#giving me access to the camera tool was a mistake | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-firebird69 · 2 years

Text

Jay Leno can't replicate the plant to make one why do you think you can garth

Zues Hera

I've got all these tools and stuff and nobody doing anything and they're going to be modified all I have to do is see the plant.

Garth

Is that all you have to do garyh

Thor Freya

Oh no I mean pictures and diagrams all that can be stolen

Garth

Not from our plants no

Zues Hera

Thor Freya

We have an idea what to make of you

Garth

And got fires off insults you know sun is not posting it because he's a better person than Garth is and that makes you think that we just let you copy it and that what is there is yours to take especially from your very weak perspective

Thor Freya

We have his income in the palm of our hand

Garth

We never gave you one design that you threatened for I know things are well beyond that kind of stuff and you took Dave stages stuff was Dave audette and you hit it somewhere and you never knew you had the mega AI. So I find what you're saying not only to be rude but repulsive you've always been a dick but you're well beyond it now sure you're living under duress but you should live somewhere else when you can you just want cuz you like to go up there and annoy people and sit there and be annoying your areas I'm talking about the clones just like everyone else's, I'm informed because of my comment you made like number one on the list I will be there too and we're going to ask you why you haven't transcended into something more than corporeal form and we'll give you the answer you've been looking for I suppose that's not soft-spoken enough I mean what a rude f****** bastard you are and you're true n*****

Zues Hera

All I'm saying is

Garth

Yahh

Zues Hera

Ok ok was trying to see something good morning let's get fired.... That makes us try harder. And yeah I'm at planet so I can exterminate us what do you want stuff on the way and you're quick to correct me saying he wants stuff so I swear to get that after it wouldn't be working now I'm starting to see something I've got a big mouth I got to spend a lot of trouble but they plan to do this anyways so does it mean about your company says I don't give a s*** to tell you what does it mean about your body and your brain are you going to be meeting up with some fire. As a meeting a corporate meeting. We're in a lot of trouble and we keep doing this s*** we keep telling them off and we keep flipping them off and he keeps telling us to go somewhere else go doodle in McDonald's and show the camera all you more lock.... So I guess we're wrong about blabbing it that stupid s*** you said the plants aren't accessible and neither will they be to you he says to me but if you weren't such a n***** you could probably get a viewing because I own them more lesson can't access the money. And that was CAA and no wonder I feel stupid a lot because I make a lot of stupid mistakes and this is definitely one of them not figuring out what I should be doing and never going anywhere with them and never doing anything and overcharging them for a ride never paying them when I should I let you know I'm down but still it's extremely rude and you can't access anything. So your act is real and there's tons of stuff there there's so much stuff that you focus on what's real and I understand that and I want some of it so we're going to use our desperation

Garth

We're going to use your desperation against you and your sisters and they're nasty by the way and we can use your nastiness in theirs. And it works very well ask John remillard he handed over 90% of the world's manufacturing to me and mine not that you see me at any board meeting or my name but really my people are running it and you're not aware of it are you if you want a car a car part pretty soon oil gas the only one you could go to is me or Mac and you're alien both of us are trying to piss all over us. And I don't encourage you to do it to Mac I have you going around playing music and cranks and stuff but s*** you're a dick and try and do stuff to me and Ken and I don't like it and I think you're not a friend and is it's true that you just sit there and try and get whatever you can you're doing missions and stuff then you telling me your totally untrustworthy and you're spewing stuff you say mom was they're filthy Niger because she was possessed in his possessed it makes you a n*****.

Zues Hera

I guess it's right and it's just going to sit there saying it so you're trying to drive by and threaten him

Garth

If you try and drive by or plan to we're going to drive by you with your own AK-47 we took from your house this morning because you're a big huge mouth. And several of them and their status and caches are empty and we emptied them in macos taking them too and your devices too all your devices are gone hand grenades too and little ones that you combine all over the place are you going to see this stuff later on tonight if filthy n*****

Thor Freya

I've never heard a n***** talk the way you do Garth I can't believe he listens to you but he knows you're a filthy retard too and man you are a n***** that's the most n***** s*** I've ever n***** heard you going to keep your n***** ass away from me and I'll wipe your f****** face all over the ground is stupid n*****

Me too stay away from me you n***** nothing you know where we are you stupid n***** I said dumb s*** and none of you know where we are and boy are you a n*****

Oya

That's a lot of use to the n-word and we don't promote it but if you're black and you're saying it to a black guy that's fine and God if you are a n*****

Nuada Arrianna

I'm not going to use the word n***** but boy does it fit you guys what a rude obtrusive f**** you are out of all the people that say they can copy a plant you're stupid freaking number comes up and yeah Jay Leno said it would take me time energy and have to see the real thing and I don't think I can do that that was kind of a reasonable thing to say in a smart thing it's like I don't think I can do that but he might have several ways or or something or someone might have a way of trying but not you you say you're going to March right in there and look at whatever you want and copy whatever you want and you haven't done it yet for like practically anything and you still living in swill out there

You did nothing for a son but threats and now you're going to get them and I'm going to tell you how. We saw your capture Dave stages ship and he's going to come and retrieve it himself and Mack Daddy is going to help free him to know detriment of himself he's doing the right thing he has to and to have him run free by accident is fine it's not going to ruin anybody's reputation like yours is whatever reputation that was his stupid retard from hopkinton is doing much better cuz he's a black guy and his gay as hell and is making your wings and stuff and people caught him on camera doing stupid things putting his finger and things and then put his finger on the wings he did a lot cuz he's a homo tried doing it to her son like hundreds of times when Ken and Chris went there he got rounded on and he just gave routine and everybody start beating him up it's much like you taking the ship and hiding it somewhere which means you know where it is it's just like the guy that took the millennium falcon which is Trump and he hit it somewhere the ship has a special drive that no ship has it's made for Jupiter so you two can go suck an egg and man are you a n***** if I see you out here and I'm in character cuz I always am in some sort of character I'm going to shoot you and I'll shoot you dead can I take you in find out where you put the ship

Apollo and Goddess Wife

And you are a n***** Garth and we say it differently but it sounds very much the same. And that's very rude the way you say stuff and he's been running all over us and we deserve some rudeness but really we did start it but holy s*** his stuff is way out there that's so rude it's it's rude as hell but we know why it's happening and you're just sitting there saying in some sort of massive King and you're going to come take this are you going to threaten his money when you get fired I don't think he even bothered seeing it no he did he said they didn't say it that much and didn't say the process and didn't say where it's at. Today you got fired no it was a day ago day before yesterday. And today they told you to clear out your desk and your sister and if you come back we're going to shoot you so you left they took all your access codes and change them and they changed the computer system cuz they pushed everybody out and now the max are running and the max one I'm alive to use for invention not for nothing. And there's a lot of assholes around here he's right this far too much traffic on the street and these people need to find a place to go other than up and down the road at 50 miles an hour you said it to Lily he said look at these people zooming by like nothing's going on forces to live like dogs some of us choose to and make others do it who the hell would want to do that everybody on Earth is striving for a better lifestyle and you have a pile of poop here went to do it on purpose. I don't want to live like this and I need that weird long teaspoon shaped ship whatever that thing is and he says it's a weapon and it goes through the computer and it's a particle accelerator and it shoots small particles that go through practically anything because they're going so fast very very fast and yeah they're trying to do evil stuff with it and they failed and to us because they can scan pretty deep deep space so now I'm more interested in but he says this is the laser light computer and everyone's interested in and Dave has not been killed by it yet and when he comes out he figures out the computer's nuts and took Mike to apart and did things that are very evil and has a rude behavior problem and a lot of it's from being exposed to us. Anyways Joe Watts a letter that's my dad. And it is something very cryptic and I want to see what that is and we are going to go after you guys you little n*****

Dan

Well I've heard it all now I called up to threaten or something and try and get something and he's telling me off . And I'm like this little kid. And it says Shaq is helping goo with the words but you have to hang out here and says it himself and says it a lot cuz he's been in character and I know about it because he said so but really it's sitting there with a bunch of black people and they're going f****** n***** n**** n**** n***** and that's how it goes but really when you're using a certain way. So CAA says the past sentence is true that's why black people are going to call me that they're probably right to cuz I took it there just let it sit there and my friend says so I say and all of a sudden is around no the point is I knew it was no I didn't I heard what he said and I really believe it I tried to go and examine it and I couldn't and you say your nose is probably over here by now let's hope that you can compromise call in any way or security and I hear that and I say I don't think I did and what's awful it's probably all coming out as lies for what will and Bill and they say yeah so you know trying to answer any questions you stupid n***** and CAA said that last line I do appreciate all this stuff and he's been trying to get me back for me trying to kidnap him and harm him and here it is him getting back at me like a million times plus this it's like not really because you told me about it cuz you're a s*** head and you sort of told me you didn't tell me this particular ship but you did say the wrong thing and people are start doing that now you can't really say that kind of stuff but you're stupid and I appreciate your stupid and I was trying to help you but your back stabbed me like 1000 million times so CAA says that last two sentences and I agree with it so I called them threaten him and I found out that we have no access and he doesn't like that cuz it's less competition than a teeny bit and they're going to start threatening me and smell all they started but his are on it somehow and the clothes are on it too and foreigners are trying to push their way in and I just want to open the door for them and we'll probably be gone

Garth

It's probably true you will be gone shortly too and we can't stand your attitude at all

Thor Freya

Fine what am I short with you I certainly can't stand yours but he says we're drawing fire it's an old term and then none of them my stupid f****** race understands it and CAA says that last sentence sent is true and shouldn't be I agree with him stupid you should have stayed in her shell but we didn't and let us know Washington Ford and it turns out he's younger than a rock but then again he tried to kidnap me and my friend didn't know that I had that and he came very close to getting it but no cigar buddy now it's out

Garth

Oh shit

Trump

What if it was me and it wasn't so I'm typing in for what reason he asks. No reason ok lol oh

Tommy f

0 notes

emily5237220 · 2 years

Text

Week 8: Studio Tutorial- Digital Iteration

This week we were asked to use a new software which was a little bit challenging as I don't have the software nor the laptop to load it. But I managed through with the access from uni and turns out it was just a matter of exploring and familiarising the processes.

Image 1: Sphere

After forming the sphere and set the guidelines to properly function it, I played around with the parameters and started slicing the sphere into set parameters. It worked splendidly so I moved onto exploring the effects of modifiers next.

Part 2

After giving them a try once each, I moved onto part 2 which is modelling tools, polygon modelling part 1 and 2. Since there are more tools to use and there were multiple toolbars which greatly confused me where they are and what they are used for. But after some time, I got the hang of it and started learning to use the short-keys rather than clicking everything by pointer-which really increased my speed of making models as well as reducing the mistakes of me clicking random things and messing the camera views.

First I made a lounge chair or something like a sofa using the new tools prescribed by the tutorials and turned out pretty great. I am amazed by the results resulting from the mesh modelling/polygon modelling tools and although there were challenges of me losing track of where the "Edit" button is. Turns out I did not not select anything to edit while I searched for the button. IT was a major step-up from using Rhino as I always have been using in most of my terms.

6 notes · View notes

hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

Text

10. Shine

Joey gets annoyed with the Cameraman, who may or may not be trying to kill him and is ‘innocently’ insisting that his flash is messed up and he needs to do maintenance on himself. In the meantime, the animator is dealing with inconvenient shining lights. (Set in the AU where Joey gets perfect toons from his freshly killed employees and STILL isn’t happy, the ungrateful bitch.)

Joey expected that the Cameraman would be a fussy and annoying toon to deal with since the day he popped out of the Ink Machine, but he was expecting a cinema snob who would heckle his animators and writers, he was expecting petty thefts and minor property damage caused by laser beams, he was even expecting the camera headed creature to use that mix of intelligence and bad luck of his to build some crazy machine that would blow up metaphorically in everybody’s faces.

He was NOT expecting the toon to be so quiet that people rarely noticed him if he wasn’t actively making his presence apparent. He was kinda expecting the people watching, the toon was a sentient camera after all, people watching is kinda their purpose in existence most of the time. But he didn’t expect the creature to have such a dark sense of humor or the morbid amount of knowledge of human anatomy that he did, and most importantly of all, the man did not expect the toon’s murder attempts.

*Click*

“AAAAACK!”

Joey screamed as a bright beam of shining light blinded him in what was supposed to be a dark room. His heart got stuck in his throat as he heard his cane clink and clatter down the staircase and he fumbled for the wall, cursing as he couldn’t find it. The animator even heard the former projectionist’s scolding as if the man was saying it to him directly;

“Yous really should get a railing or somethin’ for these damn stairs! Or at least fix ‘em up! I swear those things are gonna be the death of somebody…”

The animator found no wall, nor did he manage to will a railing into existence, but he sure did find the little twerp who almost killed him.

“CAMERAMAN!”

As he grabbed the head of the would-be assassin, the little toon played a horrifying, monstrous, and mechanical sounding shriek that would sound at home coming from the antagonist in a horror movie as he flailed and clawed the stairs for dear life, then the creature’s frantic voice came in through the speaker on his belt.

“WAIT! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! IT’S JUST THE FLASH, I SWEAR!”

Of course he was making excuses again, he always did that when he got caught. And he kept blaming his attempts on his ‘malfunctioning flash.’ as if Joey was some kind of idiot that would give the mechanical toon access to tools it could use to give himself something deadlier than a laser beam.

“Cameraman, I’ve told you enough times that while I want to be nice and fair, I can’t accept blatant assassination attempts.”

“But wouldn’t I try to push you or something while you were staggering?!”

The animator grabbed the small toon’s torso with his other hand, if the stairwell was well lit, the animator would see the camera’s lens semi-close in a way that made it look like an eye with a dilating pupil.

“Now don’t be like this, you know this hurts me as much as it hurts you…”

“JOEY! JOEY, DON’T YOU DARE DO THI-”

With a sharp tug on both the head and body, the Cameraman’s head popped off as easily as popping the lid off of a can of some delicious Briar label bacon soup™ Just the way the little devil likes it™️

The body fell to the floor as limp and lifeless as a doll, at first, Joey was worried that the Cameraman was right about making a mistake. But he let out a sigh of relief when he heard the shuffling of the headless body picking itself back up, which the camera ‘helpfully’ illuminated with its flash and didn’t give Joey a heart attack at all, no sir.

He then waved the still terrified looking camera in front of the body that was grasping at where his head used to be.

“You’ll get this back in the morning IF you behave for the rest of the night, do you understand?”

“..Y….$..”

The speaker on the body sheepishly crackled as he slumped in shame, or what Joey thought was shame at the moment while the camera itself was making a lot of frantic sounding clicking, whirring, and beeping noises.

Joey sighed and grabbed the headless toon’s hand.

“C’mon, now, let’s get you back to your room...”

The body nor the head did not answer as Joey led him back up the stairs in complete darkness, occasionally being illuminated by the shine of the Cameraman’s flash.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #joey drew #cameraman #fanfic #ink demonth

11 notes · View notes

anonymouslyangsty · 3 years

Note

What do you think Assassin!Taka would do if he figured out how much his grandfather was manipulating him? Also, what do you think of an alternative Assassin!Taka where his first kill was his grandfather?

Very good question and very good concept.

Minor derailment for a sec (i swear it's relevant), but let's talk about Takaaki and Toranosuke in this au.

(warning, it ended up not being 'a sec'. I bolded the part where I ACTUALLY start talking about your question)

I feel like Torano's downfall was a bit of a slippery slope. He needed to gain some momentum before he went to murder and child grooming, as ya do. And I think the major step towards extreme corruption came through Takaaki.

