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novantinuum · 1 year ago

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Fandom: Steven Universe Rating: Teen Audiences (CW: Description of attempted suicide) Words: 5.4K~ Summary: There’s more to this story, Lars can feel it brimming in his very bones. He can feel it squirming around in the tangled coils of his guts, a primal, virulent rot that threatens to consume him from the inside out. Something is off with Steven, something is distinctly wrong. And oh, does he hate being right. - When an unexpected visitor tumbles through the magic portal in his hair long after hours, breathless and bright pink, Lars must amass the courage to weather one of the most difficult conversations of his life.

Hey folks- this is a really heavy one, but it's a story I've been sitting on in my WIPs for a good four years and am very happy to finally set loose. A lot of personal experience has been poured into this particular fic, and I hope you enjoy.

Please take care and mind the content warning given above. If you're curious on what else this story entails, you can click through to see the AO3 tags as well. Love y'all!

Advocate

The Sun Incinerator’s bridge is unusually quiet tonight, with almost everyone spending the evening in their quarters. As such, the only sounds greeting Lars’ ears right now are the dull buzz of their FTL-drive and the gentle chimes of one of the ship’s secondary consoles in the back. (Padparadscha’s making some adjustments to the mainframe parameters, hoping to secure them more malleable control over each system’s energy output.) It makes for a rather meditative scene… focusing on these lulling, almost formulaic bits of white noise as he peers through the glass and watches entire stars and solar systems zip by as nothing but razor thin tendrils of light, the very fabric of space warping and folding around their ship in a myriad of hypnotizing colors. Content to simply be in this peaceful silence, he stretches back in his captain’s chair, allowing a wide smile to rejuvenate his countenance. There’s genuinely nothing more relaxing in all the universe than this.

Though, as he begins to muse upon today’s chaotic ventures of choice, it occurs to him that he hasn’t logged anything down for a good few cycles. And that really, really needs to change, he thinks. Keeping thorough audio records of their whereabouts and activities could prove useful if they get into any more legal scrapes with disgruntled Gems. Plus, it’s great for personal posterity— for when he and the fam want to kick back with some mixers and reminisce about old times.

He activates the mic embedded in the armrest of his seat with a single tap, and clears his throat.

“Logging… stardate one-three zero-five twenty eighteen,“ he begins, rhythmically tapping his fingers against the cool metal. “Or, uh… however that’s supposed to work,” he tags on with a bemused mumble, his nose wrinkling in personal annoyance as he realizes he might have completely jumbled the date format again. At this point, half of his logs are month first, then date, and the other half are date then month. Ugh, what a mess. Perhaps one day he’ll standardize the captain’s logging procedure, but that future is definitely not now.

And knowing him, it’s probably not gonna be tomorrow, either.

He’s unable to help his exhausted yawn as he kicks back and unwinds, throwing his legs over the side of the armrest as he pushes ahead with his recounting of the last few hours.

“Today’s travels once again had us come face-to-face with our favorite frenemy Emerald, who claimed that her latest star cruiser had the booster technology to easily outperform all other Era 3 ships and challenged us to a race across the Stellaris Astroid Field in sector 9. We won, of course,” he says with a smug lilt to his voice. “The Rutiles’ savvy piloting saw to that, as well as Fluorite’s last-minute engine modifications. I think we hit like… a record cruising speed?” He presses his lips into a thin line and turns his head towards his friend working at the rear of the main deck. “Hey Pady? D’ya happen to remember what our top velocity came to during the final stretch of that race?”

She pauses in her self-appointed duty and hums in careful thought, sorting back through her eidetic knowledge of the recent past like it’s nothing but child’s play. “I believe… 181 klicks per second, nearing the speed of light.”

“And that was like… a record, yeah?” he asks, a sudden hair-raising twinge of… well, something settling deep at the pit of his chest. He ignores it for now. Such phantom pangs aren’t uncommon these days. He’s not exactly sure what causes it yet, and chalks it up to more ‘pink zombie’ weirdness.

“For our craft, yes,” she nods. “For all Gemkind, no. I was curious, as well. As far as I’ve read from Homeworld’s databases, the current non-FTL cruising record is 186.1 klicks per second.”

Lars can’t help the scoffing chuckle that bubbles within his throat. “Ugh. Good grief, that’s basically light speed as it is. Like, leave some room for competition for the rest of us, yeah?”

Padparadscha gives a faint snicker of agreement as she turns her focus back to the ship’s mainframe interface. Right, right… she’s got work to get done. Which really reminds him, he needs to get back to his point too, or else this log’s gonna be stuffed with nothing but meaningless chit-chatter and asides. He sighs, leaning his cheek against the seat’s edge again.

“But in any case,” he continues into the mic, “our latest victory over Emerald seems to ha��”

With zero warning whatsoever that hollow pang at his core intensifies, its thrall pulsing louder and louder until it’s a thunderous cascade of static rippling through his very veins. He hisses in alarm, jamming his hands over his ears out of pure bodily instinct. This doesn’t help, of course— as this cacophonous feeling (not a sound, not some external input he can mute or modulate, but a feeling—) seems to be emanating from within, from a place all but intangible to the physical realm, from—

He spies that oh-so-familiar glow emanating from the fringe of his hair just a split second before his surprise visitor tumbles through and throws off his center of balance, unceremoniously toppling both of them to the floor in a ridiculous tangle of limbs.

Lars’ exhales become laborious as he extracts himself from under the teen and clambers back up to his knees, heart pounding with more fervent intensity than it has since he up and died a few years back.

And right on cue, about fifteen seconds too late:

“Captain Lars, Steven is about to cross through the portal in your head!”

“Yeah, I noticed, thanks,” he snaps in the shock of it all, feeling guilty for this snide remark the second it passes through his lips. (Because Padparadscha can’t help her compulsive ‘predictions.’ He knows this. Everyone knows this. He’ll have to find time to pull her aside and apologize.)

But not now.

Not yet.

Because the alarm bells rung by Pady’s next comment are enough to slap him right out of his brooding contemplation and back to the troubling here-and-now.

“I also predict that Steven won’t be in a very sound state of mind when he arrives,” she says, a noticeable tension building in her tone.

His eyes blow wide as he shifts his full attention to his friend, clad in a pair of sweatpants and a thin sleep shirt.

Steven is… oh, geeze. It seems Steven can’t even manage coherent speech right now. His cheeks are blotchy and raw with recent tears. He’s doubled over on the floor with one hand clutching at his center as he heaves for breath, glowing bright ass pink and looking halfway to hyperventilating. One thing’s for sure: it’s really, really hard to watch. His own chest growing insufferably tight in sympathy, Lars leaps to action, unwilling to let the poor guy wallow in the thickets of whatever the hell this breakdown is about any longer than he has to.

“H-hey…” he begins, edging towards him with the same slow deliberateness he always has to use with the rescue dog his parents recently adopted. And like, yeah— a part of him feels really rude for comparing his own friend to a skittish, fretful animal— but it’s a comparison that seems all the more apt the longer he drinks in the realities of this situation.

Because just like ol’ Maru, Steven is jumpy, horrifically on-edge, and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

Lars frowns, considering what few options he has.

Realizing his friend’s not likely to calm down very well so out in the open like this, he turns towards his fellow Off-Color.

“Pady, I’m taking him to my quarters. Can you let the others know, and uh… tell them not to disturb us for a while?”

“Yes, right away,” she chimes, hopping off her seat.

“Thank you,” he breathes, expression softening. “I mean it. And sorry about— well, I’ll talk with you later, all right?”

Her mouth falling into a perfectly neutral line (even if she’s incapable of reading the future, he’s sure she’s intensely aware of what he wishes to speak to her about from mere context clues alone), the Gem serves him a solid nod of acceptance and spins on her heels, striding down the hall with a level of confidence he envies. The bridge’s door slides shut after her, leaving him and his glowing, pink hued guest entirely alone.

Alone, and incredibly, incredibly vulnerable, like a live wire flailing about atop a damaged Earth power line.

(The last thing anyone on this ship needs is him having one of his infamous explosive episodes here and compromising the bridge’s airlock system. Which is why his quarters— below deck and fully enclosed— is a far more ideal locale for them right now.)

“O-okay, Steven,” he says, holding out his arm in aid as the teen struggles to clamber back to his feet. “Let’s go somewhere private to cool down, yeah?”

A few minutes later, Lars has Steven situated on the one plush sofa he keeps in his quarters. Since he no longer possess any biological need for sleep and thus doesn’t keep a bed, his room on the ship is pretty sparse— just a desk for journaling or gaming and some shelves with a number of sentimental knick-knacks he brought with him from Earth— but he did find it important to keep a couch. Even if he doesn’t need to sleep, curling up for a quick hour of shut-eye still feels quite rejuvenating sometimes. Plus, it’s handy to have whenever he hosts visitors. Like now.

Lars sits himself down right next to the distressed teen. He’s still flushed bright pink, but has regained a fair bit of emotional stability compared to how he was right after tumbling out of the magic space portal in his hair. It might take a while until the glow fades away entirely, but it’s progress, at least.

He sighs, rapping his fingertips against his jeans as he gives his friend some time in silence to cool down. The last thing the guy needs right now is for him to wave half a dozen questions in his face. He’ll talk when he’s ready. Or, hell, maybe not at all. That’s okay, too. Maybe he just wanted a place to have a quick little freak-out away from his family or girlfriend. Who’s he to judge? Sometimes a man’s just gotta be alone for a while.

Of course, he muses, if Steven really wanted to be alone, then he wouldn’t have crossed through Lion’s mane over to him, now would he? So this visit can’t only be due to a desire for solitude. Steven sought out him— specifically him— for a reason.

That churning, hollow pang at his core radiates even stronger, pulsing at the same interval as the dull tick of the clock he has hanging up on his wall, the one he keeps set to Earth EST as an everlasting reminder of his humble human roots and all the people who care about him back home.

Finally— some ten or so minutes later— the seventeen-year-old stops glowing, that unnatural, otherworldly pallor fading into obscurity. The kid (sorry, but Steven will always be a ‘kid’ to him at this point, don’t matter his age) deflates in exhaustion, cupping his face in his hands.

Now a little more confident that his expressions of concern won’t rile him up to destructive levels of stress, Lars makes a gentle inquiry as to what brought him here.

“‘Course, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” he tacks on quickly when he sees Steven’s expression widen with an almost grief-stricken apprehension, “but since I’m here an’ all, I figured…”

His guest sucks in a deep, shaky bout of air.

