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fresh-bag-of-ham · 3 years

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ok let’s talk SUNSCREEN

SO the UV filters available in the US can at this point be considered truly terrible. One of the main reasons you’re supposed to reapply sunscreen every two hours is that many of the filters we use are destroyed by the very UV radiation they are designed to block. Killed in the line of duty, thank you for your sacrifice, etc. Counterpoint: sunscreen is gross and reapplying it every two hours is the worst. I am not doing that. Fortunately, Europe and Japan/Korea have been much quicker to approve newly developed more stable UV filters for use and at this point they have some really good ones. They also have much better UVA protection, both because of the better filters available and better labeling regulations.

A quick simplified summary: UVB causes sunburns, is directly absorbed by DNA strands which causes the mutations that lead to skin cancer, SPF measures protection against this only. UVA does more generic damage, creates free radicals associated with aging, wrinkles, collagen loss, pigmentation, etc. etc., but can also contribute to immunosuppression and therefore skin cancer. It’s more complex than this obviously but that’s not really the point of this post.

My sunscreen criteria: I hate wearing sunscreen. However, Accutane + sun = an extremely bad time. My ideal sunscreen is something that doesn’t feel disgusting to wear so I will wear it regularly in the first place (i.e. dry-touch), something I ideally don’t have to reapply super often under normal daily use (i.e. photostable UV filters, water-resistant when necessary), and has maximum protection. As long as I’m wearing it, I also want as much UVA protection as I can find, without compromising the former criteria.

Note: The sunscreens I tried are almost all chemical UV filters and several are loaded with alcohol, so if that upsets your skin then proceed with caution/ask me for a specific rec!

Note 2: All of these are SPF50+ (the highest rating allowed in the EU (meaning they tested at at least SPF60) unless otherwise specified *cough*Supergoop*cough*)

Best Face: Kao Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence (x)

Best feel, best protection, best price point. This gets recommended everywhere for a reason. Bit of a silicone feel on the face. No white cast. Smells like alcohol at first. Really, really quality daily face sunscreen. Water resistant. Caveat that because of the alcohol I would make sure to throw a layer of moisturizer on beforehand to make sure I’m not totally drying myself out.

Also make sure you get the name exactly right, there’s a blah blah Watery Gel that’s totally different consistency, totally different filters, etc. etc. It has to be Watery Essence.

Best Body: Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Dry Touch Sun Gel-Cream (x)

This was a sleeper hit, so shout-out to Eucerin for the greatest body sunscreen I’ve ever tried. This stuff is SO protective and dries SO. DAMN. DRY. Zero grease somehow, feels like nothing. It’s even water resistant. I tried a couple LRP body sunscreens but they honestly aren’t worth mentioning. Eucerin or bust babey!

More Face Sunscreens:

I’ve also tried all top five sunscreens from this Stylevana listicle of Asian face SPF (x). The thing about face sunscreens that they’ve started doing is loading them up with silicones and acrylate polymers, which leaves a silicone-y feel on your skin like a makeup primer. As far as I can tell from poking through various patents, these polymers are doing a few things in the formula: a) emulsifying/stabilizing the newer/bigger UV filter molecules, and creating an occlusive layer over the UV filter molecules on the skin to a) improve water resistance and b) reduce eye stingy-ness. At first I thought I wanted to avoid these seemingly unnecessary additives but considering their function, these are all features I want/need in a face sunscreen so we’re living with them.

1. Shiseido - Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen Skincare Milk: really good, sliiight white cast but absolutely no streaks, more like a foundation just a hair too light for my skin tone. However I can’t imagine buying this because #2 on the list is better and 1/3 the price. Medium silicone feel. Something I’d probably only break out for when I went to an outdoor summer wedding.

2. Kao - Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence: I have already sung its praises.

3. MISSHA - All Around Safe Block Essence Sun Milk: closest to a US milky/greasy sunscreen experience here, though very fluid and still absorbs nicely. No silicone feel. Not a bad choice but nothing special.

4. Canmake - Mermaid Skin Gel UV: probably second favorite after Biore. Similar, bit less of a silicone feel. I’ve gotten red a couple times using this though, possibly because less silicone feel = no layer of protection against sweat/physically rubbing off? I bet this would be perfect under makeup though, it’s super light.

5. COSRX - Aloe Soothing Sun Cream: SO moisturizing, almost a dewy feel that sits on your skin and never dries. I wanted to love her, but unfortunately she is so loaded with the aforementioned polymers that when you reapply/put the appropriate amount on to begin with, it completely gums up and pills and you lose all protection. Also definitely not water resistant. Probably my top pick for a winter daily face sunscreen that I wouldn’t ever be worrying about reapplying though.

Other Contenders:

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Invisible Fluid (x) and Bioderma Photoderm Max Milk (x)

These two bad boys have the highest rated UVA protection currently on the market, 46 PPD for La Roche-Posay and 42 PPD for Bioderma. The LRP is extremely watery (technically alcohol-y) and comes in a teeny bottle(though same size as a lot of these I guess) but it is The Best UVA protection money can buy. The texture is really nice too, and feels super water resistant. If I’m outside sweating or on the water in the summer, this is going on my face. I've also seen it on sale multiple times since I’ve started researching sunscreens (because it’s extremely popular) so you can definitely find it in the $0.30/mL-or-less tier if you keep an eye out.

This Bioderma is cheaper and also extremely protective (thanks Helena @bronyraurmp3 for the rec!) but unfortunately it stung both my and Mr T’s eyes like a BITCH. Extremely unpleasant experiences for both of us. TBH if I’m out in midday sun, swimming or kayaking or something, I’m gonna be wearing a long-sleeved UPF rashguard to protect my arms and upper body and not worrying too much about whatever cheap greasy sunscreen I put on my legs. This Bioderma stuff would be going on my neck, ears, and hands though bc it’s super water resistant.

Eucerin Sun Sensitive Protect Mattifying Fluid : bit of a white cast, really slippy texture going on and nice dry touch texture when it dried down, but drying down took foreeever. Probably really nice if you’re sensitive and pale.

Eucerin Sun Oil Control Gel-Cream Dry Touch : VERY matte and dry-touch, would have loved it if I hadn’t gotten burned using it (doesn’t have all the newest most stable UV filters). Approaching the expensive end of things too, but would be a lovely option if you really prioritize non-greasiness and don’t need the premium protection? Mr T really liked using it on his bald head lol.

Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen SPF40 (US): This is recommended many places but it has to be a joke that people are actually paying Shiseido Anessa prices for old American UV filter selection, only SPF 40, and no UVA rating to speak of, right??? (ok they do have a PA+++ rating meaning a PPD of 8-16, so. this is acceptable.) I did not test this one but damn wtf. The texture is probably nice though and it looks perfectly sheer in the photos on their website, so maybe as a last resort for darker skintones that show a white cast with everything else? At that price tho... you do you but damn.

Jigott Snail UV Sun Block : This had good reviews on Yesstyle but it sucked. White streaks, bad.

La Roche-Posay Anthelios Ultra-Light Tinted Mineral Sunscreen SPF60 (US): Another in the outdoor-wedding only price range. There’s a tinted and a non-tinted mineral version and I ended up mixing them together to get a shade that looked pretty good on me, but needing two bottles for that puts it in the extremely ridiculous price category. Really slippy nice texture that takes a bit to dry but dries down perfectly matte. I guess the person who wants to shell out for a high end all-mineral tinted sunscreen exists somewhere out there but I would bet there are many nice cheaper mineral options out there that I haven’t tried.