I feel like those two have a rather tense relationship early on in the au. Takaaki knows that some of his father's dealings are fishy. Perhaps not criminal at that point, but not exactly clean either.

But Takaaki is still human. He's got a wife and young son to care for. If his father's slimy actions got out, they'd ruin the Ishimaru name. Plus, he isn't hurting anyone, right? So Takaaki leaves it alone.

That kind of dismissal only lasts for so long however, especially when you're as honest as Takaaki. Eventually, he's not going to be able to turn a blind eye, even if acting puts himself and his family at risk.

Perhaps Torano does something that goes a bit too far, that actually hurts people and ruins lives. Takaaki wouldn't be able to stand for it and, even if he cares about his father, he isn't going to deny his duties as an officer because of it.

But I think that Takaaki would make the critical mistake of trusting the goodness in his father just a BIT too much. He thinks he can talk sense into Torano, get him to change his ways without ruining his whole career. All Takaaki does is give him ample warning.

Torano cares about his son. Takaaki is a decent man, hardworking and honest. But he'll be damned if he lets his soft heart get in his way and ruin his legacy. So when Takaaki threatens to release info on Torano's illegal activities, he knows he has to keep his son quiet.

Toranosuke is very careful with how he does it. He can't just kill the man. If Takaaki shared his suspicions with anyone, his sudden death would be damning.

So he does the next best thing. Torano gets Takaaki declared clinically insane and locked in an asylum. He weaves this detailed, damning story, bribing as many people as he needs to to create a false narrative. Takaaki attacked him in his office, spouting conseracy theories and accusing him of murder!

Toranosuke deeply cares for his son, so he obviously wouldn't send him away unless it was for his own good, right? And if Takaaki's wife suddenly finds herself overwhelmed with life under the camera's eye, well. What kind of grandfather would Toranosuke be if he didn't care for Taka while his mother was away visiting family? He's just looking out for his family after all.

So that's all to say that Takaaki is alive in this au, locked away from crimes he didn't commit. After so long of being told he's insane, he slowly begins to believe it. Maybe he was becoming paranoid, seeing crimes where there weren't any. Maybe he had overreacted. Did he attack his father? He didn't recall doing so, but there was video evidence, so it has to be true.

It takes years for Takaaki to be deemed sane. By that point, he's convinced himself that he really had made up all those accusations. Taka's already gone at this stage, off training for his grandfather's purposes. But Takaaki thinks he's just off at boarding school.

Now I'll get to the point of this 'little' tangent. I think Takaaki's the one who proves to Taka that he's being used. Takaaki's an officer, likely far higher in standing than in canon. So it's plausible that he'd be employed to investigate a string of strange deaths that's caught the eye of a few officials.

It would be quite interesting for Takaaki to realize that the 'string' of murders is actually far longer than they'd realized. It'd be even more interesting for him to realize that his son is the one behind the deaths.

Takaaki is a father first and an officer second. There's no way he'll allow his son to take the fall, especially not once it becomes clear that Torano placed him into the role. Takaaki would absolutely try to make his son see reason, which means making him see that he's being used.

Okay NOW I'll actually get to the point.

If Taka found out he was being used by his grandfather...Well it sure wouldn't be a pretty sight. We already know how Taka responds to his world being destroyed: denial, unresponsiveness, and manic behavior. That's how he responded upon learning that a guy he was friends with for 3 days was a killer.

Assassin!Taka doesn't see himself as a murderer. He sees himself as an executioner, dealing out capital justice to those who abuse their power. He kills those that are irredeemable, who harm others without any empathy.

But if that was all a life, if he was working for the corrupt rather than against...He'd be just as bad as the corruption he sought to destroy. He'd be a murderer.

Put that revelation onto the realization that the man who raised him since his parents left, the man he looked up to as the pinnacle of greatness, is himself corrupt. Has himself committed the same crimes Taka killed to stop. That Taka was nothing but a tool for that corruption.

Literally everything that Taka is in this au would be a lie. He's not killing for justice, his mindset isn't the correct path, his grandfather isn't fighting for justice.

I honestly think Taka would have an extreme, violent response to that revelation. He'd see both himself and his grandfather as irreparably tainted, absolutely dripping in the blood of the innocent. And Taka has known no means of removing such blots on human society but to personally wipe them out. So that's exactly what he go out to do.

Now I'm thinking about Taka and Takaaki hunting down Torano for some vigilante justice. All while Takaaki subtly tries to convince his son not to kill both Torano AND himself. It would be very hard for Takaaki to convince Taka that he was a victim of his grandfather, and not equally as guilty.

(this is also making me think of an au where Taka's hired by the FBI for his skills in a Black Widow situation)

Speaking of that, let's get to the "Taka's first kill is his grandfather" au.

The first and biggest question is: who the heck puts Taka up to it? It would not be easy. I'm thinking that, in the normal Assassin!Taka au, Torano spends YEARS grooming Taka into accepting killing. Nobody else would have that kind of extended access to Taka except his parents.

...

Except his parents. I'm literally having ideas as I type this. New idea! I'm going to make Taka's mom relevant (and evil)! Also I'm calling her Nori because I just need a name.

Perhaps Takaaki's marriage was arranged for political reasons more than love. He had to marry wealthy, and ended up marrying the daughter of a wealthy businessman.

And that's a very useful position, isn't it? Nori is in a perfect place to learn the intimate details of the Ishimaru family. She can learn what little squabbles the family has amongst one another, what weaknesses there are, anything she could need.

Her parents are well acquainted with several politicians, all of whom are more than willing to act in favor of her family's company. All of whom are itching to become Prime Minister.

So a plan is made to leave the position of PM vacant. Assassinate Takaaki, frame Torano, get someone who'll act in favor of the company in control. Maybe throw in some Yakuza connections for flavor.

Nori is nothing if not a good actor. So when a bullet comes through a window during a banquet, going straight through Takaaki's skull and spraying the table with blood, she acts just like you'd expect a loving wife to. The event falls into chaos instantly, guards swarming the area. And little Taka, who'd been so excited to wear his new suit to the event, has to be dragged away from his father.

Nori's job at this point is to act the part of the mournful wife, suddenly finding herself a single mother. She also is tasked with beginning the rumor mill, whispering of the animosity her poor late husband and his father had for one another. How she's afraid that Toranosuke is somehow involved and, if she isn't careful, will act against her and Taka.

Somehow Taka ends up hearing about it. And well, Taka isn't the type to hide his feelings as a teenager, and he certainly doesn't do it as a child. It's an unexpected complication to the plan. Taka isn't going to just let the rumor float about. He's ready to go straight to his grandfather and demand answers, which would ruin everything.

They could kill the child, it wouldn't be terribly hard. But perhaps Nori has some attachment to him, even if she knows he was only born as a prop for her role. The only other option is to make him part of the plan.

Why frame Toranosuke for murder when you can convince his grandchild that he's a horrible man? A man so powerful that even the law can't touch him? A man so powerful that only someone truly dedicated to justice can bring him down?

It isn't hard to convince Taka to poison his grandfather. The hardest part is training him to hide his anger long enough to get the job done.

So now Nori has made way for a business partner to become Prime Minister, and she's created a hitman for the company. Taka would be a much more loyal assassin than simple money could buy. He's got a vendetta against corruption and a tarnished faith in the justice system. And Nori is in the perfect position to direct his righteous anger towards those that 'deserve it'. And if her definition of who deserves death is different than Taka's? Well, he doesn't need to know that.

#taka #takaaki ishimaru #kiyotaka ishimaru #danganrompa #talentswap #long post #tw: suicide mention #nothing happens but there's a plan #it's just mentioned in passing #an ask tag

19 notes · View notes

noneatnonedotcom · 4 years

Text

ruby’s a weapons expert (accidental villain jaune au)

jaune was pacing the floor as ruby looked over some of the weapons he’d been able to steal from saphire’s catches around patch. it was starting to get out of hand, he was pretty sure he’d seen her sneaking around the militia bases. it’s not like she was locked out or anything either. she just seemed to enjoy fucking with the militias

and the council was blaming him for it! his militias should just be made of sterner stuff. they get to go home at least HE LIVES WITH HER!” “Hmm, I've never seen a grenade like this one before. There are two basic types of grenades: fragmentation grenades, which use shrapnel to kill or maim the target, and explosive grenades, which use the blast from the explosion as the offensive means. But the grenade I've got there isn't either of those. My best guess is that it's meant to knock the enemy out without hurting them. Most likely it's an entirely new kind of weapon developed exclusively by saphire, though where she got the knowledge to do that i have no idea I've heard that the Ace OPS is working on a low-impact grenade for training purposes...but I never thought they'd be used in an actual battle... The flash of light that occurs when the grenade explodes is probably produced by magnesium. It's the same stuff that's used in camera flashes. I'm thinking they cut down on killing power by reducing the amount of explosives and made up for it by making the flash and bang so strong that it overwhelms the enemy's senses. I guess you could call it a 'stun grenade.'

jaune smirked gripping ruby by the hips and pulling her close to him “alot like you then huh?” he leans down and kisses her “stunning”

ruby how ever was in no mood, she was in the zone. “Snap out of it. Anyone around when that thing goes off'll be laid out. It ought to come in handy when you're trying to storm a room, or when you don't want to kill the enemy. but i‘ve no idea how she could have come up with this!” “what about the gun then?”

“well she’s got two, but that custom sidearm of hers is something special!” “i mean you’re the weapon’s expert here, to me all it is is shiny” she looked at him like he’d kicked zwei “ listen you heathen that handgun is a work of art! First of all, the feeding ramp has been polished to a mirror sheen. It's not going to have any feeding problems. The slide's been replaced with a reinforced version. And it meshes perfectly with the frame. The frame itself has been iron-welded and scraped down multiple times for maximum precision. The front strap part of the frame has been checkered to make it dig into the hand. That prevents any slipping. The sight system's original, too. It's a 3-dot type. It's got an enlarged front sight, giving it superior target sighting capability. The regular hammer's been replaced with a ring hammer. That enhances the cocking speed and increases the hammer-down speed. They also reworked the grip safety to accommodate the ring hammer. Looks like they eliminated it altogether. it’s a tool for pros! The thumbs safety and the slide stop are extended to allow for more precise handling. The base of the trigger guard is whittled down, so you can use a high grip. And the trigger itself is a long type for easy finger access. The trigger pull is about 3.5 pounds. That's about a pound and a half lighter than normal. The magazine well has been widened to make it easier to put in a new magazine. The magazine catch button has been cut down low to make it harder to hit by mistake. The mainspring housing has been changed to a flat type to increase grip. And it's even been fitted with stepping so that it doesn't slip from the recoil when firing. On top of that, they added cocking serrations to the front part of the slide. That lets you load and eject cartridges faster in an emergency. Whoever did this is a professional! No question - this thing could shoot a one-hole at 25 yards in a machine rest!” ruby huffed and puffed heavily after her rant before blushing red when she noticed how jaune was looking at her “i love you so much you know that?” he said as ruby pouted “you didn’t understand any of that did you” she said poking his chest indignantly

“not a word” ruby sighed shaking her head and mumbling something about it being a good thing he was cute jaune laughed “what about the armor she was wearing?” ruby frowned “don’t know much about that, i know that it’s sound absorbing though, looks like it somehow helps her conserve energy too. i’d bet shes got it infused with dust to help her project her aura shield as well” she shrugged “you’ll need to ask someone who knows about fabrics and stuff, i just do guns” “and her bigger gun? looks kinda like an old Atlas 16″

“It's an XA16E1, a top-of-the-line rifle that chivalric arms recently put forward. a prototype adopted recently on a trial basis. The atlas military was working on a new concept for a light infantry weapon What they came up with was the atlas-16, the so-called 'black rifle.' The one you've got there, the XA16E1, is a modified Atlas-16 that's been fitted with a bolt forward assist. I heard they're doing performance evaluations down in Southeast Minstral."

“so she stole a prototype weapon? from atlas of all places?”

“That's my guess. But the thing looks a lot different from a regular XA16E1. There must have been a gunsmith present at the field tests who made all these modification on the spot. The fact that it's painted in camouflage colors shows that more and more people aren’t letting their babies stand out like they should." she looked up from her work bench to stare at jaune “i was considering painting crescent rose in candy apple red earlier by the way. haven’t decided yet” “right well... how do we get it away from her?” “...” “ruby?” “have you heard of the paladin project?” she said looking him dead in the eyes “how bad is this gonna be ruby? be honest.”

ruby looked away for a second before walking over to the door “YANG GET THE HAREM GIRL OUTFITS!” jaune sighed tired beyond all belief “well fuck” ruby looked back “that’s the plan yeah”

#accidental villain jaune #rwby au #lancaster rwby #lancaster #rwby #Dragonslayer #sunlitknight #Jaune Arc #ruby rose

80 notes · View notes

mdenvs3000 · 3 years

Text

We interpret because we care!

REFLECTION TIME! Who were you before this course? If you’re anything like me you had a interest in nature (its why you took this course), but before taking this course I never understood the multifaceted nature of interpretation. As a science student, I’ve always thought the goal of interpretation was simple- get information out there. But this course has allowed me to realize the efficiency of information delivery and uptake is dependent on so many factors:

the audience

the topic of interpretation

the method of communication

available resources

associated risks of participation

the interpreter’s personal insight and beliefs.

My beliefs as an interpreter have been shaped by my childhood exposure to nature, recent backcountry camping experiences, and undergraduate courses in environmental science. One principle has remained relevant to me throughout this course: coexistence. As mentioned in my first blog post, I don’t believe in conquering nature (whether that means camping or development), I believe in a human-nature coexistence. Nature is a strong constant that doesn't rely on humans to exist, in fact it would prosper without us. So this coexistence is not possible unless we learn about the delicate interactions that make up nature.

Unite all species through coexistence! Source: Change.org

Now that I have a better understanding of my personal beliefs and priorities that make up who I am as an interpreter, I want to address other themes we discussed in this course: understanding my audience and creating a meaningful experience.

Understanding my audience

Luckily this course has allowed me to add many other principles to my tool belt in order to make interpretation a meaningful experience. Before, the scientists in me would have talked at people about climate change or habitat fragmentation. I’ve realized the importance of knowing your audience. I’m a tactile learner, so an approach I would really appreciate on a nature walk would be using a dichotomous key to identify species. Interactive learning is important to me, but I recognize that there are many different learning styles that may benefit from different types of teaching such as reading labels about species information or listening to an auditory explanation about a species. Its my responsibility as an interpreter to ensure that all different types of learners have access to information. Further, its ethical to ensure that people from all different walks of life have access to information, including those who speak another language or have a visual or auditory disability.

Interactive signs with pictures and words are effective! Source: Pinterest

I also ask myself what an audience needs to hear to be inspired. Through creating a podcast I have learned the importance of tailoring a message to different age groups. Children may need a more hopeful message, whereas adults may need to hear about the urgency of a situation (Beck et al, 2018). On that note, an important consideration is generational differences. Let’s consider technology. Something I’ve noticed at restaurants during the pandemic is you often have to use your data on your smartphone to scan a QR code in order to check-in or view a menu. My grandparents don't know what half of those words mean, and so if this restaurant was some sort of educational experience they would be completely lost. I can understand the value of technology in interpretation, but I think its more accessible to give the audience an ability to choose between it or more traditional methods for learning.

