduate early, and for them to not be beholden to the school anymore.

Do you understand how hard I would've tried if I knew I could just get ages 6 to 18 over and done with and not just have another day of drudgery to look forwards to!? Another ten papers of busywork that offered opportunities to fail and permanently marr my record that I couldn't ever get back or retake? Another test that could tank my academic records and force me to take the whole year over again?

Our education system is ass backwards and horrible and I fucking hate it. It isn't designed to empower and educate people, it's designed to justify a too-big-to-fail system that argues it deserves power over other peoples' children as state property X-hours of the day, and opens them up to vectors of manipulation and exploitation and violence that we just tolerate because we're NOT ALLOWED to be intolerant towards the system's vulnerabilities and exploits.

[spilledinkandtearstainedpages]

The canvas of time

Don't you ever stop to think

We’re just a speck

On the canvas of time

A page in the history book

The fall of the Roman Empire

Is only a couple pages

In our history books

Yet

Generations lived through it

Witnessed the fall

And could do nothing

It makes sense

Why people sometimes call

America

The next Roman Empire

We are slipping

Our hold here not steady

Slowly crumbling

Breaking under the weight

Of selfish

Uncaring

Greedy

Men

Who think

They have a right to

A woman’s body

Who think that

There is no such thing as

Being born in the wrong body

But there is

I was born in the wrong body

About 9% of us were

Now it may seem like a small number

But remember

Some haven’t come out yet

Some haven’t realized it yet

Some can’t find the correct label

So there are more out there

And to get a true grasp—

That's 738 million people out there

Who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community

That’s over twice

The population of the United States

I hear

Racist and stereotypical jokes

Sexist jokes

Homophobic and transphobic jokes

And many more

In my school halls

Yet we have done nothing to stop this

Our pleas and cries

Go unheard as

We let someone

Who hates diversity and equal rights for all—

Not just men and women

But those of the LGBTQ+ community—

Lead

The only threat to

An authoritarian government

Is education

So he plans to cut their budgets

And he’s targeting even more places—

Hospitals, homes, and hopes

Slashing thirty percent from

Health and Human Services

Like it’s nothing but a line

On a balance sheet

Not the last line of defense

For a child’s first meal

For a mother’s medicine

For a town’s only clinic

He aims for Head Start—

No more early learning

For the kids whose backpacks

Are already too heavy

With hunger and fear

No more warmth

In winter nights—

LIHEAP gone

Furnaces silenced

While billionaires burn

Fuel for fun

He guts the mental health funds

Tears pages from the

Teen Pregnancy Prevention playbook

Cuts the lifeline

To rural hospitals

Where help is hours away

Abroad, he shutters embassies

Silences diplomats

And closes doors

On climate, on gender,

On human rights

Nearly half of all aid gone

Like those lives were footnotes

Not people

Not real

He swings the axe

At Education

Erases oversight

Turns schools into silos

Of ignorance

And calls it freedom

Public Broadcasting—cut

He turns off the lights

At PBS,

Snuffs out

The soft voices

That taught us empathy

And critical thought

The libraries?

Eliminated.

The museums?

Shut.

History itself

Torn from the shelves

Like it’s dangerous

To remember

What came before

The protectors of the people—

The CFPB—

Strangled quietly

No one watches

The money anymore

And worst—

He rewrites the rules

Of who counts

As a public servant

Reinstates Schedule F

Turns jobs into

Political puppets

Loyal only

To him

He builds

A new department

DOGE, they call it—

A joke

Until it isn’t

Until 75%

Of the workforce

Vanishes

Led by tech kings

And opportunists

Who dream

Of automation

Not humanity

And still—

We are only

A speck

On the canvas of time

But even a speck

Can burn

Can scream

Can rage

And maybe

We still can

Fight back

Because fire spreads

And the fire in our throats

Becomes chants

Becomes marches

Becomes strikes

And art

And song

And fists raised

In every broken street

From Detroit to Dakar

From Atlanta to Accra

We rose.