“N-no, I wanna talk,” he says, voice painfully hoarse. “I came here to talk, but I— it’s just so, so much, I-I’m—”

Lars’ eyes soften. “Dude, it’s okay. Take your time.”

And take his time he does. Another minute or so passes whilst Steven continues to reel himself in on the emotional side of things, breathing slow and heavy as he levels a dead-eyed stare at the blank section of wall flanking the doorway and his desk.

“Connie and I had a fight,” he begins eventually, his tone streaked with embarrassment. “Over the phone.”

Lars’ brow shoots up. Huh. All right. This is absolutely not the opener he expected.

“Really? You two fight? About what?”

“It doesn’t even matter anymore. It was nothing,” Steven mutters, clenching and unclenching his fists against the soft fabric of his pajama pants in a markedly uneven rhythm. “Just me being an idiot, as per usual. I’m sure we’ll make up over it tomorrow. But the problem is that we hung up mad. And when I’m mad about something, it just… makes me mad at myself. A-and then it’s like—” anxious, clawing hands migrate to his head, gripping at his hair— “w-when I’m mad at myself I just spiral? And it’s so, so scary how fast that can happen.”

Ever so slight, his lip presses into a tense frown as he listens. He doesn’t interject, not yet. Steven’s not finished with his disclosure— there’s more to this story, he can feel it brimming in his very bones. He can feel it squirming around in the tangled coils of his guts, a primal, virulent rot that threatens to consume him from the inside out. Something is off with him, something is distinctly wrong.

And oh, does he hate being right.

“I just… couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Steven admits.

The aching hollowness etched into the contours of his friend’s face intensifies, if that’s even possible.

Lars swallows.

“It?”

“—about killing myself,” he rasps, “and finally being done with all this.”

…

So, he’s not gonna lie.

While— much like himself— Steven’s never been the sort of person to prefer wearing his most turbulent emotions on his sleeve, he’s long suspected something like this was going on with him.

He suspected (because he’s been right there in those trenches himself), but he never said anything.

He never mentioned these worries to any of his guardians.

And he never asked.

‘Cause like, how could he, right?? What a horrible, triggering inquiry that would be. ‘Hey Steven, hah, so random question— you don’t happen to casually fantasize about your own death or anything sometimes, do you?’ Fucking hell, what an asshole he’d make. What a disgusting, disgusting breech of boundaries. He always hated it when his parents violated his trust by butting into his own personal business unprompted, so how could he ever turn right around and do that to Steven? To one of his most cherished friends in the whole galaxy? To the guy who— despite years and years of putting up with all his toxic bullshit and daring to see the good in him anyways— literally brought him back to life?

Thus, with him never volunteering any information himself, all that was left for Lars to do was watch.

To watch, and to listen where he can.

But still.

He’s not gonna lie.

Even if he always kinda suspected, even if so many of their interactions this past year only acted as fuel for all his constant, silent worries, hearing the kid actually say those words hurts like a bitch.

…

“Steven…” he utters with widened eyes, extending his hand.

To no avail, though.

“And that’s stupid, right??” the teen blurts out with a broad sweep of his arms, either ignoring or plain not noticing his offer of comfort as he rants onwards, his demeanor growing more and more unstable with each and every syllable. “That’s just… stupid! Normal people don’t think like that! Normal people don’t make mistakes and instantly leap to the worst possible punishment and spin that little thought around, and around, and around in your head until you’ve considered a thousand different scenarios that all end the same way.”

He pauses for breath, his chest heaving in and out— probably amidst the exertion of being so damn honest for once. Lars doesn’t even make a sound within this brief span of quiet. A part of him is a little terrified at what else might spill out of his friend’s mouth now that the cork of his anxieties has thoroughly been popped off, but he’s even more terrified at the thought of derailing him, of unintentionally stopping these truths from ever being spoken.

“And it’d be so easy, too,” Steven says, his once manic tone dropping a little lower, into something that’s worryingly more akin to numb acceptance. “I already know exactly how I’d do it! All I’d have to do is smash my gem so I don’t heal, and slit my wrists, and let myself just—” his voice cracks— “drift away, b-but—”

Lars’ brow hardens with a sudden rush of understanding as the trajectory of the teen’s sentence trails on off. “But something’s… holding you back?”

He nods, swallowing so hard that he can see the resultant lump move along the center line of his throat.

“The problem is,” he says, voice raw and vulnerable, “I’ve already seen how my family would respond to that. To… to me trying to kill myself. When I turned into that monster, I— I don’t actually remember much about it, but what I do remember is that the last thought I had before I changed was eerily similar to what I’m feeling now.”

Momentary lull. He’s rotating a thought in his head with the same intensity of a set of steam engine gears grinding against each other, that much is obvious.

“I think… for me,” he continues with marked hesitation, “corruption was a form of suicide. Which means—” he grinds his fingers into the soft fabric of his pajama bottoms as if seeking out an anchor, any anchor at all— “I already know what that would do to them. And I hate that I do, b-because… ‘cause I’m just so tired. Of all of this. I just want everything to stop. I want to stop.”

Lars can’t help but wince as he listens to the developing theme of this admission, to how each and every new word his friend weaves into existence falls into such dissonant harmony with the gloomy, directionless version of himself he’s worked so hard to let rest in the past. Hell, he might as well be looking straight into some weird, warped mirror of his own teenage years. His lungs seize tight upon this revelation. Instinctively, he extends his hand towards the guy’s shoulder, sobered by the understanding that he’s possibly the sole person in this entire quadrant who’s capable of conveying even an ounce of sympathy or comfort for what he’s battling through right now.

“Hey, man. It’s okay. It’s over, now, you’re here with me. Those are just thoughts, y’know?”

Steven shakes his head, the motion swift and drenched with the dread of all his unaddressed self-loathing.

“But they’re not, though…”

“Wait, what are you even—?”

“Because… this time I almost carried through with it.”

His expression crumples upon the advent of this spoken revelation.

Fuck, he thinks, wishing with every last brittle nerve in his body that this conversation didn’t just swerve in the exact godawful direction he always feared it might. What the actual fuck.

He is so not equipped for this.

With literally nothing else in his arsenal but the drive to bite his lip and listen, Lars motions for him to continue.

Sniffling, the teen backs his story up to provide what little context he feels comfortable with sharing.

“After Connie and I’s fight… well, my dreams were really, really bad. So I woke up. Alone. And I started spiraling real bad again, an’… and then before I could even process what was happening, I—”

Sweet stars, is the poor guy trembling as he struggles to push this admission out. With a brief waver of hesitation (‘cause in normal circumstances, he’s not huge on all this touchy-feely stuff), he reaches over, angling to rest one of his hands over Steven’s.

“I had the knife in my hand,” he says. “And a pestle from the kitchen, to smash my gem. B-but I just… I just couldn’t do it! I’m just a coward, Lars! A stupid fucking coward who can’t even—”

He doesn’t utter a single syllable.

He doesn’t even think. (How could he, in such fraught circumstances?)

Limbs trembling in an outright terrifying cascade of adrenaline he hasn’t experienced since the day he finally found something worth existing for, Lars surges forward to wrap him into what’s gotta be the tightest, most sincere hug he’s given in his whole twenty-one years of life.

And thankfully, such an impulsive interjection is all it takes.

The walls his friend’s erected around himself this past season topples like wayward dominos. They smash against the ground, crumbling into vulnerable, vulnerable fragments.

Steven sobs into his shoulder with a raw, shattered fervency that stretches leagues beyond any outpour of emotion he’s ever witnessed from another living person. It’s messy. It’s visceral. And in the precise context of this intensely specific turn of events, it’s a damn cathartic relief… because when it comes to training your brain out of a deep-rooted death wish, feeling anything— literally anything at all— is step number fucking one.

“I wanted to die so badly,” the teen warbles, his ugly mixture of snot and tears staining his shirt all the while. “B-but… I’m just such a worthless, pathetic failure that I can’t even do that right!”

He can’t help but cringe at this admission, but resolves to remain silent, not wanting a gentle pushback to such brutal self-loathing to spook Steven away from showing any shred of vulnerability whatsoever. He’s been there plenty of times himself. After all, when a person who’s caught in such a void of hopelessness and despair makes a last ditch appeal for help, they’re usually not looking to be told ‘everything will get better in time, you’ll see’ or ‘don’t be so hard on yourself, you’re not a worthless failure at all,’ or whatever other empty attempt at reassurance someone who doesn’t have such intimate experience with depression and suicidal ideation as he does might come up with. In many cases, such people are simply vying for their bleakest, most private feelings to actually be heard for once in their lives.

The moment’s sanctity unhindered, the boy continues to cry against his shoulder for a good long stretch of time. Lars barely even breathes as he sits perched at the very edge of that couch, consigned to nothing but a statue as he holds him within what’s gotta be a record for the galaxy’s most awkward and stiff embrace ever shared.

A miniature eternity passes within this space before those sobs finally begin to lighten up.

“‘M sorry,” Steven mumbles through a face full of snot, pulling away from his offered comfort as a flicker of shame wrests control of his features.

Lars shakes his head in a vehement refusal of the habitual guilt spiral he’s sure the guy’s a split second from slipping right into. “Dude, don’t be. Stars, I— I’m just glad you came over to me, okay?”

Then, swallowing… and doing his upmost best to consider the most respectful way to broach such a sensitive topic, he continues:

“I… I don’t mean to pry, but… are you… taking anything for this?”

Steven’s glassy expression scrunches into a configuration that screams nothing but blank confusion. “What?”

“Like… medication, or—?”

A bright understanding dawns within his gaze like the glow from a passing star system, before immediately collapsing inwards into a bitter, shadowed singularity.

“No… no,” he protests, gesticulating all the while, “I keep telling everyone— my therapist, my dad, the Gems— I don’t wanna take any medicine! I’m not sick, I’m not, I don’t need drugs in my brain, I just— I just need to stop acting like this, just need to do better, to be better, I-I need—”

“Steven, no offense, but it’s called mental illness for a reason,” Lars says in the most deadpan tone he can muster, crossing his arms as he leans back upon the plush of the couch cushion. “Your brain is ill. That’s literally what this is. If you had the flu, you’d be taking flu medicine to help yourself get over it, right?”

“I’ve never had the flu,” he says in miserable contradiction.

“Yeah, well— come on, man, just work with me here,” he half-snaps, throwing a hand up for emphasis. “You agree that someone who is ill deserves medicine to feel better, right?”