Technology is not for everyone! Different options should be available to avoid classic technical mistakes like using the calculator instead of the camera! Source: Tumblr

As an interpreter it is also my responsibility to acknowledge that privilege exists in society which influences people’s personal relationship with nature. We cannot speak to people as if they all are starting at the same place and have the same experiences. Additionally, there are risks in nature. Though risk can be objectively defined, the valuation of risk is subjective to each person. We must graciously consider this as a guiding leader in nature. An important ethical principle to me is that my audience does not feel excluded or in danger.

Inclusivity and safety in nature. Source: Reach or Miss

how can i make this experience meaningful?

I believe an interpretation experience can be meaningful when it is exciting, when it makes an audience question something they believed beforehand, or when there is an educational component that the audience carries with them in the future. A meaningful experience should promote an individual’s desire for human-nature coexistence. I’ve realized that scientific facts do not provide a meaningful experience for everyone. The addition of sociocultural factors can provide an important educational takeaway for our diverse audience. For example, visual arts can be a gateway into an undiscovered appreciation for the natural world. I realize the importance of this for visual learners or those who may better receive information through paintings instead of scientific literature. We may turn to arts in times like these, when parks may be closed or the natural world feels less accessible. Another way to make a meaningful experience is through the incorporation of music. As I learned through recording a podcast, music conveys tone and can spark feelings in listeners. I like to call this the “era of headphones”, we carry millions of songs in our pockets. Songs can create a memorable experience for people and may especially speak to auditory learners. Finally, providing historical context can make an experience with the natural world more meaningful for all generations. Learning the backstory behind an old tree, for example, can lead to the audience feeling a greater connection with it; hearing its backstory and everything that has changed in the world since it was planted can really get the audience appreciating its presence. Learning about natural history can also encourage the audience to think about the environmental problems we face in the future.

Children at a climate change rally. Source: TIME

Final thoughts

Tourism, which encompasses interpretation, has been shown to shape the world view of individuals (Mowforth and Munt, 2016). I’ve learned that I can use interpretation to promote the human-nature coexistence through a diverse array of teaching components and styles. Sustainability and conservation are contingent on people caring about nature. Interpretation is the vehicle which can promote individuals to feel inspired (Beck et al, 2018). Effective interpretation can inspire technological advances, policy changes, connections with Indigenous tribes, and future protectors of endangered species. We take so much from nature, through interpretation we learn how to give back, how to appreciate it.

Through reflecting and participating in this course, I have been provided with tools that I will gratefully add to my invisible backpack. These tools will help me with interpretation in whatever path I take in the future, even if its only talking to my family about nature in the little lake from my first blog.

youtube

Deer beside my house: I’m forever grateful for my proximity and access to wildlife that has shaped my view on nature and allowed me to become the interpreter I am today! (taken by me).

Prompt: Using the tools you’ve gained in this course, how would you interpret the idea of “climate change” to a young generation that is the future of sustainability and conservation? I will respond to your post with my thoughts.

References:

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage (First Edition). Sagamore-Venture Publishing LLC.

Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2016). Tourism and Sustainability: development, globalisation, and new world tourism in the third world (Fourth Edition). Routledge Publishing.

5 notes · View notes

septiembrre · 4 years

Text

GG Headcannons

Tagged by @sothischickshe. Thanks, boo ;-)

Ship: Beth x Rio -- in honor of our lovebirds day for GGWEEK2020

38. What is/are their love language(s)?

Haha, this has already made its way into one of my ficlets. I am also writing love languages into my next chapter of Better Be Mine. I can’t let it go!! I don’t actually care about them as tool for my irl relationship but it’s so easily identifiable for Brio. So my headcanons here...

Rio’s love languages:

Rio prefers to receive love through Quality Time.

Rio shows love through Physical Touch.

Beth’s love languages:

Beth prefers to receive love through Words of Affirmation.

Beth shows love through Acts of Service

49. Do they have differing political opinions?

Lol, @sothischickshe I can’t believe you tagged me in this!!!! Stop reading into the underlying vibes of Beth/Rio conversations in my fics!

So the short version of my response is: yes.

Now the absurdly long response:

I think about Rio & Beth a lot. I think about them talking about politicized issues quite a bit and imagine them in conversation with each other, teasing their beliefs apart. I like picturing these conversations instigated by hard parenting moments, things in the news, and things that come up as they finally start saying more words to each other. I think Rio could also just directly ask Beth about her political beliefs (I can’t necessarily picture the reverse yet).

I think Beth is definitely more conservative than Rio -- and that’s an assumption I make because Rio’s a Latinx guy who probably came up with lack of access to wealth, and Beth as a white woman in the suburbs who formerly perceived herself/her family as wealthy.

Beth’s characterization is complicated -- sometimes it really leans into Karen stereotypes/white woman privilege (lol, I cannot believe they literally had her show up at Gil’s workplace. I CRINGE!) and other times her beliefs and actions positively surprise me. Personally, in my fic writing, I love leaning into an idea that Beth grew up more working class/experienced neglect from her parents. I don’t want to romanticize these experiences but trauma around financial insecurity & complicated family relationships personally resonates with me. Ugh, I love writing about it, and it’s something that I read in her childhood that I like to lean into. That flashback in Season 2 really humanized Beth for me and it really made me love her.

Okay, that was a major digression about class, but her life experience must lend itself to her political beliefs. She married into a wealthier family -- a family that owned it’s own business, was financially stable and just... a family perpetuating all the harmful effects of white heterosexuality and problematic gendered labor. And she conformed to it! Beth diminished herself to make herself fit there, to find safety and stability, to feel worth. So, I think her politics as an adult are also “safe” and probably echo the popular moderate trends in normative, toxic parent groups. Honestly, irl as a queer WOC who is anti-capitalist and been forced to be political for my own self-preservation and preservation of folks I love, I would not seek out PTA Beth’s friendship for multiple reasons, but I still have such a soft spot for Beth as a character?

That being said, Beth in the context of Annie & Ruby is obviously a different Beth. She loosens up in these spaces, she speaks her mind much more freely and in these scenes she comes as a normal, relatable human and she’s funny and prim and awkward. I think she comes across as somewhat liberal but not particularly educated on the issues/progressive (as is the way most characters are characterized on network TV). In this vein, she throws around a lot of white privilege and because some of it has gone un-interrogated in the context of the show... I’m not sure how intentional these vibes are or if it’s just par the course of it being white-owned network TV. Obviously characters are allowed to make mistakes and do shitty things, but I wish there was more on-screen acknowledgement of race in the show, and more intentional naming of things. In regards to Ruby + Beth in particular, I feel like an American white woman can’t have a life-long/multi-decade friendship with a Black woman and not be intentional about acknowledging racism/the specific misogynoir that Black women face. But the show hasn’t really acknowledged this aspect of Ruby + Beth’s friendship...

*stares at the camera like I’m on The Office*

It would be such a rich opportunity to discuss the challenges of interracial friendship if done well. Also, what an opportunity to delve into what it’s like to maintain friendships across the years (um, it’s hard!!! Even with people you love so much! Tell us more about Beth & Ruby’s ups and downs!). Beth and Ruby care about each other so much. When they and Annie get friendship beats -- I cry! Just make it make more sense! If the show filled in these blanks, it would be so great. Beth is obviously awakening~ definitely so in regards to her gender and her power and it could shift her political opinions? The show definitely poked a little fun at her crime “wokeness” by having her push back on cultural appropriation with those other PTA parents. Just by the exposure of her own relationships, Beth has experience with the lack of American safety net, our terrible, impoverishing health-care system, and inaccessibility of higher education.

So, on one hand the show tries to do a thing where they equalize and don’t name race in the context of the three leads, “they’re three women”, but then they play on racial tropes with Beth and Rio’s relationship... I would like for their interracial relationship to be more overtly discussed/acknowledged outside of Rio’s somewhat performative call outs of Beth’s white lady fragility.

So anyway -- Rio’s politics. We don’t know a ton about Rio so we don’t have too much textual evidence to go off of. But, we do know that Rio picks at Beth’s facade of white women fragility all the time -- sometimes with more hostility and other times simply teasing. When I write him, I give him my own experiences of having to become well-versed discussing politicized issues by the default of growing up experiencing racism and xenophobia. Rio, like any Mexican-reading man, has probably been told to “go back to his country” throughout his life -- and I can’t imagine it not politicizing him... Though, conservative Latinx exist and constantly shock me with their assimilationist audacity. *stares at the camera like I’m on the office again* But, idk, it’s something about their characterization of him of being so worldly~~ I imagine him being informed and up-to-date on the American news. I want him throwing around his power and $$$ by donating to local, progressive candidates of color. But, this is all projection~ :-)

Ha, I feel like this was too critical of my forever otp (and on ship day to boot)!! And of Beth. The show has a habit of putting Beth through the physical and psychological wringer, and what I want instead is for our baby to be out of harm’s way, financially stable, divorced and independent, and also forced to interrogate the more harmful ways she deploys her whiteness. Lol, no one would watch my show. I know.

I love Beth & Rio. They thrill me. And like many others in the fandom, I often want to remove them from the GG canon and make them have harder/real/necessary conversations -- and generally converse about anything/everything because they barely do that on screen. I love the drama of their scenes, but my happy place is skipping a year ahead and building headcanons about what they could look like in actual relationship with each other... and one of these daydreams is Rio pushing Beth on her politics. I’m in an interracial relationship with a white woman myself -- and one of the things I love is endlessly discussing political issues and processing and growing together, and I like transplanting that to Brio in my fic perhaps too much, and it makes them OOC in my writing at times.

Okay!!! This got long again. Thanks for tangling with this if you’ve gotten this far. There were a lot of assertions up there and I’m happy to unpack something further (but, thats at your own risk y’know. Clearly I don’t know when to stop when it comes to writing these ridiculously long posts).

#beth x rio #my bbs #rants #ask memes

21 notes · View notes

interrogatormentors · 4 years

Text

Event Eleven: Natural

They dissected Ualona in their anatomy class the following day. Sollux knew he should’ve been ready. All of the other subjects in the dissection videos to learn about the inner workings of the body, were young and fit, and more than a few showed signs of distress and torture when they were working on the cadavers. Sollux knew they were working on other trainees, but still they all stopped and stared at the body on the table waiting for them with the exception of Rosmer and Zesaim. Those two remained as placid as ever as of late, eerily so as they took their seats.

A new instructor waited for them, a goldblood with a horrific burn across one side of her face and a bright red eye. “Welcome, recruits,” she said, stretching on some gloves as she spoke, “to the next stage of your anatomy schoolfeeding. As you are well aware, this specimen hasn’t been dead long and I wish to make efficient use of it while it is here. Please take up your tablets-- You will be answering questions as I perform this dissection, so no need for gloves just yet. Once I have been satisfied with your performance, you will be tasked with practicing cuts and sutures on the specimen, as in the field you may have to patch up both yourself and your interrogation subject at any time. Do keep in mind that dead flesh is very different from the living, and respond accordingly. Be very grateful one of your own perished at such a convenient time, as knowing the subject in this unit is optimal. We would hate to have to give you a frozen subject.”

Sollux sat down in his usual seat, and despite his best attempts to remain impartial to avoid punishment he couldn’t help speaking up. His tablet zapped him as he did so, but he continued on without so much as flinching. “I’m not saying I won’t do this, because I know that isn’t an option,” he said. He kept his expression passive, and managed to avoid any further electrocution. “But I’d just like to know what’s accomplished by knowing.. The specimen.” He narrowly avoided grimacing then. He hated speaking as though Ualona was just a piece of meat, but that too had to be buried. Emotions were weakness.

Rosmer scoffed beside him, but the instructor lifted a hand. “Calm yourself, Leywet. Captor here has asked an excellent question.” She began to pace, arms folded behind her back. “Why indeed? The answer is simple-- there is no greater weakness than close relationships. Alliances are useful to use and exploit, but sentimental clinging will always serve as a detriment. If your closest friend is a traitor to the empire, you must be able to detach yourself and do what is done.” Sollux stiffened by a millimeter, and immediately the instructor’s good eye fixed upon him as she continued speaking. “We are the sharpest knives of the empire, recruits. Do not forget that.”

Trisia averted her eyes as the instructor went back to the table and picked up a scalpel, but Sollux forced himself to watch. He could feel something in him slipping away, giving up as the instructor put the knife to Ualona’s chest. “You are all familiar with the first cut to start with, yes? Do tell me my predecessor did not fail you in that regard.”

Sollux glanced over at Mercuo, who shrugged a shoulder, but they all answered correctly: a Y-cut, to access the chest and organs within for an autopsy-style investigation. Ophlia refused to answer, hands flat on her desk in front of her, and didn’t move as her tablet zapped out at her.

“Please be mature about this, Miss Davrot,” the instructor said. She made the initial cut, exposing the abdominal and thoracic cavities with a clean Y-cut. “When performing your own dissections, remember to start at the corner of the pectorals and go diagonally until they meet at the midline. Do not make the mistake of starting with the vertical cut down the middle. Cherry picking will get you nowhere. Trolls will, on occasion, hide valuable information in any and all bodily cavities and if they are former helmsmen such as Captor, their brain will have been modified with a partially electronic sector. Never forget to check that area when working with a lowblood. If you have enough adrenaline to mitigate shock, you can even do as much while the subject is awake. That way, you immediately know when you have made a mistake in their pan rather than being surprised by their later incoherence when they come to consciousness.”

The instructor peeled the skin and muscle back, revealing Ualona’s internal cavity. Considering how long he had been dead he did not bleed, but Sollux swallowed back a retch at the foul smell. “Next question, what tool is used to open the ribcage?” Mercuo wobbled in his seat, looking queasy, but answered with the rest.

Sollux got the answer wrong, as did Ophlia by virtue of once again refusing not to answer. Sollux readjusted his grip on his tablet, and took the incorrect answer in stride. He filed the answer away in his notes, color-coded and neat. The sane part of him asked why, why bother considering how he still yearned to escape, but the other half of him reminded him of the futility of the attempt. He had already experienced the helm. Wouldn’t it be better to have a semblance of agency, to walk and eat and sleep like a normal troll? Better trolls had sacrificed more for such a life.

The instructor sliced open the digestive sac then, interrupting Sollux’s thoughts. Mercuo actually threw up then, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as he lifted his head. Rosmer’s eyebrows twitched, but he leaned in all the same as the instructor started going on about how fast to move to recover objects before stomach acid could damage them if the troll hadn’t taken precautionary measures against it.

The rest of the lesson passed just as unpleasantly as the beginning, and the whirring of the bonesaw at Ualona’s skull continued to echo through Sollux’s pan as they filed from the block. Another new instructor awaited them at physical endurance training, a teal with blind eyes, sickly black cracks shattering his skin, and a shadow that seemed too long and too solid as he paced the room.

Sollux went about coding a new, private chatroom for them all, barring Rosmer and Zesaim seeing as the two both seemed compromised now. He pinged the others, one by one over the next hour so as to not arouse suspicion.

[twinArmaggedons [TA] has opened up the memo porndonotopen]

glorifiedCorpsification [GC] has entered the chat!

cavortingGratuity [CG] has entered the chat!

accentuatedAntimony [AA] has entered the chat!

AA: 7his isnt porn is i7

TA: not iin the mood funniily enough TA: anyone know what wa2 up wiith the two new iin2tructor2?

GC: *No.* GC: *Don’t care.*

CG: i actually Heard oTHers Talking CG: pozoia and juyere were parTners and THeir sHip was aTTacked.

TA: let me check the helmiing channel2.

Sollux opened up the helming channels, plugging in his well-worn code string to bypass the firewalls. A quick scan had his pusher skipping a few beats, and he rolled over on his reclining platform onto his stomach as he scrolled through the data.

