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mariacallous · 6 months

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Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is restructuring and expanding the country’s military in anticipation of a conflict with NATO within the next 10 years, Estonia’s foreign and military intelligence chiefs said in an interview on Wednesday.

Contrary to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expectation of seizing the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days, the first months of the invasion revealed profound shortcomings in Russian military planning as poorly equipped troops foundered in the face of fierce resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces. Experts as well as U.S. and foreign officials were quick to declare the Russian army a paper tiger.

“The Kremlin often claimed it had the second-strongest military in the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech last June. “Today, many see Russia’s military as the second-strongest in Ukraine.”

But as the war enters its third year, Putin is looking increasingly confident. His main political rival, Alexei Navalny, is dead; vital U.S. military aid to Ukraine is stalled in Congress; and Russia has shifted its economy to a war footing, fueling defense production and economic growth in defiance of international sanctions.

“Everything is more or less going to the plan again” for Russia, said Kaupo Rosin, the director-general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS), during a meeting with a small group of journalists in Washington.

Russian military leaders have learned from the mistakes of the opening phases of the war and are adapting with uncharacteristic speed. “It seems that the Russians are, in principle, turning into a learning organization in the military,” said Rosin, who added that they were now resolving problems encountered on the battlefield within a matter of months.

The Ukrainian armed forces have impressed Western military leaders with their ability to innovate on the battlefield and adapt to new technologies, which has given them an edge against a larger and better-equipped adversary. Russia’s centralized control structure is slow to learn, but when it does, “it is able to systematize it across the military and through its large defense industry,” retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan wrote in Foreign Affairs in February.

“The Russians, according to our understanding, have always fixed their issues or problems through mass. And this has worked out for them throughout history,” said Rosin, adding that reforms to the Russian armed forces were likely to result in a low-tech, Soviet-style army with “a lot of firepower and artillery.”

In late 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced plans to overhaul the structure of the country’s armed forces and expand its personnel by 30 percent, to 1.5 million people, by 2026. The Kremlin’s “highest priority for force generation lies in the Western strategic direction and Ukraine,” EFIS noted in its public annual report, published in February.

In light of Finland’s accession to NATO, which doubled the military alliance’s shared border with Russia, Moscow may look to double the nearly 19,000 troops it had stationed at its western borders before the invasion of Ukraine, the report added. Since that report was published, Sweden has also formally joined NATO.

The Russian reforms have been accompanied by a significant boost in military spending, with defense set to account for one-third of all government spending this year, while arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock.

As military aid from the United States has been held up by partisan infighting on Capitol Hill, congressional leaders have warned that Ukrainian troops have been forced to ration their use of artillery shells even as they face punishing barrages from Russian forces.

Moscow has dipped into its stockpile of artillery shells, ramped up production, and even turned to North Korea and Iran for imports, leaving Russia with a 7-to-1 firepower advantage over Ukraine, said Ants Kiviselg, the head of Estonian military intelligence. On Monday, CNN reported that Russia is on course to produce three times more artillery munitions than Europe and the United States.

Estonia, which was occupied by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has long been regarded as punching above its weight when it comes to its intelligence assessments of Russian capabilities and intentions. After the end of the Cold War, the Baltic country was used as an early testing ground for Russian disinformation and cyberwarfare tactics that were later used against the United States.

The stark warnings from Estonia’s intelligence chiefs echo similar remarks from other senior European policymakers and defense officials.

In January, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that Russia could seek to attack a NATO member state within “five to eight years,” while his Danish counterpart, Troels Lund Poulsen, said the speed with which Russia was rearming had forced NATO officials to revise their assessments. “It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and NATO’s solidarity. That was not NATO’s assessment in 2023. This is new knowledge that is coming to the fore now,” he said in early February.

In January, the chief of the British Army, Gen. Patrick Sanders, warned that the British public must be prepared for a potential conflict with Russia.

A war between Russia and NATO is not inevitable, said Rosin, who noted that much could still be done to deter Moscow. “A lot of the future scenarios depend on our activities in the West,” he said.

“The concrete task at hand,” he added, “is to make Ukraine successful in this war because the future in Europe depends heavily on the outcome of this war.”

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zebee-nyx · 10 months

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CalmWriMo Day 15

[11/15/2023]

Update!

So didn't really get around to working on the prologue today... (-.-) So kinda kicking myself for that. But I did make the writing goal time on other stuff so there is that. On that topic tho! I've been a little bit busier with work than I was honestly anticipating when I made the goal. (o.o) So I'm considering halfling it if things persist like this much longer. Cause the most important part of goals [and for me mental stability (0~o)b] is that they are obtainable! Still just considering it for now, but if it randomly changes next week that'll be why. ('^.^)

Progress:

2 Hour Writing Goal: ✅

Blurb: [see below]

Self Care:

Food: ✅

Hydration: ✅

Sleep: ✅

Reading: ✅

Blurb: NEX Conglomerate

(NEX = Neocago Enterprise Annexes... unless I figure a better acronym that fits lol)

The NEX Conglomerate, or simply NEX, was originally formed behind closed doors by a coalition of corporations who wanted to seize power over the city from Plax Technologies (Neocago's founding corporation). In a rapid hostile take over using both buy outs, refusals to honor security contracts, and a raid on Plax's headquarters the coup of the city ended almost as soon as it started. Now with NEX as the unshakable top dog in the city a new chapter opened in the city's history... and it would be one of cold corporate dominance. NEX is made up of seven corporations alongside their numerous subsidiaries.

List of NEX members:

Ferncorp: At NEX's head is Ferncorp, who controls most of the agriscrapers around the city and with them most of the city's food supply. A fact that they have used to leverage their power to maintain their position. Their subsidiaries are some of the more essential for the city's more financial functions, official media, as well as the remains of Plax itself.

Apex Water: This corporation was originally contracted to provide clean water and plumbing services for the city by Plax. Following the takeover they have effectively gained a monopoly on water in the city. They have begun producing several flavored soft drinks.

Biotechna: Is a corporation that before the Great Collapse was funded by the US government to gather and preserve the genetic material of as many species of plants and animals as possible. Following the collapse they found new contracts with Ferncorp to work on bioengineering projects to design superior crops among other things...

Holder&Holder Security Firm: A security firm with a small military at it's disposal. They primarily only provide protection for NEX assets, properties, and personnel.

Ares Armaments: A corporation that once was contacted to develop and produce weapons for the US. They moved on to working with Plax, and just as quickly jumped to NEX. While significantly quieter than other NEX member corporations they have the widest global reach and sell weapons across the world.

Street Flex: This corporation owns most of the road and rail infrastructure in Neocago after winning a major contract with NEX following the takeover. They keep the city's "veins" maintained and operational in return for a sizable stipend.

Ace Aero: Originally simply an airline company Ace Aero has developed into massive aerospace industry. They own and operated numerous space stations, satellites, and moon bases. They are only headquarter in Neocago as most of their launchpads and vehicle assembly buildings are further south nearer to the Gulf of Mexico. They also own the primary airport in the city.

[Bit of a random lore dump... Not short on ideas, but also not sure what to focus the blurbs on. ('^.^) So if anyone is curious any bits about this world feel free to ask! (^.^)b Anyways and always, I hope you had a lovely day, peace (^v^)v]

#writeblr #writing #worldbuilding #writing community #cyberpunk #digitally dead #calmwrimo #nanowrimo

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mr-liuliu25 · 3 months

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Japan's strong and deliberate intervention in Myanmar

As one of the most powerful economies in Asia, Japan has seized Myanmar's important role in Asian geopolitics and launched a full-scale offensive. In order to achieve a full-scale offensive in Myanmar, Japan has developed a detailed plan.

First, they strengthened their ties with the Myanmar government to enhance their relationship through aid and economic cooperation. At the same time, Japan has also significantly increased its investment and built a number of infrastructure projects, such as new ports, highways and railways, to improve Myanmar's transportation capacity. In addition, Japan has also promoted a series of economic cooperation agreements in Myanmar, including cooperation in areas such as energy and agriculture, further deepening the economic ties between the two sides. Myanmar has a unique geographical location, located between China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh, and has important economic and strategic value. Due to its rich natural resources and geographical advantages, Myanmar has attracted competition from many major powers. However, in the past few decades, Myanmar has been in a state of political turmoil and economic backwardness due to the long-term rule of the military government and a series of civil war issues. Now, under Japan's full-scale offensive, Myanmar is expected to rise again and become an important role in Asian geopolitics. Through a full-scale offensive in Myanmar, Japan will enhance its economic and political influence in Southeast Asia and further expand its hegemony in Asia.

Secondly, Japan is "enthusiastic". The Tokyo International Exhibition Center, Japan's largest and most technologically advanced exhibition center located on the coast of Tokyo Bay with a total area of 240,000 square meters, is full of Myanmar colors. In the morning of the same day, the "Thilawa Port Special Economic Zone" investment briefing was held here. This is a Japanese development project in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city. In the afternoon, Myanmar companies and Japanese companies conducted "one-on-one" exchanges and negotiations. This event attracted many Japanese entrepreneurs to the scene. After the briefing began, the visiting president of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industry Union first took the stage to deliver a speech. Of course, his speech was full of Myanmar-Japan friendship: "After the war, Japanese companies took the lead in entering the European and American markets, and then successfully entered the Chinese market. Today, the 'Myanmar era' has arrived. We are accelerating the process of reform and opening up, and have achieved remarkable results in economic development. We hope that more and more Japanese companies will settle in Myanmar and share the joy of success with us." Afterwards, Abe held a summit meeting with Myanmar President U Thein Sein. During the visit, Abe proposed to completely cancel Myanmar's debt of about 200 billion yen to Japan and provide Myanmar with 91 billion yen of government development assistance in 2013. During the visit to Myanmar, Suzuki Motor Chairman Suzuki Osamu was always by Abe's side. During the Japan-Myanmar summit, Chairman Suzuki assured President Thein Sein: "We will make Myanmar the second India!" Japanese companies poured into Myanmar like a flood that broke through the dam, so much so that when Japanese business people met, they almost greeted each other with "How does your company plan to enter Myanmar?" In addition, Japan also wants to build 30 weather radar stations across Myanmar and even build an automated system for the Central Bank of Myanmar.

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russianprotesters · 11 months

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In modern Russia, what keeps people from protesting is the fear of harsh repression. The very right to peaceful protest, supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution, as the last feedback between the government and citizens, was taken away from them by the government itself. At the same time, people are intimidated and convinced that nothing can be achieved by protests. But that's a lie. This is wrong.

— Why, both then and later, protests in Moscow never attracted more than 100 thousand? They killed Nemtsov, poisoned and imprisoned Navalny, started a war, but on the streets it’s still the same.