The teen merely shrugs, his features growing cold and sullen. And good golly does he super want to smack all this noncommittal, self-sabotaging bullshit out of his stupid fucking system right this instant— because it reminds him so damn much of himself, and he hates that it does— but… aughhh. He’s gotta be more mature than that, doesn’t he?

As the older of the pair, he’s gotta be the role model here.

“Then, don’t you think you might benefit from the same thing?” he presses.

Steven responds in the negative, swiveling his head from side to side. “I don’t know how it’d interact with… well—”

He flashes a sharp gesture towards himself. More specifically, towards his very center, where his gem sits. Lars has no need to live inside his thoughts to pick up on the tricky little issue he’s hinting at here… he’s worried about how human medications would interact with the complexities of part-Gem physiology. And to be fair, it’s a reasonable concern to have.

But then again…

“That’s how it is with humans, too,” he shrugs. “It takes some people a lot of trial and error to find a drug and dosage that works for them. For once, you wouldn’t be any more an unusual case than anyone else. Do what you want, but—” deep inhale— “if it were me, I’d really consider talking with a psychiatrist about this.”

The teen issues a dull huff through his nose. It’s the sort of response that makes it clear he reluctantly agrees with Lars’ logic, but should he actually follow his advice— and stars, he hopes he does— won’t be doing so with a willing heart. That’s fine, though. Sometimes, being the most supportive friend one can be means that the other party won’t always like what you have to say. He knows this from intense personal experience… from being the person on the other side of this kind of conflict. Sadie was never afraid of serving him the tough love and cutting perspective he needed when he opened up to her about his own experience with suicidal ideation, and he’s forever grateful for that. Thus, the least he can do now is try to be that kind of advocate for Steven, too.

Which brings him to the next vital topic rattling within his brain.

“Oh, and one other thing,” Lars says, folding his hands in his lap and looking him directly in the eye. “This is important, so please be honest with me. Have you told anyone else you’ve been struggling with these kinds of thoughts?”

“Not really,” he mumbles, his own gaze slipping aside amidst the turbulent throes of his clear shame. “I just… I wanted to deal with this myself. I don’t want them to be disappointed. They all think I’m doing so well these days, but then—”

“Steven.”

There’s no acknowledgement of his call, at first. He’s just too damn tangled within his own thoughts— expression glazed over and restless fingertips drumming in an endless thrall against his thigh.

“Steven, come on. Look at me,” he implores, interrupting his manic fidgeting with the reassuring solidity of a hand over his. “Please. Promise me, when you go back through my head, you’ll call someone else— anyone else— and tell them. Tell them, and then have them contact me. I want to hear you promise.”

“Lars…”

“Promise me,” he repeats with an even stronger fervency, his normally sluggish heartbeat surging halfway to its old full-strength status quo. “Listen, I don’t want to invade your privacy any more than you want me to, but if you don’t do this by the end of tomorrow… if that very clock—” he jabs a finger towards the so-mentioned object hanging upon his wall— “hits midnight and I don’t hear anything from your family… then I’m calling your father and telling him myself.”

Steven’s expression twists with a sharp jolt of dismay, his mouth falling ajar. Lars cuts off any pending protests with a swift flash of his hand and continues undeterred.

“I’m not joking. I’m like, a billion light years in space, man. You need someone closer to home in your corner, too.”

Unable to ignore the hard hitting truth of this statement, his friend finally acquiesces to his request, his shoulders slumping inwards.

“Fine,” he mumbles, folding his arms to his chest. “I promise I’ll tell Dad.”

“Thank you,” he breathes in sheer spine tingling relief. And by golly, does he uber mean it.

Because holy shit, have the past fifteen or so minutes of conversation been an absolute stress-soaked ordeal. He doesn’t know if he’s ever felt so emotionally exhausted in his whole ass existence.

“In the morning, though,” Steven adds. “I—” the kid heaves a long, exhausted sigh— “I really don’t think either of us are prepared for that kind of conversation this late.”

“Absolutely fair enough.”

His friend sniffles a little, gaze averting once more. “Can I— can I stay here, for tonight? I really, really don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Of course,” he nods. In his mind, Steven’s request was never a matter up for debate. “Always. I’ll… I’ll go get some blankets.”

Hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, Lars pushes himself off the couch and slowly shuffles his way to the door. (The storage closet he keeps all his extra personal elements in is a short distance down the hall, past Rhody and Padparadscha’s shared room.) He keeps his expression as blank as he can muster… at least until he’s moved well out of both visual and auditory range. And then… once he’s absolutely positive that Steven can’t overhear… all that built-up worry and emotional strain simply overflows.

He’s not outright crying— not in the way that others might— but damn if he’s not real close to it.

Lars’ whole body shudders with a burst of delayed grief as he braces himself upon the closet door. He clamps a hand over his mouth, stifling the impact of the shaky exhale that spills from his lips otherwise unhindered. Just… fuck. What the fuck. All of this feels like a horrible nightmare. When the hell did things get so bad for him? Who let things get this bad? Is he at fault—? Like, geeze— he always knew something felt awry with the kid (and that’s half the issue, isn’t it? He’s not just a sweet little kid with simple lil’ problems anymore, and in many ways he never was), but should he have said something? Confronted him about it? Told his guardians about his concerns, privacy be damned?

He grits his teeth as he muddles over all the infinite complexities of this problem.

Ugh.

What if, what if, what if.

It’s all useless conjecture.

The bottom line is, Steven doesn’t deserve any of this. Not then, not now, not ever. He shouldn’t have to be dealing with any of these horrid, horrid thoughts. Stars, if anything had happened to him— if he actually did follow through with his plan, then—

Lars drops his head against the door panel, doing everything within his power to will the thought to evaporate from his mind.

No.

No…

He doesn’t even want to consider that possibility. Steven’s like a brother to him at this point. It’s not gonna happen. Not now, not ever. Not on his watch.

He’s not sure how yet, but he’ll make damn sure of it.

…

Once he’s cooled himself down, Lars returns to his quarters with a couple of blankets in hand.

Upon passing through the doorframe, he’s met with a somewhat reassuring sight: Steven already sound asleep on his ratty old couch, curled up against the armrest and snoring softly. Heh. He sure doesn’t blame him for tuckering out so soon. Poor guy must’ve been exhausted after such a rigorous emotional outpouring. Moving with calm intent so as not to disturb him, he quickly lays the blankets across his slumbering form before retreating to the far wall to keep watch for the night. He stretches back against the metallic panel, inhaling as deep as he can muster to erase the quavering tension staining his countenance.

Standing vigil over a soul in need… just in case.

#su #su future #lars barriga #steven universe #padparadscha #su fanfiction #my writing stuff

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takahirokatoh · 1 year ago

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Umineko no Naku Koro ni stageplay ep.4eve

It has been decided that Episode 4 Eve will be live-streamed for a fee.

There are no subtitles, but if you want to see the tea party and the secret tea party, please check it out.

We have an important request.

Please use official information when posting information about the "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" stageplay.

This stage is not an unauthorized fandom, but an official collaboration project between 07th Expansion and Shingidan Mumei Classics.

Visuals posted on X (Twitter) are prohibited from being reproduced.

Please use reposts (retweets) and embedded links.

We have confirmed that videos of past performances have been uploaded without permission. We are preparing to sue, so please stop it.

Screen captures (shots) of performance videos are also not permitted.

Currently, the opening videos of Episode 1 and Episode 2 are available for free.

So only the opening parts are available.

However, please assume that captures of other parts of the video will be subject to lawsuits even if they are paid for or free for a limited time.

Episode 4 will be performed in September of this year (2024).

If you want to see the upcoming stage productions from Episode 5 to 8, and if you want DVDs and Blu-ray media with official subtitles, please do not do anything that would put the official company at a disadvantage.

Shingidan Mumei Classics is a small theater company in Japan. Although we have become known to people all over the world through "Umineko no Naku Koro ni", we have little operating capital. That is why we need funds to stage "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" to the end. Yes, just like Beato's gold. This is revenue from performance tickets, DVDs, merchandise, distribution, etc. During performances, we may also use a support system called Treats.

This stage production is supported by fans of "Umineko no Naku Koro ni". I am happy to say that the stage productions have been well received. However, it is unlikely that we will be able to perform all the way to the final Episode 8. In order to make the "magic" a reality, we need more power from now on. The more power we have, the closer the "magic" will be to reality. As one of the performers, I would like to go to Episode 8 and El Dorado with all the fans. But that's not a decision. There is a possibility that I may step down. Even so, I want "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" to go all the way to El Dorado. There are still fans in Japan who don't know that it has been adapted into a stage play. I'm happy to see reactions to my posts, but please use Official X (Twitter) posts or the official website link to let as many "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" fans know about it.

Let's all aim for El Dorado.

#umineko #umineko no naku koro ni #when they cry #stage play #umineko when they cry #stage of the golden witch #うみねこのなく頃に #うみねこ #うみ��テ #うみステ2 #うみステ3 #うみステ4 #進戯団夢命クラシックス #Shingidan Mumei Classics #07th #stageplay #しんぎだんむめいくらしっくす

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gentil-minou · 2 years ago

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Chapter Four of once upon a time, 很久很久以前

Wangxian AU based on the show Once Upon a Time where all of jianghu has been cursed to live miserable lives in modern times without their memories and only Wei Wuxian can save them...except he doesn't remember either.

Wangxian + A-Yuan | Ch 4 | 11K | Rated M

Specific Chapter CW: Smut scene (masturbation, body worship)

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Transmigration, of the townwide variety, Amnesia, of the nearly everyone variety, Mystery, of the shenanigans variety, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn Has Self-Esteem Issues, Single Parent Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, except a-yuan runs away to find his other dad, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Minor Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curses, Alternate Universe - Once Upon a Time Fusion

Chapter Summary

Lan Wangji spent the last few years honing his morning routine into an efficiently precise art form. Everything had gone exactly according to plan, executed perfectly, as befitting a proper Lan. Except this past weekend was a significant deviation from all of that. This past weekend he’d lost and found his son, and found and lost Wei Ying. Suddenly, Lan Wangji’s carefully cultivated morning routine disappears into smoke and ash. -- Lan Wangji is still reeling from his disastrous encounter with the strangely familiar Wei Ying, but perhaps fate's design will offer him a second chance.

Preview under the cut

This past weekend he’d lost and found his son, and found and lost Wei Ying.

Suddenly, Lan Wangji’s carefully cultivated morning routine disappears into smoke and ash.