And that’s it! For EU sunscreens, I was able to order them on caretobeauty.com, and Japanese/Korean ones from yesstyle.com or stylevana.com, though I had to go to eBay for the Biore and Anessa. I ordered some Biore from a seller on Amazon but they shipped from Japan and I think they got taken by customs because the last known location on the tracking info is Chicago, so finding a seller in the US that has already imported them seems like a good idea (vendor lullabellabeauty on eBay worked great for me, fwiw, I will definitely order my Biore from there in the future).

If you have specific questions about any of these, or if you have any recs you think I should try, hmu! You will be shocked I’m sure to hear I have a whole sunscreen database at this point.

#skincare

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lunarmoment · 3 years

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I've flirted briefly with the idea of doing NaNo this year, but with school, work, and life, I won't be able to commit to the challenge. I've only tried it once before (in 2018) and gave up after about three days. However, I just looked at what I did write in those few days, and I like it better than I thought? I remember being discouraged because I felt like I was producing a weak story with weak writing, but I honestly like what I came up with. I'd have to revamp the not-so-great plot, but "rebel spy volunteering to have her memories erased before going on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines (while trying to figure out what her mission even is)" seems like a fun thread to pull on for a future story.

I put the first page below the cut for those interested. Good luck to those doing NaNo this year! Don't get discouraged after the first few days like I did—maybe three years later you'll realize you were just too hard on yourself!

I woke up in a forest. I had no idea which forest, but I knew it was one. I pushed myself into a sitting position. Weak bits of sunlight danced in my eyes, and blinking rapidly did little to clear the fuzziness of my thoughts. The trees meant nothing to me. A headache burst across my forehead, and I pressed my fingers into my temples.

One, two, three…

I counted to ten, trying to sync my breathing to alternate with the odds and evens. My body thinks that we should panic. We know better than that, right, brain?

My clothes were simple. I ran my fingers around the collar of my shirt to find that it did not have a tag. As I searched for any identifying measure on my pants, my hand brushed against the lump in my pocket. I pulled a lighter and a tightly folded piece of paper. Both of them fit easily into my palm.

I pressed the base of the lighter into the meat of my thumb. The numbers rose out of my skin before falling again without a trace. The embedded serial number meant that it was from a city instead of being one of ours. I chewed on my tongue. If it wasn’t made in one of the hideouts, then they couldn't use its materials to trace us—but if someone had to go into the city to buy the lighter, that person could have been tracked. Maybe that person was me, I thought. Or maybe it was someone who was already captured.

I unfolded the piece of paper. The page was thick—clearly recycled, and crudely so—which made sense. Factory produced paper was far too hard to come by and far too risky to steal. The note was handwritten, simple, and short.

You know your mission. You volunteered.

I held the paper against the light, testing it at different angles, refolding it along the preexisting creases and making new ones. I could find no hidden message, nor anything to indicate its origin point. Then again, I didn’t have access to the chemical tests or massive database that the regime did. I only had my brain, a piece of paper, and a lighter.

The lighter flicked on easily. As the flame waved at me, I released the tension from my shoulders that I shouldn’t have been holding. The forest was hardly damp, and, even if it were, the lighter had been tucked safely in my warm pocket, protected from the elements and cold. The flame, fluttering rhythmically in the hardly existent breeze, offered more comfort than did the note in my hand.

One, two, three… I dipped the corner of the paper into the flame, and it immediately jumped up toward my fingers. I dropped the remainder—about the size of my pinky nail—of the paper into the dirt, and I stomped my shoe over it to prevent the dead leaves from catching. They said I know my mission, and I'm sure starting a forest fire is not it.

#writeblr #nano #writing #my writing #I did a lot more but it's fairly disjointed since that's how I write haha #not that I don't have enough stories bouncing around in my head #but I have a vague idea for a story that mixes sci fi and fantasy that this could fit into

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gaeilgeoirgay · 3 years

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SpideyTorch Week Day Three Alternate Universe

For Day Three, I chose an alternate universe in which our favourite couple are the villains! This one is a bit darker than usual, and there’s a mild instance of torture, that isn’t explicitly described near the end, so do watch out for that

Ao3 Link

@spideytorchweek

they don’t question our violence

“Hello, Spidey. Nice of you to swing by.” Comes a mocking voice from behind him. Peter almost swears, his Spidey Sense hadn’t even warned him, the traitor! Clearly it doesn’t think of Morning Star as a threat despite the fact Johnny has tried to kill him on several occasions. Maybe. To be fair, the Dock Incident was Peter’s fault and Morning Star hasn’t attempted murder in ten months, coinciding with the new depths of their relationship.

And it’s not like Peter is a complete angel either. The Wolf Spider is a name synonymous with death and blood- at least Morning Star tends to stick with arson. Peter is a mercenary, it’s not like he can judge his pyromaniac boyfriend.

“Hi, starlight. I have a job for us, and we get to explode the place afterwards.” Peter says, turning around to smile at Johnny, who perks up at the idea. He lets his flames fizzle out and lands next to Peter, who gratefully accepts the kiss he’s given. It’s freezing right now, and even the slightest bit of warmth makes a difference to Peter’s non-regulating self. There’s also the fact he’s kissing Johnny. That’s a big factor.

He turns fully around to kiss Johnny properly, taking care with his fangs so his venom doesn’t enter Johnny’s bloodstream. He rather likes his boyfriend and he doesn’t want to kill him. Johnny eventually pulls back to smile brightly at Peter.

“What’s the job, Fangs? I like the sound of it already.” He says. Peter beckons him up onto the vent protruding from the building they’re on, hopping up himself to swing his legs childishly. Johnny joins him, feet tapping impatiently.

“I met Remy Le Beau downtown a few days ago. He mentioned that there’ve been a few disappearances lately, mainly mutant children living on the streets that don’t appear on official records. I did some digging and it turns out there’s a lab set up in the Bronx that’s been experimenting on mutant kids.” Peter explains, scowling now. “Officially, it’s a gene lab where volunteers donate samples to be studied for cures to various diseases. There’s about twenty kids there now from what I can tell. Remy can’t blow it to hell himself without attracting attention to Xavier but if we free the kids and then happen to torch it, people won’t question our violence.” He finishes.

Johnny is frowning now too. “What excuse are we giving for the attack though?” He asks and Peter laughs. “That’s the best bit. We’re not giving an excuse, we’re telling everyone they were experimenting on children. Their encryptions are ridiculously bad and there’s already been a call for an inquiry into them by S.I. They’re subsidised by Oscorp and it’ll damage their stocks once it gets out that not only did they block the investigation, they funded the lab too.” He explains and Johnny grins.

“Two birds with one stone. Save the kids and piss off Green Goblin. I’m down.” He says and Peter stands. Johnny does too and Peter challenges him to a race across the city. They may be supervillains but they can still have fun.

The building is near deserted when they get there, other than a few dedicated workers and the overnight security guards. The employees aren’t aware of where their samples come from, only the top scientists know about the mutants and the security guards were never told they were guarding people instead of chemicals so they’ve agreed to leave them mostly alone.

Johnny silently melts a window on the top floor and they sneak into the building, avoiding the admittedly meagre defences.

They soon find a bright red door labelled DANGER and according to the blueprints that Peter acquired, the kids should be behind it.

They crumple easily under Peter’s enhanced strength and Johnny groans at the display. “I love it when you break metal with your bare hands.” He whispers and Peter smothers a laugh. They step over the ruined doors to find the kids in chains.