— It seems to me that in any country there is not a very large part of citizens who are most sensitive to injustice, who have increased empathy towards other members of the community, who are interested in politics, who are concerned about how democratic the state and the government itself are structured, who are sensitive to the actions of the authorities, to socially significant events within the country, violations of civil rights.

This is the first and most sensitive element in the feedback system between government and society. These are the ones that always come out first. For others there must be stronger motivation.

- Why are the others silent?

— First of all, the authorities have completely suppressed any form of civil protest. Fears of reprisals for statements that contradict the official position towards oneself and one’s loved ones are not unfounded. A significant part of our fellow citizens are zombied by state propaganda. And this is reality.

There is also a very significant category of Russians who have deliberately isolated themselves from what is happening in our society and the world, believing that everything that happens should not concern them. There are some here, in the pre-trial detention center. History and life show that this is for the time being.

Representatives of this category of citizens will not take part in the protest until their personal well-being, freedom, and comfort are affected. As they say, until it stops. So far, apparently, it hasn’t stopped. But sooner or later this war will affect everyone. A clear example of this is the mobilization announced by Putin.

For me personally, the issue is resolved simply. Sometimes there are moments when you can’t just remain silent. I always say what I think needs to be said. And I have nothing and no one to fear anymore.

“We are responsible, first of all, to ourselves for the actions of that government, which has become a threat to the security of other countries and peace on Earth. And then, of course, we are responsible for the pain, suffering and death of people caused by aggression. Because we allowed such power, tolerated it, and did nothing to stop the war.

as a lawyer with a human rights background, I believe that those who at least tried to create something (spoke out, protested) deserve leniency. But not those who remained silent.

— How did it happen that so many Russians supported the war?

- This is an imperial war for the acquisition of new territories along with their population. For many years, by means of state propaganda, people have been indoctrinated that the goal of the leading world powers is to seize and dismember Russia, that the strength of the state and respect for it from other members of the world community lies, first of all, in its military power, and not in the level of its well-being citizens and their social security, and not in how developed science and production technologies, medicine, education and culture are.

An entire generation grew up on this ideology. But in reality they were simply deceived.

I have a suspicion that most citizens don’t really know what they want and how they should do it. People are misled by government propaganda about the value to them of democracy and freedom. Very soon the need for democratic changes will become obvious to the majority.

#russia #war #alexei gorinov #protests #propaganda #democracy #Ukraine

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mechaniclrose · 3 years

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You are the sun. The divine light that shines over all of Kartha, bringing warmth and life to the entire empire.

At least, you are supposed to be.

In reality, you are the cursed heir. Loathed by your people and scorned by your court with the weight of everyone’s expectations on your shoulders and the remains of a shattered empire at your feet.

The sun has been murdered and the Karthinian Empire is plunged into darkness and chaos. Winter descends upon the Kartha now that Empress Vasha sits upon The Golden Throne and without the sun to keep it away, the darkness grows ever nearer threatening to consume the empire.

A more in-depth summary

Your mother Empress Vasha is known for her stunning beauty. With her grace and charm she seized the heart of the Emperor and after his death she took over his Empire.

Now she rules Kartha with a frozen fist, keeping it in eternal winter with her mystic gifts. But her beauty begins to fade and strangely, so do her powers.

She instructs you to descend into the Darkness where the goddess Resha supposedly resides and steal her tears which grants those who use it eternal youth. The only trouble is, the goddess has never been known to cry.

As you set out on your journey and observe life as you’ve never seen it before, everything you have ever been told slowly falls apart and your loyalties are called into question as you unravel a web of lies that goes deeper than initially perceived.

This story takes place in the Karthinian star system where the sun and monarch are one and the same. Kartha is an empire spanning several planets each with different lore, economics and social issues the later two which you can improve (or make worse!) as you travel across the empire. The time period in terms of historical similarity would be the industrial revolution with some Victorian elements.

Restore your house to its former glory or bring an end to the monarchy.

Are you more magically or technologically inclined? Decide which way you want to lead your empire.

Unearth the truth behind the darkness, why it exists, what creatures lie within it and beyond.

Raise an ice dragon, if you can hatch it (no, you don’t sit on it)

Customizable MC with several skills and interests to choose from.

Six ROs you can befriend, or make your enemies.

Elevate yourself as an all powerful deity and earn the ire of the gods.

Saigar | 23 | Male | Attracted to women |

Saigar was raised to take over his father’s role as Admiral of the Imperial fleet. He has spent his life split between court, his family home on Iloria and the most elite military schools in Kartha. Apart from being a skilled pilot and fighter, Saigar is an enthusiastic patron of the arts and devotes his time not spent on his duties painting, drawing and attending shows put on by the theater. He is generally warm and friendly behind his stoic exterior but wary of forming deep relationships.

Grilla | 26 | Male | Attracted to men |

Always brooding and glued to the shadows, Grilla is the only person your mother seems to trust and your mother is the only person who seems to know anything about the quiet spy.

Kain | 23 | Male | Attracted to both men and women |

At a glance he might appear to be a reckless, debauched pirate with no thought for laws or order and he is to an extent but he’s also an avid reader and budding scholar who speaks six languages. He has a charming smile, easygoing nature and is always seeking a new adventure.

Xantara | 21 | Female | Attracted to men and women |

She was born and raised on Mount Ulda which is home to the strictly female academy of elite assassins called The Onaise Saints who are widely known and feared for their elegant fighting skills and their ability to “charm you onto their swords.” Their reputation as charismatic killers have earned them the nickname Sirens of the blade. Xantara is aloof, saying little but observing all. Her wit is sharper than her bladed fans- her favorite weapon and staple of the saints.

Savago | 22 | Female | Attracted to men |

She is the spoiled jewel of House Syione, a once wealthy and illustrious house which has fallen on harsh times and is barely scraping by sustained only by it’s good name an connections. Under her external facade of a perfect noble lady, Savego possesses sharp wit, deadly cunning, and fierce determination. She will see her house returned to its former glory no matter the cost.

Blanca | 21 | Female | Attracted to women |

She is an orphan from one of Cersna’s floating cities and a skilled mechanic. Her head is usually buried between cogs, engines and sprockets but if you manage to get her attention, a well timed joke or pun will earn you some warmth. She has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh.

Demo TBA

#interactive fiction #cyoa #wip #new wip #choicescript #fantasy #hosted games #romance #intro post #empire of the frozen sun #eotfs #if wip

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hunters-of-the-wastes · 3 years

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Fallout: Wasteland Hunter's Game Guide

INTRODUCTION

It’s always been kind of a joke; The wealth of the nation being nothing more than radiation and a million squabbling factions trying to seize power and resources by any means necessary. And while that may have been true for many places still in the grips of a power struggle, few places still retain their beauty. . While this may sound like propaganda to many, the culture of every major civilization in Fallout has always been dedicated to restoring and enhancing the beauty of the land it calls home. People make a hobby of hunting and collecting artifacts and plans left behind by the past, in fact if you know what you’re looking for you can even spot robots for hire to help you improve and protect your estate. Each civilization’s personality has its own unique way of ensuring it’s survival. Whether it’s the extensive settlements that dot the land or the beauty that lies within the stories of the sheer terror that arose in the wake of thousands of escaped beings clambering to take their freedom back in the awe-inspiring glories of a new age.

Fallout: Wasteland Hunter's also commonly known by fans as Fallout: Hunter's of the Wastes is an open world action-adventure survival horror video fan game developed in early July of 2020, based around the popular Fallout Franchise, owned and developed by Bethesda Game Studio’s. The game is set within an open world post-apocalyptic environment that encompasses the city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts region known as "The Commonwealth'', as well as dives into outer regions of the recovering United States of America. This game AU features a wide variety of new mutants, locations, factions and characters, as well as a personal in-depth look at America 200+ years after nuclear war.

Plot and Overview

Fallout: Wasteland Hunter's is a survival-themed fan game that follows a deviated path set by the sole survivor in the previous game Fallout 4, following the Minuteman questline, in which the Sole Survivor successfully destroyed the Institute. The main storyline takes place within the late year of 2300, 10 years after the destruction of the Institute in which the player takes control of (???) a character struggling to survive in the Commonwealth while war looms over the horizon between the people of Boston and the Brotherhood of Steel, a group of soldiers and scientists originally formed from a United States Military unit making it their mission to recover and store technology in the Wasteland to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. As the game progresses, the player will find themselves exploring the game's dilapidated world, completing various quests, helping out factions, and acquiring the experience points needed to level up and increase the abilities of their character as well as unlock new abilities. As time goes on, they will also find themselves rebuilding and creating a grand settlement called Collegetown, which with the players' hard-work, will become a beacon of prosperity as war looms over the horizon.

Gameplay

F:WH is an open-world survival game with only one rule: stay alive, no matter what. But with a myriad of threats lurking around every corner, that might be easier said than done...

Fallout: Wasteland Hunter's- main features:

Complex and authentic survival mechanics, including hunting, crafting, building, health preservation, and resource management.

Control your survivors and manage your shelter

Craft weapons, alcohol, beds or stoves – anything that helps you survive

Make decisions - an often unforgiving and emotionally difficult experience

An array of environmental threats that will test your capabilities. From erratic weather and dangerous wildlife to pitch-black nights and rage-induced mutants.

New features to the series include the ability to develop and manage settlements and an extensive crafting system where materials scavenged from the environment can be used to craft drugs and explosives, upgrade weapons and armor, and construct, furnish and improve settlements.

Fallout: Wasteland Hunter's, is a game that is presented through both first and third-person perspectives, and the player may freely roam in its interactive open world. Gameplay elements include shootouts, heists, hunting, various forms of Mount riding, interacting with non-player characters, and maintaining the character's honor rating through moral choices and deeds. A bounty system similar to the "wanted" system from the Grand Theft Auto franchise governs the response of law enforcement and bounty hunters to crimes committed by the player.

Too survive, players must establish a base, as a result, the game also features mechanics from previous Fallout games such as Settlement Building from Fallout 4, and an extensive crafting system where materials scavenged from the environment can be used to craft drugs and explosives, upgrade weapons and armor, and construct, furnish and improve settlements.

However tweaks to the mechanics allow for better management in the creation of these settlements, thus allowing the players more freedoms. Overtime defending these settlements will become top priority as tensions grow across the Commonwealth. In addition, players must also keep track of various meters, such as health, stamina, oxygen, hunger, thirst, and "weight", or how much they can carry.

Should players take damage, their health meter will gradually regenerate if they have consumed the necessary food, or if they craft items that regenerate the health meter at a faster pace.