Monday morning, he begins his day by oversleeping and missing his natural wake-up time by twenty minutes. He, for the first time ever, groggily rolls out of bed, searching fruitlessly for his phone which he normally keeps on the dresser on the far side of the room. He finds it buried amongst the sheets in which he’d spent the night before tossing and turning as he'd checked his email and messages again and again.

He commits mistake after mistake as he hastily tries to fix his bed, ruining creases that had been strategically embedded into the sheets by years of habit. He finds himself growing increasingly agitated, breath huffing in almost a growl. At last, Lan Wangji surrenders and stumbles into the bathroom, leaving the red fleece blanket he’d bought yesterday spontaneously in a messy pile at the center of the bed.

His morning meditation is useless and he ends it after five minutes where an endless chorus of Lan Zhan! sings inside his head. He puts his sneakers on left foot first instead of right, nearly tripping over them, and even inputs the wrong code for the security system three times before finally arming it.

He misses a turn on his run and ends up taking a different route around the lake that requires Lan Wangji to double back along the beach. He grits his teeth as his sneakers collect enough coarse sand to construct a sandpit in his backyard.

When Lan Wangji at last arrives back home, he immediately enters the kitchen and downs a glass of water in a single gulp. The glass nearly shatters when he slams it onto the counter, out of breath and feeling even more disconcerted than he did when he woke up.

Then, he stares at the spot where Wei Ying had been sitting just twenty-four hours ago. The stool he’d perched on, limbs akimbo like he’d never sat properly at any point in his life. The countertop Wei Ying had leaned on, inching further into Lan Wangji’s space, brown eyes teasing.

He remembers the way Wei Ying had chewed on his bottom lip when he was thinking, how entranced Lan Wangji had been by the freckle under that lip. How every time Wei Ying would gnaw on its dry skin, Lan Wangji had found himself torn between offering him chapstick or biting those lips himself.

How he wouldn’t have even needed that excuse, how close they’d come to him being able to act on his every desire with Wei Ying’s enthusiastic consent…

Read more on Ao3

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adriaticmidnight · 1 year ago

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The Wrong Amount of Alive

11K words so far and updated Fridays on AO3

Apart of the "Patches of Starlight" series

Sequel to I’ve Been Erased Yet My Shadow Remains

"Time sped back up, the pain hitting him like a train as he fell to the ground, clutching at his chest.

The gun in her hand still smoking; she stalked towards him. His Dad was as still as a statue, barely moving.

Danny’s breaths came faster as his heart worked against the poison invading his system. Each beat sending a shock of pain through his chest. He looked up at his Mom, black spots appearing in his vision.

As he passed out, he only saw one thing on her face.

Rage."

Danny and Damian are finally reunited after so many years apart but things aren't as good as one would hope.

The Fentons are closing in, someone has a vendetta against Robin, and Vlad claims to know things about Danny's past he shouldn't. All while Danny struggles to fit into his new life, train to become Ghost King, and deal with past trauma that comes back to haunt him.

This is an alternating story set before and after the events of "I’ve Been Erased Yet My Shadow Remains". The past will be revealed and the present is as dangerous as ever.

Snippet from first two chapters:

Stale air assaulted Danny’s senses.

He groaned, his head throbbing, and rubbed his eyes. His sleep-addled brain slowly pieced together his dream until a single horrifying image stuck in his mind.

“It was just a dream. It was just a dream,” He whispered

But even as he said it, tears welled up in his eyes.

The dark room around him provided little comfort, the streetlight that cast shadows along his walls seemingly missing tonight.

His fingers dug into the soft fabric below him. He turned, pressing his face into his pillow, the material soaking up his tears.

I’m okay. I’m okay.

After a moment, he took a deep breath. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get any more sleep this night. Not when he had one of his nightmares.

He moved to sit up when his head struck something hard.

He shouted as the movement sent a jolt through his body, jumpstarting pain he’d managed to forget before that moment.

His wrists, his neck, Ancients, his chest…

Memories flooded his mind.

Mom and Dad.

He’d told them the truth.

Danny’s eyes went wide, his hands reaching up and running along the wood above him.

NO NO NO NO

Sweat beaded on Danny’s brow, his heart a jackhammer against his ribs; the eerily silent box around him closing in, closer, closer, closer –

Danny choked as he beat against the walls of his prison.

How much air did he have? How long had he been trapped? Did anyone know? Was anyone looking for him?

In a panic, he called the white rings around him, the brief feeling of relief cut short by jagged electricity stabbing throughout his body. He quickly transformed back, the electricity mercifully stopping its assault.

His breathing ragged and uneven, he tried to call an ecto-blast but it fizzled out in his palm.

He kicked at the top of the casket, punching at the top of it, clawing at it until his hands were raw and bloody, splinters embedded in his fingers.

Danny worked through the stabbing pain, adrenaline fueling his body.

A tiny sliver of green light eeked its way through the small hole he’d made.

He renewed his efforts, prying and scraping at the hole as it grew with each pass of his hands.

With a final yank, a hole about the size of a fist cast a sickly green light down on him. Illuminating the suit he wore along with the plush inside of the casket that surrounded him.

Danny swallowed and placed his eye at the hole: His breathing slowing. His limbs felt as if they had been replaced with lead as he realized why he couldn’t use his powers.

An Anti-Ecto Burial Vault.

Chapter 2: Let’s try this again

Danny leaned over, pencil flying across his canvas, and tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth as he erased a mark and added a different detail.

His FoxPods snug in his ears, he bobbed his head to the music as the song washed over him.

It’d been a month since he’d joined Damian in Gotham. Living with the Waynes was nice but also so very strange. Sam had been rich, sure, and Vlad had been a billionaire as well, but the opulence that this family was used to was, frankly, insane.

For one the house was huge! He thanked the Ancients that he’d been trained to make mental maps or else he would have never found his way around the manor.

His room connected to Damian’s via a bathroom. Which was great since he still woke up from nightmares. Damian was always there when he needed him.

Danny hated to think it, but he felt like a burden on Damian. Popping up out of the blue? With the baggage he had? He wouldn’t blame his brother if he resented him for that.

But being with the Waynes was good. Everyone was nice and seemed to want to help him settle in. Father talked about commissioning a new portrait for the family, that thought had quickly elicited groans from the others, apparently it was a lengthy process: but Danny was excited.

He’d never been a part of a family that seemed to want him so much. It was insane to him that soon he’d be able to officially call these people his family. He’d be a Wayne. Not just some kid who shared a little DNA with Bruce Wayne.

He’d have the family he’d always wanted.

And yet,

That thought made him all the more scared.

“Danyal?”

The name just barely registered to Danny over the music, he tapped his pods to pause the song and leaned back, letting his head fall, and smiled once he saw Damian’s bewildered expression.

“What’s up?”

“...Why are you on the ceiling?”

“Sketching, about to start painting, wanna help?”

Damian nodded seriously, as if this were a grand honor and not just some paint he’d found in a closet.

Danny pointed over to where the paints were, Damian quickly grabbed a ladder and joined his twin in painting. Danny sat comfortably and crosslegged on the ceiling as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Danny tapped his FoxBuds a few times and cast his music to a Bluetooth speaker, bathing the room in music. Damian didn’t comment on it but Danny could see his lip twitch up in a little smile.

Damian took one look at the sketch and seemed to know what Danny’s plan was. Their heads tilted upwards, the paint dripping off the plaster and splattering their clothes and faces, they worked in sync, never getting in each other's way.

At one point, Danny flicked his paintbrush at Damian and that quickly turned into a paint war between the brothers. Paint splattering a bit of the walls and furniture in the process.

Once they were done both boys stepped back and admired their work.

It was perfect.

It was just like he remembered it, albeit, with many more colors than before, especially after the paint war:

The night sky that they used to stare up at so many years ago at Nanda Parbat.

Father knocked on the open door, a black suit on, and a soft smile on his lips, “Good to see you found the paint and uh-” he glanced around the room, “Good to see that some of it got on the ceiling.”

Danny suddenly became all too aware of the paint covering their hands and faces and rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, got a little sidetracked but we’ll be ready in time. Promise.”

Father smiled and looked up at the ceiling, gesturing at it as he left.

“Fantastic work by the way.”

As he walked away Danny smudged more paint on Damian’s cheek and ran into the bathroom, ignoring his brother’s protests.

“You have to come out of there sometime!” Damian said

“Oh, but then I’ll be so nice and clean. You wouldn’t paint the man of the hour would you?” Danny taunted at the door.

“Fine. But I’ll get you back for this!”

Danny turned on the tap, “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

#dpxdc #dpxdc fanfic #damian and danny are twins #dpxdc crossover #dpxdc au

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study-with-aura · 2 months ago

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Friday, April 24, 2025

I ended up deciding to volunteer for only two hours today instead of my usual three, so I could still go today but have an extra hour to complete things. I don't know whether I will be posting tomorrow or not, as we are having a sleepover at my place for the GS Seniors to work on a badge. It's one that we have to complete at night, so it makes it easier to have everyone stay over at our place since we hold our meetings here, and we have the extra space. It's only H, E, and me, and they usually sleep in my bed with me since it accommodates the three of us. But the extra bathrooms are the helpful part. I'm excited for the sleepover since we haven't had one in a while. We didn't do it during cookie season this year since we did our cookie season a bit differently than last year. The other levels still did the booth, but we did regular word of mouth as it was easier this time around.

I also got my lit book from the library, so I can start doing physical notes with post-its. While I can't highlight in it like I do on the ebook, this is easier to see visually all at once rather than trying to scroll through all of my notes. Plus, it's kind of fun. I did decide on my literary analysis topic (working title): Haunted by Slavery: Gothic Horror and Moral Decay in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I wanted to focus on comparison to Gothic literature since there are a lot of gothic elements in the novel, but I also really liked the moral hypocrisy aspect of it, where slaveholders twist the Bible to fit the context they want rather than reading it in the context of the Biblical period itself and the actual moral values the Bible teaches. There is so much Christian hypocrisy happening in this novel when focused on the South (but even in the North through Ophelia) that it felt too good a topic to ignore. And in a way, it does fit the gothic style as well because they use Scripture as psychological entrapment and to condone the evilness of slavery by saying that God wanted it this way, which is not true at all if you actually know the Bible. So I've combined the two.

My current working thesis: In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe employs Gothic conventions within the Southern plantation setting to construct a landscape of psychological torment and moral decay. This literary framework allows her to critique the institution of slavery not only as a system of physical oppression, but also as a reflection of the spiritual and ethical contradictions embedded in antebellum society.

