#does android have group messaging

[iwritestuffthatiobsessover]

Ninjago Headcanons from an elder fan

Part 1

There is a group chat, and it pops off all hours of the day. And often the conversation is being texted in all caps, or voice messages of the ninja yelling at each other.

Skylor was added to it but left because there were too many notifications while she was working.

Zane will take selfies in the middle of the battle and send it to the group chat

Nya begs him to stop doing it but Zane thinks it's hilarious

Kai is a material girl; he does his skincare, haircare, and body care and will often pester Nya about where she goes to fix herself up for dates.

Ninjas who ride cycles also wear helmets, which increases their attractiveness by 200%.

Lloyd has taken on the man bun. Yes, it does work out for him.

Jay is severely underrated. He's strong, average-sized, and has freckles all over. This dude is a ninja and commonly climbs high places to practice his element. He's got to have that nice upper body strength.

Cole's the tallest, heaviest, and strongest. He's pure muscle, but he's also a gentle giant when he's not in battle. Even sparring, he'll go easy in an effort to not hurt his friends.

He will, however, pick Jay up and just carry him out of the room if he gets too aggravating.

Nya will still tinker with mech, and often spends time with Pixal doing so. They're lesbians, and Nya taught Pixal how to be more self-assured and independent.

Pixal's life revolved around serving other people, and she had to be taught how to serve herself.

Zane and Pixal are similar to how the D:BH androids function. They can download any file, and research anything, but once it comes to human experiences and emotions, they have to take their time and learns from being hands-on.

That's why it took so long for Zane to catch on to simple emotions and phrases, and why he still has trouble even if he's made improvements.

Zane and Nya are close friends, they were the oddballs before Lloyd showed up.

Nya and Lloyd are also really close because of this, and while as a child he loved to annoy her, he actually really looked up to her.

Babysit isn't the proper wording, but Nya definitely looked after Lloyd and taught him the basic functions of how to take care of himself.

Kai as well, the Smith's were the closest thing to a pair of siblings Lloyd could've had growing up, and their bond still stays strong.

Lloyd still clings onto remnants of his short childhood. He will do things to heal his inner child.

There's articles and social media posts catching him swinging on a swingset with Cole, or getting icecream with Kai. He'll even go to a comic-con or two...or ten.

While the ninja aren't necessarily paid for their efforts, the city will give them a check every so often whenever Ninjago is saved by a big baddie.

However, if there are casualties or if the city is destroyed (Ex. The Great Devourer), that money will go back into repairing the city.

But, Nya keeps the finances in check, and knows how to haggle for anything the team may need (she threatens the salespeople).

But even with the extra money, some will seek a second responsibility. Pixal will do hybrid part-time jobs, and Jay will pick up a delivery contract for example. Something to take a break from daily training and punching bad guys.

They still have their golden weapon vehicles because I said so, and I like people on motorcycles. They also have spare backups that Nya has built from scratch. She almost strangled Jay for crashing that one.

And yes, Nya has a motorcycle, too.

But all in all, they've found each other as family, and it's ride or die with all of them. Especially Zane.

[starstruckbyacomet]

Brilliant Minds vs. 9-1-1

A True Lover vs. an Abusive Lover

A post from @bugboybuck about how Brilliant Minds is telling a queer love story (Wolf x Nichols) compared to 9-1-1 (Buck x Tommy) intrigued me. If anyone interested, here's a playlist of Wolf x Nichols' story on YouTube:

A. SIMILARITIES & DIFFERENCES

There are things in the Wolf x Nichols's love story which are similar with Buck x Tommy's of 9-1-1:

Dr. Josh Nichols (a.k.a. Nichols) is a gay man in his 40s.

Nichols is a military veteran, who survived the DADT era.

There's a period when Nichols didn't appear on screen.

Nichols broke up with Dr. Oliver Wolf (a.k.a. Wolf) when their relationship was still new.

Sound familiar?

And here's how Brilliant Minds is telling its queer love story better differently:

1)) Interactions between Wolf and Nichols are front and center. They're collaborating a lot in handling high risk medical cases. It helps that both Zachary Quinto (who plays Wolf) and Teddy Sears (who plays Nichols) are main casts, like Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva in Lone Star. Thus, Wolf x Nichols' relationship is treated more like Tarlos' relationship than Tevan's.

2)) Wolf fought for their relationship. Brilliant Minds depicts Oliver Wolf as a genius and relentless doctor. Wolf does anything and everything for his patients. He broke a bunch of hospital rules, challenged the head of neurosurgeon (Nichols), took a patient out of hospital right before a scheduled surgery to grant the patient's last wish. Even when a patient gave up and wanted to die, Wolf didn't give up. Thus, when Nichols broke up with him, Wolf also didn't give up. He fought for another chance with Nichols.

Wolf's attitude is very much in contrast with Buck's. On episode 4x05, Athena has said that being Buck meant never give up. However, Buck's attitude after Tommy broke up with him is pretty much giving up their relationship.

3)) Nichols' presence could be felt even when he was not on screen. When Nichols had to attend a medical conference out of the city, his name was mentioned in conversations. Wolf had been sending him voice messages (Wolf didn't have a mobile phone), until finally Nichols sent Wolf a mobile phone as a gift. Wolf was also seen receiving a call from Nichols using his brand new mobile phone. Each of those scenes only last a few seconds, and Nichols was not physically present in them, not even his voice was. However, the audience could feel his presence, and feel that their love story is continuing.

How is this contrast with the way 9-1-1 treated Tevan? Oh, where should I begin? @do-androids-dream-ao3acc has posted signs that the show has undermined Tevan's relationship once Season 8 started, even before the break up:

Nobody ever mentioning Tommy, not even Buck.

Not one kiss in all of those episodes, except the fleeting cheek kiss in the break-up episode.

Six months and still no obvious inclusion of Tommy (back) into the 118 group, except when he was accompanying Buck who was waiting for Denny's surgery in the hospital.

After the break up, the signs are even more clear:

Buck was flustered when talking with a woman during his anniversary date with Tommy. Despite making Buck seemed rude and tactless, what is the actual purpose of this scene? It seems to remind the audience that Buck is still attracted to women, hence laying the ground for Buck's rebound relationships which most likely will involve women.

Buck didn't seem to mourn the break up. He was channeling his supposed brokenheart into baking, but he didn't seem to be grieving. He seemed anxious/upset when talking about Tommy, but not mourning or depressed. His demeanor even back to normal on the scenes when he didn't talk about Tommy, like on emergency scenes, or while watching Hotshots together with his team. Heck, Tevan fans have been grieving the relationship more than Buck has.

They made light the break up by having Buck baking. The show might want to emphasize the 'comedic' side of this supposed 'romcom'. However, it came off as tone-deaf since the audience was grieving more than Buck was.

People close to Buck seemed to want him to move on instead of to be back together with Tommy. In Season 7, Bobby said Tommy was good for Buck, and Henren asked Tommy about his intention with Buck. However, after the break up, no one seemed to talk to either Buck or Tommy about it. They even took Buck's phone away in one ocassion, prevented Buck from contacting Tommy and having a discussion with him like adults.

B. THE MIXED SIGNALS

Despite the above negative signals, the show has also been giving baits positive signs about the possibility of Tevan's reunion:

Buck is still in a baking frenzy because he is supposed to be still thinking about Tommy.

#TommybubblesBuck in episode 8x07 "Hotshots".

In a Screen Rant article, Tim Minear blatantly mentioned about the possibility of characters' return, including Brad and Tommy without promising anything concrete.

So far, we have been receiving mixed signals about Tevan's reunion:

If they haven't planned for Tevan's reunion, why did they show #TommybubblesBuck? It would be easier if they showed that Tommy went cold turkey on Buck.

If they've planned for Tevan's reunion, why didn't they made the 118 family showed more concern/support on the relationship? It would more make sense if Bobby/Hen/Maddie encouraged Buck to talk to Tommy.

If they have planned for Tevan's reunion, WHY DID THEY SEND MIXED SIGNALS AT ALL???

It is clear that Tevan's relationship is popular. Their kissing scenes went viral...twice, and the unusual amount of complaints about the break up indicates that even some parts the General Audience want them to be together. The queer love story has also attracted new viewers to the show, some of them are among us in this fandom. If they've planned for Tevan's reunion, there is no use in giving negative signals. It could even make people misunderstand and stop watching the show, thinking that Tevan has broken up for good.

Sending mixed signals becomes made sense when we realize that THEY ACTUALLY DIDN'T PLAN TO MAKE TEVAN REUNITED.

There's already one established queer couple on the show: Henren. Having another queer couple incures a risk of upsetting the majority of the audience. However, due to its popularity, making the break up permanent also incures a risk of losing a part of audience, who has been watching the show mainly for Tevan.