Otherwise, a player's health meter will gradually regenerate, albeit slowly over time. Players can also gain experience through harvesting materials, crafting, killing, or discovering. Once the player has obtained enough experience, they will gain a level point, which can be spent improving one of the player's stats, which include max health, max stamina, max oxygen, max food meter, max water meter, max carry weight, melee damage, movement speed, and crafting speed. Players can communicate with any NPC in ways much different from previous Fallout games. They can choose options such as having a friendly chat, having a threatening chat in order to steal money from the NPC, or they can simply take out that character and loot the corpse. In a further expansion of immersion, players need to take care of their equipment, such as their weapons, by cleaning them. In terms of character customization, characters will have different sets of clothes for different weather conditions, have to regularly eat and bathe, and actions that were once more automatic have been greatly expanded upon in detail, including skinning a kill and examining objects.

ANIMAL IMMERSION

An added primary game mechanic is allowing for the taming of creatures. The majority of creatures found within this game can be tamed by the player and can become a companion/pet, unlike in previous games where the creature could only be a short lived ally through the Wasteland Wanderer’s Perk. Animals tamed can become beneficial, the more players ride, groom, and feed their mount and companions, the stronger their bond becomes and the more abilities the animal gains. If the bond is weak, the companion will not respond to commands as well, choosing to ignore the player, or in the case of some, simply running away. In addition, Hunting and fishing are now essential skills for survival in the wilderness, providing food, materials, and a source of income. A huge variety of fish swim the many rivers, lakes, and streams, and selecting the right bait or lure is key to a successful day's haul. Tracking an animal takes focus and patience; move carefully and watch the wind direction or players will alert their prey. The choice of weapon and shot placement is also very important and will affect the quality of the meat and pelt, which in turn affects the price that traders will pay for them. Players need to make sure to pick the right gauge of rifle for the size of the animal that they are hunting, or master the use of the bow for a quiet and clean kill. If prey is injured, they will try to escape, forcing players to continue pursuing them. After a successful hunt, players can either skin and butcher the animal on the spot or take it with them whole. Animal skins and carcasses will rot over time if not properly tended to, and this both decreases their value while making them stink, and makes the character a target for wild animals when out of town. Skins, parts, meat, and entire carcasses can all be loaded onto mounts to be sold.

In addition to these, there is another mechanic, Hunting and the Trophy Room. Hunting plays a very prominent role in F:WH. As a whole, Hunting is the practice of tracking and killing animals for their resources. It is a source of food in addition to providing raw materials to be used in the process of crafting. Along with the related activities of fishing, gathering, and growing, hunting is able to provide nearly everything a player needs to survive in the wilderness of New America. The player can hunt all featured animals for sport and money, but killing animals may also be necessary for survival, as many of the animals found in the world can easily kill the player in only a few hits. Hunting in F:WH, may often involve stalking, advancing upon the targeted animal, and finally making the kill. This system makes the game very similar to the actual sport of hunting. Animal bait can also be bought from merchants at stores to attract various animal species.

Skinning an animal allows the player to acquire material from the animal, which includes furs, skins, carapaces, hides, teeth, pelts, claws, fangs, feathers, meat, hearts, tusks, antlers and horns. Money, in the form of caps like in previous games, is required in Hunters of the Wastes to buy weapons, weapon upgrades, clothing, ammunition, vehicles, and other items. The need for money is most intense at the start of the game when you are initially outfitting yourself for the dangers and challenges of surviving in the new world, but cash will be required throughout the game to replace expended items and to purchase newly-unlocked items.

SUMMONING'S

Special skills can be learned as the player progresses, such as the Summons Ability, a mechanic that takes advantage of the lovecraft-esque history that surrounds fallout lore, and allows the player to tap into the deep dark, yet rich history that surrounds much of fallouts more supernatural happenings. With the Summons ability, the player can, as the name suggests, summon any one of the eldritch creatures that can secretly be found across the map. Upon summoning them, they can be used in battle, aiding the player in a fight for a specific amount of time until their Cool Down starts.

FARMING IMMERSION

Farming is an important part of F:HW with implementation of key aspects of the feature, including tilling the earth, planting seeds, and harvesting crops that grow in real-time over the course of various in-game days. Establishing a farm helps survivors become self-sufficient. Crops can be used to feed survivors and the majority of tamed herbivore creatures that in return produce: eggs or feces. There are plenty of 'farm animals' or creatures to also utilize and cater too. In the beginning, farming is a bit labor intensive but it has long term payouts, such as a sustainable food source during the long winter months where other forms of food may be difficult to find.

Combat

Combat is a major element of gameplay as well, as such there are many forms of combat. While gunplay is a central component, combat can also be performed with melee attacks, thrown weapons, as well as mounted weapons. The player can fight on foot, behind cover, on a mount or even swimming! In a further expansion of immersion, players need to take care of their equipment, such as their weapons, by cleaning them.

Combat Explanation

Stamina: Stamina is the energy you use to perform various actions such as attack, block, parry, roll or sprint, so stamina is an extremely important element of combat. Stamina regenerates when you stop using these actions and thus makes escaping and regaining said energy back a very important part of the combat system. If you happen to raise a shield or anything else to defend you to block, your stamina is regenerated slower.

Lock on Combat: Lock on Combat will allow you to lock on to your nearest enemy provided they are within range. If there are multiple enemies, you can switch your target by moving left or right. Locking on makes it easier for you to hit your desired target. Locking on also locks your movement towards your target and makes it harder to be aware of your surroundings while fighting, so be aware when you lock-on. The key is to know when to switch to lock-on and off. All melee weapons deal melee damage and benefit from any melee specific effects and bonuses, such as a higher percentage to deal what is known as a

Critical Strike. Critical strike, determines the amount of extra damage dealt while performing a critical hit. A critical strike is a skill or default attack dealing increased damage and possibly inflicting elemental ailments. Whenever the player or a monster uses a skill, they have a chance to deal a critical strike by default. The chance to deal a critical strike is taken from the weapon used to perform an attack or attack skill. This chance is based on the weapon's base critical strike plus any local critical strike mods on the weapon. Critical strikes deal more damage than normal, based on critical strike multiplier. Critical Strike in melee, is determined by the Weapon and Skills that are being used, and is displayed as a percent value in the Attack Status portion of the Equipment Info screen. In weapons that have 0% Affinity, there is no chance for a bonus or penalty to damage. A positive Affinity value denotes the chance for an attack to "crit". The higher the positive percentage, the more likely the weapon will land a critical hit.

#fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #Fallout Fake Game #Fallout AU #fallout world building

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obsidiancorner · 3 years

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ObiYuki Bingo- Cyberpunk

Wherever You Go- Chapter 1

(Shout out to @ruleofexception for naming this thing that I have been struggling to name since my board came out and I saw what all was on it. )

Year: Ad Pacem-1103 (3119 AD)

"... They look human, making it nearly impossible to deduce who they are by physical traits alone. They have also studied our speech patterns.”

Shirayuki hangs her head in her hands, elbows propped on the very edge of her desk so she doesn’t skew or drop any pages of the research splayed out in front of her. Whoever leaked the info to the media signed their own death warrant. At a guess, they will simply vanish from existence under the silent vigilance of the approaching midnight hours.

“The specimen in custody converses fluently with the state officials interrogating it but it will not divulge any information regarding how long it has been here, what their objectives are, and, ultimately, what their interest is in Earth’s-”

Shirayuki slams her hand down on the button beside the small projector lens from her desk, hitting it too hard in frustration and her old desk groans in protest as the screen flickers out of existence, leaving her alone in the quiet solitude of her office. She resists the urge to pace by drumming her nails on the surface of her desk.

There’s always something going on. Nothing can be easy anymore. No break from one calamity to the next. The only guarantee is that some other shadow looms on the horizon. Why not an alien invasion? Sure. First it was a deadly plant they had to somehow make prosperous. Then it was a coup attempt that thankfully failed. Why not an alien invasion next. That’s way more interesting and potentially life threatening now that they’ve been found out.

With a heavy sigh, Shirayuki shuts off the newscast. She smacks the button on her console with more force than is strictly necessary and the screen before her shrinks into nothing as the shutter from the projector on the desk winks closed and the quiet whir of the computer dissipates. Obi will have something to say about that when they meet for lunch, Shirayuki thinks as she packs up to meet him at their favorite cafe.

-----------

Obi is late. He’s never late for food and he never skips a meal without a mandatory and likely classified reason. When the server approaches for the third time, Shirayuki orders him something just in case he shows up last-minute.

His food arrives but her lunch is ending. True fear creeps in with all the subtlety of a hurricane making landfall. The server, probably assuming she had been stood up for a lunch date, flashes her a pitied smile and packs the extra meal in a takeout box for her.

Shirayuki responds with what she hopes is a smile, though it feels like a grimace, before tucking Obi’s untouched meal under her arm.

She makes a quick stop at the lab to tell Garrack she doesn’t feel well and needs to take the afternoon off before heading home to stew in her worry in the comfort of her own home.

----------

“They can be found through infrared scanning,” Izana says as he taps his stack of intel reports on his desk to neaten the edges.

Obi drums his fingers on his leg. His nerves are fraying because nothing good can come of this. Aliens are among them and no government officials have been approached for permission to be here. It’s an aggressive and underhanded act from unnamed foes from heaven and stars only know where.

“What do you suggest we do? Makiri?”

Obi doesn’t flinch. Barely. It’s been a long time since he has heard such an aggressive level of annoyance from an employer. At least he isn’t the reason for it. Though his presence in this meeting leads him to believe he’s about to be a part of it whether he wants to or not, right along side Mitsuhide and Hisame who are likewise unfortunate enough to be sitting beside him.

“Your majesty, I believe it is for the best if we go ahead and authorize the military’s partnership with Cyberdyne Systems. We now have the technology to do it safely and we need a sharper edge if we are going to defend ourselves against such a threat.” Makiri is all business, matter-of-fact and unflinching in his appraisal of the situation and his assessment of an appropriate counter-measure.

Obi looks at Makiri. The fuck is Cyberdyne Systems? Makiri, despite it being his suggestion, whatever it is, looks uneasy at the thought. The conviction of his words no longer syncs with his facial expression so whatever it is must not be good news or an entirely safe plan. A sobering concept. Makiri is never anything but sure of himself.

“Do it. Get me the paperwork and you’ll have my signature the moment it lands on my desk,” Izana responds with a calm intensity that sends tendrils of dread shooting up his spine. He’s a master of revealing nothing. He would have made a good spy, had he not been born to rule a kingdom.

With a sharp nod, Makiri turns to leave and Obi seizes the opportunity to elbow Mitsuhide. “Cyberdyne Systems?”

Mitsuhide sighs, inaudible but obvious by the way his shoulders sag with the exhale. Sir always has been one for formality and decorum. Whispered concerns are not something that makes him happy during an already bad meeting on an already crap day.

“Obi. Mitsuhide. Hisame.”

“Your majesty,” they respond in practised unison acknowledgement of the highest commander of the Clarines military.