Thoughts? Does it sound interesting to you? My mom is an English/French lit university professor, so I never feel I'm quite meeting her standards, but that's my perception, not hers. Plus, I'm still in high school. I think it's okay if I'm not writing at the college level just yet, since I still have two more years to go, but I am very excited about this topic! 🦄

Tasks Completed:

Algebra 2 - Reviewed systems of linear equations and inequalities

American Literature - Vocabulary quiz (100%) + copied vocabulary words + read about transitions + continued working on the final project

Spanish 3 - Read more about informal commands + practice quiz + completed virtual worksheet

Bible 2 - Read Mark 3

Early American History - Read about the impeachment of Johnson + worked on my final paper

Earth Science with Lab - Completed Milky Way lab + completed virtual lab report

PE/Health II - Read an article on what happens in the brain when the mind blanks

Art Appreciation - Completed daily critiquing assignment on Paul Cézanne's The House with Cracked Walls + read about the painting + jotted down notes about how to recognize a Cézanne, his style, and his philosophy + reviewed artists to this point

Khan Academy - Completed Algebra 2 daily mastery challenge

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 15 minutes (Spanish + French + Chinese) + completed daily quests

Piano - Practiced for two hours

Reading - Read chapters 36-40 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (second read-through)

Chores - Vacuumed my bedroom, the study, and the front room + swept and mopped the kitchen floor

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (Proverbs 4:23)

Group Bible Study (1 Chronicles 3-5)

Volunteered 2 hours at the mission

Ballet

Variations

Journal/Mindfulness

#study blog #study inspiration #study motivation #studyblr #studyblr community #study community #homeschool #homeschooling #study-with-aura

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digitalgla · 8 months ago

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IEEE Project Center in Tirunelveli

AB Technologies: The Leading IEEE Project Center in Tirunelveli

Engineering students across Tamil Nadu often seek out the best resources for their final year projects, and AB Technologies has become the top choice for students in Tirunelveli. Known for its exceptional quality, innovation, and focus on practical learning, AB Technologies is recognized as the leading IEEE project center in Tirunelveli. Specializing in IEEE-certified projects, the center has carved a niche for itself by providing students with the tools, mentorship, and technical support they need to excel.

The Importance of IEEE Projects

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) projects hold significant value for engineering students. These projects are based on international standards, representing the latest technological advancements and innovations across various fields of engineering. An IEEE-certified project not only strengthens a student’s academic performance but also boosts their resume, providing a strong competitive advantage in the job market. With industries increasingly focusing on cutting-edge technology and innovation, completing an IEEE-certified project from a reputable center like AB Technologies opens up greater career opportunities for students.

Diverse Project Offerings

AB Technologies offers a comprehensive range of project options across several branches of engineering, ensuring that every student can find a project that aligns with their interests and academic requirements. Some of the most popular project domains offered include:

Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE): AB Technologies provides a variety of IEEE-certified projects in areas like embedded systems, digital communication, IoT (Internet of Things), and VLSI design. Students have the opportunity to work with advanced technologies and tools, preparing them for real-world challenges.

Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE): From power systems and electrical machines to renewable energy solutions, AB Technologies offers projects that focus on sustainable and emerging technologies. These projects help students gain a deeper understanding of modern power systems and electrical circuits.

Computer Science and Information Technology: In a field where technological advancements are rapid, AB Technologies offers projects in trending areas like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cybersecurity, web development, and data science. These projects are designed to provide students with hands-on experience in the technologies shaping the future of the industry.

Mechanical Engineering: Mechanical engineering students can explore projects involving robotics, automation, CAD/CAM, and industrial design, gaining practical exposure to cutting-edge mechanical systems and technologies.

Expert Guidance and Mentorship

What sets AB Technologies apart from other project centers is its dedication to providing personalized mentorship. Each student receives one-on-one guidance from experienced professionals and academic experts who ensure that the project is not only completed successfully but also understood in-depth by the student. This mentorship covers every phase of the project, from initial concept and design to development, testing, and final presentation.

Focus on Hands-On Learning

At AB Technologies, students aren’t just completing projects for the sake of academic requirements; they’re getting hands-on, practical experience. The center is equipped with state-of-the-art tools, software, and hardware, allowing students to work on real-world applications of their projects. This practical exposure is invaluable in helping students understand the complexities of modern engineering solutions and preparing them for the challenges they will face in their professional careers.

Building a Reputation of Trust and Excellence

Over the years, AB Technologies has earned a strong reputation for its quality and commitment to excellence. The center has become a trusted partner for engineering students and educational institutions in Tirunelveli, thanks to its consistent track record of delivering successful IEEE projects. Many students have benefited from the expert guidance and innovative project solutions provided by AB Technologies, allowing them to stand out in their academic and professional journeys.

Conclusion

For engineering students in Tirunelveli looking to undertake IEEE-certified projects, AB Technologies is the clear choice. With its wide range of project offerings, expert mentorship, and hands-on learning opportunities, the center ensures that students not only meet their academic goals but also acquire valuable skills that will set them apart in the job market. As the leading IEEE project center in Tirunelveli, AB Technologies continues to empower students to succeed in their engineering careers.

Best IEEE expert engineering project center, Nagercoil | Tirunelveli | Chennai (abtechnologies.in)

#IEEE Project Center in Tirunelveli

#IEEE#Project#Center#in#Tirunelveli

##IEEEProjectCenterinTirunelveli

#IEEE Project Center in Tirunelveli

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oddevan · 9 months ago

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Reintroducing Smolblog

I recently made a ~20 min. video essay about Smolblog. The video is embedded here; the transcript follows.

Watch video

Hi, neighbors; I’m Evan. For over five years now, I’ve been working on a project called Smolblog. It’s not ready to use, but it is far enough along that I need to start talking about it. So, if you’re interested, I’m going to talk about why Smolblog exists, what I’m hoping to accomplish with it, and, finally, how I’m building it. Let’s get started!

So, I want to start off with one of the most important questions any project can ask. Really, a question every project should be asking not just at the beginning, but at every point along the way: why. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this now? Why are we doing this and not something else? What is the problem we’re trying to solve? Is it a problem worth solving?

I won’t name specific names, but I’m sure we can all think of some widget or tech where there never seems to be a good answer for “why?”. At best, they’re solutions in search of a problem. I don’t have money to waste on that; I certainly don’t have time to waste on that. So why Smolblog?

In a word: Enshittification; or, in more polite terms, “platform decay.” It’s a term coined by Cory Doctorow to describe the arc of internet platforms and venture-backed startups. To explain it is a whole essay in and of itself, but to sum it up, it goes a little something like this:

In a capitalistic system, you have producers who make products and consumers who use them. For example, a musician’s product is music, and the consumers are the fans that listen to them. And in the middle of this relationship is a platform, something to enable the relationship. It could be a coffee shop that hosts an open mic night, the social media site that lets the two interact, or the example that we’ll use: a music app. This app comes out and tells musicians they can upload their music and get paid for it, and it tells fans they can listen to their favorite artists for free. Everyone wins, right?

Well, almost. See, the platform is operating at a loss; they’re losing money every time someone listens to a song because they have to pay the operational costs to get the song to the fan, and they have to pay the musicians for the rights to the song. The only reason the company is still running is because they have investors willing to pay this massive upfront cost in order to get everyone using the platform. Once everyone’s locked in, the decay starts as the platform now controls both supply and demand.

It might start by the platform paying less to the musicians. Then maybe they introduce a “premium tier” to fans–it’s no longer free. They might make a “premium” service that gets musicians' music in front of more people, which means advertisements for fans. As the cycle goes on, at every step, the platform pays less to producers, gets worse for consumers, and pockets more money for itself. That’s enshittification in a nutshell.

And this is happening to social media. This has been happening to social media. Think of how many more advertisements are in your feeds. How hard it can be to actually see the things you want to see versus what the site wants you to see. How we hear so often that they’re making things better and then they… don’t.

Imaginary Anon on Tumblr put it well when they said:

will people please stop walking into my house (websites that i use often) and moving all my furniture (giving them new layouts that i hate).

And while they were talking about a reference website, I’ve seen—and felt myself—this same sentiment used to describe changes to social media websites and apps. But here’s the thing…

We can mess with our social media profiles. We can change with the titles, paint the walls, draw on them, even put up some posters. We can make the space our own, feel a sense of ownership, but at the end of the day, this is not our beautiful house. In reality, it never was. That sense of ownership only lasts until the platform decides to start making the money they promised their investors.

By now you might be thinking, “Okay, that sucks, but it’s just social media. Why does this matter? It’s just the internet. It’s not real life.” Here’s the thing, though: the internet is real life. What we do online matters. Who we are online matters. The things we do on the internet are real actions with real consequences because we are all real people. It’s always been easy to forget that, but it’s always been true.

So let’s talk about who we are online, our identities. For the sake of brevity, I’ll boil this down to our names, our presentations, and our actions. In physical space, we usually have a given name and a family name. We choose our presentation with haircuts, makeup, the clothes we wear, buttons, stickers–all of that. And our actions are how we respond to whatever is around us, usually driven by whatever circumstances we happen to be in.

In online space, our names are our platform handles, our presentation is basically our profile pic, and our actions are limited to what the platform allows, and that’s typically tied into its algorithm.

So why Smolblog? Because online life is part of real life. Which means our online identities are an increasingly important part of our real identities. And every aspect of these identities passes through the platforms we use. Our names are subordinate to theirs, our presentation is limited to their parameters, and their algorithms reward actions that benefit them even if it’s harmful to us, because these platforms exist solely to make their owners money at our expense. That’s why.

So now let’s talk “what”. What is Smolblog specifically going to do to help solve the problem of online identity? The short answer is: blogs. Making places on the internet that people can set up their own identities with as little influence from platforms as possible.

But that’s kinda old news, isn’t it? We’ve had blogs since the early 2000s and they’ve never taken off like people want. When modern social media came along, everyone flocked to that because it was so much easier and more fun.

Here’s the thing, though: blogs never went away. If I were writing a dictionary entry for blogs, I would start by calling it a system for displaying content on the internet. What makes it a blog specifically is that it displays your most recent content in reverse chronological order at a dedicated address.

For example: WordPress, the most popular blogging engine out there. Here’s a site I haven’t updated in forever, but you can still see recent posts in reverse chronological order at a dedicated URL. Tumblr actually calls them “blogs”, and it fits: my most recent posts in reverse chronological order at a dedicated URL.