The people rose.

Not with guns—

But with books

And banners

And ballots

And barricades built

From protest signs

And the bones of old lies

They tried

To erase us

Tried to silence

Our history

Our queerness

Our color

Our cries

But we are loud.

We are legend.

We are not going quietly.

Teachers held class

On sidewalks

With chalk and defiance

Kids learned their rights

Before they learned algebra

They carried copies of the Constitution

Like sacred texts

Whispered amendments

Like spells

Mothers turned

Food banks

Into battlegrounds

Gardens into resistance

Nurses refused

To let their patients die quietly

Stood in front of shuttered clinics

Held the line

With latex gloves

And tear-streaked masks

Then

Came the flags.

Not just ours.

But blue ones

And red ones

And yellow stars

From nations who remembered

What fascism looks like

When it crawls in through the cracks

Of democracy

The United Nations

Saw the smoke

Heard the stories

Heard us

And not him

They sent peacekeepers

Doctors

Water

Witnesses

Because we needed the world

And the world

Did not forget us

Treaties were signed

Behind the tyrant’s back

Coalitions born

In the ashes of embargoes

And the youth—

Our youth—

Created new maps

With no borders

Only bridges

Hackers took down

His walls of lies

Leaked his scripts

Exposed the machinery

Of hate

Artists repainted

Government buildings

With truth

And glitter

Poets weaponized language

And dancers stomped on silence

Until it cracked open

The dogs of war

Couldn’t hold

Against the heartbeat

Of humanity

Pounding

In perfect rhythm

And somewhere

In the ruins of DC

A child planted

A sunflower

In the bullet-scarred soil

And named it

Hope

[seniorpollinationtechnician]

Meet the Townies: ᴇᴛʜᴀɴ ᴀɴᴅ ɪꜱᴀᴀᴄ

Ethan Harper grew up an only child and spent his formative years immersed in the world of engineering. His fascination with machines and technology was inspired by his father who was a skilled mechanic. While attending high school, Ethan secretly began working on a personal project where he attempted to design and build a robot. He poured countless hours into this endeavor, often sacrificing teenage milestones to tend to this robot he later named ISAAC (Intelligent System and Advanced Assistant Companion). Upon graduating High School, Ethan enrolled at Foxbury Institute where he pursued a degree in Mechanical Engineering. During his time there, Ethan excelled in his studies, consistently earning top marks and impressing his professors with his innovative ideas and dedication to the craft. In his free time, he continued to work on ISAAC since the university's state-of-the-art facilities and access to cutting-edge resourced allowed him to make significant improvements. He refined ISAAC's design, enhanced its capabilities and incorporated the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics. After graduating with honors from Foxbury, Ethan quickly began carving out a professional life for himself. His reputation as a brilliant young engineer opened many doors and he received numerous job offers from leading tech companies. Ethan's expertise eventually caught the attention of the military who offered him a position to develop a project for them. Though he initially hesitated, the opportunity was too enticing to pass up. Despite his professional success and the accolades he received for his work, Ethan felt an intense void in his life that he couldn't seem to fill. His relentless pursuit of perfection in his projects, particularly with ISAAC, often left him feeling isolated. The extensive time he spent in the lab, both during his time at Foxbury and throughout his career, meant that his personal life took a backseat. Ethan's social interactions were limited and he found it difficult to connect with others on a deeper level. His closest colleagues, at one point, noticed and gently encouraged him to step out of his comfort zone and try dating. Ethan reluctantly agreed and while the dates he went on did not lead to a lasting relationship, it helped Ethan open up and see the value in balancing his personal and professional life. As he continued to make strides in his professional career, Ethan was approached by his alma mater, Foxbury institute, with an invitation to teach part-time. The university recognized his achievements and believed that his expertise could inspire and educate the next generation of engineers. Teaching at Foxbury became a profoundly rewarding experience for him. Standing before eager students, he shared his knowledge and passion. He found joy in helping them navigate their own paths and would often encourage them to think creatively and push the boundaries of what was possible. Meanwhile, ISAAC continued to improve every day, becoming an indispensable part of Ethan's life. By this point, ISAAC's capabilities extended far beyond what Ethan originally intended. ISAAC excelled in research assistance, laboratory management, and technical maintenance. The robot could analyze complex data, run simulations and suggest innovative solutions to engineering problems which significantly sped up Ethan's workflow. ISAAC also managed clerical tasks such as organizing files, scheduling meetings, and maintaining equipment, allowing Ethan to focus on more critical aspects of his projects. ISAAC'S home automation features made Ethan's personal life a breeze, as well. The robot could control various smart devices, perform household chores, such as cleaning and grocery shopping, and even cook meals based on Ethan's dietary preferences. Recently, Ethan and ISAAC relocated to the town of Oasis Springs due to a job offer at a cutting-edge research lab.