The safest way to keep most of the audience is by giving the majority what they want, while implying other things to the 'non-majority, but-quite-significant-in-number' audience. It is possible that they plan to do tommybaiting until near the end of this season, before finally showing Tommy up to bait the audience to watch the next season. After all, they've been baiting Buddie stans for 6 years and counting. They made Buck admired/envied Eddie's physique. They made Maddie teased Buck about his boycrush on Eddie. They made a stranger in Santa Clause costume thought that Christopher was Buck & Eddie's son. They made Buck Christopher's legal guardian, although insisted in an interview that it was a platonic gesture. They made Eddie showed up in front of Buck, right after TK implied that Buck was queer. They made Eddie talked about beard, right after he mentioned that he was straight. They made Buck sat next to Eddie in his underwear on 8x06. They've been giving mixed signals to Buddie stans all these years, to keep them watching & supporting the show, without ever making Buddie canon. They could apply the same strategy to a slightly different group of audience.

C. THE ABUSIVE LOVER

@hunter470 has pointed out how bad the show has treated Tommy and Tevan's love story overall. It is even more obvious when being compared to the way the show treated Brad Torrence, the fake captain of Hotshots. I hadn't fully comprehended how bad it was, until I watched Wolf x Nichols' love story in Brilliant Minds, then compared it to Tevan's. It is similar like being in an abusive relationship. You didn't know how bad you've been treated by 9-1-1, until you experience what a healthy relationship with Brilliant Minds can give you.

At this point, I'm convinced that only a risk of losing audience could move the show to make Tevan reunited. The rating of 8x08 "Wannabe" is better than 8x07 "Hotshots", so I don't know whether us boycotting the show would be effective or not. Probably not. However, I plan to keep boycotting, for the slight chance of it'll help making Tevan reunited sooner, and to retaliate their deceitful way of baiting more viewers by promising a properly handled queer love story.

[canmom]

music and narrative {[0]}

so. as part of the ongoing music researches, I've for a while wanted about the relation between music and narrative. that's going to be a long project! but to begin with I wanted to run down the examples I know, and maybe solicit a few more~

now, on some level, nearly any song has some degree of narrative. your basic love song introduces us to some characters - singer, object of their affection - and furnishes them with emotions and desires. moreover, music can play a role in a narrative without literally relating events - indeed, the art of soundtrack design is definitely a subject I want to look into at some point. even songs addressed directly at the real world, such as political songs, construct some kind of narrative.

however, for these purposes, I'm interested in songs that go a bit further in the direction of telling a fictional story, especially when those link together into whole albums (sometimes called a concept album, though this is a slightly broader concept). which can work in a lot of ways!

for example, Janelle Monae's The ArchAndroid tells a sweeping scifi story of an android fleeing an oppressive society and becoming an unintentional figurehead of revolution. it sketches out a wide-reaching set of influences in constructing a scifi world, but you'd be hard-pressed to boil it down into a simple series of events - it prefers to leave a lot to interpretation. by contrast something like Splendor & Misery by clipping. deals with kinda similar subject matter - a scifi story, an escaped slave, artificial intelligence - but with a different musical approach and perhaps a slightly clearer narrative arc; sometimes directly narrating the thoughts and actions of characters, or slipping into memory, but also drawing less direct musical parallels with e.g. gospel tracks and slave spirituals. both excellent albums - both solve the problems of conveying a story musically in different ways.

of course, the largest pool of examples here comes in the context of musical theatre, and further back opera. (the exact transition from one to the other is something I'm going to need to research). particularly interesting to me are sung-through musicals such as Les Misérables, in which there's no spoken sections in between the songs. this restriction means the songs (and staging etc.) have to do all the work of conveying the events of the story.

there's a lot to be said about the various traditions of musicals (for example). there's even more to be said about the history of opera - both the Western traditions and other musical traditions that have been given the label such as Chinese opera. but that will have to wait for later day in the project because otherwise this entire post would be a huge list of musicals, and I want to try and wander all over the shop.

what I'm most curious to find is music that tells a story all on its own - no actors or staging, but more similar to oral narration. of course, in the present era, music is often released along with videos, and these can tell quite elaborate stories that will become part of the overall 'message' communicated by the song, so the lines are a bit blurry! but since the aim of this series will be to look for ways to convey narrative using music, I'm looking for examples where the music does most of the heavy lifting.

music that tells stories is something with a looong tradition in folk music, pretty much the world over. in Europe, the ballad was a common form for it, a word that survives into the present. it seems that most cultures have had some kind of tradition of wandering itinerant musician-poets - for example, at various points in history, there were biwa hōshi in Japan (pictured) and griots in West Africa, medieval Europeans had minstrels, the Celts had bards, the Occitans had troubadors...

moreover, work and marching songs such as sea shanties would also have a certain degree of narrative to them, in addition to their main function of keeping a group moving in time.

in modern times, people will sometimes attempt to reconstruct how this kind of music and lyric poetry would have been performed. you can naturally only go so far with the archaeological evidence, but I'm fond of Peter Pringle's recordings of segments of the Epic of Gilgamesh, using period instruments if not necessarily a period musical style!

in the modern age of recorded music, these traditions have become much more niche, but there are still artists who use music as a vehicle to tell a fictional narrative. (fair warning: I'm a huge nerd, so most of the examples I know are like, supreme nerd shit. also about ten years ago I was given an assortment of metal from a friend which included a bunch of what I'm about to put below.)

to begin with I've naturally got to talk about my friend Maki Yamazaki (Dr Carmilla) and the band she founded but later left, The Mechanisms. They tell a story of a sprawling gothic scifi universe, with the band playing the role of travelling space pirates who observe the (invariably tragic) tales that unfold. The Mechanisms' music starts as folk song pastiche, but gradually gets more original, although narratively they keep the approach of crossing over mythology with genre storytelling (fairy tales as space opera, arthuriana as space western).

The Mechanisms got a significant measure of international fame washing back after their frontman Johnny Sims got really big on some podcast or something.

Maki's solo music as Dr Carmilla took things in (from a narrative sense) a more abstract direction, using elaborate production and an incredibly textured sound to tell a (so far!) fragmentary story of the tragic space vampire Dr Carmilla and her doomed relationship with another vampire Lorelei (for example). And I'm gonna have lots more to say about them all, in the future, but this is just an overview so let's not get ahead of ourselves!

In a related vein (though I'm much less familiar with them) comes indie band Decemberists, who often create narratively driven songs - for example, The Mariner's Revenge Song depicts a sailor's motivation for extracting bloody revenge on someone who wronged him, with the actual violence conveyed by an energetic instrumental break. A subject that reminds me of the Clockwork Quartet, now long gone, who managed to record just three of their songs from a larger project, yet stand out as way more interesting than most of the steampunk milieu - with for example The Clockmaker's Apprentice giving a very fun antihero-revenge narrative to the ticking beat of a clock, and The Doctor's Wife a compelling tragedy of desperate medical science.

There's definitely something in common with this type of storytelling and the subgenre termed rock opera, which has a pretty long history going back to the late 60s (SF Sorrow by Pretty Things and The Story of Simon Simopath by Nirvana, thanks wikipedia), with notable examples including some incredibly popular albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall (which was adapted into a partly animated film using animations by Gerard Scarfe, c.f AN86) and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade. In many of these, the connection between songs and narrative is fairly abstract and metaphorical - most of the examples mentioned are about the psychological arc of one character.

Calling this a genre or subgenre is kind of a stretch recently - just in those four examples we see a pretty wide range of musical styles, so it's more like an approach to album writing. Still, for want of a better word, there's definite overlap between this 'genre' and musicals. For example, the history on wikipedia cites The Rocky Horror Picture Show as an example of rock opera, which in my head it's just a musical. (Anyway, exactly the taxonomy of regular opera/libretto, rock opera and musical theatre is not that important anyway, because we want to look at the techniques of all of them!)

A more direct narrative comes in the work of The Protomen, who have the 'no way that would work' premise of creating a huge, dramatic, emotional story based on the plot of the Mega Man games. By putting the focus on the tense relationships of the fought main characters (scientists Light and Wily and robot boys Proto Man and Mega Man), and their sense of rejection and betrayal by the broader society, they somehow pull it off.

Moving gradually in the direction of (progressive) metal, we encounter Ayreon, whose entire career has been telling psychedelic and occult stories of time travel, aliens, warnings projected into the past, out of body experiences, and the history and direction of humanity. I'm not sure if all of their albums fit together into one big story exactly, but certain ideas seem to keep coming up - for example, future societies or aliens sending warnings to humanity to fix our shit before it's too late. In some of their albums (e.g. The Electric Castle) they follow the device of having each member of the band play a character in an ensemble cast, bringing it a bit closer to something like a radio play.