But what about my Facebook profile? I don’t have as much here, but it does have my most recent posts in reverse chronological order at a dedicated URL. YouTube: Most recent posts in reverse chronological order at a dedicated URL. Instagram: Most recent posts in reverse chronological order at a dedicated URL. Mastodon! Bluesky! LinkedIn! Ex! Medium! Soundcloud! DeviantArt! Twitch! TikTok! SOCIAL! MEDIA! IS! JUST! BLOGGING!

(Deep breath)

Social media and blogging are–at the heart–just about putting content onto the internet for others to enjoy. But if that’s the case, why did social media take off when blogging… didn’t? There’s a few major factors at play, not the least of which is the rise of the smartphone. But I think social media did well at addressing two things: barriers to entry, and barriers to participation.

Now, of the two, barriers to entry is the easier to address. What are the barriers to entry? I’m going to pick on WordPress here because it is by far the most popular way to set up a blog. And by running the open source version, you have complete control over the platform–you decide what to install and run.

Except the process for actually installing and running WordPress is… not easy. Here’s their download page with two options: “Download and install it yourself” and “Set up with a hosting provider.” If you’re not familiar with installing and running software on a web server, if you have no idea what web hosting even is… you’re stuck. This is the single biggest barrier to entry for blogging. The good news, though, is we’ve “solved” it for a couple of decades: let people sign up for an account. This makes it easy to get started, but it also means that we cede a lot of control to the platform. We’re trying to avoid that.

Two examples of a better approach are Laughing Squid and Micro-dot-blog. Laughing Squid is one of many web hosts that handles installing and running the open source version of WordPress but still lets you customize it. Manton Reece’s Micro-dot-blog–what I use for my blog–offers inexpensive blog hosting with built-in apps and services. Both of these are ways to set up blogs that take care of all the little technical details but still give us control. Both of these cost money, but by paying for them, we get platforms that aren’t as at risk for enshittification. So that’s barriers to entry pretty much handled.

But what about the barriers to participation? What happens after people sign up? Take a look at the post editors for WordPress and Medium. They take up most of the screen, WordPress has some extra menus to the top and side, and they’re mostly just a blank canvas. That’s great for some instances, but let’s compare that with social media: Here’s Instagram, X, and Tumblr. These don’t take up the whole screen; they’re small and focused. Instagram I couldn’t even get to this part until I’d picked a photo! They prompt for content, and they don’t ask much. Just a picture. Just a link. Just one sentence about what’s happening. Social media understood something incredibly important: The hardest part of blogging is blogging. It’s coming up with the words to say, learning to be confident in your own voice, finding things to post about.

In short, with blogs we have platforms that we control, but it can be a little complicated. With social media, it’s easier and more fun, but we’re subject to enshittification. So let’s take the freedom of blogging and bring in the fun of social media. Let’s take the overwhelming parts of blogging and focus them in to what we really want and need.

But what about our communities? We’ve spent years, maybe even decades building up relationships on these platforms, whether through interactions or just following and being followed. And as a lot of us have seen over the past few years, a lot of these communities don’t survive changing platforms. So how do we keep these relationships alive?

First, we cross-post. Social media loves to do this to get people on board, and we can use it to our advantage. We connect our blogs to our social media accounts. Then, we post to our blogs. Our blogs know what the content looks like, what each field means. And they’re able to take that information, translate it into content for other social media sites, and post it automatically. We keep our content in a place we control and syndicate it out to other sites where our communities already are.

That takes care of the “now,” but what about the future? If everyone’s on their own blog, how do we interact with each other? For that, we have standards. The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, is the organization that sets standards for HTTP, HTML, and other technologies that the web needs to run. And there are new standards being developed to enable the social interactions we’re used to—such as likes, replies, or follows—but with independently-run blogs that don’t need to pass through a central platform.

Some of these standards are newer, like ActivityPub, and others are older, like RSS. But the easiest way to explain this is a standard older than the web itself: email. If Bob has an email account at gmail-dot-com, he can still email Alice with an account at hotmail-dot-com. Or I can set up my own email server at oddevan-dot-com. Even though we’re using different servers—and probably different software on those servers—they can all speak to each other using this same standard.

Let’s start with this foundation of open standards that gave us email and the web and podcasts, build the social interactions and tools and connections we’ve formed through social media, cross-post to our old accounts to keep our communities, and present it in an experience that lets us use our tools, not fight against them. That’s what I want to do with Smolblog.

So let’s talk “how.” How is Smolblog going to be a better blog? How is it not going to end up like every other enshittified platform that came before it? How am I actually going to do this?

The first part is admitting that, well… I can’t. There’s no special algorithm, no hack, that will absolutely stop enshittification. Any code in the software, any bylaws in whatever company this ends up being, all those can be changed, and there’s no way to guarantee that they won’t. And even if there was, the biggest risk here is that Smolblog just… fizzles out. We could easily get to a place where I can’t maintain Smolblog on my own, and no one else is around to pick it up.

We can’t stop entropy… but we can certainly try. We can set things up so that when it happens, we’re ready. So here’s my plan, and it looks an awful lot like WordPress:

The source code to Smolblog is and will be Free Software. Free as in price, but also free to run, study, modify, and distribute. Anyone that wants to can download and run the software on a web server. The only requirement is that any modifications also have to be available to anyone using it.

For those that don’t want to download it themselves, I’ll be running a paid service at smolblog-dot-com. As much as I want it to be free, I’m not going to do that unless I can do it sustainably. It’ll be running the exact same software that’s available for download, so anyone is free to set up their own service and charge for it.

But no matter what, any user will be able to download their data. I want to make this as simple as possible for everyone, so I’m planning on using the Blog Archive format. It’s a proposed standard that packages all of a blog’s pages, posts, images, everything in one tidy archive that can be imported to another server or uploaded as its own static website.

All this gives protection against enshittification, but it also makes it easier to do content moderation, particularly when it comes to the hosted service. As everyone from bored teenagers to eccentric billionaires know, there are limits to free speech. It’s not just the big ones like hate speech and harassment but stupid stuff like… spam. We can set up things like word filters, flood control, account verification, but at the end of the day, sometimes we just need to wield the ban hammer.

Now, there’s been a lot of hand wringing lately about freedom of speech and banning people. I agree that a ban is not something to be taken lightly. If we have these open platforms and encourage people to put their life’s work on them and build these audiences, it can feel like a breach of trust to then take that away. But before we get too dramatic, data portability means there’s a backup of all the content in a standard format. Free code means there’s a way to keep using the exact same Smolblog. And using open standards for interactions means that the audience doesn’t disappear, despite what people may say.

Having this freedom in place neutralizes the debate. Instead of questioning whether certain speech should be “allowed to exist”, we have the ability to say that it’s not speech we want here. It’s freedom for users and for administrators, because they both have the chance to say “this isn’t working, it’s time to leave.”

So we’ve talked enshittification prevention, and we’ve even talked business model a bit. But this is a software project, so let’s talk code, just for a second. I’m starting with the core domain logic, the things that are intrinsic to the app, what makes Smolblog Smolblog. Things like the content workflow, or what accounts are allowed to make changes. What’s not part of that are things like how the data is stored, handling image uploads, interfacing with other services, making sure people are who they say they are. By building a modular, adaptable system, I can swap these parts out without having to change the core. I can even build registries that can store different parts of the same type and swap them out on-the-fly.

That flexibility extends to the Content model. It’ll have a few intrinsic details like publish date and primary author, but most of it is going to be this box we’re calling the content Type. This is the structured information that really determines what the content is: a picture and caption, an embedded video, or just 140 characters of text… that word we don’t say anymore. Each piece of content can only have one type, but there can be many extensions. These are things like tags, syndication links; things that apply to multiple–if not all–types of content.

Once we have our complete Content object, we can push it to a channel, which is just a place to put content. It can be your website, but it can also be an account on another social media site like Tumblr or LinkedIn. It could even be a feed using an open protocol like ActivityPub. We push the content and send it on its way.

A flexible content model with diverse channels, powered by adaptable code, protected by Free Software and Data Portability, and sustained with a business model used by multiple Open Source projects. That’s how I’m building Smolblog.

Now, here’s the part where I really should show it to you in action… but I can’t. Not reliably. I got 95% of the way to a working product and… burnt out. This video is what I’ve been doing to get back into the project and refocus my efforts. Because I really want this to happen.

Smolblog represents everything I want for blogs and the web. I’ve been working on this for over five years now, and I’ve been chewing on the ideas my whole career. And as more and more of our lives are lived online, it’s more and more important that we build environments that are good for us, or at least don’t actively harm us.

Steve Jobs once called the computer a “bicycle for the mind,” a force multiplier that lets us do more than we could previously. Personally, I want to build things that let us create more, express ourselves better, put more art out into the world and let it connect us. Lofty and pretentious? Definitely. Sharp rocks at the bottom? Most likely. But I gotta try.

Take care of each other; I’ll see you next time.

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mariowithmercy · 12 hours ago

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Deleting Instagram & Tik Tok Part 1

I feel like I should delete all my social media except Tumblr. It’s been poisoning my mind and body, I find myself constantly having thoughts about what to post, what to share, how to present myself… and then the notifications, and the messages, and the comments. I find my mind mulling over a lot of these things often, and it’s directly correlated to how much I post and how often I open the app, which recently has been increasing as I post more and message more people.

I miss the mental clarity I had before being on social media as much and posting as much. My mind is so much more cluttered these days and chaotic. It’s harder to focus, it’s harder to create, to write, to hear musical ideas get dropped into my consciousness, to be more present with people. My mind is constantly thinking about the next thing to post, how a post I shared is doing, the results, LOL, the fucking results of a pic of me sitting on a bench looking at the camera in one of my favorite outfits, how stupid is that?! so stupid..

It came to me this morning after meditating and a spontaneous weekend getaway to Boulder. I’ve been slowing down since I got here. I really needed it after a few weeks of stress building up in my system.

When it came to me, it was a quiet voice, almost a whisper, while journaling. I was terrified to hear it, this voice, this message, this knowing. I didn’t want to hear it, not at all. Deleting my social media would throw a massive wrench into my plans, my master plan to share music and art and develop a following so that I can be a working artist and fulfill my dreams of being a successful musician and writer and actor. I need social media to share my work and build my brand and share my story and my personality and find an audience, so I thought, so was the plan..