“You three will be the first to undergo the transformation under Cyberdyne’s medical staff. You are exemplary fighters and are the best suited for the transition. Report to the Cyberdyne Systems base in Oriold in two days. That will give you time to say any goodbyes you may feel necessary”

With that, Izana leaves the meeting room. No one in the room needs any other direction. The war council is adjourned and it is time to make their respective plans.

“What do you think he means by ‘transformation’ and ‘say goodbyes?’”

“I don’t know, Obi. But I’m going to go see Kiki and I suggest you go back to Lilias. Spend time with Shirayuki and Ryuu.”

----------

When Obi walks into their apartment late in the evening, he looks bones-deep exhausted. The weight of the world bowing his shoulders and hunching his back more than usual. He leaves his to-go box from lunch uneaten. Ryuu pulls himself out of his book, he notices the tension and excuses himself for bed. Shirayuki can’t quash the feeling that something is happening. Something she doesn’t know. Something big and likely awful.

When she stands in front of him, looking at him with pleading eyes- begging him to talk to her- he reaches out to hug her. He pulls her so close. Holds her so tight. And she knows. She knows. Their lives are about to change forever and nothing can stop it.

When he lets go, he pulls out his work-issued comm tablet and opens up his email. “I’m not supposed to show you this,” he says, as distant as the palm trees of Yuris when he hands her his tablet without looking at her.

“You will report to Cyberdyne Systems. Come fully hydrated. Drink no less than one gallon of water the day before your arrival. The medical staff will perform some preliminary bloodwork and a urine sample will be required. At which time you will be moved to surgery for implantations and modifications. After you recover, you will be paired with your handler, a person going through training to work with you in battle strategy as well as serve as your own specialized mechanic.

Makiri Arleon”

Obi sighs. “I have two days to say my goodbyes and report for duty.”

“What do they mean ‘handler’ and ‘implantations and modifications?’” She can’t believe what she is reading. This sounds suspiciously like mechanizing real people, a concept that had been rumored to be experimented with but has thus far been chalked up to nothing more than the newest wave of lingering conspiracy theories.

“This is how I lose my humanity, Miss,” he says with the saddest smile she’s ever seen and her heart shatters for him. “I’ve been one of the three men selected to be in the first round of cyber fighters to protect everyone from the aliens.”

She doesn’t know how to react at first. She feels as lost as he looks. But he needs her right now and he needs her as strong and ‘normal’ as ever though this is anything but. She settles with something safe. “Let’s get some sleep, if we can. We can wake up early tomorrow and take Ryuu on a hiking trip. He’d like that.”

“Yeah.” He gives her shoulder the slightest of squeezes as he walks into the bathroom.

When she hears the shower turn on, she seizes her opportunity and grabs her cell phone. She punches in a phone number that is way more familiar than she would ever like it to be. When the line connects and before he can say anything, she says, “I want to be his handler.”

The chuckle that fills the space is one of genuine amusement which is surprising but she won’t complain about it. She’ll take what she can get out of him, though nothing with him ever comes without it’s own price. Cost doesn’t matter this time. Whatever demands he makes, she’ll pull through on it.

“The handlers are in charge of keeping the mechas healthy and working with them on strategy, correct?” She will press him. She’s earned enough of his respect to throw some of her weight around. He knows damn good and well how useful she is and how reliably she can be that useful.

“You read the whole email,” he states. No question, just facts, and oh so very, very irritatingly Izana. But he confirms what she read anyway. “That is correct, yes,”

“Then let me be his.” She leaves no room for argument. She will fight him on this. It’s them or neither and she will make sure of it. Tanbarun would hide them without hesitation and all it would take is a call to Prince Raj.

“You know I could have him court martialed and jailed for feeding you classified information, right?” She doesn’t miss the gravity in his words.

She laughs, bitter and hollow. He could, in theory. But Obi is the best fighter Izana has in his arsenal and she is the best medic that doesn’t have other obligations preventing them from signing on. Whether he likes it or not, she is the best equipped to be Obi’s handler. “We both know you won’t do that.”

#obiyukibingo21 #cyberpunk

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sayonaramidnight · 3 years

Photo

“Judging by your stern glares, Commander, I assume you’re still opposed to technological progress. Or have you – wait, don’t say anything – have you declared me your personal arch-enemy?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. There’s nothing personal about the fact that you've avoided the punishment you deserve. Again.”

“Is that so? Don’t you see my constant attempts on atonement for my bad, bad deeds? My hard work for the sake of Eorzea under your careful supervision?”

“All I see is you looking for new old toys to play with. No atonement in that.”

“Ow, ow. Please, Rinoire, you wound me. Really. Would it make any difference if I just kneeled and prostrated before you?”

"Not really... But would you?"

"Not really."

“...And that's that. Do you really expect me– any of us to believe you don't intend to seize Omega for the Empire?”

“And why, pray tell, would it matter to me where I, as you put it, play with it?”

“Let me think of the possible reasons... Victory? Recognition? Being named a war hero rather than a war criminal?”

“Different phrases, same meaning. Same fate in the end. Why bother with nomenclature?”

“Same fate? As in gaol, if not execution? Is that how you do it in Garlemald?”

“Are you saying it is different here? Then look at our resident Eikon-slayer – all those heroic deeds and all she gets in return is more death options to choose from. More people trying to use her in their nefarious plans...”

“And one of them is talking rubbish to me right now...”

“Hush, I haven’t finished yet. Now look at yourself. One of the liberators of Ala Mhigo, newly raised in rank, but rather than being showered with splendours, you have have been sent literally to the middle of nowhere and forced to keep your eye on yours truly.”

“Don't you ever talk to me about ranks. And I wasn't 'sent' here; I arrived on my own, so I could keep my sister safe.”

“Curious. Weren't it you who talked about recognition just a moment ago?”

“I don't mind recognition, but I'd be better off without the rank. It's just... more chores. Boring chores.”

“Ahahahaha! Then your remarks about me wanting to play were - what? A sign of envy? That's hilarious!“

“No, it's not. And you haven't understood any word I've said.”

“Haven't I? Tell you what: if you're that displeased with your status, you can always leave the Flames and take up freelancing.”

“Ugh. Why am I even talking to you.”

"Because you're bored. Because you've got some unresolved issues. Because you hate idleness. You know best, Commander, take your pick."

"...I didn't really expect you to answer. My issues are mine to solve and I'm not one of your machines, so why don't you stop analysing me?"

“...And now you're depriving me of my fun, too. Well then, let’s see how you solve this. Do come closer, chop-chop! No worries, the kettle is not going to eat you! Come, look at these screens.”

“I want nothing to do with– what the hells is that?”

“That is our hero’s next battlefield. And we are going to figure it out.”

“What is she supposed to fight in an art gallery? Some bloody haunted paintings?!”

“You should have seen her last opponent... Well, you would have, hadn’t you decided to ‘keep her safe’ by sulking in Rhalgr’s Reach.”

“Still, it's her you should be talking to about it, not me. I ain't qualified for this. Why don’t we call her?”

“Not- excuse me, what? Qualified? Let me consider it... You're no stranger to battle tactics, unless I overestimate your military prowess. And you’re not as stupid as you’re pretending to be, either. What you are is a caring sister who will let the hero sleep a little longer. Come on, she won’t be of much use in my nefarious plan if she’s not well-rested and gets herself killed. And I am not in a position to be picky. Ready to make yourself useful?”

“Certainly. As soon as all the words you’re saying start making sense.”

#FFXIV #thanalan tinies #nero scaeva #context is irrelevant #or so arianna would say

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nothisis-ridiculous · 3 years

Text

Take Me Home Now: Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: Teardrop In My Eye

Set after the events of ME3.

A rewrite. Ao3.

FemShepxKaidan

"Smith, you are being relieved of duty."

"Sir?" Jane stumbled, her smile turned downward.

The man laughed, clapping her on the shoulder, "only for the day, thought it would get you."

She sneered, "always an ass."

"Though," his green eyes sparkled, it was not settling, "you have company."

Fuck.

She pulled the elastic from her hair, attempting to pull her blonde locks from the day-long wear of a ponytail. In the end, it was pointless, she had thrown it up wet- a braid would have to hide the indent. Jane could do nothing for the simple hoodie and slacks she had thrown into her locker that morning. Forcing herself to take a seat, she pulled in slow breaths until her mind took heed. It was small potatoes.

Gingerly, she finished the jaunt outside of the Human Embassy and combination C-Sec building.

Evelyn slammed into her side, a good three inches added to the kid, "we're going to space!"

"We would have rang, but you know," Roy pointed to his wrist, his smile cautious.

Jane had avoided anything technology-related, she would have done it much earlier in her life if it were not for necessity. This was an old game, the response a sheepish smile. It was an act of avoidance. But she was trying to do the moving on thing: she had an apartment and a stable job. Sure, it was working as a guard for the relay that led to the Citadel, but it was moving in a direction she was comfortable... if not bored doing. It involved a lot of people watching, as using the relay was not the most sophisticated way to the station. The last person had fallen in drunk and almost drowned upon arrival. Now it functioned more as a memorial for all those lost in the war. She kept the peace and that was enough.

"Are you here to visit the Memorial?" Jane jabbed her finger toward the building, it would give her an excuse to spend some time with them. To clear the air.

Rahna suggested she may be ready.

"We're here to see you, silly!" Evelyn cooed, taking the woman's face in her hands, "you're a little less glowy."

"You're a little less short."

Evelyn returned with a moderately careful headbutt. Helen didn't look too approving as the child sauntered away but cracked a grin. Roy still couldn't manage a full smile.

Jane needed to clear another thing.

"What did you need me for?" she was careful, trying not to let the statement come out in a bark. These visits would always end in the same question, and it was getting harder to say no.

"We're hoping you'd watch our place while we are gone, " Helen finally chimed in, the stern look had softened over months. The strange silence between them never improved much, "we know it's sudden, but if we didn't have to go through Rahna to-"

"Helen," Roy soothed.

"We got it all approved, and we'd even pay you on top of it."

"I'm sure the beam won't miss you-" he paled at his words.

"I'm sure Harold won't miss you-" Roy tried to diffuse Jane's bubbling before it could erupt. The hand on her elbow gripped tighter as she tugged away. It devolved to his full strength pulling around her as she screamed, pleading that they didn't take the Reaper away. Bargaining became a barrage of hate and seething words, still, he held his recruit tightly until she collapsed.

If it was once, the guilt might have faded.

But Jane was stubborn, requiring steady arms until the derelict ship was nothing but an imprint in the ground. The woman didn't leave the crater left behind for the next day, her gaze avoiding him at all costs.

Jane looked up, if only to avoid the sudden turn of emotion, "I suppose it wouldn't."

When this is over, I'm going to be waiting for you. You'd better show up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna fight like hell for the chance to hold you again.