Also in metal land we find the rather unique project Charlemagne: By The Sword and the Cross, best known for that time Christopher Lee shed the blood of the saxon men. This is using music as a vehicle for a (more or less) historical story, featuring an old Charlemagne (Lee) reminiscing on the various awful things he did over the course of his life. Apparently they made a sequel to this album, which I never realised!

As well as history, metal also likes to lean on literature and poetry. For example, Kamelot (classed, apparently, as 'Power Metal') have a rather fun adaptation of the story of Faust into two albums, Epica and The Black Halo. Iron Maiden famously took on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in a 13 minute song. And that's not even to get into all the songs dealing with Tolkien.

Moving on from metal before we start listing a hundred songs about vikings, it's worth looking more broadly for music about history, since it's a pretty major overlap with fictional storytelling! For example, the Boney M song Rasputin tells an incredibly catchy account of the assassination of Grigori Rasputin. Another rather more charged example comes in Nakam by Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, about the unsuccessful paramilitary plot to poison six million Germans as revenge for the Holocaust.

If you go looking, you can find an impressively long list of historical songs compiled by 30 users of lyrics website Genius - though many of these I feel don't really count, since they were describing contemporary events when they were written.

Of course, there is a heavy overlap between this subject and political songs - in many cases the historical subjects are invoked to comment on the present. For example, Wernher von Braun by Tom Lehrer was written at a time when von Braun was leading the US space programme. In many cases, the songs simply invoke a historical event to express a feeling, assuming you already know what happened. Others may recount events more or less directly, before seguing into a verse or two at the end about why it matters now. Most of the songs in this list focus on recent (20th-century) history, sometimes they reach further back - mostly to talk about colonialism.

Historical songs can also be quite oblique. For example, Mili's song Salt, Pepper, Birds and the Thought Police is about the life of Korean poet Yoon Dong-ju, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the content of the lyrics unless you were already familiar with Yoon's life. More on Mili in a moment - most of their songs are more fictional.

One thing I'm curious about is whether there are examples of more historical fiction in music, which tries to imagine the thoughts and feelings of historical characters... well obviously there's Hamilton, and perhaps that illustrates why there aren't a lot more songs about non-recent history, because the vibes can be off.

Storytelling is still a powerful mechanism even in a contemporary, political song. Take Construção by Chico Buarque - the story it tells is of the pointless death of a construction worker; with the lines ingeniously remixed over the course of the song, this turns into a wider illustration of the ruthlessness of the system that killed him. Its lyrics are absolutely fucking genius, even if you don't speak Portugese.

Speaking of language, most of the examples I've covered so far are in English, since well, that's my native language. It's naturally a little harder to access a story in a language you don't speak, but in these days of subtitles, we kinda can! So for example I can encounter projects like MILGRAM, something of a combination of music project and voting-driven story, in which we are introduced (by character song) to a number of characters facing execution - and then invited to vote on who should die. Heavily illustrated, it is somewhere vaguely in the space between album and straight-up anime.

I mentioned Mili already, but many of their other songs have a strong narrative arc to them, and sketch out the contours of a fictional setting. For example, one of their best-known songs is world.execute(me), which portrays the failure of a bdsm relationship between an AI girl and her creator. Which is relatively grounded by Mili standards - other songs depict for example the relationship of a jiangshi and a mad scientist cooking food, or a witch reanimating a knight with scientific methods to kill on her behalf.

And I think that will suffice for now. But we are of course only scratching the surface - this is by no means supposed to be an exhaustive list but I'm sure there's stuff that I'll be kicking myself for not mentioning. Mostly, however, this is a request for recommendations - particularly, of music from genres I haven't addressed in this post, and especially non-English languages, or that convey their stories in especially creative or unusual ways.

This project will likely be a long time in the works - it's something of a supplement to the Music Theory Notes (for science bitches) series - but my aim will be to pick out a few of these to examine how they go about conveying narrative through songs. Because I think that's kind of one of the big things I want to do with music.

ok canmom out i gotta go play some music. see you next time!

[viletty]

NEED HELP FINDING A FAKE TEXT GENERATOR!!!

Does anyone know of a good fake text generator where:

I can download screenshots to put them in my written story

Both the sender and recipients name is shown in the messages

has the option for group messages

can add profile photos (and shows up when "texting")

shows a full screen even if there's only one message

shows that little cut off bit of the last message it the text thread is long like with a real text thread

APPS, APK'S AND WEBSITES WELCOME

even if it doesn't have all of this, the colored text is what I'm mainly looking for

I have an android phone but even if the app is for iPhone, i think i can find an apk somewhere.

[saiintvalentiine]

hello dear saint!

may i ask you what is AS/AS? and who is aine/ai?

sniffling pathetically. AS/AS stands for All Star/After Secret which are two of the PSP entries for an old otome game series called Uta no Prince-Sama. Currently it lives on as a mobile rhythm game called Live Emotion.

Aine and Ai are introduced in AS (along with the rest of quartet night, the idol group Ai is in) though Aine has basically been written entirely out since then. basically their plotline is that Aine was a super famous and successful idol, but he was deeply depressed and one day drove his car off a cliff into the ocean to die. he didn't die, he was rescued but he was in a coma and then this is where it goes off the rails crazy: Aine's boss commissions Aine's uncle (robotics expert) to build an android idol based off of Aine. This is Ai. It is canon that Ai is connected to Aine, basically "stimulating" him mentally with his experiences, and it's dubiously canon that Aine can send messages back to Ai. my headcanon is that he can and he's a spiteful bitch who makes Ai's life miserable and tries to get him to also kill himself bc he hates that he's still alive (though again thru dubious canon in I believe Reiji's route Aine might actually already be up and walking around bc of the clap thing?). utapri fucking sucks ass tho do not recommend at all the music does go crazy the unit songs have gone quadruple platinum in my bedroom fr

I'm really so normal about them. i prommy. i prommy I'm normal about Ai and Aine.

[siyelius]

I wanna hear your headcanons about Josh and dynamic he has with Markus

oh shoot I love that guy he’s so underrated. I love how bold and unapologetic he is of his opinons. This’ll be long so I’ll try and section it off:

if you’ve got any you’d like to add I’d love to discuss !!

- his arms seem clean by the time his intro comes around, so given his backstory of having been beaten by drunk college students I’d assumed by then he’d have replaced or healed from most physical damages. then again, I still hc his torso endowed with soldered bullet wounds and plasticine chassis slightly warped from the heat caused by explosives in BfD.

- his baseline for his opinions stems from his past occupation as a professor. He was built to be a walking textbook, he’d be most knowledgeable on civil rights protests and how minority groups reacted to oppression as it was literally ingrained in him from creation. His insistence of refraining from human casualties and making a stand even if it meant the death of many androids is a mirror image of how various peaceful protests throughout history were carried through.

- due to his strong voice, he probably oversees the wing of jericho relating to intel and underground recruitment. he’s able to broadcast on a mass scale (projecting functions / specialized hardware) and is responsible for relaying hidden messages to guide deviants safely into jericho through methods invisible to the naked human eye. he’s quite talkative, so he fills in the goal of jericho to deviants markus may have freshly converted. like a guide. (this is more speculation, but I’d like to think Jericho’s old symbol being a monkey’s wrench was his idea as it references the railroad.)

- josh probably finds comfort in knowing his words are genuinely heard by the people of jericho, compared to the ignoring and abuse he was victim to while instructing at college. the students saw his lectures as nothing more than a boring youtube video spoken verbally as a lazy excuse for an actual, human professor to not be teaching instead. In jericho, he’s seen as both a person and a superintendent, so he’s respected and listened to by other androids. and they recognize that josh’s information isn’t regurgitated from the internet, but of his own experiences and thoughts.

- relating to bonds, while north paired herself with markus constantly id say josh grew close with simon if not already been close previously. he acts as si’s voice quite a lot in Jericho’s chapter, and he wears a university sweater that may have been tied to josh. they were both paired off together on multiple occasions (Stratford, together in the cyberlife warehouse truck, and possible capital park team), so it’s safe to say they probably work well together.

// DYNAMIC WITH MARKUS

I truly believe it fluctuates depending on which Markus decision-wise. Peaceful Markus seems as the most favorable choice to win Josh’s full approval, but his respect and support are on two different fences to me as shown by the argument he can kick up at the beginning of Crossroads. he supports Markus’ choices, but he doesn’t necessarily approve of them. He doesn’t like the deaths of unaffiliated humans, or any who were caught in the crossfire of their missions and he’s not afraid to voice his strong opinions on those matters. yes josh will kill and harm humans, but only if they’re directly involved with their cause and in the moment (ex. the armed forces he’s shot at in both Stratford and fought in freedom march in self-defense).