“Oh I can’t wait to set this place on fire.” Johnny growls harshly and Peter shushes him. There’s a computer terminal by the door so he plugs in a device he built himself that will copy the information on the mainframe to his personal store while deleting every other existing copy. He’ll probably delete his own copy once he goes through it, but he’d prefer to know if some sort of power-killing virus was made before he gets hit with it. Probably by Ross, may he die in agony.

The two of them set to work on the chains, Peter snapping them and Johnny turning them to molten slag. The kids are utterly silent, even when the two villains are reassuring them softly and Peter vows to hunt down every last disgrace to science that was involved in the lab.

Finally, the last chain clatters to the floor and all the kids are free. Remy had promised them assistance from two X-men who would be able to get the kids out of the lab so Peter and Johnny could get to burning it down.

They herd the kids to the window they broke in through and are met by the dark form of Archangel. The mutant’s normally pure white wings are covered in dark metal to blend in with the night but he’s still gentle with the children and they seem a bit less scared to see someone who’s so obviously like them.

Peter watches one little girl with red, scaly wings looking in awe between herself and the hero and smiles. He glances at Johnny and a thought comes to him. He wants that. Him and Johnny, with a kid each, maybe one girl and one boy or two of the same gender.

Hmm. That’s something to consider later. For now, he watches Archangel fly the kids one-by-one to a nearby safehouse where Nightcrawler is waiting to bring the kids to Xavier’s mansion the next morning. They deserve a good nights rest before moving somewhere completely different to everything they’ve ever known.

Archangel returns after the last child has been delivered to Nightcrawler and perches on the windowsill, regarding Peter and Johnny with a slight measure of respect.

“I met Nightcrawler in a mutant fighting ring. Neither of us wanted to be there but we never got the chance to escape. I got hurt and Mystique spirited him away but we never knew what happened to the ring. These kids though, they’re not gonna have that.” He plucks a metal feather from the edge of his wings, the edges razor sharp.

“Hurt those monsters and hurt them well. Maybe some of the more sheltered mutants at home won’t understand but I do. Slit their throats with that and leave them to choke. It’s more than they deserve.” Archangel says solemnly, rage glinting in his eyes. Peter exchanges looks with Johnny and then grins.

“Maybe heroes can’t be caught torturing people but there’s a reason I walk the other side of the line. We won’t make it quick.” Peter promises and Archangel returns the smile. Peter has no doubt that any scientists he and Johnny fail to find will turn up with mysterious wounds soon enough.

Archangel flies off to join Nightcrawler and Wolf Spider and Morning Star stalk back into the labs. The head scientists have been staying in a penthouse apartment above the labs while they run their tests and that’s their destination.

The elevator lets them up after a few key strokes from the Spider and they emerge into a wide-open space, the complete opposite of the small room the kids had been chained in. There are doors off of the main room and the Spider quickly matches them up with what he found in their database.

The third door to the right should belong to Henry Lawson, the torturer in chief. Morning Star melts the lock and they slip into his room silently. The bastard is sleeping peacefully in his bed but it won’t be long before that changes.

Morning Star fingers the metal feather Archangel gave them and slowly starts to heat it up. It’s made of strong stuff and even though the metal is glowing red it’s not metal. It serves as a rude wake-up call when it’s pressed to Lawson’s jaw.

He squeals like a stuck pig and the Spider thanks God for soundproofing. They’re nowhere near done with Lawson just yet.

An hour later, Lawson is thoroughly deceased and they move onto their next target. All six die painfully and Wolf Spider takes a twisted pleasure in it. Still, they have a job to do and they can’t spend as much time on their other targets as they did on Lawson.

Johnny plants his favourite explosives and Peter carelessly pulls the fire alarm. They find a good vantage point on the building across from the lab and wait until the last heat signature leaves the building and emergency services are seconds from the scene to trigger the bombs.

Johnny floats in front of the lab for a few seconds before he unleashes a torrent of flames into the already-blazing building. It only feeds the raging fire and Peter knows it will take quite some time to put it out, Not his problem. He’s too busy planning their next hits on the scientists that hadn’t lived above the lab.

Johnny lands on the roof next to him with a sharp exhale and Peter drapes himself over his back. “Twelve people left on the list, starlight. I vote we eat, have a fantastic night in bed and then brutally murder them all. Their dirty secrets are set to be released to the public in four and a half hours, just in time for the news cycle.” Peter says, tracing letters on Johnny’s back.

“You give the best presents, my Spider. I can’t wait to hunt.” Morning Star replies.

#spideytorchweek2021 #spideytorchweek #day three au #spideytorch #tw mild torture #tw violence #peter parker #johnny storm #warren worthington iii

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olivarryprompts · 3 years

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Fanfic Friday #5

Welcome to Fanfic Friday! Each Friday I will post a new fanfic here and on A03. Enjoy x

Read/Save it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/32197966

{crossover}

Ship: olivarry

Warnings: small amount of angst, swearing

Status: dating

Wc: 2,413

Once again, there were some sort of god-like presents threatening Central and Star city, hence it was up to everyone’s favorite superheroes, and their teams, to defeat the crisis and save the world.

I am said superhero, the fast one specifically. Oliver and I have been dating from around since I awoke from my coma. How did we get together? That’s a story for a different time. Oliver and I, throughout all of this, have been able to keep our relationship a secret. I know, huge shocker.

“Oliver, Cisco and Ray have made the tech, but it needs to be tested.”

“So,” he said, with his Oliver look, “Test it.”

“How are we supposed to test tech that should defeat Aliens without actual Aliens?”

“Kara.”

“Ollie! We can’t shoot at Kara.”

“You're so cute,” Oliver said, under his breath, “Sometimes I just want to cuddle you like a teddy bear, however out of character.”

I blushed deeply, “Stop it. We need to save the world.”

He leaned it, laying a careful kiss on my forehead, “And we will.”

“You’ve really helped on the ideas front,” I said, sarcastically.

“Let’s get the teams together and discuss what we know so far. We can think up our next moves.”

“Okay, yeah. I’ll get everyone to the hub.”

“Barry Allen do not speed m-”

I sped him to the hanger.

“I hate you,” he commented with an underlying smirk.

“I love you, too.”

I quickly sped everyone into the room before returning to Ollie’s side.

“Yes Barry?” Sara Lance, captain of the Waverider, said.

“Well, I-i,” I looked over at Oliver for help.

He whispered, “Thought as though we should call a team meeting.”

“Right, I thought we should call a team meeting to, to discuss, uh, um-”

He continued in a subdued voice, “what we know, our plan, and our next steps.”

“To discuss what we know about our big bad, what our plan is, and our next steps to ya know, save the world.”

“Are we meant to pretend we aren’t hearing the brooding man?” John Constantine, local warlock, said.

“I give up. Ollie, lead the team. You know what to do.”

“You tried,” he smiled, a little over fondly, “Right so, Nate, Iris what have we got on her?”

“Well, she seems to have no record of life until she popped up in our time and attacked Central city,” Nate explained.

“We wondered if there was a chance of her being from another Earth, and Cisco tracked her residual frequency from the attack, and the frequency matched one from this Earth.”

“So that leaves us nowhere, loves,” Constantine said, lighting a cigarette, which Sara promptly knocked out of his hand and stamped on.

“Well, not necessarily. We know that she just appeared which narrows down the search to anyone without a record, which is very few people,” Cisco explained.

“If we can just get a strand of her DNA, I could take a look into how to gain her powers and where they come from.”

“To get the ladies NDA we need to find her,” Mick grumbled.

“Thank you Mick,” Oliver said, rolling his eyes, “Dig, did Lyla get anything.”