[versionloop]

heyyy howdy it's erika (s/h, 21+) this time with girlboss coder extraordinaire (debatable) miss shinohara reiko, filling in for the the disaster prodigy label. although as you'll see below, tipping much more into disaster than prodigy atm. you know how it goes — give this a like if you'd like to plot and i’ll make my way into your dms ♡

QUICK FACTS

shinohara reiko, 22, 3rd year ui/ux design + compsci minor, staying at nuri hall. running on iced americanos, delusion, and 32 open tabs

from shizuoka → seoul on a scholarship that said "high potential". she took that personally.

only child to a couple of illustrators! enjoyed the aesthetics side of things (it’s in the bloodline, after all) but stumbled upon scratch one day and never looked back. started with animations, by middle school she was automating her homework and rewriting her school’s club website "for fun"

won a hackathon in her first year with seniors who now work for samsung/hyundai/lg/naver with unlimited pto and crazy signing bonuses. meanwhile she’s still here in yeonhwa… trying to fix a matchmaking algorithm that never meant to matchmake.

fullstack prodigy but she's a girlypop who ultimately chose frontend bc what are apps if they're not fun and pleasant to look at ✨ (we are shallow creatures after all…)

will hoard a sweet corn booth for 6 hours. will fight you if you unplug her charger. if you see her crying over figma, no you didn’t.

TALKTALK / 톡톡

yes, it’s a pun. talk talk meets knock knock meets 똑똑 (smart). she’s insufferable and she knows it

concept: connect local + intl students via language exchange. reality: launched like tinder, not duolingo. status: sunsetted. still cited in girls in tech korea panels.

said app that made her team win a hackathon during her first year, read more about the app here

campus backed them to prototype. they soft launched. people started using it in all ways but intended. catfishing, flirting, fake profiles... you name it

currently rebuilding it quietly as a v2.0 (safer, smarter, cuter!) while pretending it’s not a soft spot. doesn’t want to be a one-hit wonder. but also doesn’t want people to forget it was her.

(sidenote: also has a notes app full of new app ideas she’ll probably never build. it’s fine. she’s fine)

PERSONALITY & MANNERISMS

bc obvi u can read someone based on their birthchart.. scorpio sun, aquarius moon, capri rising (read: crashouts at least once a week)

heavy on the mbti!!!! intj architect queen 😎 altho on the cusp of t/f.. stoic until someone compliments her ui then it's OVER

once said "this button feels emotionally dishonest" in a team meeting and meant it. very matter of fact when speaking, until the brain finally registers and overthinks the repercussions of what she had said

swears she’s logical and pragmatic but panic buys multiple shades of fwee pudding pots when stressed

still gets drained by people but loves humans enough to build for them. makes excuses to leave the room, but also wants you to chase her down the hallway for advice

score oriented. gamifies everything. wears an oura ring to track her sleep schedule and gets pissy when her sleep score drops from 90 to 63 over two days (she insisted on finishing a design.. one more page.. it’s 4am.)