He clashes with Markus, but I believe it’s out of respect and as an attempt to display his thoughts on the matter. It does no good to blindly follow a leader if you believe their methods are flawed / in need of calling out. and Josh does just that. he also clashes with north quite often, and simon too. no one is safe from josh’s opposition. It just shows that markus has just a chance as any to hear Josh’s words, because what good is improvement if not begun with criticism? It’s why I love josh and some hate him, what others see as him being annoying I see as a necessity both gameplay-wise and in terms of their personalities. Yes his logic is flawed. But so is north’s and Simon’s. All three are from different backgrounds and have different reasonings for how they view humans. If josh believes something is wrong you’re damn right he’s gonna say something. That’s why he’s awesome.

[secretsandwriting]

What app do you use for your social media aus?? It’s so good

Thank you!!

I'm on android so idk if they're on the apple store, but these are the apps i use + the reasons why i like them + 1 website i use

Twinote (twitter)

YOU CAN SAVE CONTACTS!!!!

And have a ton of contacts!!!

If you watch an ad you can have no ads for 12 hours (you can also pay but free options are better)

It looks so nice

Switching between profiles is really easy

As well as making and editing ones as well

Has a little bit of a learning curve but is pretty straight forward and easy to do

Memi messages (texts)

CAN SAVE MULTIPLE PROFILES!!!!

There is a limit to number that can be in group chats (9 i think??) But its not too bad. You can pay for the option to add more i think?

Easy to switch between profiles

Looks nice!

Also has a small learning curve but again its not bad at all.

I do get annoyed with the fact you cant do the time difference time stamp thing but that could just be me not knowing how to do it.

Zeoob.com (instagram)

Can be a little annoying to use but looks so good

Cannot save profiles but its pretty simple to do it but it is a little time consuming

I would prefer an app but i havent found a single one thats even as close to as good as zeoob

If you want all the pictures to be the same size like instagram does, you'll have to crop them yourself

It does have options for a whole bunch of otber social medias, i think I've used the snapchat one before. Like a long time ago

Anyways its good quality, just a little time consuming and annoying to fill out.

I use Pinterest for most of my photos and canva for when i need to edit any photo

I think thats it? Anyways, hope this helps and if you start making smaus tag me!! I'm always looking to read some!

[jinksyweirdo]

Day 7: Personal OW Aus.

OW Aus. Definitely 🤩. I only have like 1-5 Aus -3-". Sooo, summary on each of them ;3;

1 ) AIB X OW

In case some of you don't know AIB; AIB/Alice in Borderland is a live action/anime/manga series that people have to play games for their lives. It's like Squid Game but the only award is Visa (aka, the amount of days that you can live without playing a game.) Each game has a difficulty level and suit based on the card the player is playing.

Heart = Emotional and psychological test.

Spades = Psychical

Diamond = Intelligence and Logic test.

Clubs = Teamwork

In this small au of mine, the group sadly had to go through the games to live on. They survived three games but unfortunately, their moments were short lived when they played a Hearts game. The difficulty level was Nine as they only played the game because Iggy needed more days on his visa. In the game, they were with eight other people and uh it didn't end well. Let's just say that Iggy was the only one who walked out that night along with three other players.

I thought of this crossover AU a while back after rewatching the series that I was planning to make a video based off of but never got the chance to due to a lot of work and stuff. BUT I did draw this cringe ahh sketch angst of it :3

(Did I mention that one of the other players killed Genzou out of greed-)

2 ) Spy! Au

I talked about my thoughts of this personal au of mine, and how I think each character fits into the roles.

The story is mostly about a Loser Rookie agent (Iggy) getting sent out to grab a mysterious package without further information. Unfortunately, it led to Iggy's life being endangered as the package has something that every gang is out to get. How is Genzou involved? Heh.

Uhm. Sooo, due to Genzou being a framed-ex agent turned Mercenary, etc, etc, he was also tasked to get the package by some anonymous user. ;3;

Enough about the lovey doveys!

Orlam and Gidget had made an alliance due to the supplies that both have to offer. Orlam needs the tech as Gidget needs weapons and Intel about certain people.

Now onto Bucks and Hunar. Those two were school sweethearts but since Bucks has become a Hit-woman, Hunar feared the safety of Saydie, which led the two to have a break into their relationship. Obviously, Hunar lets Saydie see Bucks whenever it's safe...but that's rarely.

3 ) Anomaly AU

Honestly, this is like a SPOOKY MONTH 👹 au but mostly after a tragic news about disappearances happening everywhere and theories about a lab accidentally letting loose these creatures that can shape shift into anything or anyone.

One night, due to Iggy hearing noises in his house for two weeks, he had messaged Genzou about it and didn't feel safe. After minutes that flew by and Genzou hadn't answered his message. Fortunately, Iggy would hear Genzou knocking on his front door, calling for him. Or so he thought.

I might try and make a comic strip about this AU in October or maybe a few days from now but other than that, this AU is heavily inspired by Mandela Catalogue, The Winter land, Arcadia and Orlakis (hopefully I wrote that name right 😅).

This AU has been stuck in my head for weeks...🫩

4 ) Cyber AU;

This Cyber au often comes across my mind.

Especially when thinking about Gidgly (imsorry I don't know the ship name for Gidget x Iggy-). We have Gidget, a detective who always does the case alone, especially one case that they kept to themselves after the murder of their lover - Ignatius -.

In this lovely AU, Iggy was a scientist working at a lab organisation called Zeus Corporation (yes, yes, a rich ass name). However due to an 'incident', Iggy had 'died' along with three scientists in it. Gidget driven by grief, would often get out late at night, searching for answers.

Unfortunately, their boss had assigned Gidget to a partner. An android that's a replica of Iggy, sent by an anonymous person. And Yada Yada, still a wip.

5 ) Our Nightmare (OOGA BOOGA)

It's literally just a twisted version of Our Wonderland. Simply, the white rabbit, the deceiver of Children, lures kids in, so that the others can take the children's lives to feed their mother. The end. Yes. Iggy is the White Rabbit in this AU.

Tbh, me and a friend of mine bicker about Iggy being corrupted/evil in this AU. I think that Iggy would be this emotional + psychological manipulative villain, one that uses a child's naivety and innocence to his advantage. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing. But Rabbit skin instead. So. Yeah. .-3-

[redfurrycat]

🤠💌💬🐓Chat, Epistolary & Social Media Fic Recs🐓💬💌🤠

Check the Top Gun Masterlist post for the latest updated version. 💕

>Tumblr Authors: mxrcusflint, tgmsunmontue.

>Ao3 Authors: Akay19, Beaufoy14, Blueskyhoneymoonvacation, Charlie_mou, Comin2U, Cryinginthebronco, Falling_mapl3, Fluffypoato, Ginnydear, Halestrom, Intrepidjourneys, LoveMadeThemDoIt, Nothingpreciousatall, ReformedTsundere, Slyther_ing, SunMonTue, Teacupivy, Terraces, Xihe1874, Yourstrulytay.

[Tumblr posts]

#A picture is worth 1000 words by tgmsunmontue

Hangster post-TGM events, Jake and Bradley becoming friends on Instagram through increasingly competitive thirst traps.

#sereshaw socials by mxrcusflint

[Ao3 fics]

thirst trap fic by ginnydear {E}

boy, you blowin' up my phone

“His name is Hangman and I think he sent me a thirst trap at 3 a.m.”

make me come home faster

a companion piece to “boy, you blowin' up my phone” with a little bit of bradley's point of view on... stuff.

New Chat Created: North Island Daggers by Comin2U {T}

Harvard: why Whatsapp and not just a basic text message? Hangman: because one of us has an android and ruins the ability to message with just internet. Coyote: Screw you too hangman. * In which 12 daggers, the best of the best of naval aviators, are all a bunch of kids and thrown in a group chat.

Hang the Hangman with Love by xihe1874 {T}

Dagger Squad 🗡️✈️ [Hangman removes Rooster from the group chat] [Hangman changes the name of group chat to “Let’s find out the lucky and unfortunate bastard ”] Hangman: Soooo Hangman: guys Phoenix: ? Hangman: and gals Fanboy: what you up to this time Hangman Omaha: and why you kicked Rooster out Coyote: He wants to find out who Maverick is married to The classic "Let's find out who is Maverick's husband" bet, plus much much more shenanigans. Hangman is feeling good, Rooster is amused, and Maverick is trying his best to drop hints. Others only have eyes for money.

are you thinking about me too? ('cause i can't stop thinking about you) by cryinginthebronco {T}

Jake doesn’t have a chance to make things right with Bradley before they part ways. But with the mission still fresh in his memory, he decides to take the risk. Or, Jake and Bradley’s love story told through letters. Or, the love letters fic. Love Letters Fic on 'real' notepapers by Redfurrycat

signed, sealed, delivered (i'm yours) by yourstrulytay {T}

Jake’s shirtless but he still has his dog-tags on, and the way he’s leaning on the counter or table or whatever makes the muscles of his arms and shoulders bunch up. Bradley’s mouth goes a little dry at the miles (and miles and miles) of bare skin that are being presented to him and he bites his tongue to prevent any sound from escaping. It had been precisely this that had made him panic and hang up before, because what the fuck? aka, the social media au that no one asked for

in the grand scheme by terraces {M}

During their first stint at TOPGUN, Rooster gets a concussion. Hangman writes him a letter; Rooster writes one back. It all goes downhill from there.