“Argus satellites haven’t picked up anything. She said she’d call and let us know.”

Felicity entered, and Oliver raised an eyebrow at me.

“She told me to put her back,” I said lowly to Oliver.

“I-i told you not to PUT me.”

“She’s scary,” I defended further.

“Sorry I was not present, I mean I wasn’t here because I was well-that’s the point. I was hacking, obviously, that’s what I do, I hack, but you guys know that-”

“Felicity,” Ollie said, “The point.”

“Right. There was something on her arm, almost underneath her skin. I looked further into it and it seemed to be of a technological origin. I came back and instantly drew the “thing.” I think it might be some sort of microchip. After consulting Ray, I did some digging, and I came back with some interesting results,” she projected the images from her tablet, “This was a theoretical experiment planned in-you guessed it, Star City. it was, well, awful. It was talking about mutation and how technology had the power to change any and all humans for the better. It was called Project Mutant.

“Oh yes Felicity, I bring you, Mutant, our big bad.”

“Not your best work,” Caitlin commented.

“Offended,” Cisco replied with a grin. Oliver was clearly getting annoyed, so I touched his arm subtly. His demeanor began to soften.

“Right,” he cleared his throat, “Can we track this chip?”

“Well, yes and no. The chip is on a completely different server to any domain I’ve come across. I don’t even know what it is. It’s essentially in a different world. I’d need to get track of her personal server to begin the hack, which-”

“You obviously can’t do,” Ray said, “Can I see the server?”

Ray, Cisco, and Caitlin all looked at the server Felicity pulled up on her tablet.

“Does that look like a wave function to anyone else?” Cisco said.

“A what?” I said.

“Somehow, her DNA, it’s acting like a particle on the quantum level,” Caitlin further explained.

“So we need to treat her, in essence, as a quantum particle.”

“So that’s why everytime I try to hack into the database it moves. Why it acts like a domain I’ve never seen before.” Felicity said in some sort of revelation.

“So how do you track a particle?” Ray said, “You can’t, wave function collapses.”

“So we can’t track her in any way.”

“No, no we can. The art of quantum mechanics is tracking particles, that's the whole point.”

“So you “solve” quantum mechanics before this looney destroys a city. Hell no.”

“Right, moving on from the science, which I am sure you guys will figure out, let’s say we can track her and find her. If she’s like a particle then can’t she just pop in and out of anywhere at any time, ya know wave particle duality and all. Light goes so fast that it theoretically travels through time. “

“Oliver, are you in there? When did you learn quantum physics?” I said, shocked.

“Y-you pick up things here and there. That’s relevant anyway. How do we stop her.”

“Simple, what stops a particle?”

“Cold.” Caitlin said.

“So, we need to track her, build a weapon to slow her down on the sub-molecular level, and keep her in that state. Easy,” Ray summarized, looking defeated.

“Hold up, she came back to this time for a reason. She clearly has motive. If we know her motive, we can predict where she will attack next. She can’t just pop out of existence if she has a goal she needs to complete. She can go back to this time for a reason, out of all the times she could have existed,” Sara said, “She came back now. This timing, this place, it has to mean something to her. That could hold the key to stopping her.”

“You’re right,” Iris said, “She has a reason.”

“We could run some samples of history through Gideon to look for significance,” Nate suggested.

“There’s an idea,” Sara said.

“Right, looks like everyoens got work to do, let’s get this rolling.

I brought Oliver into flash time. He was stressed and uptight.

“Ollie?”

“Barry, what-what are you doing? They can all..”

“Flashtime, remember.”

“Why did you-”

“Sometimes you just need the world to stop for a moment. You know that better than anyone.”

He just wrapped his arms around me and kept me close.

“We’re going to win this. We’re going to be fine,” I told him.

He just hummed.

He leaned in for a kiss, which we both needed.

“Let’s do this,” Oliver said.

“Let’s.” I pulled away from him and smiled.

The fight was intense and it was Oliver and I left with the task of finishing her.

“Ollie, go, go please. I can do this, I’ll be able to.”

“It’s my bow that has the tech, no way in hell I leave you here.”

“Think Oliver! I am the only one fast enough to stop her.”

“Barry, don't. Don’t grab my bow and speed off. Please,” he was begging. Before I could think much more about what was on the line, I kissed Ollie, grabbed the arrow, and sped off towards her. With her caught off guard, I was able to plunge the arrow into her forearm. When I pulled the bow out, I saw that the world around me had changed.

Oliver’s POV

Just like that he vanished. First from my touch and then from this time. My bear, bazza, barry, just, gone. I ran at the spot where he’d disappeared from yelling, “BARRY! BARRY!”

“Oliver,” A voice said.

“H-he can’t be gone. I-i can’t do this, any of this, without him. Please I need him. GET HIM BACK!.”

I found myself slumped against a wall. I threw my bow across the room and chucked some arrows wherever I pleased. I waited a few moments before collecting my bow and getting on my motorbike. Tears threatened to fall. How could I lose the one person in the world that matters the most to me?

Once I arrived back at the hanger, I immediately went into the storage room. I grabbed my phone and unlocked it. My back screen was a picture of Barry cuddled into my chest. If anyone questioned it, I’d tell them I lost a dare to Barry and this was my forfeit. Obviously it was a huge lie as it was one of my favorite pictures of the two of us. His cute smirk is on show as well as his clingy nature. I missed his reassuring touches already. Angry, I threw some boxes around the place.

I instantly drew an arrow back at the tapping of someone's feet. Closer, closer, here. It was just Felicity.

“Hey,” She said in her sweet voice.

“Hey,” I said, monotone.

“We’re going to find Barry, wherever he is.”

“Don’t tell me that! Don’t tell me that when he could be anytime and anywhere,” I sneered through gritted teeth.

“Okay,” Felicity said in her felicity voice, “What is going on? Not keeping a level head is not helping Barry.”

“Felicity you don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand, Oliver.”

“It’s HARD TO KEEP A LEVEL HEAD WHEN IT'S THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE!”

“Love of your life?” she questioned.

“Yes, love of my fucking life.”

“You and-”

“Me and Barry.”

“How long?”

“Long. Year and a half.”

“W-who knows?”

“No one does.”

“Oliver, look at me. We will find Barry, okay? We have all the best minds working in here, and we will get him. You have got to stay calm, though. We need you Oliver, okay? Do it for Barry.”

“Alright,” I said, sucking in a deep breath.

We entered the main portion of the hangar again, “Anyone got any ideas?”

“Ray thinks he can hack her biochip now that she is no longer in quantum flux,” Caitlin reported.

“Would that tell us the time or just the place?” Iris, equally as worried, inquired.

“Just a locational ping.”

I racked my brain, “When was she experimented on?”

“Around May 2012 they started.”

“Where?” I questioned again.

“Floy Woods Hospital, Central City. It had closed down by then but-”

Cisco took over from Cait, “It looks like their electricity was still on around that time.”

“Ollie, mind catching the rest of us up to speed?” Sara asked.

“Whenever I’m in a stressful or panicking situation, my mind always rolls onto Lian Yu. If she was in a similar state, surely she was thinking about where her trauma began. Or, if not that, a place that made her feel safe, her apartment, family home, ect. I’m hoping it's the former because the latter means she could be there at any point in time.”

“Right.”

“I’ll take Oliver and whoever needs to come on the waverider to check out his hunch. Hopefully we will find him then.”

“Let’s go! He hasn’t got time to waste,” I yelled.

“The rest of us will stay here and keep looking for clues,” Kara said.