I’ve been using instagram and Tiktok a lot more recently to share things. Things I’ve been doing the past couple years. I have a ton of stuff thats accumulated over that time. I wasn’t active on social media, I wasn’t sharing anything. Partly because I’ve been focused on creating, but also because I wasn’t feeling secure as a creative to share my work. It can be extremely vulnerable to share my stuff, it comes from a deep and personal place. All the things I’ve been making: photos, videos, short films, film scripts, writing, paintings, interior design projects, audio conversations, they’ve been sitting in my computer. I’ve been hiding, afraid to share my work, what I’ve been doing with my time, and… my true self. My true self is embedded in the work!

I vividly remember the moment I decided to be an Artist with a capital “A”. I was lost at the time, very lost, wandering around the streets of Soho taking pictures, looking for work, looking for friends, looking for community… looking for a path. I was drawn to the bright lights and entertainment, a hub for creatives and artists and cool people doing cool things, making it happen. I wanted in. I wanted to be apart of it. I knew that. I just didn’t know how.

My experience in college at U of O, studying business and marketing and sports marketing left me disillusioned. It took me awhile to realize that that path was all wrong. I didn’t realize until my final year. Before that point, I was working my ass off trying to set myself up for a successful career. Then all of sudden, it made me sick to my stomach. Because I was off. I was really off.

I didn’t know who I was anymore. I was lost without a path forward. But in hindsight, I had been lost long before then. Because I was making decisions the wrong way long before then. I became what I was conditioned to be and a watered down version of myself. I put on a mask. A mask that I thought would bring me success and bring me to the top of the ladder, where I had envisioned myself.

Why am I talking about all this? I’m practically diving into my life’s story… because it’s related! it’s all related to social media! Social media is how we present ourselves in the world to others and it influences who we choose to be. The act of posting on instagram or any platform (but especially that one) is an act of deciding how I want others to see me. It’s how I communicate to people who I am, what I look like, what I do, how I think. I’m literally building an online version of myself, my identity. How could I ever capture all of me in that way? Atleast in an authentic way? There’s no way! I’ve been trying. That’s why I’m deleting it.

There’s also a cost for being active on social media. A mental toll. The thoughts and worries and fakeness and positioning and social statusing. I’ve been trying to present my authentic self on social media and share my work but it’s really fucking hard. There’s not enough posts in the world that could encapsulate all of me. I’m a human, I’m complex… and I’m changing, always, constantly, evolving in better and worse ways. I’m not static. Not like a post. Or a profile feed. It puts me into a box and ties me to older versions of myself and holds me back from being free. Because at any one moment in time, we can be anybody… if we’re not so tied to the identity we’ve worked so hard to create and then monetize on social media. And I’m talking about everybody, not just people who use social media to make money or for business purposes. It turns all of us into a product and a brand, at-least the current popular platofrms. I rather be free of all that bullshit and all the games that come with it. I don’t want to play those games anymore. I realized that the last time I left social media like 5 years ago. I only returned because I thought I had to, in order to be a successful Artist.

At one point I changed my instagram profile to an “Artist” account, which requires you to make your personal account into a business account, which then gives you deeper insights and capabilities for posting. I felt very liberated when I changed it to “Artist”. It felt like a stamp that I finally earned, that I finally felt confident enough to own. I had been creating art in various ways for years and I was starting to see the value in my work and my ability as a creator. And I was also finally becoming secure enough to share work, work that wasn’t perfect. That took me a long time. I was deathly afraid of sharing. Afraid of judgement. Afraid of exposing my art and true feelings, which was often very intense, and deep, and personal, and full of wounds.

When I decided I wanted to be an artist, it felt like a light bulb moment. I was walking home from manhattan. I was finding myself, I was finding my creative self, something that had been dormant. I didn’t explore the arts or my creative side growing up. It just didn’t happen. I wasn’t in that kind of environment, at all. So the more I explored it, the more it became a bigger part of my life, and then… it was time to decide. ‘Who are you gonna be? What are you gonna do with your life?’ It was time to choose what career I would pursue, what path I would walk. For some reason in my mind it was a black and white decision. A crossroads. A decision for the rest of my adult life. And I chose Artist.

Being an artist can be difficult. It can be really hard to make a living from your artwork, especially if you don’t come from a family or a background that had one and can show you the way. I had no idea how to be an Artist, literally none, I still kinda don’t, everything I knew has been mostly gathered through reading books and watching interviews on youtube and studying my hero’s. There were no artists or working creatives close to me.

Once I felt capable of calling myself an Artist (which sadly took a very very long time, that word Artist was so loaded for me), it quickly became a huge part of my identity, maybe even all of my identity. It became who I was. It became apart of how I dressed, how I presented myself, how I thought of myself, how I moved in society.

I had a different identity before that, a much different one, I was…. a Businessman. Dun-dun-dunnn *Cue the dramatic music*. That’s the word I use to encapsulate who I thought myself to be. My dad was one. My family valued them. I felt like I was smart and business savy enough and entrepreneurial, so I could be one too, a great one even. A Businessman meant I was professional, I was a Somebody, I was smart and capable, and I could wear suits, and make a lot of money, and be admired, someone important.

I now realize that when I decided to become an Artist, a deep part of me was just desperate, desperate to be Something, Someone, and also desperate to cling to an identity, one that already exists, one with a path forward.

I was lost, really fucking lost, and it scared the shit out of me! Terrified me! I felt like a chicken running around with its head cut off. I felt like I needed to choose a life, an entire life, at the age of 24! The first thing I chose, Businessman, was completely wrong, so wrong, I fucked up, I knew that. So I threw it out. All of it. I even threw out my vision board I made in college. I had to be someone else in order to fit inside that vision, that identity, that life. But an Artist? that sounds great! That sounds expansive! That’s exciting! And I was finding out that I was creative, very creative, and that I love art, and that I love making art, and that most of my hero’s were artists, and their lives look really cool…

On a deeper level (one I didn’t know at the time), I loved the attention my heros got from people. People loved them and the work they made. I loved them and their work deeply touched me, it changed my life, I want to do that, I thought, I want to touch people like that too. (And on a deeper unconscious level: I want to be loved like that too.)

Underneath it all was a desperate attempt to become someone special and important, so that I could feel special and important, and receive the love I didn’t get. So I didn’t just want to be an Artist, no, I wanted to be a very successful Artist, a very loved Artist.

The path to being a ‘successful’ Artist means getting your work out there and getting it in front of people. And so naturally I thought I needed social media to do that. It makes complete logical sense. So I started using again, and sharing. But what if I don’t need to be a successful Artist? What then?

Then I guess I would say fuck all of this stupid fake shit that clutters my mind and takes a lot of energy to participate in, and I would delete it.. and go back to creating, for the love of it, because I love making music and writing and making things. And I would let go of trying to build a following and a career… But… But.. it’s do damn hard to let go! (fear just struck me as I typed this). I don’t want to let go. I planned my future around this. This is my dream..

Who am I without this dream?

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technoscriptsemb-blog · 3 days ago

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dlktech24 · 3 days ago

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btech project centers in chennai

If you're a final year engineering student looking for the best B.Tech project centers in Chennai, you're likely preparing for one of the most important phases of your academic career. Choosing the right project center not only helps you complete your final year project on time but also strengthens your resume and practical knowledge. Chennai, being one of India's leading IT and education hubs, offers several top-rated project centers that specialize in various domains like IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Web Development, Python, Java, Embedded Systems, Machine Learning, and Full Stack Development.

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novantinuum · 1 year ago

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Fandom: Steven Universe Rating: Teen Audiences Words: 1.3K~ Summary: His family's not present the third time he runs away... they never see the creature he becomes. Early corruption AU.

Happy New Year folks! I'm working on getting this one going again.

Enjoy! <3

Chapter 19: Masks Upon the Shore

A few whirlwind planning sessions later, Amethyst finds herself slumped against the wall aboard one of the old Roaming Eyes, Garnet and Pearl busy prepping the controls for takeoff. After all their investigative efforts, it’s finally time.

Today, they’re setting out for Mask Island.

Of course… at this point, she strongly doubts this mission’s just gonna be some casual stroll through the Kindergarten, as the saying goes. While they do have a number of aspirational goals in mind— locate Steven, neutralize the threat he’s facing, bring him home— it’s impossible for any of them to fully predict what could happen in this place, what fresh dangers they might discover. Stars, they’re all… so, so lost without him. Garnet’s been of no use in guiding their trajectory as of late, Pearl’s too caught up in the thickets of her own gem over this mess to be of much strategic help, and… and her? Well, hah— clearly she’s not leadership material. She’s far too loudmouthed, too headstrong. She’s way too focused on her own deal half the time to ever fully notice the depths of others’ distress. And that’s exactly what happened with her and Steven, isn’t it? She took him at his word when he said he was fine. She didn’t probe hard enough. He was lost, and hurting, and instead of reaching out in the way he needed back then she pushed him even further away.

Amethyst grinds her hands into fists against the ship’s cool metal interior, completely unsure how to quell all the turbulent, nightmarish what-ifs surging through her thoughts right now. Like what if… what if Steven’s seriously hurt right now, what if he’s cracked and scared and alone, w-what if— oh gosh, what if— this whole time— her horrible theory about self-inflicted corruption has been right on the money? What if he does think he’s a monster? What then? How are they supposed to fix something so intangible, something that they can’t fight?

Ughhh. Geeze, the sheer anxiety bubbling up within her core right now is almost pervasive enough to destabilize her, to entirely rip her projected form apart. This mission’s gonna be a complete and total disaster, isn’t it?

A hand rests itself upon her shoulder, the outline of a triangular faceted gem clear.

“Amethyst.”

Sniffling, she turns her head to meet Garnet’s gaze.

“How are you holding up?” her companion probes, joining her in leaning back against the wall, arms crossed and expression uncertain.

She uses the butt of her palm to wipe away the stray tear that— betraying her better instincts— dares to slip from her eye and slip down her cheek. “If we’re being honest…?” she says, voice quivering. “I’m scared. I’m really, really scared.”

“I am too,” Garnet admits. She lifts the center of her hands to where she can see them, her sight fixed upon the maroon gemstones embedded there, and upon the shimmering wedding bands encircling her ring fingers. “My future vision is worthless right now. For the first time in a long while, I’m walking into this scenario completely blind. I don’t know what we’ll find out there.”

“I just hope we’ll get him back soon…” she whispers, leaning against the familiar contour of her side in a futile hunger for comfort.

Garnet wraps her arm around her shoulder in turn, a rare show of vulnerability. Or at least, rare shown to her.