Slow But Steep by Beaufoy14 {M}

Binman: 1743: Javy I need to ask you a question and I need you not to be weird Coyote Ugly: 1744: Before you do, ask yourself two things: 1: does this question really need to be asked? 2: Is there anything better I could be doing on a Tuesday evening than pestering my best friend? Featuring: The List, Phoenix's useful suggestions, Rooster lusting after cowboy hats (and the men who wear them), and Bob's Catholic guilt.

Things We Leave Behind by ReformedTsundere {T}

In a box, there lives two letters that the writers never want read.

Disaster Daggers (If found, return to COMPACFLT) by falling_mapl3 {G}

Callie ‘Halo’ Basset has created a new chat. Callie ‘Halo’ Basset has added 12 contacts. 7:57 pm Halo: Hello you guys. i figured we should make a chat and and stuff for like….. updates? Don’t feel obligated or whatnot. but if anyone needs anything just put it here.

BabyGoose84 by teacupivy {M}

As he goes through his inbox with the usual Select All > Delete locked and loaded, one preview sticks out to him. "Hey! You’re wrong about the F-14, by the way. My godfather…"

Online and Anonymous TGM by SunMonTue {E}

Years before they meet in person Bradley and Jake strike up a friends-with-benefits relationship online. And then something more like an actual relationship. A predominantly epistolary fic set in a world where papers were pulled, events of TG:M will take place and DADT exists until it is repealed at the end of 2011.

u/flyin'cowboy posted in r/Relationships by charlie_mou {_}

r/relationships • 6 d. ago u/deleted My (M31) ex-girlfriend (?32) is now a guy and I think I don't care?? (relationships) Don’t know how to explain it but I’ll try my best. Jake Seresin's Adventures on Reddit - includes Jake being dumb and confused about his kinda-but-not-really sexuality crisis, reddit detectives, and internet strangers making fun of him or an unserious addition to the (sometimes I feel) like a monkey pilot fic, aka my trans Bradley fic

Social Mania by fluffypoato {T}

Notification: 10:15 am @ tornadowranglers said: “AIN’T NO HOME IN OKLAHOMA!!! New stream in…”

u/bradbradgoose by nothingpreciousatall {T}

Rooster asks Reddit how to get Hangman back post-mission. or Rooster is still on his perch when it comes to his feelings about Hangman, so why wouldn't he tell strangers on the internet their entire history and ask for advice.

Dagger Sluts & Co. by slyther_ing {T}

Hall Pass

Coyote has entered Dagger Sluts & Co. Coyote: I’ve always wondered, actually – who in this group chat are the sluts and who is the co? Hangman: if you’re asking, you’re not a slut Payback: if you’re asking, you’re not part of the co. Fanboy: you’re actually a mysterious third thing

Hit the Gas

Phoenix has unblocked Hangman Phoenix: Bradshaw is too old to be on his knees for that long Hangman: I don’t hear him complaining Hangman: but to be fair, his mouth was full 😗 Phoenix has blocked Hangman

Mind Over Matter

Coyote has entered a private chat Coyote: does Rooster have a trust fund or something? Hangman: God, I wish

riding down this highway with you by halestrom {E}

At loose ends after the mission, Jake and Bradley end up on a spontaneous roadtrip that changes their lives forever.

I Just Called To Say I Love You by intrepidjourneys {T}

Falling in love over phone calls and voicemails mixed with silly nicknames and nosy coworkers.

f2f by blueskyhoneymoonvacation {T}

get a kick out of missin' your call

“Bradley Bradshaw speaking. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you.” Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw never answers his phone, making for a life story told by the state of his voicemail inbox.

will you call me, will you hang me out to dry?

"You've got Hangman. Talk after the tone." Jake Seresin may give his boyfriend (ex? frenemey?) a lot of crap for not picking up the phone, but he's not exactly the best at it, either.

The Bradshaw Bunch by LoveMadeThemDoIt {T}

Jake, Bradley and Maggie's group chat 💬

Déjà vu by Akay19 {T}

Goose sent a message on Gays & Sluts Goose: THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! BRADLEY MET HIS TALL BLOND IM BETTER THAN EVERYONE ASSHOLE!! Mav: I'm so proud of my baby Hollywood: canon event cannot intervene Slider: I will turn in my wings if I have to see Bradley looking at Hangman with those eyes again Ice: Mother Goose did you just call me an asshole? Goose: yes honey 😘 Ice: I am the COMPLFT Ice: I'm a very scary powerful man Mav: yes daddy Slider: for fuck's sake Wolfman: #homophobic Or : The '86 gc is having a blast when Bradley meets Jake at Top Gun

A picture is worth 1000 words by SunMonTue {T}

Bradley fumbles his way through learning how to use Instagram, but he's got some pretty good incentives to use it.

[sunwarmed-ash]

Fucking Friday- fic preview

alright @sweeteatercat this is some raw ass footage of The Eden Club sequel. Title omitted for spoiler reasons 👀

strap in

Connor’s usually not allowed more than two in a room with him. For both safety and financial reasons. But the group of young men that wants to rent his company tonight are in a polycule. They seem harmless enough, and the last thing Connor wants to do is come off as non inclusive. Surely the PR shitstorm of coming across as bigoted would be worse than breaking a few of Kamski’s club rules. Right?  

The payment processes and three young men enter the room. 

In his extended time around humans he’s gotten to know the softer sides of them. The kinder sides. His relationship with Hank and Gavin has been going amazing since he finally came clean about everything. So much hes forgotten that humans can be cruel too. Especially to anyone different than them. Or while under the influence of synthetic methamphetamines. 

Connor barely registers the feeling of lips on his mouth, because something behind his back was opening, taking his attention. He didn't even remember having an open port there. And yet-

“Wait-”

He loses ‘feeling’ first. It's the most noticeable error despite the four bright red error warnings in each sphere of his vision. Because there are three sets of hands on him, and he can’t feel any of them. “What are you-” doing to me!? He shouts, but the two hands on his face are silencing him, metaphorically and physically, pulling out the wires connected to his vocal chip.  

His thirium pump is working overtime, attempting to supply blue blood to the other surviving biocomponents while combating a busted tube in his back that was consistently spilling blue blood all over the floor. 

‘Please stop!’ he tries to beg, but no one can hear him. He doesnt think anyone would listen anyway. 

And then, they cut his sight. 

The only sense he had left was hearing, and he could hear it all. Their hateful slurs, their dirty words like Emily had warned against half a year ago. The use of his real name. 

Which meant, this had been a planned attack. They had known he was an android from the beginning, and managed to outsmart even the most advanced detective prototype. 

They were going to kill him. 

They were going to kill him and there were no more ‘Connor’s’ left to replace him. He would never see Hank again. Gavin. V. Markus, Emily, Sumo.

Maybe he was never meant to be a success. Maybe that was supposed to be his eventual AHA moment. Maybe he was created with the sole purpose to fail, so they could learn more. Just like Amanda said. Maybe that was Kamski’s big joke. It felt like one. Because here he was, under his creators own roof, bleeding out in his bedroom. 

Yet another MIssion FAil3d...

Location services disabled: 1:03 AM

OPTICAL UNIT- DESTROYED

THIRIUM PUMP- DAMAGED

REBOOTING INITIALIZING….FAILED…FAILED…

“Hey, hey you gotta stay with me! CONNOR!”

Connor’s lids blink erratically, but it does nothing to affect his visual receptors. They are still fried. Someone is shouting his name, but it’s hard to distinguish the who over the sounds of several different pieces of equipment whirling, beeping, and pinging in the background. It's giving Connor a headache. Then someone slaps the side of his face, attempting to rouse him. 

“Ow,” he says, but all that comes out is static. 

“Connor, it's Elijah, raise your hand if you can hear me.”

Connor surprisingly still has any autonomy over his limbs, but he’s able to raise his left hand up a few inches. He doesnt miss the obvious blatant relief in Elijah's sigh when he did that. 

“Okay, stay with me. You're going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

Was he dying? Again? He couldn't feel anything. Not like he did during deviation. He always expected death to feel like something. The humans were scared enough of it that it being painful was plausible. But instead he felt nothing, saw nothing. And then-

“Connor!”

-

The DPD-1:26 AM

Hank gets the message first. 

“FUCK!”

It could be about anything with the way Hank throws that word around, but the way he flies out of his chair and topples it as he yanks up his jacket, Gavin knows it's about Connor. 