I shot my way through the security detail in the building before carefully scouting out the rest. Heat signature saw three people in a singular room, one atypically warm. Barry. I bust my way through the door, easily taking out the two other people. I quickly cut off the restraints and picked off the metahuman dampeners.

“Ollie,’” Barry said, weak.

“Come on Bazza, let’s get you home,’ glad to have him back in my arms.

“What about her?”

“Sara should have taken care of her by now. She’ll be on the waverider, in cuffs.”

“G-good.”

“What did she do to you?”

“S-s-some s-s-s-”

Barry collapsed into Oliver, and Oliver cradled him in his arms. He carefully made it up to the roof where the waverider awaited. Barry needed treatment quickly.

They told the team to meet them back at star labs asap. Barry could be treated best there. I stepped off the waverider and quickly ran through star labs, trying to get to the cortex where the medbay was. Caitlin was already there, waiting to treat Barry.

I walked out of the lab, unable to see Barry like that. He’s going to be fine, I told myself. I went into the speed lab. I found some balls, and I began throwing them up and pinning them against the back wall with arrows.

Barry’s POV

My eyes fluttered open. I felt outstandingly weak.

“O-oliver? Where’s Oliver?”

“I’ll go get him,” Caitlin said.

“Gave us a real scare there Bear,” Joe said, concerned, “How are you feeling?”

“Weak, but I-i’ll be alright.”

“We got her by the way,” Cisco chimed in, “Locked away in iron heights.”

“Nice.”

“Barry,” Ollie said, making his entrance known.

“O-ollie?”

“Right here,” he said in his low, sugary voice.

“Thought you left,” I whispered lowly.

“Never, darling,” he said, equally as quietly.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” Joe said, leaving. Cisco and Caitlin followed.

Oliver wrapped his arms around me, “You idiot. My idiot.”

“I’m here, right? Nothing happened.”

“But it could have.”

“Hey, look at me. I’m fine, Ollie. We’re fine.” I leaned in for a kiss. He happily obliged.

“I just thought I lost you.”

“I thought I lost you, too.”

“Love you,” he smiled.

“Love you more.”

He let it slide. Just this once.

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bexterbex · 4 years

Text

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 71

Warning: 🥵🥵🥵

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. | Tag lists are closed | INBOX OPEN

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother, but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 71: The Answers You Were Seeking

The ship came into the hangar, so you were finally back on the Supremacy. You attempted to get up, but your legs were failing you. This amused your guard dog. He came face to face with you, “Does Kitten need help?” He seemed to enjoy teasing you.

You just held your arms out in a silent demand. Enjoying the feeling of him picking you up in his strong arms. Inhaling his natural scent as you tucked your face into his neck to hide from the outside world. You wanted to stay in your little bubble with him for as long as possible. “If I am an Empress, shouldn’t I be carried everywhere, always?” You imagined him carrying you.

He chuckled, “That can be arranged if you want it, but you other royal carriers might disappoint you.” You felt his hands shift, holding you more securely against his chest as he entered the hallway.

As much as you tried hiding your face and avoiding the people you could hear them shuffling out of the way and saying “Supreme Leader” and “Empress.” You just wanted him to look at you, him alone. You were his, and no one else’s. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding when you entered your chambers.

Instead of heading directly to the bedroom, he brought you into the dining room where dinner was waiting for you. It was at that moment that you realized that you had worked up quite an appetite. Your nerves from before your consummation had completely dissipated. He set you down, in front of a glorious-looking feast. “I thought that a little Kitten like you would be hungry after playing with her guard dog.” You could hear the smirk in his voice as he teased you.

You tried to put a poker face as you teased him back, “We didn’t exactly play.” No, you didn’t play, not per se.

“Didn’t you have fun,” it was more of a tease than a question. He knew the answer, but you two were just in a rather flirty mood.

“Oh, I had more than fun.” It’s true you did have more than just fun.

He leaned forward and scooped you up into his arms and onto his lap, “You’re too far away. You’re a Kitten that is meant to curl up on my lap.” He buried his head into the crook of your neck, delicately kissing the bruised skin there.

You chuckled at his neediness, “And who set me down there, hmm?” You buried your face into his chest. For the next hour, you spent time feeding each other, slowly with many kisses exchanged for bites of food. Once finished his hands roamed your body while your arms were wrapped around his neck. A hand made its way down to your bruised heat, testing the delicate flesh. You winced and whimpered at the feeling, still sore from you earlier escapades.

You could see Kylo contemplating your reaction to his touch. “We’ll have to get some bacta on that if we want to have any more playtime tonight.” He grazed his nose against you affectionately. He then carried you into the bathroom and set you on the vanity where he untied your dress, exposing you to him. He reached behind you and into the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of what you assumed to be bacta. It was a warm liquidy, gelly substance that he carefully applied to your bruised cunt.

You thought the sensation to be rather unpleasant. It wasn’t like lube, but more like aloe slathered everywhere down there making you feel rather gross and not quite sticky. “When should I be healed enough?” You had no idea how this worked. This was an entirely new concept for you.

He thought for a moment before responding. “An hour to two max. You aren’t bleeding and as far as I can tell you haven’t torn anything, just bruised and overstimulated. It’s best to let it work undisturbed so, for now, we will have to do something else.” He then carried you out of the bathroom with your dress still hanging open. His eyes seemed to dance across your marked flesh as he took you upstairs to the lounge where you both settled down on a couch.

His arms wrapped around you keeping your against him, hands teasing and ghosting over your bruises. Almost as if he was silently worshiping you, appreciating the offerings he had left all over your body. You had a couple of hours to kill before you went back to your rounds of lovemaking. “Can you tell me why you didn’t tell me that making me Empress meant that we were going to get married? Because you just up and left before explaining that.” You wanted some answers, you just hope you could tiptoe around him so you wouldn’t ignite his anger.

His fingers wrapped themselves in your hair, his palm against your skull, and his lips against your temple. “Because I thought you might say no, so I didn’t ask. I was worried you would leave me Kitten, and then I would have no one to guard.” You could hear the hint of fear and sadness still lingering in his voice. You were the only thing he truly had in this galaxy. You knew it would devastate you as much as him if either of you left. It was better to be bound to each other than to live without the other half to your soul.

You turned your head and tilted up to kiss him, “I’ll accept that answer.” More kisses before asking, “How did your fight with the scavenger go? I watched the transmission, but I want to know how you thought it went and what your feelings are.” You knew there was much more to the fight than what you saw in the transmission. You knew there was a bit more to their ‘relationship’ in general that he hasn’t told you yet.

He let out a deep sigh as he turned to look away from you, to look at the ceiling while lost in thought. “It wasn’t easy trying to find her. Her friends tried to stay one step ahead of us and it worked until it didn’t.” You now fully turned to face him.

“The fight itself wasn’t that difficult until the defective stormtrooper shot at me and distracted me. She stabbed me, but she did not hit any vital organs thankfully. Managing to impale me between my liver and stomach. But as you can see I am alright…” he then trailed off as if lost in thought.

You brought a hand up to caress his face, trying to bring his attention back. “But what about her motivation? She wanted you to join her, to leave me.” You almost wish the vision in front of your blaster was actually her, so you could have killed her instead of him. He has already seen lifetimes of battles and death, and you just wished you could take just one away from him, to save him from that pain.

His voice became slightly agitated, “Yes, its true she wanted him to join her, but I didn’t want to. The only person I want in the universe is you. She believed she knew Ben Solo, but she didn’t because he still wanted you, he would have never have gone with her if it meant losing you. She was lost in her own delusion. I, Kylo Ren, have always wanted you, and just you.” His confession made your heart soar. You rolled onto your side and rested your head against his chest. Showing him how much you cared.