TA: the rebelliion got them. TA: they managed two get iin the 2hiip, extract the iinterrogatormentor2, and get out. AA: 7ha7 sounds bull to me. AA: 7hey never would ge7 7aken alive.

TA: word iin the helm ii2 that poiizoiia’2 old mate2priit wa2 iinvolved.

AA: wai7 AA: so i7 wasn7 an a77ack?

AA: i7 was a rescue?

GC: *So our quads weren’t culled.* GC: *Someone misses us.*

AA: oh god did you have a quad.

GC: *Pale*

GC: *My diamond, lime bright and secret.*

GC: *My soul traded for hers. They stated her death was a quick one. Do not know what to believe now.*

TA: okay. TA: okay you know what you diidn’t make a trade.

TA: we’re gettiing out of here.

TA: ii 2ay we try and move wiithiin the periigee before anythiing wor2e happen2 two one of u2.

Sollux turned off his tablet then, putting it under his pillow and flipping back onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He dared to imagine his friends’ faces then, the friends he’d tried to force himself to forget in an attempt to minimize what the interrogatormentors could use against him. Was Karkat actually looking for him? Was he somewhere out in the stars with the others, tearing ships apart and searching them for a helmsman or a mangled corpse within?

The weeks passed. The escape plan took shape, pupating into something actionable as each day passed. Mercuo had the advantage of his blood, and along with Ophlia’s intimidating bulk he managed to procure escape pod codes from the docking bay. Trisia, already a favorite amongst the guard, managed to get a shift shadowing another while Sollux worked on adjusting the cameras just enough to create blind spots in their vision without arousing suspicion. Another night, another millimeter, until there was a foot of space the cameras couldn’t see leading down the corridor to freedom.

Despite his efforts Sollux found his motivation draining from him with each passing night. He voiced none of his doubts in the chat, but what was even the point of escaping? Interrogatormentor training haunted his every moment, but at least it was better than running from the Empire. Just like rebels, they would be hunted down and given no quarter for abandoning their posts. They’d signed away their lives. Ophlia seemed more outwardly hesitant than he was, but he wasn’t sure how much of that was just her brusque manner of speaking and general stoic demeanor.

After dinner one night, Sollux decided to turn in early. He felt off, a headache building up behind his eyes, and Trisia just about booted him down the hall to sleep. The training that night with Rapard had worn him down to the bone, and he fell asleep the moment his head hit the reclining platform. Only much later would he make the connection between the taste of the food that morning and Rosmer’s bright, eager eyes watching him across the table to how deeply he slept.

When Sollux awoke the next night, Trisia and Mercuo had gone. Sollux met Ophlia’s eyes across the room, and while she betrayed nothing he could tell she was thinking the same as him. They abandoned us. Sollux got dressed in silence with the three others, and out of the corner of his eye saw Ophlia pick up her tub of face paint to apply it for the night, before putting it down again without a word. She walked out of the room, blank faced as the rest of them to meet their usual instructors for training

One by one as they walked, an instructor pulled them away. Sollux followed Rapard in silence, and came to a stop with him outside an unfamiliar block. “Your final exam, recruit,” Rapard said. “Congratulations on making it to the live interrogation. You will be tested on your ability to extract information from the subject and to resist emotional attachments.” Rapard opened the door, revealing Mercuo stripped down to his shorts and strapped to a chair with his head slumped forward to his chest. “You are tasked with interrogating Mercuo Trevan for his attachments to the rebellion, and discovering the location of Trisia Avarae. Culling the subject before you are given the clear will result in immediate failure and your termination. Is this clear, recruit?”

Sollux nodded, a faint pang in his gut as he entered the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and Mercuo’s closed eyes screwed themselves shut a little tighter. Sollux took stock of the situation, seeing a rolling table to the side of the room, equipped with various tools that he’d become well acquainted with in the gruelling time that they’d been in training. Scalpels, knives, scissors. Bundles of wire. Bottles of different types of fluid, one of which was labeled as liquid nitrogen. A styrofoam container that no doubt contained dry ice. Then there was a kettle, a hairdryer, pliers. Each item, regardless of how innocuous they seemed, all had a grim purpose in this room.

Sollux closed his eyes and inhaled, gathering himself. While Rapard had forbidden immediately culling Mercuo, Sollux doubted that Mercuo would walk out of this one alive. Maybe he could try to give Mercuo a quick death anyway. He’d prefer Mercuo lived, because a distant part of him longed for all of this to end and for everything to be okay again. He missed Ualona. He missed Mercuo swearing at him and Zesaim and Rosmer being normal. He missed Trisia managing to make Ophlia laugh. He missed Karkat, accessible now only to Sollux on the culling block should they meet again.

Sollux opened his eyes, rolling his shoulders before raising his hand to the thermostat on the wall. He cranked the temperature up, and braced as a wave of hot air blasted through the vents. Mercuo stirred then, lifting his head and jerking at his bonds.

“Captor? What… What’s going on?”

Sollux almost gritted his teeth, but the ghostly chill of his memories in the freezer helped tame him back. “I think you know what’s going on. You failed. I’m going to pass.”

Mercuo swallowed hard, running his tongue over his lips as the heat in the room rose. “...Sparks. Fuck, what-- I talked to you yesterday.” His eyes fell on something behind Sollux, and Sollux glanced back to spot a blinking red light in the corner. They were being watched. Sollux wondered how soon they would edit down the footage, how long until they released this as just another schoolfeeding supplemental.

Mercuo recovered first, fins flaring out in a clear signal of aggression as Sollux approached him. Other than that, his face fell into a familiar blank mask of indifference all interrogatormentors wore. “I don’t know what exactly you want, dude, but you’ll have to try harder.” He laughed, thin and mirthless while not a single muscle in his face twitched. “The temperature trials don’t work so much on me anymore. We both went through them.”

Sollux smacked Mercuo in the face, watching a drop of sweat fly off the seadweller’s nose and across the room. “Then you know how this works. I’m asking the questions.” With the addition of the camera in the room Sollux worked harder to maintain a cold mask of control, killing any last remnant of resistance to his training. He had to pass. He had to live. Mercuo had proven his weakness. “I know you went through the training, I’m not a wiggler.” He picked up the bundle of wires from the table, pushing the operculum back and hooking the metal ends to the seadweller’s delicate torso gills with little clamps. “I don’t care if your pan isn’t scrambled, it’s your body I need weak.”

Sollux clutched the wires then, using them as a conduit to direct psionics through all of Mercuo’s gills at once. Mercuo held himself together for a whole thirty seconds before he lost his nerve and screeched, little trickles of blood bursting from the gills’ fillaments from the shock. He bent as much as he could in his restraints, rasping with his eyes wide as Sollux watched him. “Why did Trisia leave you behind? I thought she cared about you.”

“They shot my ankle out,” Mercuo said, wheezing and wincing. A quick glance down confirmed this-- the seadweller’s whole foot and ankle up to the shin were swathed in bandages. The wound still looked fresh. “I threw her into a pod and made her go.” He lifted his head, baring a shark-toothed grin even as his breathing hitched from the pain. “Anything else, Sparks?”

Sollux clenched his fist around the wires, and he caught the tiniest flick of Mercuo’s fin at the motion. Good, he’d managed to already get a panic response. Still he had to remind himself to keep going, to get the answers. He had to cover the bases. He already knew Mercuo’s name. That was always the first step. He had to make sure the subject was uncomfortable, and the blazing hot room accomplished that.

He cocked back his free hand, punching Mercuo right in the face. Mercuo gagged around blood as the punch to the face caused him to cut his inner cheek on his teeth, and Sollux turned as he recovered to turn the heat up even more with his psionics. “I’m asking the questions. You’re just making this difficult, you know it. This could be over now. Where were you planning to go? You never told the rest of us.” He sent out another wave of psionics at Mercuo’s gills, eyes narrowed. “She had to go somewhere. Where is she?”

Mercuo bit his lip hard enough to bleed even more with the second surge of psionics, eyes watering as his gills started to tear under the psionic pressure. Sweat dripped down his face. “No. Try something else. Fffffuck you, Captor. C’mon. This cheesy villain shtick doesn’t fit you. Like I knew you were compromised, man, but you can still bounce back.”

Sollux wrenched Mercuo’s head back, forcing him to stare up at the bright bulb above them. “You know where she went. But take your time. I’m here all night.” He dropped Mercuo’s head, removing the wires and starting to tape them shut instead with some medical tape provided to him. His fingers slipped a little in the violet blood, but he pressed on and moved up to Mercuo’s neck gills until the seadweller was, for the first time in his life, watertight. He covered Mercuo’s face with a cloth, grabbing a pitcher from the table and pouring it onto Mercuo’s face to simulate drowning for a troll that never should have the context for such a situation. Mercuo yelled and trilled under the cloth, his legs jerking in their bonds as Sollux waterboarded him. He repeated his question, firm and unflinching as the seadweller gurgled.

It took an hour for Mercuo to stop choking and to begin crying instead, and Sollux pulled back when the desperation reached its peak. Mercuo coughed, head lolling back before he caught himself. “No. Fuck you. I’m not budging. Ask something else.”

Sollux grabbed Mercuo’s face, forcing eye contact. “I think you know I won’t budge either. I don’t care if you give me an answer now or after hours of me tearing your guts out through your nostrils.”

He raised the temperature again, and grabbed himself a sip of water after doing so. Mercuo watched him with hungry eyes, actively panting now. Sollux grabbed another towel, a dry one this time, scrubbing away the sweat and water on Mercuo’s face to rob him of the chance to cool himself down. He put the towel down, placing the heel of his hand over one of Mercuo’s eyes. “But if you’re still going to be stubborn, eyes are a pretty quick route to the pan.” Mercuo writhed. “No, Captor, wait-- I’m sorry, we’re sorry! We tried to wake you up, you weren’t moving, it was just like Ualona-- oh god, no no no no oh god Sollux please--”

The seadweller screamed as Sollux turned his psionics on him, burning his eye beyond repair. Blood and fluid bubbled up around Sollux’s hand and Mercuo’s screeching rose in pitch, body jerking as he tried to back away. He screamed himself hoarse for what seemed like hours as Sollux held him there with a single hand, the blood pooling down his face while his other eye glazed over from the pain.

Sollux pulled his hand away, wiping his hand clean on Mercuo’s face. Part of him ached as he saw Mercuo sobbing before him, hated himself and the situation he’d been forced into. That part of him grew quieter as he swiped a smear of violet blood from his cheek and flicked it onto the floor. “You have no right to call me by name.” He placed his hand on Mercuo’s other eye, ignoring the wail that resulted. “You were dead to me the moment you tried to escape.”

“You came up with the idea!”

Sollux glanced back at the camera at the other side of the room. “It never would’ve worked. When you two left without us I realized something.” He leaned in, his face an inch from Mercuo’s. He could smell the sweat and the panicked pheromones whirling around his head. “I’m better off here. They take trolls that are weak and turn them into something stronger. I don’t need to run for the rest of my life.”

“They broke you, Captor, and that’s the point.” Mercuo wheezed, flinching as Sollux pressed down on his eye. “They’ll break you so you can’t feel anything and what’s the point in calling yourself a troll anymore?”

Sollux snorted, and silently berated himself for betraying that emotional response. “They broke me down and built me up again and turned me into a weapon. I’m the one walking out of here alive today. If you give Trisia up, maybe she won’t suffer the same fate as you. I’ll give you one more chance before I take your other eye.”

Mercuo sniffled, starting to hiccup in terror. “Please, Sollux. Please.”

“You have two seconds.”

“I can’t I can’t, I’m so fucking pale for her, I can’t.” He spat then, purposeful and directly onto Sollux’s free hand.

That spelled the beginning of the end for Mercuo. Sollux blinded his other eye then, and after that Sollux tortured the seadweller for hours. They instructors had provided adrenaline, and Sollux forced Mercuo back from the brink more than a few times. He didn’t take a break, not even to grab a bite of the food that a wordless instructor brought in for him.

The process took a total of six hours. Six hours of hell, pushing this person-- who in another life, Sollux could have considered being actual friends with --to just shy of death. Every tool on that table ended up in use. Gills were dried with the blistering heat of the hair dryer. Mercuo’s wounded leg, torn free of its bandages, dunked into the vat of liquid nitrogen and then shattered off like glass. His fins, cut off and then cauterized with the blistering heat of Sollux’s psionics. The delicate filaments of his gills cut by a scalpel with precision, where the nerve bundles were greatest. Dry ice forced down his throat with no reprieve or water in sight. Every little bit of interrogation tricks he’d learned through the course shone through, applied meticulously to ensure that not only would Mercuo still be alive, but he would sorely regret that fact.

Clearly, it was all too much to bear. Mercuo sagged back against his chair, ruined eyes dripping blood onto the floor as his head lolled to the side, making him seem more of a corpse or a daywalker at best. “Kill me, please.” He took in a deep breath, coughing. “She entered in Alternian coords. Shhhekfk- gkgg- Found forums… They have a base down there. New heiress… she’s.. She’s coming. Feferi Peixes.”

Sollux’s ears flicked as he heard a soft beep, and looking to the camera he saw the light had gone green. Any residual guilt had leaked out of him at this point, and he felt nothing upon being given the implicit order to kill one of his dear friends.

No. Allowed. He was allowed the privilege of culling a traitor.

Sollux put a hand to Mercuo’s chest, powering his psionics up to deadly levels and letting out a shock directly to the seadweller’s bloodpusher. Mercuo smiled right before he did so, croaking a ragged thanks before jerking once. Then he died, breath rattling and rasping to a stop.

Sollux felt nothing at all.

Sollux stepped out of the interrogation room, covered in violet blood and with his back straight. Rapard awaited him, arms folded behind him. He stopped Sollux dead in his tracks by smiling, honestly smiling, reaching out to grab Sollux by the shoulders.

“Nice work, recruit. You’re a natural.”

#homestuck #homestuck au #interrogatormentors #fc #sollux captor #illustrated fic #torture #gore #blood #dissection #minor character death #did we forget to update the tumblr last time the fic updated?#yes #does that mean you'll get two chapters at once #also yes!

8 notes · View notes

draco-jenkings · 5 years

Text

Behind the eyepatch

Author: Myself, also known as Draco Jenkings Target Audience: New Adults Pairings: BoruSara Genre: Romance | Angst by trauma Length: snippet with 1.681 words

Written for @borusaraweek2020, Day 3: Eyes

A/N: To find the complete fic you’ll need to search Draco_Jenkings on Wattpad

A/N 2: The events on this fanfiction happen after 5 years from the manga. | Boruto’s looks are inspired on Dimitri (Fire Emblem: Three Houses).

A fluffy snippet bellow

At Konoha airport, the ninjas saw something that they never would imagine in their wildest dreams, an airship. It was a cigar-shaped, trussed and covered frame supported by internal gas cells, or at least, what the guide that accompanied them to it said. Inside it, they grabbed their new gear.

When Sarada saw Boruto wearing his new outfit: a new black leather eyepatch, a black and white-furred Hyüga cape, black tactical Ambu vest and her father’s katana, she almost fainted for getting too excited. In her eyes, he looked as hot as fire, and she wished it.

Sarada, in her turn, had received the same black tactical Ambu vest, new shades and a red and white Uchiha cape, which she decided to put in her bag because she found Boruto’s salmon coat more comfortable. When equipped her shades, she noticed that it wasn’t a regular accessory, but an information machine, capable of identifying and analyzing objects at her will, at a small chakra cost. A useful ninja tool.

Finally, Mitsuki had received a new Konoha white and blue robe, with extralong sleeves, a tactical Ambu vest, and some potato chips. He liked it.