“Shit,” Gavin agrees, grabbing his own coat. “Whoa, hey! Slow down, talk to me!” he demands but Hank can't see him right now, can’t hear him. He’s in mission mode and he is booking it out the bullpen as fast as his amazon legs will take him.  Gavin follows, having to jog to keep up with Hank's huge strides. 

When they reach the police cruiser, Gavin takes the keys out of Hank's hands. The man blinks twice before rounding on Gavin, looking like he's going to strike him. Gavin doesn't back down. 

“Just tell me where to drive. You're gonna get us killed too.”

Hank's face lost all of its color and Gavin feels like someone kicked him in the gut. 

“Shit… is he-”

“NO,” Hank insists angrily, yanking open the passenger door, before barking out “The Eden Club,” hollowly.

Gavin’s color drains too. For more reasons than one…

[komohine]

tell me about the android james au in excruciating detail please

Ok so i really want to but also i do plan on making this an actual fanfic in the future so i wont spoil very much

SETTING: futuristic, and very dystopian. Currently there is war everywhere. The US is fighting against an enemy, but the way the enemy is broadcasted is extremely vague. There are no specific countries named, instead they’re given arbitrary titles such as “the loons”, “jesters”, etc. they are also fighting against multiple groups. Also much of the country is wasteland. Lawless, ruled by mercenary groups and the larger enemy groups. Where the military base James and Keith are at (arizona), the surrounding desert is dominated by a group known as “The Red”. There’s always intense battles to keep them away from the city the military base is attached to.

The only centres of human activity is within larger cities and around military bases. But just because a city is large doesn’t mean it still remains. New York City is just ruins, for example.

Anyways, androids were created to help the US in the war. The media and propaganda that surrounds them dehumanize them to an extreme extent. They are viewed as no more than tools, and are treated as such.

“As cold and calculating as a computer, but as flexible and adaptive as a human. The androids will take the place of your beloved father, brother, or son, on the front lines so Christmas can be celebrated by your whole family.”

They do have individual names but it is much more common practice to refer to them by their serial number. But all in all they are not treated well, even more so that the majority of the US populace believes that the androids are powered entirely by artificial intelligence. This lie was perpetuated purposefully by the media, because it’s much easier to dehumanize them when you think of everything they do as “not real” and as “just programming��.

That’s where the androids in this au differ slightly from your typical android that’s powered by ai but gains sentience (no hate to this trope though, i love it). These androids are powered by the brains of dead soldiers. Soldiers would volunteer to have their brains scanned and artificially replicated, and these brains would be connected into the android and give that soldier new life. In some cases, soldiers who died and didn’t volunteer would get their brains scanned and replicated anyways. This happens for various reasons, the main ones being that the soldier has some expertise that’s invaluable or that they have information that’s key to the war. So it’s not really artificial intelligence. It’s just human consciousness trapped in a robot body.

Being an android sucks too, because a lot of “non essential functions” were removed. Such as highly sensitive touch, the ability to taste and to smell, and the ability to cry. Androids do have some pressure sensors, but these are mostly concentrated in the hands. Theres some at the bottom of their feet (more if the android specializes in stealth missions) and also some in their face, but it’s nowhere near the level of a human’s. They can smell, but only certain hazardous chemicals. And instead of actual smelling all it does is trigger a warning popup on their optical lens. So imagine dying fully human and then waking up in an extremely limited body. No smell, no taste, hardly any sense of touch, but the memory of it lingers and taunts you. It’s extremely traumatic and most androids have lasting issues because of it. Also learning to operate the body is difficult, especially with more dexterous movements.

Androids can feel pain, but it’s more in the form of feeling malfunctions and error messages. If an android, for example, broke their arm and then tried moving it, the flurry of malfunctions and error messages sent to their brain would cause enough of a neural overload that, according to James, is a “close enough simulation of pain”. But of course, media doesn’t tell anyone this. It’s always “androids can’t feel pain, and they cant die, so whats the harm in killing them?”

On androids dying, they can be revived. But they can only be revived a certain amount of times before their brain fries and they’re forced out of commission. If this happens, and the android was particularly important, the military will make a second brain out of the original scan. This brings back the android, but without any of the memories from their prior life. All in all most of the practices surrounding androids are disturbingly inhumane.

James was a highly specialized soldier when he died at 23. He also had a lot of important information, so even though he didn’t consent to it, the military brought him back as an android. He was assigned to be the leader of the MFEs, the military’s first all android team that specialized in particularly difficult and dangerous missions. But an incident down the line (involving Shiro) really called the loyalty and reliability of androids into question, and Keith was assigned to the MFEs to be their handler, basically. Why Keith? Well he was good at what he did, skilled, and most importantly the military had stuff to hold over him.

Keith, like your average American citizen, was not a fan of androids. And despite James being a few ranks higher than him he’d constantly disregard and disrespect him on the basis that he was an android. But it’s okay! Because he gets better! And I cant say any more for spoiler reasons! But they kiss kiss fall in love and then fall apart!!

[pallidletters]

7 Lesser-Known Apps Every Student Should Know About

1. EasyBib

Tired of spending hours formatting your citations? EasyBib is here to save the day! This app lets you create citations for your academic papers in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. Simply scan a book’s barcode or enter the title, and EasyBib does the rest.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Visit Website

2. Alarmy: Sleep If You Can

Do you find yourself hitting snooze too often? Alarmy is an innovative alarm clock app that requires you to complete specific tasks—like solving a math problem or taking a photo of a predetermined object—to turn off the alarm. It’s perfect for those mornings when you need extra motivation to get out of bed.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

3. WiseDrinking

For students who enjoy socializing but want to stay responsible, WiseDrinking helps monitor your alcohol consumption. It offers safety tips and maps public transport options nearby, ensuring you can enjoy your evenings while staying safe.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Visit Website

4. Zombies, Run!

Staying fit while studying can be a challenge. Zombies, Run! turns your workout into an adventure by immersing you in a zombie apocalypse narrative. Collect supplies and complete missions while jogging or walking—it’s fitness gamified!

Download on iOS

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Visit Website

5. Slader

If you’ve ever been stuck on a difficult homework problem, Slader can help. This app provides step-by-step solutions to textbook problems, making it an invaluable resource for subjects like math, science, and engineering.

Download on iOS

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Visit Website

6. GroupMe

Coordinating with classmates on group projects can be chaotic. GroupMe simplifies group communication by providing a dedicated platform for messaging, file sharing, and scheduling.

Download on iOS

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Visit Website

7. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is well-known in the education world but often overlooked by students. It offers free instructional videos and practice exercises across various subjects, from math to history, making it a fantastic tool for self-paced learning.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Visit Website

Final Thoughts

These apps can significantly enhance your productivity, help you stay organized, and even improve your well-being. Give them a try, and you might just find the perfect tool to make your academic life a bit easier. Have you used any of these apps before? Share your experiences in the comments below!

[freedomkindness]

For my American Friends

I feel now is a good time to spread this news. Much like how the internet came together to help share information with the Ukrainians for resisting Russia, I’m here delivering help of a similar nature to those that could be impacted by this latest election in the US. There are ways to communicate relatively securely, outside of Big Brother's social media. I bring this up so that we can minimize the amount of gatherable information that could be used to hurt you, or others you know, in the coming years as changes are made. I'm not going to tell you how or why to use them, I'm just going to provide you with the information.

WhatsApp – While not my personal favorite, since Facebook/Meta is the parent company, WhatsApp is free, globally popular, and widely-used, featuring the ability to lock chats with passwords, disappearing messages, photos and videos that are deleted after being opened, profile photo privacy, the ability to lock the app itself so that only your biometrics can unlock it, encrypted backups, the ability to set custom permissions for who can see you online or when you last used the app, and of course End-to-End Encryption for all conversations EXCEPT those with business accounts. WhatsApp is a good option for those who are not really technically savvy, but still value privacy – if one trusts Facebook/Meta to adequately protect their privacy. It does require a phone number to sign up, however.

Signal - Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging software. meaning that the contents of your conversation is secure. The protocol they use (which they created) is seen as the best known protocol for asynchronous messaging by cybersecurity researchers. It's so good that it has been implemented in WhatsApp and in Messenger's secret chats. This app has even been mentioned in the Right-wing author Jack Carr's Political Thriller about a Navy SEAL named James Reece, as being a preferred method of secure communication on the civilian side for operators. (Jack Carr is a former US Navy SEAL.) It's run by a Non-Profit organization called Signal Foundation, and it's mission is to "protect free expression and enable secure global communication through open source privacy technology." It allows secure messaging, voice calls, and video calls. The only downside is that app links to your phone number, so while your conversations and content are secure, who you are talking to is not. Signal is available on Windows, Mac, Andriod, Linus, and iOS.