It’s at this point that the ship lurches off the ground, officially en-route to their destination. Thank goodness. And even better, with the coordinates plugged into the Roaming Eye’s navigation system and the craft’s autopilot functionality, there’s no need for one of them to continuously monitor and fly the ship. It’s a small mercy— one that allows them as much time as they need to reflect on present matters and center themselves for the quest ahead.

With this in mind, Pearl steps away from the main console to join them.

“All right!” she says, clasping her hands together with forged (and already cracking) confidence. “We should go over the plan one final time before we land.”

Amethyst sighs, her whole body curving inwards as she slouches against the wall. Pearl’s right, they need to review their strategies before making ground so they can operate as a true team, but… what good will their antiquated Era 2 battle tactics bring to this third era problem, anyways? This would all be so easy if it were simply some random corrupted Gem, but it’s not, is it?

She can just feel it.

Now’s not the time to dwell on such dour thoughts, though. She has to focus, has to pay attention, or else none of this will work. Every single one of their close friends has put in their full effort to help with this mission, and she can’t let them down.

Peridot and Bismuth worked double time to develop a set of modified barrier axis crystals capable of restraining not only the most powerful Gems, but organic life as well. (Best to prepare for the worst, she always says, hah.) They’re staying behind for now— holding down base at Little Homeworld just in case sudden disaster strikes— but plan to meet up once they’ve contained the immediate situation. Lapis, meanwhile, is circling a wide perimeter around Mask Island in case any hazardous Gem tries to escape.

As far as the humans go, Connie is on a mission to find Lion. (Alas, that feline has an annoying habit of wandering off when they need him most. She’s really not sure how Connie and Steven have put up with it for so long.) Once she receives the ‘go’ signal from one of them, she’ll bring over Greg and possibly her mother, should Steven need any emergency medical care. (That’s assuming they find him, of course.)

And as for Amethyst and Pearl? They’re the strike team… the boots on the sand. Their role is to locate this rumored corrupted Gem— no matter who it may turn out to be— and distract it for long enough that Garnet can lay out all the barrier axis crystals and activate them, trapping the being within an impermeable dome. A theoretically straightforward plan, if it weren’t for the troubling fact that they’re all in varying stages of falling apart.

The Red Eye makes ground. The whole cockpit lurches as the shock absorbers underneath compensate for the abrupt impact. Welp. Here they go. There’s no turning back from here.

Renewed anxiety radiating throughout the deepest facets of her hard light form, she follows the others outside.

Mask Island… isn’t terribly too different from how she remembers it. The water is a warm crystalline blue. The geode-like inclusions in the cliffside glitter under the dim rays of the morning sun. The topography is still lopsided and janked. (The Cluster’s fault… those earthquakes really did a number on the place, huh?) A whole jungle of uncommon, vibrant flora blankets the soil just offshore. It’s not a pretty day by any means— the sky is partially smothered by angry, pinkish grey cloud cover— but it does make for an almost otherworldly impression. It’s often astounding to her that such a vista could exist on Earth and be almost entirely untouched by both Gems and humans alike.

Well, kinda, she thinks with an ever intensifying grimace, as the three of them approach a series of gigantic impressions ground deep into the sand. The imprints are as wide as like… two of Greg’s vans smashed together, and appear to be—

Pearl clamps a quivering palm over her mouth, her exclamation muffled. “I-is that—?”

“Footprints,” Garnet nods. “We’ve found our runaway.”

“Geeze, this thing must have like, ginormous claws,” Amethyst says, hugging her arms tight around her torso. “Are you sure we shouldn’t go grab Bis and Peri for backup first?”

Garnet’s lips part to respond, but before she can utter more than a single syllable a tormented, cacophonous roar blasts from somewhere within the nearby thicket of foliage. Her expression twists with a quiet horror as she gazes beyond, no doubt an emotion that— as their intrepid leader— she’s doing everything within her power to suppress.

“All right,” she calls, summoning her gauntlets. “This is it, Gems. Stay together, and stick to the plan. On your ready—!”

Amethyst swears her whole universe is destabilizing, whirling in dizzy circles around her as the corrupted Gem’s footfalls creep closer and closer. She grits her teeth. There’s just no time left, not anymore. No matter the fears they carry, they must brace their forms to finally face the uncertainty of this present— for their own sanity. For Steven. For the beating heart of the Crystal Gems!

She pulls out her whip, falling into a defensive stance as the gargantuan creature rises from amidst the trees.

Ready or not, their future starts now.

#su #su future #amethyst #garnet #pearl #su fanfiction #my writing stuff

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projectsforstudents · 3 days ago

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How to Choose a PhD Research Domains in EEE, ECE & CSE?

Are you planning to pursue your PhD but confused about which research area to plan. It is EEE (Electrical and Electronics Engineering), ECE (Electronics and Communication Engineering) or CSE (Computer Science Engineering)? This question arises before every student who has just completed his master's degree. Choosing the PhD Research Domains should be one of the most important decisions in an academic and professional life. At Takeoff Projects, we know just how hard this step can be. So, for your convenience we at Takeoff Projects have kept a very simple guide to help you make the right choice.

Step 1: Get to Know Your Interest:

Ask yourself what really does interest you the most? Maybe it's circuits and power systems (EEE), communication technologies (ECE) or coding and algorithms (CSE)? Your research will take some years to finish, so be sure to choose a topic that really excites you.

Step 2: Trends Explore technologies and research topics that are trending:

EEE: Smart grid, renewable energy, electric vehicles, power electronics, IoT in power systems

ECE: 5G/6G communication, embedded systems, signal processing, VLSI design, wireless sensor networks

CSE: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Cloud Computing

At Takeoff Projects, we work alongside these domains and can give you advice toward topics that stand true currently and in the future.

Step 3: Verify the Resources and Mentoring:

In order to conduct research successfully the right tools, labs and mentors are needed. The domain must be selected in which sufficient study material, datasets and expert mentorship can be found. If you ever find yourself struggling during your PhD, a strong support system will help you through it.

Step 4: Think About Career Aspirations:

What do you want to do immediately following your PhD?

Is teaching at university on your mind? Or maybe you want to work in R & D or start your own tech company? Work in a domain that is settled to your long-term goals: thus, there is very high demand for AI and Data Science in both fields of Academia and Industry.

Step 5: Talk to Supporter:

Speak with professors, research scholars or industry professionals before making any final decisions. Their experiences can help you in clarify about a few pros and cons of each research domain. You can also contact Takeoff Projects for free consultation we have helped thousands of scholars in selecting and completing their research successfully.

Conclusion:

Not an easy task to discuss the right PhD Research Domains is but along with interest, guidance and goals one can find the best suit for the future. Good opportunities exist in the field of EEE, ECE or CSE. At Takeoff Projects we stand with you at every stage of your research journey. Let your passion guide you and together, we can take your PhD to greater heights!

#EEE research domains #ECE research domains #CSE research domains

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stelras · 3 days ago

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Seamless Style and Strength: The Rise of Epoxy Flooring and Coating Solutions

When it comes to durable, sleek, and easy-to-maintain surfaces, epoxy flooring and epoxy coating are becoming the go-to choices for homeowners and businesses alike. These high-performance solutions offer superior resistance to wear, impact, and chemical exposure, making them perfect for garages, warehouses, showrooms, and even modern home interiors. With the growing demand for contemporary finishes that offer both form and function, epoxy systems are leading a new wave in surface design and longevity.

What makes epoxy flooring so desirable is its seamless finish and customizability. From high-gloss to matte textures, and a range of colors or patterns, epoxy-based floors offer unparalleled flexibility in design. They also resist spills and stains, which means maintaining a pristine appearance takes minimal effort. Epoxy coating, on the other hand, adds an extra layer of durability and visual appeal to both new and existing surfaces. Whether used alone or in combination, epoxy flooring and epoxy coating deliver results that last for years.

One of the key benefits of these flooring solutions is their versatility. Originally popular in industrial settings, epoxy has made its way into residential spaces thanks to its clean finish and exceptional performance. Kitchens, basements, patios, and even living rooms are now being transformed with epoxy finishes that provide the durability of concrete with the aesthetics of polished stone. Because epoxy is applied as a liquid and hardens into a seamless surface, there are no joints or cracks where dust or bacteria can accumulate—making it a hygienic option for both homes and hospitals.

For businesses, especially those in retail, hospitality, or automotive sectors, epoxy flooring enhances the customer experience while reducing maintenance costs. Its resistance to high foot traffic and spills makes it ideal for busy environments. With a proper epoxy coating, floors maintain their shine and color even under harsh conditions. This results in fewer repairs, less downtime, and a consistently professional look throughout the year.

The application process of epoxy coating is precise and should ideally be handled by professionals. Proper surface preparation, such as cleaning, degreasing, and repairing cracks, is critical to ensuring the coating bonds well. Once applied, the curing process takes several days, during which the chemical reaction hardens the surface into a strong, cohesive layer. The final product is not just tough but visually appealing—transforming dull surfaces into vibrant, long-lasting assets.

Aesthetically, epoxy is far from boring. With advances in technology, modern epoxy products come in metallic finishes, terrazzo styles, flake systems, and 3D designs. These variations cater to both minimalists and those who want bold, artistic expressions underfoot. Businesses often take advantage of these designs to reinforce brand identity through color themes or logos embedded directly into the floor.

Stelr.com offers insights into such transformative surface technologies, and it's clear why epoxy is leading the trend. Their projects highlight how versatile and reliable epoxy solutions can be when applied with attention to detail and quality.

Another factor in epoxy's popularity is its eco-friendliness. Many modern epoxy products are low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), making them safe for indoor use and better for the environment. Their long lifespan also means fewer materials are consumed over time, reducing the need for replacements and contributing to sustainable building practices.

Choosing the right contractor for installation is crucial. While DIY kits exist, the quality and durability of professionally installed epoxy systems far outweigh those results. Companies that specialize in this area, such as those featured on Stelr.com, bring not just skill but also industry insight, helping customers choose the best formulation for their needs.

In conclusion, epoxy flooring and epoxy coating are reshaping how we think about surface finishes. Whether you're renovating a home, outfitting a warehouse, or designing a showroom, epoxy offers a future-proof solution that’s stylish, resilient, and easy to maintain. Visit Stelr.com to discover expert-approved ways to upgrade your space with the latest in epoxy innovation.

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adriaticmidnight · 1 year ago

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The Wrong Amount of Alive

35K words and Completed on AO3