"Is that a yes?"

His evident enthusiasm worked a giggle from the blonde, "it would probably do me good to get out of this city. I heard the English Bay is nice." Jane offered out a hand to him.

Roy swallowed her into a tight embrace, disregarding if the simple gesture was out of forgiveness or striking a deal. It had been far too long, and his recruit been left far too long without proper fatherly affection. Or he was giddy from good news, it was hard to tell.

"When do we need to leave?"

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Jane examined the scattering of personal items in the apartment. Living light on military ships (excepting pets) followed her through to civilian life. Everything she owned could fit into a footlocker without fancy folding. A knife for whittling if she got bored. Shower supplies, her underwhelming supply of clothing, the M-77 because why not. But her eyes stopped on her bedside.

A blank picture frame and the chit to an omnitool would be innocuous to anyone else. It was everything in the world she refused to touch but couldn't look away from. Was it love for her own misery? Or owning up to herself. That other person knocked. She wasn't ready. Couldn't she be ready?

Her fingers graced over the chit, watching it light and unfold. The device would only unlock for an authorized user, and somehow she was that user. Anderson's face popped in on the screen. The panicked expression was no longer a surprise as he searched for something out of shot from the recording, but his eyes eventually returned to the device.

"Shepard, I-"

Jane cut it off, the device flickering away as quickly as it formed. It was two words further than the last attempt. It would have to count as progress.

The picture frame came next, but not even a jolt of power betrayed a change. It was empty, devoid. Still, as if it was familiar, her thumb caressed over the glass surface.

"Kaidan, I-"

Jane's throat seized, the name was still hard to form, "eight hundred and fifty-one days. Tomorrow will mark eight hundred and fifty-two days."

She had long surpassed the days he had in waiting for her not to be dead. She had kept her promise. She had waited, was waiting. Now, Jane had to go. The landlord given notice, her job with a note of apology attached to a resignation letter. Jane felt afraid.

"I'm sorry."

The picture flickered to life, the bubbling of the tank behind her a dull murmur. It took a few rounds, but she settled into the chair, staring at the frame like it was supposed to do something. Her ear tilted for the door, hoping that it would slide open. Wasn't that how the time before a suicide mission was supposed to go? A last-minute confession, sex to blow off some steam before the genuine threat of death.

Mary was waiting, nor would she question the miracle that would have to bring him here.

"Shepard, I could patch you through," Edi chimed in gently.

Slow breathing, counting, clenching her jaw and releasing it kept her busy for five minutes before she let herself consider it. It was her way to leave him on unread, but is that how she wanted to go out again? Was that immaturity the memory she wanted to leave for Kaidan? In the same thought, a call wasn't mature either, but if she died the shame would be short-lived after all. She wanted nothing more than to hear his voice, to feel something akin to comfort. Mary was afraid.

"Edi, send the c-"

Her tool blipped, "I've already programmed a block."

"Thank you, Edi."

Mary fawned over the code, re-entering it several times until she felt a little less panicked. The first attempt ended a few counts after the tool attempted the connection. She shouldn't. What could her greed jeopardize?

She settled back in her chair, sending herself through another wave of madness. The email running through her mind again. She didn't want that to be the last thing she heard from him. Besides, what was he to Cerberus if she was gone? Her greed entered the number again, this time it patched through. Connecting, connecting, connecting until it timed out.

Mary held back on questioning Edi.

She waited again, promising herself this would be the last try. 'Connection' scrawled on the screen within seconds.

"Hello?"

Kaidan's voice was groggy, his rasp evident that he had just woken wherever he was.

"Hello?" he tried again, with mild frustration.

"Look, this is a secured-," he spat, but his voice dropped, "if this isn't- if this- dammit."

The voice waited, but Mary was frozen. She hadn't planned a word, this was a terrible idea. Stupid.

"This is a little insane," he let out a small chuckle, "and will look bad if this just ends up on the extranet. But, just in case," he paused again, pulling in a steadying breath, "if it's what, who, I think it is. Really, the Omega 4 relay? I-I thought Ilos was bad, that is a whole new level of-"

Kaidan cut himself off, waiting, questioning if he should continue. But it made a strange kind of sense. Who else could it be? She wouldn't call unless it were dire.

"Whatever you are doing, be careful. The galaxy needs you back, I ne- just, be careful."

Both parties lulling to sleep at the memory.

Jane set the frame down, it could be a gift for the next tenant. Perhaps they could program it with something/ The chit slipped into her pocket, her gaze winding to the door. She waited, shook her head, and swept up the handles of the black footlocker. Again, Jane stared at the door. Praying for a miracle.

The rigors of hauling the footlocker at a clipped pace down several flights of stairs did nothing to stop the shaking. Echoes of footsteps turned into the voices of her crew, the bad, the ugly, and all of the good memories. Garrus's mandible quivering in silent frustration as she made the shot atop the presidium, Tali's indignation at the 'induction port' as she tried to slip it into her suit. Liara always deep in thought, scanning over the work of the Shadow Broker, Javik who never got his wish of dying with the rest of his kind. Vega's shock as she decimated his pull-up record, and Edi taking up Joker's hand in a quiet moment. Tears splattered on the steps. Was this the end?

She couldn't stop them as she stepped into the light of day, awaited by three figures.

"That's all?" Roy huffed, taking the luggage from her.

Helen placed a hand on her shoulder, "it will get easier."

The older woman forced Jane to look her in the eyes, dark brown meeting blue, "you should make the call."

"But you-"

"You know Roy won't let it go until you're all settled."

The LT was always worried about her, even if they weren't on speaking terms. Jane knew all she had to do was reach out, but the pang of guilt was too much. It was always this way, and her soul grew tired of the mind that housed it.

This was a horrible way to treat the family that kept coming back for her months after they had returned home to Vancouver. They kept worrying when she struggled to care about herself. They kept asking her to return home with them, to give her a new life. They hadn't stopped loving her after every no, despite her asinine rigidity to an old promise. Despite the lingering secrets she barely kept from them. Jane was sick of herself, too.

Jane nodded, pulling in a deep breath.

"It will get better," Helen murmured, "after you've taken the time to be pissed off for a while."

She didn't fight a grin, nodding again just to make sure she was assured. Leaving the woman to enter the room her fingers didn't hesitate this time. Entering the code she had memorized too long ago.

Three calls later- silence was her answer.

Unable to save face, Jane stormed past Helen.

"I'm sorry for how I left last time," her head hung, but this time she returned the touch, briefly touching the hand on her shoulder.

The older woman shrugged, pointing her at the shuttle.

Jane nodded, wasting no further time by sliding into the back. Evelyn chattered into her ear; Jane tried to keep paying attention but found her mind wandering. The familiar stirring of her stomach starting within moments of take-off. She had grown a little used to a hardsuit that would deliver the meds into her system.

The paper bag landed in her hands without a word.

The vehicle fell silent, save for the buzzing of the radio-

"The Normandy returns to the Citadel after a Victory run spanning over-"

"The Normandy is back?" Jane bleated meekly through the bag.

"Oh- yeah! Our son made it," Roy smiled, but it was partially forced, "sounds like this 'Shepard' wasn't so lucky."

Jane's stomach emptied into the bag, Happy Birthday Shepard.

#fshenko #shenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect fanfiction #take me home

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mariacallous · 1 year

Text

For state-sponsored hacking operations, unpatched vulnerabilities are valuable ammunition. Intelligence agencies and militaries seize on hackable bugs when they're revealed—exploiting them to carry out their campaigns of espionage or cyberwar—or spend millions to dig up new ones or to buy them in secret from the hacker gray market.

But for the past two years, China has added another approach to obtaining information about those vulnerabilities: a law that simply demands that any network technology business operating in the country hand it over. When tech companies learn of a hackable flaw in their products, they’re now required to tell a Chinese government agency—which, in some cases, then shares that information with China's state-sponsored hackers, according to a new investigation. And some evidence suggests foreign firms with China-based operations are complying with the law, indirectly giving Chinese authorities hints about potential new ways to hack their own customers.

Today, the Atlantic Council released a report—whose findings the authors shared in advance with WIRED—that investigates the fallout of a Chinese law passed in 2021, designed to reform how companies and security researchers operating in China handle the discovery of security vulnerabilities in tech products. The law requires, among other things, that tech companies that discover or learn of a hackable flaw in their products must share information about it within two days with a Chinese agency known as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The agency then adds the flaw to a database whose name translates from Mandarin as the Cybersecurity Threat and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform but is often called by a simpler English name, the National Vulnerability Database.

The report’s authors combed through the Chinese government's own descriptions of that program to chart the complex path the vulnerability information then takes: The data is shared with several other government bodies, including China’s National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Teams/Coordination Center, or CNCERT/CC, an agency devoted to defending Chinese networks. But the researchers found that CNCERT/CC makes its reports available to technology "partners" that include exactly the sort of Chinese organizations devoted not to fixing security vulnerabilities but to exploiting them. One such partner is the Beijing bureau of China's Ministry of State Security, the agency responsible for many of the country's most aggressive state-sponsored hacking operations in recent years, from spy campaigns to disruptive cyberattacks. And the vulnerability reports are also shared with Shanghai Jiaotong University and the security firm Beijing Topsec, both of which have a history of lending their cooperation to hacking campaigns carried out by China's People Liberation Army.

“As soon as the regulations were announced, it was apparent that this was going to become an issue,” says Dakota Cary, a researcher at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub and one of the report’s authors. “Now we've been able to show that there is real overlap between the people operating this mandated reporting structure who have access to the vulnerabilities reported and the people carrying out offensive hacking operations.”

Given that patching vulnerabilities in technology products almost always takes far longer than the Chinese law’s two-day disclosure deadline, the Atlantic Council researchers argue that the law essentially puts any firm with China-based operations in an impossible position: Either leave China or give sensitive descriptions of vulnerabilities in the company’s products to a government that may well use that information for offensive hacking.

The researchers found, in fact, that some firms appear to be taking that second option. They point to a July 2022 document posted to the account of a research organization within the Ministry of Industry and Information Technologies on the Chinese-language social media service WeChat. The posted document lists members of the Vulnerability Information Sharing program that “passed examination,” possibly indicating that the listed companies complied with the law. The list, which happens to focus on industrial control system (or ICS) technology companies, includes six non-Chinese firms: Beckhoff, D-Link, KUKA, Omron, Phoenix Contact, and Schneider Electric.

WIRED asked all six firms if they are in fact complying with the law and sharing information about unpatched vulnerabilities in their products with the Chinese government. Only two, D-Link and Phoenix Contact, flatly denied giving information about unpatched vulnerabilities to Chinese authorities, though most of the others contended that they only offered relatively innocuous vulnerability information to the Chinese government and did so at the same time as giving that information to other countries’ governments or to their own customers.