overcommits like it’s a sport. signs up for everything, helps everyone, picks up side projects she never finishes — not because she has time, but because it’s easier to be busy than to admit she’s stuck. gets praised for being productive. dog on fire meme in the inside

terrible posture. insists on using her osoi tote bag to carry her laptop + charger + headphones (still among other things...)

plotting-wise, i'm a huge brainstormer so more than happy to talk through whatever suits our muses best!! to get us started, i have a non-exhaustive potential plots page here — but feel free to share any and all ideas you have outside of these bc i'm all ears ♡

[cosy-crafty-corner]

Royal School of Needlework: First Impressions

The key headline thoughts I want to share are these:

I got more personal tutoring before the first lunch break that I got in the entirety of four modules with School of Stitched Textiles

There's a lot of setup and prep, which means I'm still a long way from actually starting the embroidery part of my embroidery course

Don't sign up the day before the class. Even if their calendar says that there's a space available to book, give at least a couple of days notice.

Unpacking these thoughts a bit more:

I signed up last minute. I went on their website yesterday to see when they would have spaces to work out when I could schedule in my first class, and saw that they had a class today that was showing as having spaces to book. I signed up, figuring that if they allowed booking the day before, then they would have systems in place to make that work.

Nope.

Apparently the security and class lists are all prepared a couple of days ahead of time, so the tutors had no idea I was coming and I wasn't on the security list. The automated email set I would be collected from the security office at 9:45am by a tutor. I arrived a bit early and waited. And waited. The very helpful person on the security desk spent half an hour trying to phone someone to get me sorted out, before eventually radioing in for someone else to walk me up. So I was escorted through the backways of Hampton Court Palace by a couple of security guys who didn't know exactly which room I was meant to be in.

I got there in the end, and everyone was very friendly about it, but then the tutor had to go and find me the starter kit to get me set up because she'd had no idea I was coming. So that would be my main advice if you're thinking of signing up for one of their courses: book several days ahead of time at least.

My day was spent on setup. I came up with my design, which involved copying various traditional design elements, only to be advised to change various parts for one reason or another (don't have three leaves of the same shape because you want to demonstrate variety, don't have those berries so close together because wool's pretty chunky and you don't want them to feel crowded, make that stem thinner or it will take you ages to stitch, etc.). I spent a lot of time drawing, rubbing out, and redrawing before I got to the design I'm going with.

Then I had to start setting up my fabric on the frame. The class is in a traditional, historical style, which means traditional, historical equipment. No quick, plastic clips to hold the fabric on the frame here. I've got one side of my fabric attached and one side pinned, ready to sew into place, to be finished as homework, but I haven't even started on the other two sides, which will be a different method so I need to wait until my next class to be shown that.

The transfer method will be prick and pounce, which I've never done before. I've got my design about half pricked, and I need to finish the rest as more homework.

I still need to work about my stitch plan and colour plan - which is even more homework and will be reviewed by the tutor the next time I go in for a class.

A lot of prep working before I get sewing. Technically I did do some sewing in my sewing class, because attaching the fabric to the frame involves some stitching, but it's not exactly delicate embroidery.

There were about ten people in the classroom working on different modules and in different stages of their progress. I got to watch someone else doing the same module as me who was trying to get it mounted to be sent for assessment. Someone else was stitching on her piece. One of the others was doing goldwork.

Each of us got personal attention from the tutors. There were two tutors (I got the feeling one was more senior than the other) who went around helping everyone in turn. So I got personal advice about my design, and helped with picking colours, as well as being shown the methods for pricking and preparing the frame. Across the six hour teaching day, I wasn't being taught constantly for the six hours, but they would start me off on something and then come back to check in, and if I had a specific question, I didn't have to wait long for them to finish talking to whoever they were currently helping and then spot me waiting.

They were friendly and attentive, and offered me helpful advice.