Session - Session is an end-to-end encrypted messenger that minimises sensitive metadata, designed and built for people who want absolute privacy and freedom from any form of surveillance. Session is an open-source, public-key-based secure messaging application which uses a set of decentralized storage servers and an onion routing protocol to send end-to-end encrypted messages with minimal exposure of user metadata. This means no phone numbers, no metadata for digital footprints, and censorship resistance. It features group chats, the ability to send documents, files, and images securely, and has added voice messages, though these can be spotty. It’s slow, but effective, and be downloaded on Android, F-Droid, iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Briar - If you have an Android phone, Briar is another option you have. It features a decentralized network (it’s peer-to-peer encrypted, rather than relying on a central server), meaning messages are synced directly between user devices. It also means that even if the internet is down, it can sync via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or even memory cards, meaning information can continue to flow even during a crisis. In the event the internet is functioning, it can sync via the Tor network, protecting users and their relationships from surveillance. Other features: - Screenshots and screen recording are disabled by default - Each user’s contact list is encrypted and stored on her own device. - Briar’s end-to-end encryption prevents keyword filtering, and because of its decentralized design there are no servers to block. - Every user who subscribes to a forum keeps a copy of its content, so there’s no single point where a post can be deleted. - Briar’s forums have no central server to attack, and every subscriber has access to the content even if they’re offline. - Doesn’t require any user data like name and phone number. The downside is that it is text-only and limited to Android Devices, but they do offer Briar Mailbox to deliver messages securely to those who are online at different times. Briar’s goal is “to enable people in any country to create safe spaces where they can debate any topic, plan events, and organize social movements”

Protonmail - A free end-to-end encrypted AND zero-access encryption email service based out of Switzerland, you can safely email with peace of mind that your content is secure. Unlike Google, Outlook, Yahoo, and others, Proton's zero-access encryption means they can't even view the contents of your emails or attachments. As a Swiss-owned company they are not allowed to share information with foreign law enforcement under criminal penalty and they are politically neutral, meaning they won't be pressured by foreign governments. Furthermore, Switzerland has a constitutional right to privacy and strict data protection laws. Unlike companies in other countries, Proton cannot be compelled by foreign or Swiss authorities to engage in bulk surveillance.

Additional Information, from Proton’s Website: Switzerland has strong legal protections for individual rights, and in fact the Swiss Federal Constitution(new window) explicitly establishes a constitutional right to privacy. (In the US, this right is merely implied.) Specifically, Article 13 safeguards privacy in personal or family life and within one’s home, and the Swiss Civil Code(new window) translates this right into statutory law in Article 28.

In the US and EU, authorities can issue gag orders to prevent an individual from knowing they are being investigated or under surveillance. While this type of order also exists in Switzerland, the prosecutors have an obligation to notify the target of surveillance, and the target has an opportunity to appeal in court. In Switzerland, there are no such things as national security letters(new window), and all surveillance requests must go through the courts. Warrantless surveillance, like that practiced in the US where the FBI conducts 3.4 million searches per year(new window) with little oversight, is illegal and not permitted in Switzerland.

Switzerland also benefits from a unique legal provision with Article 271 of the Swiss Criminal Code(new window), which forbids any Swiss company from assisting foreign law enforcement, under threat of criminal penalty. While Switzerland is party to certain international legal assistance agreements, all requests under such agreements must hold up under Swiss law, which has much stricter privacy provisions. All foreign requests are assessed by the Swiss government, which generally does not assist requests from countries with poor rule of law or lack an independent judiciary.

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[who-is-shades]

raz dnd 42

were back bitches!

walking in the forest, heading toward the burning lands! Ignezius! wheatley is hanging around teya poking her. sennas talking with papyrus and his adventures and stuff.

parsley takes teya and wheatley aside and asks what they think about papyrus. wheatley says he seems nice and since senna trusts him so does he. sennas just smiling fondly at papyrus. teya says she doesnt trust anyoen that becomes a lich willingly. SP starts doing donuts around them and gets picked up by wheatley.

senna looks back and whispers something to papyrus. parsley and teya fucking hate this xD papyrus looks back a full 180 with his head, then gives senna a thumbs up XD teya's using her sending stone lol.

parsley saunters over like a bitch, arms crossed. "so, papyrus, what made you decide to become a lich?" it was his god that did it so he could keep helping people :3 he does a heroic pose xD his cape billows on command yay! senna says hes cool xD

wheatley thinks he looks nice xD paps puts his helmet back on. parsley just stares at teya like wtf. stop distrusting my boi! >:( dont call him a dork! wheatley glares at him and parsley is like wtf. he puts SP down and he goes to hang out with papyrus.

teya tells parsley that she told sunnie about papyrus and hes gonna get them killed xD teya asks papyrus how he died wtf. he fell in glorious combat against evil undead, then he became undead ironically! teya says 'told ya' to parsley. teya fucking calls being a holy lich fake wtf. dont call him insane!

parsleys asks teya how she feels about her gf's best friend being nuts lol. "whos isnt?" he gives her a weird look xD wheatley asks them not to provoke papyrus incase he IS evil. SP pokes papyrus with a stick.

teya messages android of all people and asks if he trusts papyrus xD no feelings whatsoever, so progress? as we walk paps puts his hands on his head and points out a gnome and kenku in the distance!

an old gnome woman and a little kenku! nana and jingles our beloved! nana walks up to us and says Howdy! she saw us walking along and thought to join us to the nearest town, a short walk from here. safety in numbers. wheatley says certaintly. parsley mutters to teya 'why are we always helping random people with bullshit?'

android grimaces and zen asks where the town is. aint far apparently. parsley mutters their gonna get attacked lol. papyrus calls her frail xD nana says she aint frail. wheatley wants to spar with nana do NOT. shes gonna kick his ass xD she wants to bet on it! parsley bets 50 gold and so does nana xD wheatley bets on himself.

nana introduces herself and jingles :3 we love these guys around here. teya calls parsley a stubborn asshole when he doesnt introduce himself xD she says shes met many a stubborn ass XD jingles repeats stubborn ass XD parsley waves at him :3 wheatley introduces SP to nana as his child :3 parential bonding! senna gives rouge and parsley a side-eye xD

moving along toward a town~ senna asks whats with the big pan? she uses the ol cast iron for cooking and hitting xD wheatley says his bones are made of cast iron! senna nods and says zen is a bit of a chef himself xD now were ribbing him for only making soup.

nana having 30 kids is insane actually. SP is driving in circles around jingles. teya asks nana why so many kids? she just kept picking them up over the years xD jingles is happy :3 her oldest is 100 neat. nana is 300 geez. teyas trying to do gnome age math lol.

wheatley starts talking to her about the continent 200 years ago lol. nana says thats about when she killed her first husband, which no one can prove lol. we love her xD town time!

small town. spar time! nana vs wheatley! parsley is just surprised the group didnt get attacked on the way XD jingles is a bit memorized by papyrus armor and holds nana's pan for her. SP tries to help him hold it up. shes 3 feet and i think she can still win.

nana is beating his ass. teya tells parsley she has to bet against wheatley lol. nana wins! time for her to kick parsleys ass XD ANDROID joins in the bet with wheatley on nana, and teya bets on parsley XD nana wins! parsley is pissed wheatley and android bet against him xD SP thinks parsley won and cheers for him xD

nana gives parsley the cast iron holy shit! we love her <3

[dominateeye]

I forgot to write my "goodbye Cohost" post on Cohost a few days ago. I guess that's pretty emblematic of my relationship with the site.

It was a really cool idea that I always assumed was surely taking off, because it deserved success at least as much as if not more than any of those fediverse things I don't pay attention to. It was a site that had personality, had character, in a way far more believable than Tumblr's ever was. But because of several intentional and reasonable choices, it wasn't a site I really felt a need to use. It wasn't better than Tumblr for me, it was different to it. And while that was a great thing, it wasn't compelling enough to get me to risk losing contact with people who were still on here.

I think a successful social media site does need an algorithm, or some kind of discoverability of new content that is enabled and put in front of the user by default. One reason people go on social sites is to find new things; if they only ever want to talk to their existing friends, they'll start a group chat on any number of messaging platforms, or by text. I don't think such a mechanism has to become any more addictive than literally anything else on Earth is, and without ads, it's a hell of a lot harder to exploit for financial gain. I also think a successful social media site needs an app, even a sideloaded one available only on Android in order to dodge rules prohibiting porn, because using a site that already has a UI with the UI of your mobile browser also taking up room on a phone screen and having entire pages load each time instead of just the new content does create an appreciable difference in experience. Cohost on my phone was just a web browser, with all the clunkiness that entails. Par for the course on desktop; not so on mobile, where I use social media 99% of the time.