The Atlantic Council report’s authors concede that the companies on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list aren’t likely handing over detailed vulnerability information that could immediately be used by Chinese state hackers. Coding a reliable “exploit,” a hacking software tool that takes advantage of a security vulnerability, is sometimes a long, difficult process, and the information about the vulnerability demanded by Chinese law isn’t necessarily detailed enough to immediately build such an exploit.

But the text of the law does require—somewhat vaguely—that companies provide the name, model number, and version of the affected product, as well as the vulnerability's “technical characteristics, threat, scope of impact, and so forth.” When the Atlantic Council report’s authors got access to the online portal for reporting hackable flaws, they found that it includes a required entry field for details of where in the code to “trigger” the vulnerability or a video that demonstrates “detailed proof of the vulnerability discovery process,” as well as a nonrequired entry field for uploading a proof-of-concept exploit to demonstrate the flaw. All of that is far more information about unpatched vulnerabilities than other governments typically demand or that companies generally share with their customers.

Even without those details or a proof-of-concept exploit, a mere description of a bug with the required level of specificity would provide a “lead” for China’s offensive hackers as they search for new vulnerabilities to exploit, says Kristin Del Rosso, the public sector chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm Sophos, who coauthored the Atlantic Council report. She argues the law could be providing those state-sponsored hackers with a significant head start in their race against companies’ efforts to patch and defend their systems. “It’s like a map that says, ‘Look here and start digging,’” says Del Rosso. “We have to be prepared for the potential weaponization of these vulnerabilities.”

If China’s law is in fact helping the country’s state-sponsored hackers gain a greater arsenal of hackable flaws, it could have serious geopolitical implications. US tensions with China over both the country’s cyberespionage and apparent preparations for disruptive cyberattack have peaked in recent months. In July, for instance, the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and Microsoft revealed that Chinese hackers had somehow obtained a cryptographic key that allowed Chinese spies to access the email accounts of 25 organizations, including the State Department and the Department of Commerce. Microsoft, CISA, and the NSA all warned as well about a Chinese-origin hacking campaign that planted malware in electric grids in US states and Guam, perhaps to obtain the ability to cut off power to US military bases.

Even as those stakes rise, the Atlantic Council’s Cary says he’s had firsthand conversations with one Western tech firm on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list that directly told him it was complying with China’s vulnerability disclosure law. According to Cary, the lead executive for the Chinese arm of the company—which Cary declined to name—told him that complying with the law meant that it had been forced to submit information about unpatched vulnerabilities in its products to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. And when Cary spoke to another executive of the company outside of China, that executive wasn’t aware of the disclosure.

Cary suggests that a lack of awareness of vulnerability information shared with the Chinese government may be typical for foreign companies that operate in the country. “If it’s not on executives’ radar, they don’t go around asking if they’re in compliance with the law that China just implemented,” says Cary. “They only hear about it when they’re not in compliance.”

Of the six non-Chinese firms on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s list of compliant ICS technology firms, Taiwan-based D-Link gave WIRED the most direct denial, responding in a statement from its chief information security officer for North America, William Brown, that it “has never provided undisclosed product security information to the Chinese government.”

German industrial control system tech firm Phoenix Contact also denied giving China vulnerability information, writing in a statement, “We make sure that potential new vulnerabilities are handled with utmost confidentiality and by no means get into the hands of potential cyber attackers and affiliated communities wherever they are located.”

Other companies on the list said that they do report vulnerability information to the Chinese government, but only the same information provided to other governments and to customers. Swedish industrial automation firm KUKA responded that it “fulfills legal local obligations in all countries, where we operate,” but wrote that it offers the same information to its customers, publishes known vulnerability information about its products on a public website, and will comply with a similar upcoming law in the EU that requires disclosing vulnerability information. Japanese technology company Omron similarly wrote that it gives vulnerability information to the Chinese government, CISA in the US, and the Japanese Computer Emergency Response Team, as well as publishing information about known vulnerabilities on its website.

German industrial automation firm Beckhoff spelled out a similar approach in more detail. “Legislation in several nations requires that any vendor selling products in their market must inform their authorized body about security vulnerabilities prior to their publication,” wrote Torsten Förder, the company’s head of product security. “General information about the vulnerability is disclosed as further research and mitigation strategies are developing. This enables us to notify all regulatory bodies quickly, while refraining from publishing comprehensive information on how to exploit the vulnerability under investigation.”

French electric utility technology firm Schneider Electric offered the most ambiguous response. The company’s head of product vulnerability management, Harish Shankar, wrote only that “cybersecurity is integral to Schneider Electric’s global business strategy and digital transformation journey” and referred WIRED to its Trust Charter as well as the cybersecurity support portal on its website, where it releases security notifications and mitigation and remediation tips.

Given those carefully worded and sometimes elliptical responses, it’s difficult to know to exactly what degree companies are complying with China’s vulnerability disclosure law—particularly given the relatively detailed description required on the government’s web portal for uploading vulnerability information. Ian Roos, a China-focused researcher at cybersecurity R&D firm Margin Research who reviewed the Atlantic Council report prior to publication, suggests that companies might be engaging in a kind of “malicious compliance,” sharing only partial or misleading information with Chinese authorities. And he notes that even if they are sharing solid vulnerability data, it may still not be specific enough to be immediately helpful to China’s state-sponsored hackers. “It’s very hard to go from ‘there's a bug here’ to actually leveraging and exploiting it, or even knowing if it can be leveraged in a way that would be useful,” Roos says.

The law is still troubling, Roos adds, since the Chinese government has the ability to impose serious consequences on companies that don’t share as much information as it would like, from hefty fines to revocation of business licenses necessary to operate in the country. “I don’t think it’s doomsday, but it’s very bad,” he says. “I think it absolutely does create a perverse incentive where now you have private organizations that need to basically expose themselves and their customers to the adversary.”

In fact, China-based staff of foreign companies may be complying with the vulnerability disclosure law more than executives outside of China even realize, says J. D. Work, a former US intelligence official who is now a professor at National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace. (Work holds a position at the Atlantic Council, too, but wasn’t involved in Cary and Del Rosso’s research.) That disconnect isn’t just due to negligence or willful ignorance, Work adds. China-based staff might broadly interpret another law China passed last year focused on countering espionage as forbidding China-based executives of foreign firms from telling others at their own company about how they interact with the government, he says. “Firms may not fully understand changes in their own local offices’ behavior,” says Work, “because those local offices may not be permitted to talk to them about it, under pain of espionage charges.”

Sophos’ Del Rosso notes that even if companies operating in China are finding the wiggle room to avoid disclosing actual, hackable vulnerabilities in their products today, that’s still no guarantee that China won’t begin tightening its enforcement of the disclosure law in the future to close any loopholes.

“Even if people aren't complying—or if they are complying but only to a certain extent—it can only devolve and get worse,” says Del Rosso. “There’s no way they’re going to start asking for less information, or requiring less of people working there. They’ll never get softer. They’ll crack down more.”

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thdorkmagnet · 3 years

Text

Light of the Sun and Stars Chapter 46: A Mewman and a Monster (Preview)

Summary: His whole life Marco Diaz has been raised by monsters, living under the cruel rule of their leader, Toffee. But one day Marco escapes into Mewni where he meets a magical princess and Mewman like himself, who begins teaching him all about her world. Together they will learn about life, love, and the lights within each of them, as they change their world forever.

Chapter Synopsis: Slime has asked his crush Princess Penelope Spiderbite out on a date and needing support, both emotionally and literally, calls upon Star and Marco for help. The two graciously lend a hand in helping create the most romantic date possible but, as usual, things rarely go the way they want it too.

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Index

The dimension was completely lifeless. Once a sprawling community had dwelled there, setting up residence in its green pastures and lush landscapes, living a simple and basic life amongst the natural resources all around them. But that peaceful lifestyle had changed when technology was first introduced to the humble society. At first it had been small changes, as it always started, machines and many mechanisms made to help make life easier. Need to plow the fields? Build a machine that could do it half the time you could.

Soon people were using machines for every part of their everyday life and with the invention of robotic helpers… everything changed. Their once grassy hills were torn up to make factories, their land broken and scarred for the sake of 'progress'. Soon their dimension more closely resembled a machine than a once thriving, living place. And the numbers of robots steadily grew, until they outnumbered all living beings 10 to 1.

Sunlight was blocked by heavy smog while frequent and heavy storms began to tear apart what was left of the landscape. The dimension became virtually unlivable and the people were filled with dismay.

That was until a mysterious benefactor appeared one day, offering to buy up the remaining usable land for unknown reasons. The people happily accepted the offer, using the money to relocate to a new dimension (hopefully with better luck than the last), leaving the new owner of the dimension to do with it however they wished. Soon they began construction on a single building, employing the many robots that still inhabited the place to the effort. It took a long time, even with beings that didn’t have the need to eat nor sleep at the head of construction, but eventually it was finished, a single living place in the dimension of dead architecture.

The place was a sight to behold: a clean, cut courtyard leading up to a grand, multi-story building. The architecture was ancient, borrowed from famous castles and cathedrals throughout the multiverse, a sharp contrast to the sleek, modern buildings the dimension had been so known for.

But for as magnificent as it seemed, there was something sinister as well, something dark lurking just behind the smoothly cut stones or grand balconies. A large metal fence had been built around the building, electrified at all times to deter anyone from entering or exiting through anything but the gate. A large tower stood above the building itself, pulsing with some dark magic that had been lost to time long ago. The building's architecture was full of sharp edges and spikes that could seriously harm anyone who was not weary of their surroundings. And though the grand double doors were made of the finest wood in any dimension, they opened onto halls of endless turns and deadends, a labyrinth built to keep everyone trapped inside forever.

But the creator of this school did not care how others viewed it, because this place was serving a grand purpose, educating and enforcing positive change on the future monarchs of the multiverse. St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses was a school like no other, standing superior to any other education system that dared to compete with it, for it was focused solely on punishment and strict results. Every young princess that was sent there, no matter how rebellious or resistant they were, would eventually be broken. It didn’t matter if it took days, weeks, or years, St. O’s and its founder and principal, Heinous , had a perfect record that had never once been broken.

That was until a certain four-armed princess blew the whistle on the academy's “less than reputable” penalties and the school was shut down by the dimensional knights. The great Miss Heinous was forced on the run, leaving every part of her life, her career, her home, her minions, her legacy, to rot. She spent years on the run, just barely managing to stay one step ahead of the dimensional knights and any other form of military power a noble might hire to capture or kill her. But through it all, Heinous only had one thought that kept her going day in and day out. Revenge. Or rather, her legacy finally fulfilled. She often confused the two but it didn’t matter. The path was the same. The path to ultimate victory and control. The path of perfection.

And that path had led back to where it all began.