“I’ve always wanted you too. It’s why I am here, it’s why I have stayed. I don’t want anyone else.” You felt his hand rub up and down your back, making you feel all warm inside. You hated that you needed to break this tender moment with another heavy subject, but if you didn’t do so now, you don’t know when you would be able to get the chance again.

“But what about your mother? She just wanted her son to come home.”

You could see his demeanor shift, this wasn’t a conversation he really wanted to have, “In the end, it was something I would always have to do. It was always going to be Ben Solo or myself. She knew this too. She lost her son long ago, this was just the final act. In the end, I think she realized that I am still her son. She and Han Solo may have been gifted Ben Solo, but Kylo Ren is the man they made.” You could hear the anger and hurt in his voice even if you weren’t looking at his face. The man lying next to you had killed both of his parents, to be with you, to make Kylo Ren triumphant.

Your memory recalled her words, her warning, “But what was she saying about this not being the last of it? What is coming?” To say you were worried was an understatement.

He peered down at you, his eyes were like black steel with his brows furrowed and his lips hard in a solid line, “I do not exactly know yet, but I feel it in the Force. Something powerful has awoken, and I need to stop it, to protect you.” His hands grabbed your face, “I will protect you. I had a feeling on Mustafar that a key might be there, I will find it. I will find out who it is, end them and I will protect you.”

His reassurances were sexy, something about his need to keep you safe was something that aroused you. Which wasn’t a great feeling at the moment, as your wetness mixed with the gell and made you uncomfortable. You whimpered at the feeling, your belly warm but your brain disgusted. This caused Kylo to reach between your legs, testing the tissue there and it seemed to pass inspection as there was no more pain. Only a pleasured gasp escaped your lips as his fingers stroked you. “Hmm, it seems like you are ready to go Kitten. Shall I go clean you up so we can play again?” You let out a whimper in response, as his fingers still roamed your heated flesh.

He picked you up and carried you down to the bedroom instead of the bathroom. He set you down on the bed and left you to walk into the bathroom. Your body did not like the separation from him, as you whined as he left you. He turned on a switch in your brain which caused you to be needy for his touch. He returned with a damp washcloth and proceeded to wipe away the bacta, his stokes and attention to detail caused your slick to almost gush out of you at the attention. You rolled your hips up trying to cause friction, this caused him to chuckle. “Needy aren’t we Kitten?” You heard a wet slap as the washcloth was abandoned on the floor.

He quickly lifted you, ridding you of the wrap dress entirely before his fingers began to massage your clit in circular motions. Your hips attempting to follow his rhythm. “Can we try something Kitten?” He seemed to be the coherent one between the two of you. All you could do was nod in response, words failing you.

His touch ceased on your clit, on your cunt all together, which caused you to cry out in frustration. But then he brought your wrist to his lips. His name was now being kissed and sucked like the many, many love bites that littered your body. Suddenly it was if your body didn’t need anything else. You cunt seemed to pulse in pleasure at the sensation. Reacting as if the most wonderful touches were being performed on you, but they weren’t. Kylo was just nipping and sucking on his name on your wrist. It was like the ultimate key to getting you to orgasm as it didn’t take long before you were seeing stars. Your back arching as you came, Kylo’s name on your lips. You felt like you were going to blackout again, but Kylo’s lips on yours brought you back from the edge of it.

It took you a few minutes to regain full consciousness again, full coherence. When you did you threaded your hands into those dark raven locks and deepened the kiss rolling your hips up to meet his, which somehow were now completely bare. In your lack of awareness, he stripped down to his nakedness and your hips rolled up to meet his hardening cock. “That was amazing,” you said rather out of breath.

A smirk graced your lover’s face, “Mmm I could tell.” His hand reached back down to your now messy cunt, “You are absolutely sopping wet Kitten.” He kissed you hard, as one of his fingers entered your wet hole, earning a moan from you. “I guess we shall have to do that often. But let’s see if you can return the favor.”

He flipped you both over; you were now straddling his thighs, his cock in front of you. You saw its angry red, swollen head, and the shine of pre-cum on the tip. You wanted to eat it rather than ignore it, but he brought his wrist to your lips. You were supposed to mark your name as he did his. And you complied.

Kylo hissed in pleasure at the sensation, his hips rolling up, his dick bouncing. You continued to lick, nibble, and suck on your name. You even went as far as tracing the letters with your tongue. If you thought you were a mess, then he was a disaster. Moaning and panting your name and nickname. His hips trying to find fiction for his cock. It didn’t take long for his hips to stutter and his cum to shoot out in pulses as he orgasmed. Your name a shout on his lips, his voice haggard. His cum painted both of your chests with the splattery aftermath.

You decided to be a lady and clean his semi-soft cock with your tongue before you traveled up to his chest, rubbing your breasts against his, smearing the milky white substance. When you were satisfied with the completion of yours and his painting you licked up the evidence from his chest before flopping down next to him and beckoning him to do the same. He took his sweet time as he licked up and down your breasts, making sure both nipples were absolutely glistening with saliva.

One of his fingers tested your hole again as he positioned himself over you. “Mmm Kitten, you will be the death of me,” he said as he pushed his index finger into you, to his knuckle. He hooked into you and teased your walls.

You moaned back. “Death by sex doesn’t sound so bad to me,” you mused as he plunged another finger in you, trying to get you ready to fully take him again. Without this prep, you would surely tear right in two.

You heard him chuckle, the sound you loved so much, the sound you were pretty sure you were the only one who got to hear it on such a regular basis. “I suppose you’re right. If I had to choose how to go out. Dying with my cock buried in your tight cunt would be the best way.” His voice was sultry now, a velvety sort of sex that could get you to do almost anything.

It didn’t take long for him to get you ready. Your body responds quickly because he was right, you were made for him. He lined himself up once more, teasing you with his engorged head, just pushing your flaps around and only putting the tip in. “Please, just fuck me Kylo. I can’t take it anymore,” you whined earning a quick deep thrust from his hips, fully sheathing himself in you. You threw your head back in pleasure and released a loud moan.

It didn’t take very long for him to pick up a steady rhythm of his hips snapping consistently. You attempted to help him by meeting his thrusts, but he was buried so deep inside you it didn’t really matter. “So… tight..” was what he struggled to get out as his thrusting deepened. You could feel his cock twitching between your walls of pleasure. Enjoying the feeling of being fully engulfed in your heat.

You attempted to respond to him, “So… BIG,” you shouted as he found that spot, your g spot. The head of his cock relentlessly pounding into it, causing you to see stars. His pace and power only picked up as he was locked on target. The sounds of skin slapping and panting filling up the room.

You could feel the orgasm starting, “Kylo…. I’m…” you couldn’t even get the words out. Your brain was a solid clump of mush. He was almost literally fucking your brains out.

His thrusts causing the bed to quiver. “Cum with me,” his voice was thick with ecstasy. You followed orders as your walls clamped around him, his hips stuttering. His panting and moaning almost overriding yours as you came together. Eventually both your hips stopped as you both exhausted your energy, reveling in the orgasm together. Kylo collapsed on top of you, keeping his dick inside you, something you didn’t know you liked until he did it the first time. Your cunt being very happy at not being left empty. Loving the feeling of the weight of his dick inside of you. You also enjoyed the post-sex lazy kisses that he seemed to give you. A silent thank you for giving him his orgasm like you were a goddess blessing his fields with rain.