As I said, the experience was so much better than School of Stitched Textiles. The gap between the two levels of tuition is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. Royal School of Needlework is a bit more expensive but, despite the mess of no one knowing to expect me, the improvement in amount and quality of teaching, even after one class, is SOOOOOO much that it's definitely worth it.

[wysax]

https://wysax.com/blogs/School-Scheduling-Software

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

USP team wins Nuclear Olympiad with project to improve access to radiotherapy in Brazil

The Polythermic Neutrons group, from USP’s School of Engineering (Poli), won the nuclear medicine category in the 2024 Brazilian Nuclear Olympiad, organized by the Brazilian Association for the Development of Nuclear Activities (ABDAN). The competition began in April this year and the winners were announced at the beginning of November at the Nuclear Summit 2024 event, with the theme challenge Cancer treatment: how can Brazil advance in the implementation of new technologies?

“We chose to take part in the medical category because it was something new for us and because we didn’t have much contact with this sector during our undergraduate studies,” says Luana Gomes da Silva, one of the members of the group, from the Materials Engineering course. The team also includes students Álvaro Sant’Anna Ferreira Neto, Enzo Yamamoto, João Pedro Oliveira Glóder Prado and Thais Kaori Yazawa, all from the first class of Poli’s Nuclear Engineering course, entrants in 2021.

They developed NPoli, a suite of software for scheduling medical appointments, exams and radiotherapy sessions, which aims to reduce barriers and speed up the stages of treatment in this area of medicine. “Some of the functions offered by the platform are: Smart Radiotherapy Scheduling; Integration with Exam Regulation and Management Systems; Control Panel for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals; and Automated Notifications and Interactivity with Patients,” explains Luana.

Inspired by the main international private solutions, such as Varian’s ARIA and Elekta’s Mosaiq, and the systems used by the SUS (Unified Health System), such as Sisreg and e-SUS APS, NPoli has a simplified interface, making it easy to use for different audiences, and integrates with the health regulation systems already in place in Brazil. The idea was to create a system that would adapt to the decentralized reality of the SUS, serving both large centers and less favored regions. Another difference is that, unlike private solutions, NPoli’s focus is on inclusion and accessibility, facilitating communication with patients. The platform also offers the possibility of managing the use of hospital resources, such as radiotherapy machines, optimizing their use and reducing waiting times.

Continue reading.

[vivencyglobal]

Experience the Ultimate in School Bell Services in Dubai with Vivency's Automatic Bell System

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User-Friendly Interface: Navigate and control with ease thanks to our intuitive design.

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Elevate your school's efficiency and reliability with Vivency's Automatic Bell System. Discover unparalleled excellence in school bell services today! Learn more

[justforbooks]

Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates

In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting out

Bill Gates is the John McEnroe of the tech world: once a snotty brat whom everyone loved to hate, now grown up into a beloved elder statesman. Former rivals, most notably Apple’s Steve Jobs, have since departed this dimension, while the Gates Foundation, focusing on unsexy but important technologies such as malaria nets, was doing “effective altruism” long before that became a fashionable term among philosophically minded tech bros. Time, then, to look back. In the first of what the author threatens will be a trilogy of memoirs, Gates recounts the first two decades of his life, from his birth in 1955 to the founding of Microsoft and its agreement to supply a version of the Basic programming language to Apple Computer in 1977.

He grows up in a pleasant suburb of Seattle with a lawyer father and a schoolteacher mother. His intellectual development is keyed to an origin scene in which he is fascinated by his grandmother’s skill at card games around the family dining table. The eight-year-old Gates realises that gin rummy and sevens are systems of dynamic data that the player can learn to manipulate.