That's not to bash the site. Those decisions were purposeful; the Anti-Software Software Club team had good reasons for those decisions, to guard against the sense of dependency other platforms tend to create in their users whether intentionally or not, and to ensure that people could post what they wanted without having to worry about whether advertisers and investors and app store administrators would find it palatable. Those decisions made sense for Cohost and the kind of website ASSC wanted it to be. But while I admired that intention and that vision, and the home it became for many people, those decisions meant it wasn't the kind of website I was looking for. So I didn't use it. I just assumed it would be there in case Tumblr was no longer habitable.

I have to wonder how many other people thought the same thing.

I forget who on Cohost said this, but in among the discussion of open-sourcing the site (something I believe would be/have been a virtuous end unto itself regardless of logistical concerns, because it would allow more people to make more things and that is a Universal Good if there is such a thing, but I digress) someone opined that carrying on Cohost doesn't require open-source code, because that code was not really what the site was. Cohost was a belief that we deserved something better, that it was possible to make, and that it was possible to keep alive and make better, and that even if it failed it would have been worth it to try. Keeping Cohost alive is keeping that belief alive, and anything made because of that belief is a continuation of Cohost. Even if it isn't Cohost (jump) 2. I don't know how true that idea is, but I do like it.

One other thing that came out of this discussion was @hms-no-fun's observation that the people who use a social media site put in labor, too. Posting and chatting and participating in a community is time and effort spent intentionally; that's labor, even if it's never paid, and it's essential to keeping a community alive. Cohost was the legal property of Anti-Software Software Club, it was funded by two mysterious benefactors (one of whom started talking from their position as such in the site's final days and had some interesting things to say), but as users it was our site that we gave purpose to. Perhaps we should have gotten more of a say in the direction the site took. Perhaps we should have been given the chance to try to keep it alive. Perhaps shutting it down instead of reaching out to us for direct help did harm us in an avoidable way. But on the other hand, the team was never more than, what, five, six people? The site ran for about a year and a half, and we know those people were putting out fires for almost all of it. That's exhausting. I can't blame them for not wanting to run themselves even more ragged and take the inevitable risks of bring users into that side of things as well. Really, everything that's being said about Cohost is understandable. Because everyone involved had an investment in it, and as such, even in different ways, it belonged to all of us.

So if you're reading this, and you cared about the site, then so long, and thanks for making Cohost.

[medusapelagia]

8 Au-gust: Robots and Androids - Part 11

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12

Rating: Mature Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson WT: Android Steve Harrington, Wanted Criminal Eddie Munson, guns violence, blood and injuries Words: 1287

“You are not happy.” S.T.E.V.E. says looking at El and the little android looks at him sadly.

“You are still hurt. Inside.” she replies softly.

S.T.E.V.E. moves his arms to show her that he is fine “I am not broken anymore. Dustin repaired all my components.”

The girl shakes her head “It’s not something that can be repaired. It's something inside.” she insists, but S.T.E.V.E. dismisses the subject and looks at her with affection.

“Will you be ok when I leave?”

“I’ll miss you.” she confirms, hugging him tight and for a moment S.T.E.V.E. wonders what should he feel, what should he do.

This thing of showing human emotion is still complicated for him, his human brain is screaming that he has to hug her too, that a hug feels warm and will make him feel better, but he feels nothing and doesn't know how to move his new limbs to hug her.

“It’s ok. You will learn. I learned too.” El says, as if she was able to read his mind.

“If we get the occasion you could teach me.”

“I will. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not taking me to the bad men.”

S.T.E.V.E. sits on the bed and El follows him “Would you like to tell me what happened to you?” She shakes her head “It’s ok. You don’t have to, and I want you to know that it doesn’t matter what you are or what I am, I will always protect you.” the android says, looking at her in the eyes with conviction.

El smile is so bright that enlightens the entire room “I know that. You are a good person.”

Person.

No one ever defined him as a person. 

He is an android, a tin can, a metalhead… but a person? Being defined as a person feels important.

They are still talking when a high-pitched sound makes them both startle.

“It’s the alarm, someone is coming!”

They run toward the big room and find everyone already there.

“Somehow they found us. We have to leave the planet." Hopper says, pointing at the red signal on his monitor, then he turns toward the group "Kids, take only the essentials, Joyce, send a message to the other outpost and make sure everyone gets on board quickly. As soon as they are here we fly away.”

“You can’t leave, they will destroy your ship.” Owens exclaims, but Hopper keeps calm.

“They are not looking for us, they are looking for you!” he states without even looking at the other man.

“Are you really sure that they will not shoot against a civil ship, just in case?”

Hopper and Owens glare at each other, ready to tear each others' throats, when a metallic voice interrupts the staring contest.

“They will not. I’ll go to wait for them in the desert and when they will land you will fly away.” He says calmly.

“Kid, you are a good hunter, but not so good, they will kill you in the blink of an eye, and in any case, we are not going to give them exactly what they want.” Hopper states.

"So what are you suggestin? Uh? Will you leave with the android? They will find him again, and again, and again. If Brenner is a fucking android too he can hunt him down forever!" Owen hisses.

“He is not wrong. They are going to land here because they are looking for me. Your best choice is let them get me and fly away while they are distracted” S.T.E.V.E. explains, looking at the map "We have no time. I should go meeting them in the desert, the farthest I can get from the outpost, and wish for the best."

Dustin is staring really seriously at Steve.

“What?” the android asks, letting some of his humanity fill the cracks in his fragmented mind.

“Do you trust me?” the boy asks him with a sardonic smile.

Does he?

***

Steve is in the middle of the desert, pointing a gun at Eddie’s head; the outlaw is dressed in a thermal suit but is still sweating like a madman.

“Are we fucking sure?” Eddie asks.

S.T.E.V.E. doesn’t answer, he keeps pointing the gun at his head.

When the ship finally lands, Vecna is the first to get out of the ship, pointing his gun at S.T.E.V.E. as soon as the doors open “Fancy meeting you here, STE2UTK7NQ.”

“I got the outlaw, Eddie Munson.” he pauses and then he adds "Again." 

Vecna glares at him “You got him, uh? Because, from the prison’s cameras, it looks like you were the one who helped him escape and he was the one who helped you when you crashed on the ground.” the white android replies sarcastically.

“The outlaw must have hacked my security system during our first crash and I didn’t detect it until it was too late. But now I am fine, and I'm offering you my captive, is that enough?"

The white android gets closer "You are offering me your captive, uh? Mmhh… that’s a nice story. I wonder if Dr. Brenner will believe you or he will just open your head like a melon and look at every little circuit inside you.”

S.T.E.V.E. doesn’t react.

“Good. Now. Why don’t you kill this fucker? Uh?” Vecna insists, testing Steve.

“He deserves a fair trial.” S.T.E.V.E. sternly replies.

“He does not. He killed many humans. Do you remember that, STE2UTK7NQ? Or your memory chip is too damaged? I see that your body was vandalized. Such a pity. You were so good-looking model, I was thinking about sending you to a whore house once Brenner got everything he wanted from you.” Vecna gives him a wry smile “I think you remember what happens to the androids that are not useful anymore…”

S.T.E.V.E. keeps calm, still pointing the gun at Eddie’s head “What do you want me to do?”

“Shoot him.”

Without hesitation, S.T.E.V.E. shoots Eddie who falls to the ground.

“What now?”

Vecna smiles, satisfied “Mmh… I was expecting some rebellion from you. Maybe he did really hack you.”

Vecna gets closer to S.T.E.V.E., rubbing his hand on S.T.E.V.E.’s face.

S.T.E.V.E.'s human memory supplies him that it’s supposed to be a caress, but it doesn’t feel like that.

“Look at you… the precious android that Brenner thought lost for so long. It will be so fun opening your head and finding out if you really have a soul like humans say they do.”

“Humans?”

Vecna nods “Yeah… somewhere inside you, between your chips and your circuits, there is a piece of a dead man: memories, ticks, habits. Maybe even his soul. Do you think you have a soul, STE2UTK7NQ?”

S.T.E.V.E. doesn't react “I’m just an android.” 

“Oh no… you are so much more. The first hybrid between androids and humans. You could be the first of an entirely new species. You will die, obviously, but don’t be sad. Brenner will learn so much for you and his new version will be even better than this one.”

“New version?”

Vecna takes a knife and stabs S.T.E.V.E. in the abdomen, some fluid starts to pour from the wound and still, S.T.E.V.E. does not move, suffocating a whimper.

“Our dear leader is a hybrid, like you.” Vecna murmurs while turning the blade in S.T.E.V.E. abdomen “Or even better… he is an android thanks to you. It’s a pity that you will never see him again.”

This is it.

This is the moment he will get turned off forever.

The image that flashes in his mind is a blond guy above him, the sound of the wave of a sea he has never seen, and a voice that whispers in his ear “I love you, Steve.”

Tag list: @shunna, @yourmom-isgay I hope you enjoy it!