The next few days were filled with work and plenty of sex. Adlez and Olivia-Rose were rather pleased and horrified at the state of you in the morning. Kylo and you had another few wonderful rounds of sex. Your body looked more bruised than alright, but you assured them that it was fine. Three days after your wedding night, Kylo got a call to return to Mustafar, something there needed his attention. Something you wished would just disappear.

A/N: So....I take it y’all like smut?

#kylo ren #kylo ren smut #a soul to mend his own #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order

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lordsavemepleaseineedhelp · 3 years

Text

Sept 25th 2016 faced with kings

by technoblade

I’d just like to start out by saying that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation behind all of this.

----So there I was, minding my own business, strolling down one of Erindale’s many packed streets towards the city walls. Nothing unusual. There was one critical detail I was unaware of, however- there was a very determined man on a horse charging up the street behind me. I became aware of this when his horse slammed into my back, knocking me down. Unfortunately my brief trip to the ground encountered an obstacle- a man carrying a delicate redstone instrument next to me. While both of us survived, his instrument didn’t.

----But that’s life. Granted, I was upset, but the man and his horse were already out of reach. I started to get back up when I heard a yell behind me. I turned, and it was the dude who’s instrument my fall had destroyed. He wasn’t happy. Well, perhaps more accurately, he was pissed.

“Hey!” he shouted, smashing his fist into my face.

----At the time, I was wearing a very nice helmet, which had been forged from quality iron by a reputable armorsmith in the town. I was very particular about my helmets; getting shot in the back of the head wasn’t one of my hobbies. But I liked being able to, well, breathe comfortably, so I never got a visor for it; the front of my face was exposed.

What I’m trying to say is, that punch hurt.

----I recovered gracefully, though, picking myself off the ground for the second time in less than a minute. He swung again, but this time I was ready- I dodged to the side and connected my elbow to the side of his chin with a satisfying crunch. He collapsed, and I heard a shout behind me.

“Stop!”

Oh boy.

----I turned, and a warden was running towards me. A bit of explanation: the city of Erindale, just like the rest of the world, is ruled by four kings. These kings are operators, which is to say, they don’t just rule the world; they control it. They have powers. It’d be more accurate to call them gods, but they call themselves kings, and nobody questions it. Despite their powers, they can’t see everything, so they maintain a force of thousands of peacekeepers to, well, keep the peace. Maintain order and all that. They’re called the staff, and they have a hierarchy. Among them there are wardens, then lieutenants, and finally generals; but they’re just pawns for the kings.

As a general rule, they’re all awful.

The crowd cleared, eager to see what was going on, and the warden ran up to me.

“Cities are non-combat zones, Ignazio. Surely a level 37 should know this."

“Hold on.” I responded. “He hit me first!”

----The man struggled to get up, but didn’t quite manage. I’d hit him hard. He still managed to protest from the ground, though.

“He broke my- my- my redstone!”

----The warden looked over, eyeing the crushed remains of whatever redstone contraption he had built. I hurried to explain myself.

"Now, hold on, I got pushed into him by some guy-”

“Yes, yes,” he cut me off. “Very likely. I see you already have two warnings for disruptive behavior.”

He’d already accessed the staff database. Which meant I wasn’t getting out of this easily.

“Now, hold on-” I began, but he wasn’t having it.

“This is your third infraction.” He glanced at my belt. “Give me your sword.”

“What?” I responded. I rather liked my sword- it was relatively new, and made of pure diamond. Diamonds weren’t easy to come by- even the generals, the highest ranking staff members, usually only had a few pieces. I’d had to work for quite a while to put together the funds to purchase this one.

“Your sword.” he repeated. “Give it to me.”

“This isn’t in the rules.”

“Are you questioning my decision?”

Great.

“No” I responded, taking my sword out. I gave it one last forlorn look before handing it to him.

----“Good. If you have any further questions about the rules, feel free to message me- I’m willing to help at any time.” He ran off. Douchebag. Abuses like these weren’t exactly rare among the staff. They made sure to never go too far- they needed us regular denizens of the world to produce their food- but they still did this fairly often. The only real threat they need to worry about is a global uprising against them, but that’s never going to happen. People know of the kings’ operator powers, and they aren’t eager to test them.

----Well, looks like I’d need a new sword. Thankfully I was already in Erindale- there was a fairly good prestige shop nearby, one accessible only to level 35s and higher. I was level 37- the result of months of work fighting others and gathering resources out in the wilderness. Most people at my level were in large guilds with massive castles and resources built up to help them level up easily, but I’d never been fond of the guild system. Guilds tended to be a little too proud; they seemed to be increasingly obsessed over maintaining the identity and prestige their names carried, and often fought other guilds just to keep their renown. Sure, these guilds were incredibly powerful- the world was dominated by them, mostly because the kings let them exist. But what good is power if you never use it for anything meaningful?

----I didn’t have nearly enough gold to buy a new diamond sword, but an iron one would do for now. I opened the doors to the shop and walked in. The place wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t especially packed either- while the place was popular, most weren’t leveled highly enough to enter. Most people in here were about as equipped as me- full iron armor- but a few had diamond armor pieces, and even fewer had enchantments. Enchantment tables were hard to come by- only a few existed in the world, and they were hoarded by the strongest guilds. One person stuck out, though- a young boy, perhaps 12 years old, wearing only leather. Two men in full iron had cornered him, and they didn’t seem friendly. I walked over.

----“Is there a problem?” I asked them. They ignored me. They must not have heard me. I grabbed the shoulder of the shorter one and pulled him aside. They noticed.

"Is there a problem?” I repeated.

The men glanced around. I quickly became aware that no staff members were present.

“This doesn’t concern you,” the larger one said.

“Actually, it does concern me. I’m going to need you to leave this boy alone.”

----The men exchanged a look. They weren’t impressed. They both reached for their swords, and I reached for mine. Then I remembered I didn’t have a sword. Whoops. They noticed this detail as well, and grinned. The large one partially unsheathed his sword, revealing enough iron to let me know that they weren’t bluffing.

----“You’ll have to shove your concern up your-” he began, stopping suddenly, and I heard the shop doors close behind me. I spun around. A lieutenant had just walked in- I’d never been so happy to see a staff member. I looked back at the men- they glared at me for a few seconds before letting go of their swords and walking off, grumbling. They knew better than to try anything with a staff member nearby. I looked at the boy, who was standing there quietly, clutching something in his hands.

----“What were those guys doing?” I asked.

----“They wanted my- they wanted- they wanted my helmet” he stammered. He raised the object he was clutching, and I glanced at it- then did a double-take as I realized it was enchanted diamond. But I didn’t get a chance to ask how he’d gotten it.

“Why did you help me?” he asked. “You didn’t have a sword. They would have killed you.”

I paused. I didn’t feel like admitting that I had forgotten about my lack of weaponry.

“I’m not a big fan of people abusing their power,” I answered.

“My brother was like that,” he responded. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t especially interested in learning about his brother, so I cut him off.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m- I’m Almon,” he said, after a pause.

“Look- I’ve got to go now. Add me as a friend- if they come back, just message me.”

----He nodded, and sent me a friend request. The friendship system was fairly useful- friends could message each other, see their statuses, and trace their location. I didn’t have many people on mine- I didn’t trust many people enough to let them know my whereabouts- but most people weren’t worth being friends with anyways. I accepted his request, and went off to the shop counter. I heard a familiar voice shout my name.

“Ignazio!”