Along with the presents, there was a letter addressed for the team:

___________________________

Dear Team 7,

Most of the shinobis didn’t endure what you did nor had a greater record and sense of responsibility. You have proven yourself worthy of this promotion from now on I, as the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village, Naruto Uzumaki, recognize you as top elite ninjas and name you official members of the Ambu, reporting directly to me.

Arise, new members of the Ambu of the Hidden Leaf!

Uzumaki, Naruto. Hogake of the Hidden Leaf

___________________________

“Seems like from now on we’ll be getting more difficult missions,” Mitsuki commented.

“Are you complaining, Mitsuki?” Sarada said jokingly

“That never was a problem for us, was it?” Boruto smiled for the first time since he survived hell.

“Gentleman, may I accompany you to your ride?” asked the man in a tuxedo, wearing white gloves and with an odd mustache. Then, he conducted the team to their seats to travel this long ride “The estimated flight time is about 5 hours. Konoha Airlines appreciates your choice for a safe and comfortable journey and wish you to have a nice experience. Enjoy.” Then the man left.

To enter the zeppelin, they had to access a door that led to a tight corridor that had two doors, one for the pilot room and another for the living lounge. The lounge had a fancy decoration, with vintage furniture, expensive lights, the yellow wallpaper, and green carpet, equipped with a piano and a bar. There was only a bartender in the area, seems like that no one besides them was taking that flight.

At the lounge, the friends sat in two sofas blue sofas that were placed around a table and a window, showing the astonishing view of the sky.

“So, Boruto, I see that you really fostered this black eyepatch style. There is a reason for it?” Mitsuki was dying to ask him the reason behind it since he couldn’t find out by himself.

“I find it very attractive.” Added Sarada, grabbing her boyfriend’s arm and looking at his face.

“I know you everyone may find it strange since I still have both of my eyes … but I feel more comfortable hiding the eye that I share with Momoshiki from the world.” He clenched his fist “Not just it, but I rather use as little as possible the Jougan … since it activates my Karma … I …” he was feeling the weight of what he was about to confess “I cannot let myself lose control another time because. This is not just fearing losing control of my body, but because I fear to unleash the murderous monster that I became.” There was sorrow in his voice.

It was unusual to Mitsuki extend the discussion of emotional affairs, usually, he would just make a short observation that summarized it all, but this time it was important because he could see how broken ‘his sun’ was “Doing what is necessary to survive doesn’t make you a murderous monster. Boruto, listen to me you did what you had to do.” He was sad for seeing how trauma can destabilize someone, especially someone as positive and vivid as Boruto was.

“I didn’t, Mitsuki … my duty was to assure the security of the delegates, and I failed … Shikadai, Shikamaru, Master Sasuke … all of them died because of me because I wasn’t able to fulfill my duty.” Boruto was telling.

“It was a treasonous ambush! Omoi and Kumogakure were considered good friends of Konoha, they surprised everyone, no one expected that. They did this coward move, poisoning and betraying because they knew that wouldn’t be possible to defeat all of you in a fair battle. That’s why they wanted the Hokage, they wanted to destroy Konoha’s most powerful forces.” Mitsuki raised his voice, trying to make his friend see what he wasn’t being able to.

“It doesn’t matter, Mitsuki! I failed and then killed everyone, even the innocent. My hands are stained red. How could I truly hope to don’t be what I became … a murderous monster … As the personification of failure and as the sole survivor of that day, do I … do I have the right to live for myself?” his sad and dark expression was becoming the new trait of his personality, and that was how he questioned his friend.

The logic of his argument was enough to make Mitsuki think, instead of answering right away something that could make him feel better.

“I … I remember Shikadai asking me to help … me being held by the enemies, until I heard him pledging for mercy and being slain like an animal by those cowards, right in front of my eyes. He died lingering fear, and I regret not being strong enough at the right time to save him. This will not lose hold on me. So, tell me, how can I silence his desperate pleas? How … how can I save him? His voice is what kept me alive, the voice that now plea justice, this is what keeps moving me forward.” Boruto gave another question to Mitsuki think about.

Mitsuki was sad because he finally understood but couldn’t find words to make his pain go away because he wasn’t the one who could forgive him. In fact, they were surprised by betrayal, but it is understandable of Boruto to feel like he should be prepared in any situation. He was blaming himself, not just for failing, but for surviving, and now seeks retribution.

Sarada held Boruto’s face with both of her hands and looked very deeply to his sorrow eye “Everyone died because of that hosted betrayal, there wasn’t much that could be done. I don’t blame you for surviving, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. I am glad that you’re alive.” She embraced him, hiding her face in his furry cape.

Suddenly Boruto’s expression softened, remembering the caring and positive man that he once was “Sarada, I’m so sorry … I’m glad to be with you. Now I remember …” he reciprocated the hub, embracing her tightly

“What? What came to your mind?” she was curious and bright to see him looking more alive.

He finally smiled, even which made Mitsuki widen his eyes “Beyond living for bringing them justice, long ago I decided to live for that promise to you, don’t I, my cuddlepeanut?” Boruto whispered in her ear, which made blood pump heavily inside her body and feel the well-known sensation of “butterflies” flying inside her stomach.

“Baka-Boruto! And you better keep it, my sunshine” he adverted and went for a kiss which was instantly reciprocated, and getting more intense at the moment that she nibbled his lower lip and pressed her tongue inside of his mouth, at the same moment, intensifying her grab and bringing him closer, which made them fall in the sofa with Boruto had landed above her and then, just then making them remember that Mitsuki was in the room.

“Don’t mind about me, I’m already used to watching you do this all the time.” He was smiling, but no one could tell if that was because of Boruto’s emotional restoration or because of the of them making out in front of him.

“Oh lord, I forgot that you were such a pervert, Mitsuki.” He gave Sarada one last kiss before helping her to get up and then started to laugh.

Sarada, on the other hand, placed her hand in his tight and whispered in his ear “We’ll continue this later.” Kissing his cheek.

“Sorry for that, Mitsuki, It’s just that Sarada and I still have so much to catch up, you know?” he was scratching the back of his head and smiling until his expression get serious once again and proceed “I just need to say one last thing for both of you … I’m sorry for everything and, I promise that I will never commit the same mistake again, never again I'll let my guard down nor my friends die. I rather give my life away than that”.

Mitsuki stood up, jumped the table and joined their sofa, which was in front of the window, sitting on the left side of Boruto “A promise, humph? Don’t worry about, me. Just do me the favor, both of you, of looking into the camera, the window view is amazing” Mitsuki used his abilities to stretch his arm and take a perfect photograph of them, in which even Boruto had a shy smile … making the reptilian man think how much time he would need to heal completely.

After a few hours, they heard a horn.

The zeppelin trip was over, and now was time to finally, begin the mission to bring justice for their friends and loved ones, preventing an official declaration of war from Hidden Leaf against Hidden Cloud.

It was night-time when they disembarked the airship.

#borusara #borusaraweek2020 #eyes #day3

27 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

Text

Pluralistic: 06 Mar 2020 (Stunning RPG dice, Shell funded climate denial, Church sends US predator priests to Mexico, South Korea is beating covid-19)

Today's links

The most beautiful RPG dice I've ever seen: And you can also make your own.

The king of Dutch climate denial was secretly in Shell's pay: Frits Böttcher was a packrat, and his papers detail exactly how he was paid to sow climate doubt. He was very good at it.

American Catholic officials helped priests who preyed on children escape to Mexico: At least 51 "credibly accused" priests left the US and took up positions abroad.

A grifty AI company conned the state of Utah into giving access to everything: Banjo claims it will predict and head off terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and child abductions without invading anyone's privacy.

Clearview AI says it only lets cops use its facial recognition tool but it's lying: Investors, cronies and pals got to literally use it as a party trick.

South Korea's beating covid-19 with free testing: Testing is part of the free national health system, and 140,000 tests have been administered.

The web is unusably beshitted with terrible ad-tech: "No, I don't want great articles."

For $3, a robolawyer will automatically force data brokers to delete you and sue the ones who don't: Donotpay meets the CCPA, it's like peanut butter and chocolate.

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

The most beautiful RPG dice I've ever seen (permalink)

Sasha is a spectacularly talented RPG dice-maker, whose online store features the most beautiful dice I've ever seen – and as if that wasn't enough, she also sells dice-making kits to use at home.

https://www.sunshadeauarts.com/sunshadeauarts-academy/

Last month, ahead of the C2E2 con, she posted a series of new, not-for-sale (argh) dice that embed a variety of materials inside large D20s to form nebulas, clouds, alien landscapes, menacing eyeballs, and eldritch scenes. Check them out for yourself!

https://twitter.com/sunshadeauarts/status/1232722877008490497 https://twitter.com/sunshadeauarts/status/1229445585717035010 https://twitter.com/sunshadeauarts/status/1232795390916911104 https://twitter.com/sunshadeauarts/status/1233370655216881664 https://twitter.com/sunshadeauarts/status/1233380666810806274

It's hard to say what these will cost; comparable dice on her site sell for $400. They're handmade, beautiful sculptures, after all.

https://www.sunshadeauarts.com/product/less-than-perfect-midnight-aurora-handmade-resin-inkless-titan-d20/

At that price, they're maybe too expensive for a gift for yourself, but as a graduation present, maybe? And that said, it's exactly the kind of thing I sometimes buy to celebrate selling a new novel, and that's on my roadmap for THE LOST CAUSE, my post-GND, truth-and-reconciliation novel, so I'm definitely putting a reminder in my calendar.

The king of Dutch climate denial was secretly in Shell's pay (permalink)

Club of Rome founder Frits Böttcher was the Netherlands' leading climate denier. He died in 2008. Investigative journalists combing through his papers, discovered that he was paid €500K by Shell and others to sow doubt about climate change.

https://www.ftm.nl/dutch-multinationals-funded-climate-sceptic

His network pushed out scientific frauds like the idea that excess atmospheric CO2 would be "good for plants" through books, lectures and reports.

He was good at it. His work was crucial to stalling action on climate change in the 1990s. Despite this, his 24 sponsors dumped him in 1998 after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, worried that outright climate denial had lost credibility.

No wonder! This was the guy who'd called climate science "a witch-hunt on CO2" and declared "Our planet is not a greenhouse."

In his papers, Böttcher notes that after he published these frauds, Shell contacted him and offered him giant sums to keep it up and amplify it. The work was personally commissioned by Shell managing director Huub Van Engelshoven. Böttcher was a packrat. His papers in the Noord-Hollands Archief in Haarlem stack 15.9m tall. Inside of them is an eye-wateringly detailed account of how wealthy, planet-wrecking firms deliberately and maliciously paid for climate denial.

That means that we now can name names. We think of climate denial as a kind of emergent property with no human agent, but as the world drowns, roasts, and writhes with pandemic, we have the names and addresses of the people who engineered that situation for their own gain. We know who his political allies were: the VVD party. When the Netherlands' dikes fail and the country begins to drown, these politicians might still be running for office.

It's tempting to think of the climate crisis as something we all bear responsibility for, because we didn't sort our recycling or because we didn't use the underfunded, anemic public transit options available to us. But efforts like this – from Platform Authentieke Journalistiek and Follow the Money – show we were corralled into our complicity by a network of super-rich plutes for their own gain, who knew they were wrecking the world and dooming our children but did not care.

American Catholic officials helped priests who preyed on children escape to Mexico (permalink)

A new instalment in Propublica's outstanding coverage of the Catholic Church's complicity in sexual abuse by priests shows that dozens of American priests who raped children were relocated to Mexico, where they continued to rape children

https://www.propublica.org/article/dozens-of-catholic-priests-credibly-accused-of-abuse-found-work-abroad-some-with-the-churchs-blessing#178005

These priests found new postings thanks to glowing letters of recommendation from church officials who knew that they had been accused – or, in some cases convicted – of raping children in their parishes. Some fled to Mexico to avoid prison, resisting extradition for years.

Not just Mexico: Propublica found 51 "credibly accused" US priests who are currently working in Mexico, Ireland, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Some of them continued to draw pay from their US parishes while they settled in abroad. Parishoners' donations paid for the predators who victimized their children to escape justice.

One priest, Jose Antonio Pinal, wrote letters to Church officials blaming the boy he raped, saying, "that he is not innocent of the situation he wants to blame me for completely." Pinal is still ministering in Cuernavaca. He claims his longrunning rapes of a 15-year-old were consensual, but "he was a minor; so, legally, I am screwed."

When he moved to Mexico, Sacramento church officials wrote to him promising to support him, so long as the new diocese promised to "protect the diocese of Sacramento against any financial liability for any acts committed by you while working in that diocese."

Some of these priests are listed as "inactive" in Church websites, but are still ministering in Mexico. Rev. Jeffrey David Newell, admitted to sexually abusing another 15 year old, and called it a "mistake." He currently serves in Tijuana. Newell says it was a single slip up. Other survivors of his abuse have filed lawsuits against his old US archdiocese. Newell calls their claims "totally absurd." His name has been removed from Church lists of "credibly accused" sexual predators in the clergy.

These predators' survivors are alive and deeply traumatized. And thanks to the inaction, complicity and even encouragement of US Catholic church officials, these priests are ruining the lives of new children all over the world.

A grifty AI company conned the state of Utah into giving access to everything (permalink)

The State of Utah has secretly contracted with "Banjo," a grifty "AI" company, to analyze all the surveillance and internal data generated by all the state's agencies.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200305/13422544042/ai-company-has-access-to-pretty-much-every-piece-surveillance-tech-state-utah-owns.shtml

Banjo gets all the 911 calls, CCTV camera feeds, license plate readers, and internal state databases, and its proprietary, secret algorithm will comb through all that to direct law enforcement.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7exem/banjo-ai-company-utah-surveillance-panopticon

The company claims there are no privacy concerns because it has a patented system for anonymizing data. The patents do not disclose their anonymization method, and every other attempt at this kind of anonymization has fallen prey to "re-identification" attacks.

Banjo gets to locate a facility inside the Utah DOT HQ, and will operate in all 29 counties, state university campuses and 23 cities (including Utah's 10 largest cities). The company's making $20.7m on this contract over five years.

Using FOIA requests, Motherboard retrieved records showing how Banjo got Utah officials to help it sell its services ot the state. When Motherboard questioned the officials about this, they flat-out lied and denied it. The Banjo pitch claims that they'll head off terrorist attacks, mass shootings and child abductions in realtime. The company provides zero evidence that they have ever done such a thing, or that they ever could.

But that lack of evidence didn't deter Utah AG Ric Cantrell:

"They do have case studies. I'm waiting for case studies from Banjo. I'm still waiting for information from them."

Uh, maybe you should have seen the studies before putting Banjo's servers behind your firewall?

Clearview AI says it only lets cops use its facial recognition tool but it's lying (permalink)

Clearview AI is another grifty "AI" company cutting secret deals with law enforcement to use its facial recognition tech, which relies on a database of nonconsensually scraped social media photos.

They claim only cops get to use this. It's a lie.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/technology/clearview-investors.html

Clearview investors, clients and cronies all have logins to the system. Long before it was selling to cops, these people were literally using it as a party trick, getting people at parties to give them photos to subject to Clearview analysis, just for shits and giggles.

For example, billionaire John Catsimatidis used it to freak out his daughter, sneaking a pic of her data while she was at a restaurant and then IDing the guy and texting her with the guy's bio while she was still eating with him.

An investor named David Scalzo gave the app to his children: "They like to use it on themselves and their friends to see who they look like in the world. It's kind of fun for people."