As he tells it, Gates was a rather disruptive schoolchild, always playing the smart alec and not wanting to try too hard, until he first learned to use a computer terminal under the guidance of an influential maths teacher named Bill Dougall. (I wanted to learn more about this man than Gates supplies in a still extraordinary thumbnail sketch: “He had been a World War II Navy pilot and worked as an aeronautical engineer at Boeing. Somewhere along the way he earned a degree in French Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris on top of graduate degrees in engineering and education.”) Ah, the computer terminal. It is 1968, so the school terminal communicates with a mainframe elsewhere. Soon enough, the 13-year-old Gates has taught it to play noughts and crosses. He is hooked. He befriends another pupil, Paul Allen – who will later introduce him to alcohol and LSD – and together they pore over programming manuals deep into the night. Gates plans a vast simulation war game, but he and his friends get their first taste of writing actually useful software when they are asked to automate class scheduling after their school merges with another. Success with this leads the children, now calling themselves the Lakeside Programming Group, to write a payroll program for local businesses, and later to create software for traffic engineers.

There follows a smooth transition to Harvard, where in the ferment of anti-war campus protests our hero is more interested in the arrival, one day in 1969, of a PDP-10 computer. Gates takes classes in maths but also chemistry and the Greek classics. Realising he doesn’t have it in him to become a pure mathematician, he goes all-in on computers once a new home machine, the Altair, is announced. He and Paul Allen will write its Basic, having decided to call themselves “Micro-Soft”.

The early home computer scene, Gates notes, was a countercultural, hippy thing: cheap computers “represented a triumph of the masses against the monolithic corporations and establishment forces that controlled access to computing”, and so software was widely “shared”, or copied among people for free. It was Gates himself who, notoriously, pushed back against this culture when he found out most users of his Basic weren’t paying for it. By “stealing software”, he wrote in an open letter in 1976, “you prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?” This rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way and still does, at least in the more militant parts of the “open-source” world. But he had a point. And that, readers, is why your Office 365 account just renewed for another year. Fans of Word and Excel, though, will have to wait for subsequent volumes of Gates’s recollections, as will those who want more about his later battles with Apple, though Steve Jobs does get an amusing walk-on part. (Micro-Soft’s general manager keeps a notebook of sales calls, on one page of which we read: “11.15 Steve Jobs calls. Was very rude.”). This volume, still, is more than just a geek’s inventory of early achievements. There is a genuine gratitude for influential mentors, and a wry mood of self-deprecation throughout. Gates gleefully records his first preschool report: “He seemed determined to impress us with his complete lack of concern for any phase of school life.” Later, he explains how he acquired a sudden interest in theatre classes. “Admittedly the main draw for me was the higher percentage of girls in drama. And since the main activity in the class was to read lines to each other, the odds were very good that I’d actually talk to one.” Strikingly, unlike most “self-made” billionaires, Gates emphasises the “unearned privilege” of his upbringing and the peculiar circumstances – “mostly out of my control” – that enabled his career. Adorably, he even admits to still having panic dreams about his university exams. The book’s most touching pages recount how one of his closest friends and colleagues in the programming group, Kent Evans, died in a mountaineering accident when he was 17. “Throughout my life, I have tended to deal with loss by avoiding it,” Gates writes. He says later that if he were growing up today, he would probably be identified as “on the autism spectrum”, and now regrets some of his early behaviour, though “I wouldn’t change the brain I was given for anything”. There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better, a thing that no one has yet seen Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg attempt in public. That alone makes Bill Gates a more human tech titan than most of his rivals, past and present.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

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Smart Automation in Stage Lighting & LED Fixtures: A Game-Changer for Live Events

In today’s world of live shows, concerts, weddings, and big corporate events, one thing has become super important: the lighting. But we’re not just talking about ordinary lights anymore. We’re talking about smart lights that can move, change color, follow people, and sync perfectly with music or video—all by themselves. This is called smart automation, and it’s changing the game in stage lighting and LED setups.

Let's have a look at what it is, how it operates, and why so many event professionals are making the transition.

What is Smart Automation in Lighting?