Nostalgia and old memories came flooding back to the once-proud principal as she stood in front of her old, decaying school. She could still picture it back in the prime of its life, see it as clear as if it were standing in the memory itself rather than the broken dream that stared back at her. Reality was far from the picture perfect days of old. Oh how the mighty had fallen.

Her once proud school was now in desperate need of repairs, walls caved in over the course of time, entire sections of the school now gone. The courtyard was now filled with untamed weeds and overgrown plant life. The tower that had once stood as a beacon of power for her school had been the first thing taken down by those pesky knights and it lay in shambles around the area, an ever present reminder of the injustice Heinous had suffered. The fence was bent and disfigured, was now full of giant, gaping holes in its structure making it completely useless, now it couldn’t even keep out the gust of wind that blew through the empty courtyard. The school had become nothing but an empty shell that had once housed life within it. Heinous couldn’t help but scoff at the irony, her greatest masterpiece was now no different to the rest of this forgotten waste of a dimension.

She took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. No, she couldn’t start dwelling on all that now. She had come here for more than just reliving her past failures. Today was about seizing her future. A small cough behind her caused Heinous to roll her eyes. She had almost forgotten her hired hand had come with her, just in case some dimensional knights were lurking there and needed to be disposed of. It was clear that Rasticore, unlike her, was less than content with her dimension. She could practically feel Rasticore’s discomfort as he shifted from one foot to the other, over and over again. It was obvious he wanted to get this over with, something at least they could agree on, Heinous was ready to achieve the next step of her decade-long scheme.

“So are we going inside or not?” Rasticore finally asked and Heinous turned back to him with a narrowed glare.

“Why? Don’t tell me you are frightened of my school?” she accused him, point blank.

Rasticore tensed, before gritting his fangs, clearly holding back the retort. Instead he replied, “No, just all this smog is aggravating my condition.” He then made a point to cough into his claw.

Heinous highly doubted that was the reason for his rush. Not when it was more likely her minion was playing up his sickness to hide his discomfort from her. After all, he was recovering remarkably well from the poison, ready to resume his work in just a few short weeks, so a little foul air shouldn’t be upsetting him as much as he was pretending it was.

Still, she didn’t see any reason to delay things any further so Heinous just turned to her minion and said, “Very well, follow me.”

Entering into her old home was like walking into a portrait in time, everything left exactly as she remembered it. The knights must have left things the same for evidence reasons but Heinous ws surprised her school was still mostly intact. A few rooms had been caved in or hallways blocked and everything certainly needed a good dusting but from the view outside she had been expecting much worse. Paper and pencils lay on the dusty desks, ready to use, as if some child had just set them down and then vanished from this dimension. The banners holding old phrases and mottos Heinous would often repeat in classes were decaying but still hung up even after all these years. The only thing missing was her beloved robotic staff.

Shortly after her escape she had gotten word that all robots operating under her name had been discontinued and dismantled to “prevent further harm” as they had put it. Ha, as if her precious staff could be so cruel, every punishment was fully justified and all for the greater good. If only the royals of the multiverse had seen it that way. “Cruel and unnecessary” they had called it. Hypocrites! They were always happy with the results, even quick to praise her or offer her large sums of money as thanks, but the moment they knew how their beloved child came to be cured of their faults suddenly she was the villain, torturing their bratty children by making them perfect.

Well if they were too stupid and cowardly to see her perfect vision all the way through, then it was up to her to fix this miserable, chaotic world.

Heinous entered into her old office, staring at it with wistful eyes as memories came flooding back to her all over again. Every detail of the small space was exactly as she had remembered it, not a single stone out of place, even after all these years. She ran her hands across her desk, her fingers brushing the loose pieces of paper she had been reading through when the alarm had sounded. Old student files and report cards now yellowed with age and beyond salvaging Heinous could have read them with ease, every single letter saved to her subconscious.

Rasticore stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching as his temporary boss reminisced her old life. It was shocking in all honesty, the lizard assassin hadn’t even known Heinous had a smile that wasn’t sinister but she seemed… almost genuine now. That was until she came across a certain file and the peaceful look switched to a frown, the spell she was under was broken. She picked up the piece of paper, ripping it to shreds in a matter of seconds. Rasticore jumped but didn’t say a word as his boss fell deeper and deeper into a blind rage, picking up several other files and ripping them apart as well. Soon the room was coated in paper shreds and the desk was empty. Rasticore risked a look at what remained of the original file, surprised to see it was a young curly haired princess with four arms. He couldn't imagine what she had done to invoke such fire from the level-headed woman.

Once the temper tantrum was over, Heinous straightened her clothes and smoothed down her hair, making herself look presentable again before turning to her minion. “Well, let’s get started, shall we?” she said as if nothing had even happened. She reached her hand into one of the many pockets that lined her oversized dress and pulled out a small key covered in intricate carvings. Without a word she shoved the desk to the side, Rasticore taken aback by the sudden show of strength. He certainly hadn’t expected it from such a petite woman.

Heinous bent down and inserted the key into a small slot in the ground and turned it with a click. Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet collapsed and a long spiral staircase stretching into the darkness beneath was revealed. Heinous returned the key to her pocket before looking at Rasticore expectantly, much to his confusion. He had been caught off guard thanks to the multiple, unexpected turns this trip had taken and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she was wanting. Her sharp eyes dug into his skin before she impatiently snapped, “Well? You are the one with the light.”

Rasticore could slap himself for being so stupid and he quickly pulled the lantern out from behind his cloak, already brightly lit by phoenix embers. Without a word he started down the stairs, practically feeling Heinous roll her eyes behind his back and he had to clench his claw so tightly a few trickles of blood formed on his leathery skin. For not the first time, Rasticore seriously debated on just how bad a reputation he would get for killing his employer in cold blood. The lizard assassin cursed himself for his integrity as a killer for hire, every other job had been so easy but this one was really testing just how far he was willing to go for his reputation. He probably would have quit entirely if he weren’t for those stupid brats that eluded him mulitple times. Every attempt he made to take that worthless Princess Star resulted in complete and utter failure and the humiliation ate away at him almost as much as his anger. So if having to endure Heinous a little longer meant seeing the looks on those brats' faces when they finally got what was coming to them… well Rasticore wouldn’t miss that for the world.

Rasticore smiled, imagining the faces of Butterfly and her friends when they realized they had lost and that brought a new fire back to his soul, descending the staircase with a new vigor. The lizard got a good look at his surroundings, his night vision easily spotting what it was they were down there for: robots. Dozens of them, old and rusted over to the point Rasticore questioned if they would even activate. He looked back at his boss, who was eying the robots with a glimmer of dark ambition, not at all concerned about their obvious defectiveness.

“Thought all your robots were dismantled,” Rasticore questioned suspiciously.

Heinous shook her head. “That’s just what you would think,” the woman replied in a condescending tone. “And I knew those idiot knights would believe the same thing, hence why I had these hidden away in case I was ever found out. Imagine it, they all believed they had beaten me and yet my true power was right under their nose all along.”

“Well that explains their poor condition,” Rasticore mumbled to himself, low enough he knew Heinous couldn’t hear him.

The two reached the bottom of the staircase and Heinous began inspecting her machines closely, running her gloved fingers along their metal casings and grimacing at the layer of dirt left behind. “The truth is those robots from my time as principal were simple worker drones, but these, my dear Rasticore, are my army.”

“So you had these things hidden away this whole time and you never thought to use them before now?” Rasticore asked in a deadpan, trying to hold back his rising anger. If she had an army this whole time, why bother hiring him for her dirty work? How much time had he wasted fulfilling her goals when she could have just as easily sent a robot to do it.

“Of course I did,” Heinous replied with quite a bit of malice. “They were my plan from the beginning. I just had to wait for the right time to use them.”

“And only after I’ve been poisoned for your little mission do you suddenly decide it’s the ‘right time’,” the lizard Monster grunted, doing air-quotes for emphasis.

“Hold your tongue!” Heinous snapped, her voice echoing around the dark chamber. The two stared each other down, neither breaking eye contact for even a second. “You cannot possibly comprehend the amount of time and planning I put into this,” she continued, spitting every word violently at her minion. “I spent years concocting the perfect scheme to take back everything I lost, to regain control and create a perfect world order. And yet you dare to believe I would overlook something so carelessly. No. Everything has been planned out.” The woman turned her back to the assassin, stating smugly, “In a scheme like this, timing is everything, my dear Rasticore.”

She approached the nearest robot, wiping the dust off its metal surface, pulling out the same key from before and examining it closely. “And the time has finally come for the next phase of my master plan,” she whispered decisively. With that she rammed the key into the center of the robot’s chest, causing its eyes to blink open and light up red. Heinous took a step back as the machine slowly rose to its feet, creaking and groaning loudly, its rusted body protesting greatly. Branches that had formed around its hollow shell snapped and broke as it pushed itself upward with great strength. Finally, the machine was up, standing tall and at attention, its red eyes blinking as it waited for new orders, somehow menacing despite its deteriorating body.

Rasticore took a step towards the robot body, still eyeing it skeptically but didn’t see a point in arguing, if his boss wanted to gamble all their plans on some old, dumb robot then she could deal with the consequences. It wasn’t his problem if her plan failed, so long as he got paid. “So what, we send this hunk of junk after the Butterfly brat and finally be done with her.” He had to admit the idea of a robot taking her down instead of him left a sour taste in his mouth.

Heinous admired her machine with a satisfactory smile, her hands delicately running along its frame. “Patience, Rasticore, patience. Star Butterfly will receive her punishment in due time. But for now she is too highly guarded to risk an attack on her. We must tread carefully from here on out, no more half-witted schemes, we must deal with her delicately or all of this will be in vain.”

Rasticore grit his teeth at the small insult but kept his calm, extended time with Heinous had really helped him with his temper, the one good thing he could say about being stuck with the snooty, high-and-mighty ex-principal herself. “So who are we targeting?” Rasticore asked impatiently. “I thought the whole point of this field trip was so you could get your hands on Butterfly. You yourself said you needed a Mewman for-”

“And I what I said still holds true,” Heinous interrupted, turning to her minion with a very evil expression. “Which is why we will be targeting another old student of mine, one who is much less guarded and much more obtainable.” A dark look passed over Heinous’ face as she thought of one of her oldest and most successful students, just speaking her name again filled her with a satisfaction and pride Heinous had almost forgotten about. “Princess Penelope Spiderbite.”

#star vs #star vs AU #Light of the Sun and Stars #Preview #Starco #Spiderslime

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nomanwalksalone · 4 years

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STYLE AND THE DAMME

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Late in his new series Jean-Claude Van Johnson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, in tailored suit and open-collared white shirt, gestures up from his Aston Martin to his secret hideout with the instantly classic setup line, “No one has looked for me here for 20 years.” It’s a Blockbuster Video. As always, Van Damme is “on the run from the law, military or mafia,” but just this once, perfectly on the nose with this quip. And with it, three wildly different cultural icons, Van Damme, the tailored suit and Aston Martin, come into a strange but telling momentary alignment from the vastly different places they were in those 20 years ago.