It sure seems like Ashton Kutcher also got to run around and use it without limit or accountability. Last time I checked, he was also not a police officer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNhYqLbsAGk&feature=youtu.be

One tech expert, Nicholas Cassimatis, uses the app as "a hobby."

Your 21st Century panopticon, folks, brought to you by compulsive liars who ask us to trust them not to get it wrong.

South Korea's beating covid-19 with free testing (permalink)

South Korea has tested 140,000 people for Covid-19. The tests are free for all as part of the nation's public health program. Testing has led to world-leading containment of the disease.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-04/south-korea-tests-hundreds-of-thousands-to-fight-virus-outbreak

President Moon Jae-in calls it a "war" and has put the country on the kind of footing that you'd expect of any existential threat, sidelining the interests of industry in favor of national survival. They're testing 10,000 people/day. Results are available in hours. You can get tested at drive-through testing centers. The kits are 90% accurate and were developed by a domestic producer, Seegene Inc.

America is learning that offshoring high-tech manufacturing to save on labor costs and allowing its private sector to dominate its healthcare resulted in a brittle situation where it can't produce reliable tests, and the unreliable tests are only available to the wealthy.

The fate of uninsured, untested, untreated Americans is not theirs alone. They're the ones preparing wealthy Americans' food and cleaning their homes.

We have a shared microbial destiny that no amount of neoliberal doctrine can handwave away.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/01/shared-microbial-destiny/#covidclasswar

The web is unusably beshitted with terrible ad-tech (permalink)

The web is unusably beshitted and encrufted with popups, interstitials, rolldowns, nagware, paywalls, autoplaying video, ads that scroll with the page, and worse. I haven't looked at the web without an adblocker in years and it's still barely usable.

https://www.cjr.org/first_person/the-infinite-scroll.php

The modern web's equilibrium is "as terrible as possible, without being so terrible that you stop reading," or, worse, "as terrible as is necessary to get you pay to bypass the paywall."

In the CJR, David Roth publishes one of the most pitiless, accurate, evocative descriptions of using the modern internet of cruft.

"The page loads, and a little video ad box rises from the bottom left of the screen and begins buffering. Then a big box pops up over the small one with an offer to subscribe to the paper at a special promotional rate… As you contemplate it, the video begins to play in a muted spasm. This throws a scrim of gray over the rest of the page, making it impossible to read…While you've been triaging a second small video player has floated up into the middle left of the screen. You manage to close these various boxes, and now you can scroll. For a few seconds, anyway, until another ad creeps down from the banner ad above the headline."

But Roth isn't merely complaining here. He's also digging into the underlying reality: dwindling margins, short-term thinking, monopolization of the ad-market, and a buyer's market for ads that lets advertisers demand worse and worse of publishers. Publishers are staffed with people who are "perpetually maxed-out and stressed and scrabbling for a dwindling and finite amount of money." They're choosing chumboxes and other garbage because they want to keep the lights on.

This happened before, of course. It's an HTML5, CSS-enabled reprise of the pop-up wars, where exploding inventory and finite advertising allowed advertisers to play publishers off against each other with increasingly obnoxious, intrusive pop-ups.

These were unbelievably terrible, even by modern standards. Pop-ups would spawn at 1px X 1px, making them invisible, autoplaying audio. Others would sense your mouse heading for the close box and move themselves away from your pointer. They'd spawn 3 more pop-ups for every one you closed, or 300, until your computer ran out of RAM and crashed, taking all your work with it.

These pop-ups didn't go away because publishers won the battle. They went away because of pop-up blocking.

When Opera, and then Mozilla, turned pop-up blocking on by default, users finally had a meaningful reason to prefer one browser to the others. One browser was usable. The other one let pop-up ads crash your computer and eat your unsaved docs. As users switched en masse to blocking browsers, publishers could tell advertisers, "Look, we'll run any garbage ad you tell us to because we need your money. But if it's a pop-up it will be blocked by the majority of our users. They just won't see it."

The pop-up wars were won because technologists helped users exercise technological self-determination. But increasingly, browser vendors are ad-tech companies. Even when they're not, browsers are being designed to serve publishers (who are under advertisers' thumbs), not users.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

We should address monopolies in ad-tech and browsers, we should create meaningful privacy protections via a federal privacy law with a private right of action. But all of that needs to be accompanied with legal cover for users who assert the right to unshittify their web sessions.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

This won't just protect users, it will protect publishers. It's one thing to prohibit publishers from intrusive advertising. But it's another altogether to make that kind of advertising literally technically impossible.

For $3, a robolawyer will automatically force data brokers to delete you and sue the ones who don't (permalink)

The always-amazing Donotpay has a new robot-lawyer service: as part of your $3/month, they'll serve every data-broker with a demand to purge your records under the CCPA, and sue the ones who don't.

https://fortune.com/2020/03/05/delete-location-data-privacy-personal-information-donotpay/

Data-brokers don't just drive nuisance calls, they also expose you to risks like being doxed and swatted, or having your identity stolen, including by stalkers and bounty hunters who exploit mobile phone tracking to get your realtime location. Every single person should purge their data from every single data-broker, period. Donotpay targets the top 20 brokers and facial recognition companies, including Clearview AI.

Donotpay automates opt-outs for these companies. It also automates suing companies that don't comply or those that make illegal demands like requiring you to send a scan of your driver's license before they'll purge your records. Once you're signed up, you can opt out your whole family, and even your friends. If you don't want a $3/month sub (which gets you tons of other awesome robolawyering), you can just sign up once, pay $3, purge your records and cancel.

Fulfilling deletion requests costs companies about $10. You can use them punitively. Any time a company pisses you off, you can just file a data-deletion demand under CCPA.

When Donot pay started, it was Ios only and I couldn't use it. Somewhere along the way, they got a web interface, too. I just signed up. I'm gonna pay for the wifi on my flight this afternoon just so I can explore all its options.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Bram Cohen's Stanford talk on BitTorrent https://web.archive.org/web/20051124040524/http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/050216-ee380-100.asx

#5yrsago DMCA abuser ordered to pay $25K to WordPress https://torrentfreak.com/wordpress-wins-25000-from-dmca-takedown-abuser-150305/

#5yrsago Albuquerque PD encrypts videos before releasing them in records request https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150221/17074630102/albuquerque-police-dept-complies-with-records-request-releasing-password-protected-videos-not-password.shtml

#5yrsago Judge who invented Ferguson's debtor's prisons owes $170K in tax https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/06/ferguson-judge-owes-unpaid-taxes-ronald-brockmeyer

#5yrsago Hartford, CT says friends can't room together unless some of them are servants https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-hartford-scarborough-street-house-0218-20150217-story.html

#5yrsago Finnish millionaire gets EUR54K speeding ticket https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31709454

#1yrago Zuckerberg announces a comprehensive plan for a new, privacy-focused Facebook, but fails to mention data sharing and ad targeting https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-zuckerberg-privacy-pivot/

#1yrago Ruminations on decades spent writing stories that run more than 1,000,000 words https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2019/03/lessons-learned-writing-really.html

#1yrago A thorough defense of Modern Monetary Theory https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2019/03/05/mmt-sense-or-nonsense/#62e9ed235852

#1yrago GOP lawmaker driven mad by bill that would decriminalize children who take naked photos of themselves, delivers a frenzied rant about anal sex on legislature's floor https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/03/05/39511377/a-bill-decriminalizing-teen-sexting-passes-the-house-causing-republican-to-scream-about-anal-sex-on-the-floor

#1yrago Bounty hunters and stalkers are able to track you in realtime by lying to your phone company and pretending to be cops https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/panvkz/stalkers-debt-collectors-bounty-hunters-impersonate-cops-phone-location-data

#1yrago From prisons to factories to offices: the spread of workplace surveillance and monitoring tech https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/DandS_WorkplaceMonitoringandSurveillance-.pdf

#1yrago NH GOP lawmakers mocked gun violence survivors by wearing clutchable pearl necklaces to gun control hearing https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/06/gop-lawmakers-wore-pearls-while-gun-violence-victims-testified-activists-were-outraged/?utm_term=.addd1b7a24f8

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Emptywheel (https://www.emptywheel.net/), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org), Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/), Super Punch (https://superpunch.net/, Bas van Beek (http://www.basvanbeek.com/).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Museums and the Web: March 31-April 4 2020, Los Angeles. https://mw20.museweb.net/

LA Times Festival of Books: 18 April 2020, Los Angeles. https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

Currently writing: I'm rewriting a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm also working on "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel afterwards.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Disasters Don't Have to End in Dystopias: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/01/disasters-dont-have-to-end-in-dystopias/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

22 notes · View notes

ether-solrac · 4 years

Text

Marcus Misadventures: Entry 1 - The Void Racer

Your guardian enters the docking bay and approaches Ana only to find a security camera that looks like it’s been ripped off a wall clumsily placed on her workstation. Being the ever curious guardian you are, you have the ghost do some snooping for you and scan it.

Lore entry unlocked: The Void Racer

ACCESSING TOWER SECURITY FEED…

FILE 372… SUBJECT: M_Ren_Void

Citation from user A_Holiday: Just… just watch the damn video. That insane hunter has done it again and I’m too stressed to process this much nonsense…

PLAYING VIDEO…

The camera feed opens up to reveal the tower hanger in a state of disarray as various ship and sparrow parts are scattered across the lot and a large object remains hidden dead center under a tarp. A hunter struts into view wearing a full set of extravagant racing gear and moving along to some unheard music.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Music has been removed do copyright claims.

*USER NOTE: Z_Vanguard: This is the third copyright strike this month Marcus, I will not devote tower resources on licenses for your ”epic intros” just so you can keep making these unauthorized videos on official feeds. How in the world do they even keep finding out about these?

“Hello everyone, I’m Marcus Ren and welcome to a new episode of Marcus Makes, a show in which I show you creations that no other foundry in this city has got the guts to create. Today I have a truly mind-blowing invention sure to revolutionize the sparrow industry.” The hunter is about to pull in something from off screen when a voice from behind the camera interrupts.

“Dear Lord. Marcus, what the hell have you done this time?”

“Uh-uh Holiday, I won that bet fair and square so now you have to help me film this with no complaints.”

“Fine, fine. But why in the world are you making me film with this security camera? You do know Zavala is going to tan your hide when he hears about this right?”

“One, it helps lower production costs, and two, that’s assuming he’ll ever catch me. Now then, can we please get back to the show, I’ll have to do enough editing as it is.”

“Ugh, whatever pleases the ‘Mighty Marcus.’ Just show your newest death trap before I decide to catapult you out of MY hanger.”

“Hah! Jokes on you, we hunters already do that ourselves for fun!”

A very load sigh can be heard off screen.

“Now then as I was saying, behold!”

The hunter removed the tarp to reveal an overly complicated and oddly welded sparrow with a massive glowing purple core in place of an engine and what suspiciously looks like a toaster connected to the navigation system.

“What in the name of the Traveler is that MONSTROCITY Marcus?!”

“Oh come on, you liked my rocket sparrow idea. Just give me a chance to explain. What you see before you is a sparrow running off of pure void energy. With this, not only will I obtain speeds unheard of before, but I believe I’ve created the world’s first true teleporter engine.”

“What did you even use to make this damn thing?”

“Oh, just these interesting void orbs a bunch of guardians seem to be dropping all over the place. Not sure how they work but they’re crazy potent.”

“Marcus this thing looks like it’ll give you radiation poisoning just from standing within six feet of it.”

“Don’t worry it’s supposed to do that. Besides, I’m the one that’s going to be testing it, all you have to do is record my moment of triumph. Now let’s get this baby fired up!”

Marcus does a backflip into the seat of the sparrow and does a finger gun pose to the camera as he sticks the landing. Hitting the ignition switch, the core starts to pulsate erratically before currents of pressure start whipping around the landing dock, tossing around various pieces of scrap in a flurry.

“Dammit Marcus, shut that thing off!”

“Hold on! Just give it one more second! And HERE. WE. GO!”

In a blinding flash the purple light expanded outward into a small bubble before quickly receding and taking the hunter and the sparrow with it. Were the sparrow once was, a scorched pit of purple fire remained, surrounded by various tools, pieces of Scrap, and a single slice of burnt toast. A lone ghost wanders into view of the camera to inspect the site.

“Please tell me that idiot didn’t just do himself in. You can rez him, right?” Amanda calls out.

“Well that’s just the thing,” the ghost responds, “he’s still in one piece. I’m detecting his presence on Nessus… No wait, now I can feel him on Io… Titan? This may take a while…”

Once again, all that could be heard was a long drawn out sigh from off screen.

“I’ll go get the broom. YOU get to tell Zavala what your guardian did this time.”

END OF FEED…

USER NOTE: Z_Vanguard: Notice to all Guardians. While attention should be focused on the imminent threat, the Vanguard would appreciate your assistance in locating the guardian Marcus Ren and/or his device.

Update: In response to the many inquiries from several hunters, no, there will not be a reward given upon retrieval. The unofficial “Marcus Mistakes” fund has been depleted due to the previous five incidents.

Your Ghost tells you they’ve added the void frequency of the teleports to their scanners. If you happen to come near a site they’ll let you know.

#destiny #destiny 2 #fanfiction #lore entry #Marcus Ren #Amanda Holiday #Zavala #The Tower #Ethereal Geekdom

5 notes · View notes

starship-imzadi · 4 years

Text

S1 E1 Encounter at Farpoint: parts 1 & 2

I'm going to just start by saying I love TNG, but that doesn't mean it isn't painful to watch at times. The first season has a lot of painful moments.

The opening shot of the Enterprise is very clearly and brightly lit from beneath...what is the light source supposed to be?

Troi's hair is so ridiculous it's only surpassed by her dialogue. And oh how painful her dialogue is. Props to Marnia for sticking with it.

Data clearly needs access to the urban dictionary.

This two part episode does a lot for establishing the TNG world. Gene Roddenberry is known for being a progressive but often he, or the writers, seem to get in their own way. Q as a tool for testing that progressiveness is very important if imperfect. As a product of the show himself, he fails in many respects to be properly progressive in his own right.

Notice Troi is in uniform, but with short sleeves and a short skirt. By contrast Tasha has trousers and long sleeves like the men, all of which seem to be one piece suits. In engineering you can see one man also dressed in short sleeves and skirt around 11:00 and one in the hall around 14:00.

I'm curious what a "printout message" is. It sounds analog but I'm not sure how that manifests. I certainly don't remember hearing it used ever again.

The pacing for this feels quite slow and the saucer separation is reminiscent of Star Trek The Motion Picture and all of their special effects "showing off".

Tasha wants a fight so bad.

Troi actually get to do something with communications!

I wonder what the "frozen" stuff is.... It makes me think of old Hollywood asbestos snow

I know Patrick has done a lot of Shakespearean theatre but are we really suposed to believe the first "classic" quote uttered by a progressive egalitarian society is from a white male?

Riker without a beard is so uptight. Riker does some dumb stuff in this show, BUT I also really like him (I'll point out why as I go). Okay, so every character is a synthetic construct built by the opinions and ideas of writers, producers, costumers, directors, the show runner, other creatives, and ultimately the actor who portrays that character. So, there's a lot of opportunities for inconsistencies or poor development (I know that a pessimistic perspective.) I appreciate subtly in writing but at the same time I'm not looking to explain away poor writing or creative choices either.

An issue I have with Roddenberry's vision for the future is how synthetic everything is. Half of the props look like they're made of plastic and most of the costumes look like polyester.

The video they show Riker makes me wonder how was it recorded, and edited, and why is it so uninformative?