Smart automation refers to employing technology to automatically switch lights on and off rather than having to change them manually. With a single command or click, an entire lighting system can cycle through color change, move in sequence, or respond to audio. These systems can be pre-programmed or even programmed to change live during the event.

So, rather than someone at a lighting desk pushing buttons for every adjustment, the system recognizes what to do and executes it flawlessly each time.

How Does It Work?

To grasp smart lighting, a couple of straightforward tools behind the magic are:

DMX Control: It is similar to the vocabulary that lighting gear speaks to communicate with one another. This helps the lights, controllers, and other gear to coordinate with one another.

Wireless Control: Most smart systems today use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to communicate. Goodbye, cumbersome long cables everywhere.

Mobile or Remote Access: Lights can be accessed using a tablet or laptop. Some systems even support remote control from another room.

Sensors and AI: Motion sensors can make lights track an individual on stage. Artificial Intelligence can even recommend lighting effects depending on what's happening at the show.

Why Smart Lighting is a Top Choice

There are plenty of reasons that smart lighting is increasing rapidly:

Perfect Timing Every Time

Lights switch on and off exactly when they should—no delay, no error. Whether it's in the middle of a speech, a tune, or a dance, everything unfolds right on schedule.

Improved Creativity

Smart systems enable you to create fantastic scenes. You can achieve mood shifts, glowing effects, moving lights, and a lot more. All this can be achieved with just one touch of a button.

Saves Time and Effort

After programming the lights, they do the work on their own. You don't require a large group to operate them, thus saving lots of time at the time of setting up as well as during the event.

Works from Anywhere

Since it's wireless and remote-capable, technicians can update it in a snap, even when they're not on stage.

Real-Life Examples

You find yourself at a concert. The performer comes out onto the stage. The lights suddenly darken, a spotlight trails the performer, and flashing colored lights caper in the background—all tastefully in time to the rhythm of the song. That's intelligent automation at work.

Or maybe you’re watching a fashion show. As each model walks down the runway, the lights automatically shift to highlight them, while LED screens show matching colors and designs. It’s smooth, stylish, and all automated.

Good for Big Events AND Small Ones

The good news? Intelligent lighting isn't reserved for huge stadium concerts. Even smaller events such as school events, church services, or birthday parties can benefit from this technology. There are easy systems to get that are simple to learn and not expensive at all.

You can begin with a few smart LED lights and a simple controller or app. After getting comfortable, you can expand with more features in the future.

What to Remember Before Getting Started

If you're considering incorporating smart lighting, here are some key points to remember:

Check for Compatibility: Ensure that your lights and control systems are compatible.

Learn the Fundamentals: Simple programming can lead to huge differences.

Build a Solid Network: A stable wireless connection is crucial.

Stay Safe: Lights and trusses weigh or heat up—ensure proper installations.

And also, it's best to purchase your equipment at professional audio stores. They will advise you on what is best and provide you with quality equipment that performs better and lasts longer for your events and even installation and setup services so that buyers don't have to deal with the technicality.

What's Coming Next?

Technology is advancing quickly. Smart lighting's next big thing is interaction systems. These lights can adapt to the crowd's movement, respond to the noise of clapping or cheering, and even adjust to the mood of a space. Some lights can be operated with voice commands or motion detectors.

Artificial Intelligence is also joining the party—there are systems that learn from run-throughs and can adjust the lighting for the next show automatically. Stage lighting in the future is promising and bright.

Before You Go

Intelligent automation of stage lighting and LED light fixtures is more than a bells-and-whistles upgrade—it's an intelligent investment for anyone producing live events. It gets your show to look more professional, conserves time, and permits greater creativity.

Whether you are organizing a concert, wedding, school play, or corporate event, intelligent lighting enables you to provide an unforgettable experience for your audience. With some planning and proper equipment, you can enhance your lighting game to the next level.So if you're organizing your next function or just wanting to upgrade your setup, it's a good time now to look at smart lighting. It's simpler than you might imagine—and it's worth it.