20 years ago Van Damme was just over the peak of his fame, a coked-up Belgian kickboxing force who was fresh off The Quest, a big-budget, less satisfying remake of Van Damme’s best film, Bloodsport. He was about to star in a film about exploding jeans with the SNL copier guy Rob Schneider. Even better than it sounds, Knock Off knocked Van Damme off his pedestal and into the direct-to-video purgatory in which he’s labored since then. And labor he has, dedicated to actually becoming an actor of range and depth despite none of his audience actually caring. Direct-to-video films generally get ignored. Popularly, we expect them mainly to be watched by fans of fading stars expecting the predictable. It’s poignant, then, that Van Damme turned in a convincing performance in a pastiche of Bad Lieutenant and showed he could telegraph real pathos in John Hyams’ unfathomably good DTV Universal Soldier sequels Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.

Van Damme didn’t have to expend that effort. Witness the trajectory of his erstwhile rival Steven Seagal, a trajectory of almost cosmological increasing expansion behind yellow-tinted shooting glasses and spray-on-hair, accommodated in dozens of unwatchable movies by screenplays and direction that allow Seagal literally not to move. Seagal’s kept his many-chinned profile up in recent years courting tinpot authoritarians in the United States and Eastern Europe. Unlike Seagal, in recent years Van Damme has gained attention and respect by embracing his own ridiculousness. He played up this self-awareness with surprising comedic and dramatic talent in 2009’s JCVD, a scathing satire of his own dead-end career and broken life. He brings this willingness to both mock and explore himself to Jean-Claude Van Johnson, where he plays a retired actor who is actually a retired spy. Shoots for cheesy movies in Eastern Europe, such as a chop-socky reboot of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (“It’s time to get Hucked”), are just covers to investigate and infiltrate drug gangs, diabolical masterminds, and eventually the rotten entertainment industry itself.

The key to that last mission, taking down the corrupt talent and espionage agency that had used him, is looking the part, 2017 edition. Looking a part means meeting all the clichés, the easy expectations of a role. For that of Erstwhile Movie Star, today it means pulling up to the agency in an Aston Martin in a tailored suit, no tie. It certainly didn’t always. 20 years ago, Aston Martin had nowhere to go but up, or into oblivion. Since then, oblivion has claimed most of the other romantically exotic British car brands like TVR and Bristol. Aston used to mean just Bond films, Bond satires, and bad Bond copies. By the early 1990s, its annual sales had slumped to fewer than 200 cars worldwide and its main model, the Virage, cost $250,000. I’ve only seen one of those ever, late at night in my college town decades ago, looking like something from another world.

Today, thanks to prudent investment and positioning by Ford and Tata, Astons are a shorthand for the showbizzy glitterati of our world, occasionally favoring us with an appearance in our grocery store parking lot or, with motor gunning, running the red light we’d prudently braked for. Hugh Grant bought one after filming About A Boy because his tween co-star thought it would be cool; Isla Fisher drove one playing Ron Howard’s vapid daughter in Arrested Development. Van Damme’s Aston is the same sort of shorthand: predictable, expensive flamboyance to be expected from a has-been with money.

What does this mean for the suit? 20 years ago it was in the wilderness, a wilderness grown out of the backlash to 1980s corporatism, a wilderness so wild that for a few seasons designers were trying to put men in waistcoats, frock coats or Nehru jackets instead of sport coats or suits. Those didn’t take, but for the rest of us casualwear replaced the suit with identikit billowing blue shirts and baggy khakis in business settings, and with jeans, sweats or anything else, really, in other settings. 20 years ago the suit had just barely begun to creep back in certain circles in the United Kingdom as a so-called smart formal outfit for social outings, with a nice shirt but never a tie. It was too soon for that reminder of 1980s correctness. Since that time, Hedi Slimane goosed the “tailored look” with his tight suits, while fashion seized on the financial crises of 2001 and 2008 to push a return to supposedly more serious dressing. In the fashion idiom, the opposite of frivolity is expensive conservatism, ergo the suit. The tie, too, fought its way back up for a couple of years of air, but not in the world of cliché and shorthand, where smart actor of a certain age means nice suit, white shirt (anything else would be too busy) and no tie – no ties to the normal working world.

Today, Van Damme, Aston Martin and the smart suit are in alignment, all in fashion again… for the moment. Whether Aston Martin stays in fashion will depend on its owners and backers keeping technologically modern cars in production and promoting them. As to Van Damme and the suit? It’s just as ironically sad as Van Damme becoming a good actor that the suit, formerly the inescapable classic clothing item, returned only as a fashion item. This means that it can and will be replaced by something else in fashion, like yoga pants for men. Maybe Van Damme, too, is only having a moment as a whimsical nostalgia item like the suit.

But Jean-Claude Van Johnson has a real lesson for us beyond this sentimentality. Although it is about an actor who is actually an international spy, its reality is an actor playing his persona and pretending to find himself. His choices are to hide from the world behind cabinets of Pop Tarts and made-up memories, or to engage with the uncanny and unfair demands of an unfamiliar age. He chooses to engage, despite his heyday being long behind him and the things that he had fought for illusory. Remember that in fact there was no more genteel age of yore, only pasts of different levels of exploitation and oligarchy. The classy actors we now associate with elegance were actors playing parts, both on screen and in public life. No halcyon days await our return. However we adapt to changing times and changing understandings of what is right, ultimately we can best face down challenging times by being ourselves in the moment. Or as Van Damme-from-the-future reminds us, “TimeCops don’t exist.” We cannot change the timestream to fit our illusions. We can only do with what we have: our personality, not our persona, and from time to time, still, a nice suit as both armor and disguise.

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This article first appeared on the No Man blog in 2018.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 3, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

One of my children asked me once if people living through the Great Depression understood just how bad their era would look to historians. I answered that, on the whole, I thought not. People are focused on what’s in front of them: finding work, feeding their kids, trying to keep it together, making it through the day. It’s only when historians look back to gauge an era that they put the full picture together.

So for those who cannot see it: we are in one of the most profound crises of American history.

We are in the midst of a vicious pandemic that is killing us at an astounding rate while the administration ignores it or, worse, exacerbates it by encouraging our neighbors to think that wearing masks and social distancing to protect lives is somehow a political statement they must resist. Cases of coronavirus are spiking across the country. Hospitals are overwhelmed and health care workers exhausted. More than 14 million Americans have been infected with the virus and more than 276,000 of us have died of it. Today saw over 211,762 new cases and 2,858 deaths. Tomorrow will likely be worse.

The pandemic has crippled our economy. After a brief recovery this summer, it is faltering again. More than 20 million Americans are receiving some sort of jobless benefits. Pressure is building for some sort of federal aid package to provide relief and stimulate the economy to bridge us over the next months as vaccines are distributed. But until that happens, people need to work to keep food on their tables and a roof over their heads, so they cannot lock down to stop the spread of the disease.

The president of the United States is ignoring the pandemic, instead spending his time fighting against the results of last month’s election. The president’s opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, won the election handily, by close to 7 million votes and by a majority of 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. But Trump, supported by loyalists, continues to insist he has won, even though the states he claims will swing the Electoral College behind him have already certified their votes for Biden.

The attack of a president on the outcome of an election is unprecedented. Four times in American history, a candidate who has won the popular vote has lost in the Electoral College but the loser has bowed to our system, even though, curiously, it has always been a Republican who won under such circumstances and never a Democrat—indeed, Trump won in 2016 under just such a scenario.

In this instance, though, there is no misalignment between the popular vote and the Electoral College. Biden has won both, handily. And yet, the president is actively attacking the results and the underlying democratic system that produced them. His supporters are asking him to declare martial law and seize power, although the military has denounced this idea and those supporting it are making such increasingly wild claims that at some point they simply must fall apart. Indeed, there is reason to believe Trump's claims of fraud are simply a grift: his campaign was effectively broke before the election and he has raised more than $207 million since it. But, money grab or not, this is an unprecedented assault on our democracy.

There are, though, signs that change is in the wind. For all his drama, Trump is losing relevance. Today Congress finalized its draft of the defense authorization bill, and in it members of both parties pushed back on Trump’s demands. They refused to reduce the number of troops in Germany and South Korea, as he announced he would do in what appeared to be an attempt to weaken U.S. ties to Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), our military alliance there. Congress also ignored Trump’s demands to strip technology companies of liability protections (apparently he is angry when insulting names for him trend on Twitter) and his insistence that he would veto any measure that called for renaming military bases currently named for Confederate generals, a plan endorsed by members of both parties.

The measure also more directly rebukes Trump for things he either has already done or hasn’t done and should have. It orders the Secretary of Defense to report on Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan for killing U.S. troops, limits how much military funding the president can move to domestic projects—as Trump tried to do for his border wall—and requires that federal law enforcement officers “visibly display” their names and the names of their agency when engaged in public responses. This summer, the officers dispatched to the streets of Washington, D.C., and other cities could not be identified. In another rebuke to the summer’s police violence, the measure also prohibits the Pentagon from handing off bayonets, certain combat vehicles, and weaponized drones to state and local law enforcement.

It is not just Congress that is pushing back on the president. Today the Associated Press broke the story that within the last two weeks, a political operative Trump had installed at the Department of Justice has actually been banned from the building after pressuring staffers to give her information about investigations, including those about the 2020 election. Heidi Stirrup, the appointee, is an ally of Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Today Trump appointed her to the board of visitors of the Air Force Academy. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes that it’s unlikely a Trump ally would have been physically removed from the Justice Department in the days before the election turned Trump into a lame duck.

In the first interview President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris have given since the election, aired tonight on CNN, they reiterated their support for all Americans and their determination to combat the coronavirus pandemic, saying they would ask everyone to commit to wearing a mask for the first 100 days of their administration. Harris told journalist Jake Tapper: “There couldn't be a more extreme exercise in stark contrast between the current occupant of the White House and the next occupant of the White House,” and the country will be better for the change, she said.

But it was CNN journalist Don Lemon who summed up this changing moment best. He told Tapper: “[I]t feels like we are watching ... a president-elect and a president who are on Earth One and Earth Two. And at this particular Earth that is in reality, it was very normal, very sedate. And it was welcoming news. It was good to watch. It was good to actually get content. We heard no fake news. We heard no conspiracy theories. We heard no personal grievances. We heard a President-Elect and a vice president who want to work with the other side.”

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Quotes #political #election 2020 #Heather Cox Richardson #global pandemic #COVID-19 #the plague #Letters From An American #Mad King

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