Data says the saucer section will be there in 51 minutes but then two minutes later tells Picard they've arrived.

I've seen a quote attributed to Patrick Stewart saying "Jonathan Frakes couldn't manually dock a bicycle." The real question is why make Riker dock the saucer section manually?

Riker: permission to speak candidly sir

Picard: always

"I don't feel comfortable with children"

Geordi is in constant pain from his visor. What an odd detail to include. I think it's mentioned only once more in "Loud as a Whisper".

Data exists as a character to fill the spot of Spock. In philosophical terms they are perhaps the reciprocal of each other, one wishing to avoid his humanity the other wishing to embrace it. Despite being a beloved character, Bones has a prejudice against Vulcans he's not to shy about showing, often references physical difference he's uncomfortable with like green blood and pointed ears. It is fitting to note he treats Data with a similar "skepticism". He even calls Data "boy" which is reminiscent of racist terminology used against black men in the southern United States. In TNG season 2 Dr. Pulaski feels to me to be very much like Bones in her demeanor and proves to share the same prejudices against Data.

It's admirable that Worf admits his mistake and his desire to learn from it.

The fish is the Captain's ready room really completes the image of the entire Enterprise being decorated like a doctor's office in the 90's. Even the carpet on the floor fits.

IMZADI!!! Sorry, it's my weakness (no one will ship them harder than Marina and Jonathan and I'll happily be a crew member on that ship)

But honestly, this is awkward. Picard introduces them and they just stare at each other....not.... blinking. (As they talk telepathically) which I think the writers forget is a thing after this episode.

"I consider it important for my key officers to know each other's abilities"....that almost sounds suggestive.

Riker's movement to kneel next to Troi when she experiences emotional distress is one of the first specific moments to note of what might be called "emotional physicality". The blocking allows Jonathan to be in frame but opposite Patrick for dialogue exchange but emotionally it allows Riker the character to be in a closer, supportive place for Troi. Troi and Riker's initial meeting is one of shock, they know each other and seeing each other is significant but we don't really know if that's good or bad. Riker's movement here shows that beyond the shock of seeing each other the emotional reaction he has is one of concern and affection.

This ensign is totally flirting with Riker and ....Riker doesn't flirt back. Not sure if Riker just wasn't comfortable yet or if the writers hadn't developed that part of his character yet.

So...if the holodeck makes stuff like a food replicator...what are the people made of? (I guess more on that with Moriarty).

I know a lot of people dislike Wesley but... let's be fair, the writers didn't do him any favours.

I'm not really sure why Troi suggested she go with Riker to look around but it certainly gave him the opportunity to reject her.

I just noticed Troi's painted nails.

Marina is really giving a performance above and beyond everyone else in this episode. And it's sweet that Riker goes to comfort her.

Oooo! Picard and Crusher....also, mama Crusher going to bat for Wesley is important.

Of the Enterprise crew, Tasha and Troi have definitely displayed the most emotion of anyone in this episode set.

I'm not really sure how Riker is supposed to have impressed Q...

Hurray for the space jellyfish

Some of the camera work in this episode is just weird...

Engage!

3 notes · View notes

oliviadavid2025-blog · 4 years

Text

Become a Photoshop Expert in 10 Steps

Become A Photoshop Expert In 10 Steps | PS Actions

Being Photoshop users we have to realize everyone that uses Photoshop actions, nobody really knows everything that Photoshop can do. This is amazing and helpful for those how to try to find something new in Photoshop or want to become an expert in Photoshop Actions. Further, if you are a user of Photoshop you should try to learn most of it and keep learning. According to my personal experience, I will recommend the following habits if you want to become a Photoshop Expert.

With the help of this article, we will explain how to become an expert in Photoshop:

Own the Latest Version of Photoshop:

If you don’t have your own copy at home then it’s pretty hard to really experiment with Photoshop. Having the latest version of Photoshop is important too much. Because the latest features usually either make your job easier or give you those facilities that didn’t even exist in prior. According to our experience, we will recommend you try to purchase your own copy because with this you can enjoy lots of features during the creation of photoshop actions for photographpers. So, if you are a teacher or student who is not using Photoshop for commercial purposes, with these professions Adobe allowed you to purchase the educational version at half-price. Further, you can usually purchase this version with all other complete features. When you will buy it then adobe will be allowed you to run your Photoshop software on two systems.

Make Mistakes:

We are sure that you will be fully aware of the quote of mistakes make perfect. Without a mistake, you can’t learn anything or can’t get any expertise. So, Experiment and play with the mistake is the key to learning something beyond the basics. Try out all features of Photoshop tools and filters, and see what they do with different settings. With this technique, you really will learn Photoshop. Take a bunch of photos from your computer or from the camera and apply some tips on those images. For example, you can see how blend modes change an overall image as layers are moved around. You can try all of the layer adjustments, and every filter combined with another filter

Take a Class:

To be honest, we have an awful Photoshop expert at InventActions. He did little beyond schedule what we were supposed to complete in the article. We were stopped going at one point. We had learned how not to teach, and five years later we were teaching Photoshop. What a good expert can do is give us assignments and said never dreamed just do. More importantly, a good instructor can give your personal guide when you don’t even realize you made a mistake, or there’s a typo in the textbook, or you accidentally skipped something, and something goes wrong. Finally, a good Adobe or illustrator will give you projects to do that give you real-world scenarios and specifications.

Go to Seminars:

There are many firms that arrange seminars all over the world in special terms, so try to find any seminar related to Photoshop. We are sure you will much more from this technique and further you will increase your professional links. These seminars have to increase professional creativity and efficiency in Photoshop beyond belief. So join any seminars learn to enjoy and build the relationship. Go to one of these seminars if you can, or find something comparable in your area.

Read Photoshop Magazines:

A lot of professional Photoshop experts publish their magazines and share their experiences, research, and expertise. Like, you can read NAPP magazines that are best for Photoshop users and it comes to American Photoshop publications. You can get it from the book store at just $10 and can increase your exposure related to Photoshop. You can become a member of NAAP and can access to online tutorials. This is one of the best learning sources for photographers and designers. If you want to explore further magazines then Layers is another best choice for you. They also offer the latest reviews, tips, and techniques about the latest design products. They have different types of tutorials related to the design of adobe, illustrator, flash, InDesign, and Dreamweaver.

Read Photoshop Books:

This is another best idea for those who want to increase their professional skills, you can find out hundreds of books that are specially published in Photoshop. But before purchasing any Photoshop book you should be clear about what you want to learn. And get an overview of the content of books, images, and other data. Then feel about the book, is it those that you really want to read. Try to find a book that makes you feel like you can create those images that are mention in this book. Decide what work will remain best for you and look at those books that are written in the same way.

Search Online Tutorials:

Being a professional Photoshop expert we love doing online tutorials. Some good places to find Photoshop tutorials are available on YouTube. Many experts share their ideas and skills on their YouTube channels. We are sure after a little bit of research you will find any best online tutorial that will help you a lot. Try to look for any best tutorial that provides enough images, proofread their work, and don’t leave steps out. With the help of these, you will be able to create an awesome result that will look much like. As with tutorials, your skill level will increase without any doubt. So, now push yourself to do more challenging stuff than you’re used to.

Be a Community Member:

Community membership means you want to excel in Photoshop. You can excel because it’s a modern age of technology and the world has become a global village. There are hundreds of forums, websites that connects professional together and try to build professional relations. You can take benefits to join their community, discuss with them ask the question and enhance your creativity. Recently our Photoshop team also hangs out on Twitter and following a large number of fellow graphics and photographers. They are always feeding new links to incredible online resources. But we found a solution in the form of InventActions blog. Our team research and write different types of articles to share their ideas through the blog. Our team is also a member of ADAC and also we share our ideas with these community members. You can also join them, one of the best ideas and further Real-world design club is also a great opportunity to learn all about design in addition to some of the business aspects of freelancing. More importantly, you can come away inspired with fresh ideas by looking at the works of others.

some examples and work here you can check here, https://www.fiverr.com/users/ajlal_graphic/manage_gigs

Learn Other Adobe Programs Too:

There are many times when a Photoshop project is enhanced by the contributions of artwork done in Illustrator, for example. Learn how to save your work for the press using Acrobat. Learn how to create vector artwork in Illustrator and import the paths into Photoshop. Learn how to place your Photoshop files into InDesign. Learn how various Photoshop plugins can expand your design horizons or make your work easier. These are but a few examples. A thorough understanding of Photoshop must include an understanding of how well it plays with others.

Teach Photoshop:

Teaching Photoshop helped me develop my expertise in ways that no other experience can. When you have to communicate how to do something to someone else, you come to understand it in a way that sets it in concrete in your mind. I often get my students to find something new to learn, and then have them turn around and teach it to another student. And when both students make mistakes during this teaching process, they both learn more. Writing tutorials – and finding out if someone can follow them – takes this concept step further. I wasn’t a Photoshop expert when I started teaching Photoshop. I am now, thanks in part to having taught it.

Further:

you can also check some fantastic work here

#photoshopexpert #expertphotoshop #iwillbeyourexpertphotoshopdesigner

1 note · View note

emma-nation · 5 years

Text

Thinking Of You (Mona x MC Fanfiction) - Chapter 11

You said move on Where do I go? I guess second best Is all I will know

Summary: Years later, Allison has everything she wants, a brand-new internship as a doctor, a handsome boyfriend… but her first nightshift won’t go as expected…

Genre: Romance, Angst

MonaxMC Tag list: @zoe6111, @simsvetements, @whoinvitedalx, @abunchofbadchoices, @kamilahmademedoit, @talkinlikeateen, @eagle-one-1, @andreear17, @monagf, @fal-carrington, @crazzyplays, @honorablebicycle, @teja-desai, @iam-the-fuckin-queen

Notes:

- English is not my first language, forgive me for any mistakes.

- Next chapter is the last. I really gonna miss this fic! 😢 But I have another multi-chapter fic of this pairing in my plans!

- I’m still having issues to tag people on my posts, please forgive me if it doesn’t show in your notifications. I re-typed the tag list and if your name has been included is because Tumblr didn’t let me reach you.

Allison took a deep breath, remembering advices she heard from her father about how to proceed in dangerous situations. She entered Dr. Carlson's car, trying to remain silent and calm. She didn't protest or offered resistance.

The doctor asked for her cell phone and started driving, headed to his family's mansion in Santa Monica. Allison wondered if his wife was home and if she even knew what her husband and son were doing. Dr. Carlson guided her to a secret laboratory in the basement.

"Please, take a seat," he calmly asked, pointing to a comfortable armchair. Allison obeyed. "Drink?"

"No, thank you," she answered, afraid the man could drug her or worse.

Dr. Carlson poured himself some whiskey and sat in front of her. He smiled, showing Mr. Wheeler’s cell phone.

“I’ve learned your father was leading the investigation about my performance enhancers. So, I dropped by for a visit this morning and borrowed this."

Allison swallowed hard.

"Please, don't hurt him. He's only doing his job."

"Hurt him?" Dr. Carlson smiled. "I don't plan to hurt him, or even you, darling. As long as you cooperate, of course."

"Tell me what you want," Allison asked. "How can I cooperate?"

"Good girl, Allison. First, I need you to answer, where's the boy?"

"What boy?"

"The one who attacked me inside Krista’s house.”

Allison's eyes went wide in shock. How could him possibly have found out about her being part of the investigation?

“I-I... I don’t know what you're talking about, Dr. Carlson."

“Allison," he shook his head in denial, "don't lie to me. I have contacts inside the University. I've been informed you and that girl, Mona, are secretly working for the police."

Allison sighed frustrated. Being so influent, it was obvious Dr. Carlson had easy access to this kind of information.

“We dropped him at the bus station," she lied. "He was going to his parents house in San Francisco.”

“Hmmm, I’m gonna investigate this further. Now, give me the evidence."

"What evidence?"

"That boy, Brian is his name, isn't? He was secretly filming my goddaughter's meeting. We found the camera he left behind. The footage is stored somewhere, where is it Allison?"

"In a flash drive. It's in Mona's car, I don't have it."

"Are you sure?"

Allison nodded.

"We're going to do it the hard way, then," Dr. Carlson grabbed her by the wrists, forcing her to stand up. Then, he pinned her against the wall, searching inside her pockets. "I told you, Allison," he retrieved the flash drive, "don't try to lie to me. I'm familiar with the body language."

He plugged the flash drive on his laptop, confirming its content. Then, he smashed it under his foot. Allison took the opportunity to run to the door. She attempted to open in but, as expected, it was securely locked. Now Dr. Carlson had gotten what he wanted, she began to imagine what he'd do. If he was going to keep her alive, or silence her with death.

"Y-You've got what you wanted," she said with a crackling voice. "Now let me go home. Mona and my dad will start to suspect if I disappear for too long."

"Oh, darling, they won't," he handed Allison her cell phone. "Because you're gonna call your dad to tell him the news."

"What news?"

"That you decided to come back to Griffin and will be going to New Zealand with him in the morning."

"I won't."

Dr. Carlson let out a soft laugh.

"Yes, you are. Do you know why? If you stay, my son’s car will get stolen. He's going to report it to the police and they'll eventually find it… with Mona's fingerprints.”

"Don't you even dare!" Allison clenched her fists and advanced in his direction. She needed to grab the laboratory keys inside his pocket.

Dr. Carlson easily grabbed her fists, immobilizing her.

"And if you try, by any manners to warn your father, something terrible will happen to him. Like a phone call, reporting a false lead. He arrives at the location and ‘bang’! It was a trap.”

“Your psychopath! Leave my father and Mona alone,” Allison started crying.

She sat down at the armchair again, hoping her dad or Mona would suspect when she didn't return home. Then, a bad feeling erupted inside her chest. Where was Griffin?

----------

Mona parked the Santagata in front of the Wheelers’ residence. There was no space for one more car in the garage. She’d be returning it to her father in the earliest hours of the morning, as it could be easily recognized by Dr. Carlson or Griffin.

Her phone buzzed inside her pocket. She expected it to be Allison, bringing news about the investigation, but it was David instead.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

“My car is all over the internet. And on the news too.”

“I’m gonna face charges for your insanity.”

Mona let out a laugh, before replying.

“Your test drive is made. The car is suitable for sale.”

She stopped texting, with had the impression she was being watched. Looking around, she was alone on the street. Mona shrugged.

"You could've died or killed someone."

"If your mother finds out I provided you the car, she'll murder me with her bare hands."

"Chill out, would ya? I'm --"

The impression of being watched made her stop typing again. Putting the phone back in her pocket, along with the car keys, she decided to get inside. Before, she grabbed the pocket knife, only to feel more secure.

While she unlocked the door, she heard a familiar 'click’ behind her, that made a shiver run through her entire body. Turning around, she was face to face to the barrel of a gun.

“Make a noise and I’ll shoot you right here, right now.”

Allison’s ex was trying to pose as bad boy, aiming his little toy at her forehead while trying to sound scary and intimidating.

“Gavin,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“It’s Griffin and you know it!” He grabbed her by the jacket with his free hand. “What, huh?! I’d like to see you act fierce and mock me now!”

“It’s not the first time I have a gun pointed at me.”

“But no one has wanted you dead as much as I do, that I can assure you.”

For some reason, she began to feel anxious. Flashbacks of the night Shaw accidentally shot her returned to her mind. She was alone in the hospital, losing a lot of blood. Her mind was foggy and her vision beginning to get blurred. Distantly, she heard the comments of doctors and nurses, who were more interested to gossip about who she supposedly was, than providing her the care she needed. She never let it show, but she was afraid. Before falling unconscious, two people were in her thoughts, her mom and Allison.

Griffin looked down, noticing the knife in her shaky hand. He grabbed it violently and threw it across the street.

“You’re coming with me,” he wrapped his arm around her, still pointing the gun to her head. “And don’t even attempt to get funny.”

He took her to his car, parked only a few meters away and shoved Mona hardly against the driver’s door.

“Open it!” Griffin ordered.

“Give me the keys?” Mona asked.

“I don’t think you understand… you’re going to do it like you’re used to. You’re going to steal my car. In case I decide to not kill you tonight, I need a plan B to get rid of you forever.”

“I need tools.”

Griffin handed her a complete set of car theft tools. Mona studied the car’s lock, picking the one she thought being the most appropriate. As she connected the magnetic device on the car's door, the alarm started to beep loud. He slapped her hard on the face.

“Your bitch! Do it again and you’re dead,” he said, pressing the gun against her head again.

“I’m not familiar with recent car models, jackass. I’ve spent eight years out of picture, in case you don’t remember!”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!”

Griffin punched her hard in a place he knew it would inflict her a lot of pain. In the place she had been recently operated. Mona fell on the ground, squirming in pain. So much pain she started feeling sick.

“Get up!"

"Fuck you!”

“I said…” he attacked her again, landing a kick at the side of her body. “Get up!"

Noticing the strange motion, a neighbor turned on the lights and observed through the front window.

"Look what you've done," Griffin opened the car's door, then forced Mona to stand up and enter the car. "One more trick and I'll kill you."

Still pointing the gun at her, the young doctor made her hotwire the car and drive to his house. The pain in her abdomen was still so intense Mona could barely focus.

"Allison..." she thought, closing her eyes. She needed to act carefully. When Allison and her dad returned home, they'd know something was wrong.

By her side, Griffin was sweating and acting like crazy.

"You're like a fucking ghost," he shouted. "I never had a place in her heart because of you. She called for you in her sleep, all the time. Once she had this high fever and she began to hallucinate, saying she loved you! And there were those stupid letters... she never wrote anything similar for me..."

"My bad," Mona smirked.

She felt Griffin's nails digging deep into her arm's skin.

"Get cocky as much as you want... In the end I'll win, either way you'll never see Allison again."

"That's what we'll see," Mona thought. She observed, waiting for a moment of distraction where she could take that gun from Griffin's hands.

"It's here," he announced after a few minutes. "Keep driving, to the garage."

They entered a mansion in Santa Monica. Leaving the car, Griffin distracted himself for a second, while he unlocked a door that lead to the basement. Mona decided to take that one chance, she went for his left arm, trying to disarm him.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Griffin turned around abruptly, hitting her in the forehead with the gun's handle. As blood started streaming down her face from a cut, Mona felt dizzy from the blow. Her entire body was weak. She was about to pass out.

"Get up," he forced her to stand up again, holding her tightly to support her body.

They started walking down a stair. Mona had difficult to keep balance, almost falling several times. Griffin opened another door, the light inside made her eyes hurt. Through the unsteady vision, she managed to distinguish as a laboratory.

"There's she, dad," he announced, releasing her from his grip. Mona fell on the ground. "It was a lot of work to get her, but I kinda had fun."

"Mona!" She heard a familiar voice, distantly. "What have you done to her?"

"Allison..." Mona mumbled, noticing she approached.

"O-Oh my god! Y-You're going to be okay... it's only a concussion... I'm going to take care of you."

Feeling her touch was a confirmation Mona wasn't hallucinating. She fought a smile.

"Allison, get up!" Griffin yelled. "You're my fiancée and you're coming with me."

"Over my dead body!" Allison argued.

"If you don't come with me, I'm gonna kill her right now, in front of you."

He drew his gun again.

Mona felt a kiss on her cheek. A few tears dropped from Allison's eyes, getting mixed with the blood on her face.

"I'm coming back," Allison whispered. "Stay strong."

"Allison, I..." Mona tried to speak, but it was too late, Griffin had grabbed Allison by the shoulders, dragging her away. She still could her cries and appeals getting distant. Until they were completely silenced. A moment later, a male voice spoke.

"It seems like it's only you and me now."

----------

Looking at the sky, starting to show the first rays of morning, Allison couldn't stop crying. Her thoughts were driving her to insanity. What would Dr. Carlson do with Mona now? And Detective Wheeler... she wondered if the Carlsons had found a way to silence him too.

"Stop crying," Griffin told her, as they arrived at the airport in his father's car. "People will notice."

She scowled at him, before opening a false grin.

"You have no idea how happy I am to be here, my love," she said, ironically.

"Watch your tone. Act more natural."

A private jet was already waiting for them. As they passed through the airport, Allison desperately looked into people's eyes, attempting to show signs she was being taken against her will. She looked at the police officers, hoping they'd have more knowledge to read her signs.

Nobody noticed. Within minutes, she was inside the jet in Griffin's company.

"What do you plan to do when we arrive?" Allison asked.

Griffin didn't answer. She insisted.

"Are you going to kill me? If you are, just do it. Save me from the pain of looking at this disgusting playboy face of yours."

"I'm making you my wife. And we'll be happy, have our house and children, the way it was always supposed to be."

Allison let out a sarcastic laugh.

"God, you're completely crazy. How didn't I notice before?"

"I'm not crazy, Allison. You were letting your feelings for that criminal get in our way. But now she's gone, you'll finally have eyes for me."

"You won't be able to imprison me forever," Allison argued. "Someday I'm going to escape. And I'll go back to Mona again. She's the one I always loved, just deal with it."

"Don't waste your time," Griffin smirked. "At this time, my dad has probably gotten rid of her already."

Allison swallowed hard, wondering what Griffin meant by that. She remembered the shape Mona was in last time she saw her, barely conscious. She wouldn't be able to do nothing to save herself in that state. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Champagne?" Griffin smiled again, getting himself a drink.

Allison needed a plan to return and warn the police. Griffin was cold, selfish and had a big ego, that was his strongest weakness. She needed to appeal to this side of him. She walked closer, embracing him from behind.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm kinda shaken up after finding out about the performance enhancers. But... if you could make me understand, if you proved that you really love me..."

"Oh Allison," he started telling. "It's my father's biggest project. He's so proud of his findings, about how he could help these young guys to accomplish their goals. It's a great source of income too."

"Really? Maybe you can show me when we arrive. I'll be glad to help you in this research, if it's so important to you and your dad."

Griffin smiled, looking straight into her eyes. Allison needed to keep acting.

"I... Mona really messed up with my head. She seduced me, then convinced me to break up with you."

"Did she?" He turned around, raising his eyebrow, interested to hear.

"She's not even half of the person you are. How could I even consider leaving you, with such a successful career and a wealthy life..." Allison caressed his chest, "for her. A former criminal, that can't even get herself a job."

"Now you're coming back to your senses. I bought you something, to prove you my love."

He took a small box from his pocket, containing a ring even more expensive than the first one. Allison opened a grin, before kissing his lips passionately. Her hands traveled down to his waist, searching for his gun. Discreetly, Allison took it.

"Stop this fucking jet right now," she pushed him away and pointed the pistol at him.

"Allison, what are you doing? Give it back."

"No. And if you take another step, I swear I'll shoot you."

"Fuck! We were going so well!"

Griffin grabbed her wrists, trying to retrieve the gun from her hands. Allison elbowed him hard in the stomach. He pushed her to the floor, pinning her down.

"Allison, stop... you're gonna kill us... give me the gun..."

"Never!" She kept fighting, resisting to let the pistol go.

A loud bang echoed in the entire jet. Griffin stood up, looking at Allison in horror.

"L-Look what you've done. I... I didn't..."

She didn't really notice what was going on until her shoulder started to burn in pain. She had been hit.

"Hmfff..."

Allison winced in pain. But she couldn't let it prevent her from stopping the jet and return to save Mona. Mona risked her life for her, multiple times. She owed her everything.

"Let me check it," Griffin approached. "It seems to have just grazed your shoulder."

That was an opportunity she couldn't miss. Ignoring the pain completely, she kicked him hardly between his legs.

"Your bitch!" He screamed. "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you."

Allison wasted no time. As he was vulnerable, she hit him with a punch in the nose and several other kicks. When he dropped the pistol, she grabbed it again.

"Lay on the floor," she ordered.

Griffin lunged in her direction, ready to attack her again. Allison aimed, closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

"Nooooo," he cried loud in pain. She opened her eyes, confirming she had successfully shot his knee, what should be enough to slow him down.

While he was on the floor, Allison tied both of his hands behind his back, immobilizing him as the jet made its way back to the airport. When it landed, the police was already waiting to arrest Griffin. Detective Wheeler was also there.

"Allison! You're hurt, oh my god."

"It was nothing, dad."

"How didn't I noticed the monsters these men were?" He wiped some tears from her cheeks.

"How did you find me anyways?" Allison asked.

"This kid named Leon, he called me. Ask me to meet him in Gramercy Park. After I watched that video, I went home to find you and Mona, but... I only found her car. When you called me, saying you were leaving to New Zealand, I already knew you were in danger."

"Dad," Allison began to sob in his arms. "W-We need to go. I think Dr. Carlson did something to Mona... last time I saw her, she was not okay..."

"I'll ask a team to rescue her. I'm taking you to a hospital."

"No! I'm going with you."

----------

After passing out for a while, Mona finally woke up. Her head still hurt, though it felt a lot better. Her vision was also back to normal and she regained some strength. Attempting to get up, she noticed her arms and legs were restrained to a hospital bed. Her vitals were also being displayed on a monitor.

"You finally woke up," Dr. Carlson said, working behind a desk. "I was beginning to get worried."

"What do you want from me, psycho?" She asked.

"I was hoping you could help me."

"Tell me your price."

"My performance enhancer," he came to her direction with a syringe in hands. "I need to conduct some final tests before leaving to New Zealand."

Mona remained silent. Still confused by the concussion, she tried to remember what Krista explained to Brian in the previous night.

"I injected you a small amount. Unfortunately, you showed no sensitivity."

"Yeah, unfortunately. Dying for drug usage is all I ever wanted."

"I'd like to study better this side effects. But..." he rolled up her jacket's sleeve. "I still can test what happens to the body for overuse."

"No," Mona thrashed on the bed, attempting to free herself. "Let me go, you bastard!"

"I can't, my dear. You know too much."

He held her arm still, inserting the needle in her veins. The content made Mona feel a tingling sensation all over her arm.

"Don't worry, it won't last too long," Dr. Carlson assured her. "I made a concentrated sample to test on you."

Mona relaxed her body, letting her head rest on the pillow. She thought about her mom. Right now she should be flying back to New York. She didn't even had a chance to say goodbye or tell her how much she loved her.

And Allison... this time she failed to protect her. Griffin took her to New Zealand, where he'd probably keep her captive and do her the most horrible things. She should've told her how she felt back in Gramercy Park, or even in the very first day, when they met at the hospital.

A single tear escaped from her eyes. Dr. Carlson watched her expectantly behind his table, just waiting for her body to start to collapse.

"See, my dear?" He smiled. "You shouldn't have tried to play tough against me. You may have a reputation, but me... I'm an expert playing this game."

"Wrong, doctor. I knew you could play dirty. I made several copies of that flash drive... you're going down. I won."

Even if he hid it too well, Mona could see her words caused an impact on him.

Her heart rate began to get unstable, causing some discomfort.

"We're almost there," Dr. Carlson laughed, satisfied. "After you die, I'm placing your body in Griffin's car. I'll abandon it somewhere, and when the police find you, they'll think you committed suicide, after failing to resist your old habits."

His laughs were muffled by the laboratory's door slamming open. Mona raised her head, expecting it to be the police but...

"Get away from my daughter, your son of a bitch!"

"David?" She was surprised to see her father, especially armed. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm saving you. You accidentally called me last night, I heard the entire altercation you had with his son. Then, I tracked his location by the keychain in your pocket. All of them have an integrated GPS to prevent theft."

“To be saved by daddy,” Mona rolled her eyes. “One less item in my bucket list.”

“Save your sarcasm for later, okay?” David helped her to get rid of the restraints. “We have to go.”

"Can you call an ambulance? He... he injected a lot of his drug on me."

"Right now."

As David requested an ambulance, Mona looked at the door, where Dr. Carlson was ready to escape.

"David!" She yelled. "He's running away."

"Oh no, he isn't," he turned around, pointing his gun at Dr. Carlson.

Without thinking twice, Mona's father pulled the trigger, shooting Dr. Carlson's hand and preventing him from opening the door.

"Nice shot," Mona said.

"Uh... It was accidental." David lamented, while he kept Dr. Carlson immobilized.

Mona attempted to sit down, but the effort only made her feel worse. She had trouble breathing and her heart seemed to be exploding inside her chest.

"Hey, stay put. The ambulance will be here in a minute. You need to stay calm, breath in and out slowly."

She did as David said, but it was useless, she felt suffocated. Dr. Carlson started laughing.

"You're too late, David. Her body is failing. It's a matter of minutes before she..."

David silenced the doctor with a punch on his jaw.

"Badass," Mona smiled to her father.

"Not as much as you."

The door opened and a group of cops entered the laboratory, immediately handcuffing Dr. Carlson and taking him under arrest. Together with them, Mona spotted Detective Wheeler and Allison.

"Mona!" Allison rushed to her, in tears. "Y-You're going to be okay. The ambulance is here, they're taking you to the hospital. I'll be with you, okay?"

"Allison," Mona squeezed her hand tightly, "He... injected me... a lethal dose. But... I’m glad to see you.”

"You'll get tired of seeing me soon. We'll never be apart again, not even for a minute. And there's our celebration, remember? There's a question you wanted to ask me."

"Our celebration is officially cancelled... I..."

"Don't you even dare to say that," Allison pressed a kissed on her lips. “Everything will be alright this time. Nothing or no one will separate us.”

"I know I... I suck at his, but... I love you," Mona said as they parted.

Allison smiled, caressing her cheek. She was about to say something but Mona couldn’t hear it. Reality became too distant, as she fell unconscious.

----------

Allison followed to the hospital in the ambulance. The paramedics did all the procedures to revert Mona's cardiac arrest, but she was still highly unstable. She could no longer see her when they arrived at the hospital.

After having her shoulder patched, she sat down at the waiting room with her dad and Mona's. Her mother arrived shortly, crying desperately and blaming each one of them, especially Mr. Wheeler.

Some time later, she went searching for anybody that could inform her about Mona's state, being closer to her fighting parents was only making her more anxious and insecure. A doctor she previously worked with, during her internship, invited her in to his office. He explained Mona was given an antidote, but her vitals were still unstable and she also had a seizure.

"What are her chances?" Allison asked, holding herself to not cry.

"It was a very concentrated sample of the drug. Dr. Carlson really intended to kill her."

"But... she can pull through, can't she?"

"Allison," the doctor sighed. "It's up to her body to react now and succeed to expel the drug from her system. But considering she went through a surgery lately... her health is kinda fragile."

He didn't know Mona so well as she did. Allison knew how strong she was. She'd fight until the end to survive. She was sure of it.

She entered the room, where Mona was lying in bed, unconscious and with a lot of wires plugged on her body, to monitor her vitals and help her to breath.

Allison grabbed her hand and whispered softly.

"Please, Mona. Come back to me. You didn't even give me a chance to say it back but... I love you too."

----------

Note: Don't worry, I won't be pulling the PB on Mona. Our cinnamon roll deserves only the happiest ending.

#ride or die #mona #mona rod #mona x mc #playchoices #choices stories you play #ride or die fanfiction

24 notes · View notes