----I turned, and saw Marrok approaching me. Marrok is one of the few people actually on my friends list- well, to tell you the truth, he’s the only one. In my defense though, Marrok is worth more than a hundred friends put together. I’d met him in the wilderness about a month ago when he was still relatively low level, and we quickly bonded. I taught him all the tricks I had, and he learned quickly- a bit too quickly. Eventually he’d gone off and joined a guild, the Knights of Oren, and he’d even passed me in level recently, much to my annoyance.

“Did you hear the news?” he asked.

“What?”

“Cael’s gone.”

----Now this was news. Cael was one of the four kings that ran the world, and while I didn’t know much about him, he was the only one I’d actually liked. From what I’ve heard, he had made numerous attempts to reform the staff to be less, well, abusive. He’d had limited success, but I respected him for trying.

----“Cael’s gone?” I repeated, stunned. “Why?”

----“Nobody’s sure. But his name disappeared off the staff list, and they haven’t made an announcement yet. A rumor’s going around that those that had him on their friends list see him marked as dead."

----“But he’s an operator. He can’t die.”

----We were interrupted by the deafening sound of drums. Everyone in the shop stopped what they were doing. We all knew what was happening. The kings, being operators, had the power to send a message across the world, booming it across the skies. This was known as an announcement, and they were pretty rare- I’d never experienced one before, though I’d heard about them. The drums stopped, and a deep voice seemed to emanate from the roof.

----“For the past decade, four kings have ruled over the realm. They have ruled with justice and honor. It is with regret that we inform you that Cael has resigned his role as king. We thank him for his service, and wish him well in his future endeavours.”

The voice faded. The shop was quiet.

“Well, that didn’t explain anything,” Marrok said, breaking the silence.

“It’s quite strange. Why would he resign?”

"Perhaps they’re lying.”

The lieutenant glanced at us. I decided that I’d talked with the staff enough for one day.

“Anyhow, Marrok, good seeing you- but I’ve got to go.” I said, hurriedly, and exited the shop.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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IT'S CHARISMA, 372

Certainly it can be launched. That's what you're addicted to.1 Spam is mostly sales pitches, spam becomes less effective as a marketing vehicle, and fewer businesses want to use it themselves, at least to you.2 The problem is the receptor it binds to: dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas.3 I'll start by telling you something you don't have to explain why. But you know the ideas are out there.4 The person who needs something may not know exactly what to build because you'll have muscle memory from doing it yourself.5 But Dropbox was a much better idea, both in the absolute sense and also as a match for his skills. For coming up with startup ideas on demand. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. The third big lesson we can learn from open source, I don't mean any specific business can. Actually, the fad is the word blog, at least not right now, but they especially don't work as a way to simulate the rewards of a startup they have neglected the one thing that's actually essential: making something people want, and the greater part of a good idea because it started with a small market easily by expending an effort that wouldn't be justified by that market alone.

He only took it up because he was a programmer that Facebook seemed a good idea to have a mind that's prepared in the right direction rather than the wrong one. I've described is near zero. Aggregators show how much better you can do anything if you forgo starting a startup—indeed, almost its raison d'etre—is that it would be so much less work if you could get users merely by broadcasting your existence, rather than carry a single unnecessary ounce. Was there some kind of salesperson. Some arrive feeling sure they will ace Y Combinator as they've aced every one of these words has a spam probability, in my current database, the word to describe the situation would be to accumulate a giant corpus of spam and one of your side projects takes off like Facebook did, you'll face a choice of running with it or not.6 Stripe is one of the keys to retaining their monopoly.7 We were saying: if you depend on an oligopoly, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition.

I do before x? Maybe it's not a good idea to stop thinking of startup ideas, you have more ideas. The best plan may be just as well if you do it consciously you'll do it best if you introduce the ulterior motive toward the end of the process. Starting a successful startup, the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. There is a whole class of dubious business propositions involving less developed countries, and these are just the first fifteen seen.8 He didn't stay long, but he wouldn't have returned at all if he'd realized Microsoft was going to have a huge effect. And they know the same about spam, including the headers.9 That's what was killing them. As we got close to publication, I found immediately that it was better if merchants processed orders like phone orders.

Well, math will give you more options to choose your life's work from.10 Fouls happen. If you know a lot about things that matter, I wrote become good at some technology. 84421706 same 0. 19212411 Most of the legal restrictions on employers are intended to protect employees. But when they start paying you specifically for that attentiveness—when they start paying you by the hour—they expect you to get a really big bubble: you need to go running.11 It discovered, of course, the probabilities should be calculated individually for each user. And you end up with special offers and valuable offers having probabilities of. 06080265 prices 0. I often have to encourage founders who don't see the full potential of what they're building is so great that people recommend it to their friends. I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector.12 A startup just starting out can't expect to excavate that much volume.13

And yet have you ever seen a Google ad? 9889 and. Think about what you have to do is give them a share of it. Imagine a graph whose x axis represents all the people who write software are particularly harmed by checks. Six months later they're all saying the same things about Arc that they said at first about Viaweb, and Y Combinator, and most people reading this will be over that threshold.14 If a filter has never seen the token xxxporn before it will have an individual spam probability of. As day jobs go, it's pretty sweet.15

If the present range of productivity is 0 to 100, introducing a multiple of 10 increases the range from 0 to 1000. We assumed his logo would deter any actual customers, but it did not. Even colocating servers seemed too risky, considering how often things went wrong with them. You build something, make it available, and if you can make it happen. You're done at 3 o'clock, and you can solve it manually, go ahead and do that for as long as you can, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? When one looks over these trends, is there any overall theme?16 Good ones, anyway. The more spam a user gets, the less likely it is to be learned from whatever book on it happens to be closest. I showed up in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900. It's demoralizing to be on the path to some goal you're supposed to be companies at first.

Yes and no. The malaise you feel is the same. Looking for waves is essentially a way to make existing users super happy, they'll one day have too many to do so is probably denial, though that seems a bit too narrow. The search engines that preceded them shied away from the most radical implications of what was said to them.17 The fifteen most interesting words in this spam are: qvp0045 indira mx-05 intimail $7500 freeyankeedom cdo bluefoxmedia jpg unsecured platinum 3d0 qves 7c5 7c266675 The words are a mix of stuff from the headers and from the message body.18 Do something hard enough to sell to is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for them. Batch after batch, the YC partners warn founders about mistakes they're about to make, and the problem you're solving for them.19

Notes

I realize I'm going to kill. Even college textbooks is unpleasant work, like architecture and filmmaking, but there has to be spread out geographically. Most explicitly benevolent projects don't hold themselves sufficiently accountable. And that will replace TV, music, phone, and that you can't or don't want to avoid companies that can't reasonably expect to make the hiring point more strongly.

Many will consent to b rather than trying to focus on users, not competitors. Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. Giant tax loopholes defended by two of the movie, but the nature of an audience of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup founder or investor I don't know which name will stick.

If you try to go behind the rapacious one. Put rice in rice cooker.

Something similar happens with suburbs. Perhaps the most important factor in the mid 20th century.

The point of failure would be very hard and doesn't get paid to work not just the raw gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of computer security, and are often compared to what used to say that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality.

Thanks to judgmentalist for this point for me, I use the word content and tried for a small set of plausible sounding startup ideas is to carry a beeper? If Congress passes the founder visa in a time. The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but essentially a startup was a test of investor behavior. It's a strange feeling of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

Which is not so good. If you're doing something that doesn't seem an impossible hope.

Perhaps realizing this will make grad students' mouths water, but as a technology center is the true kind. Not in New York the center of gravity of the 1929 crash.

They shut down a few months later Google paid 1. We're sometimes disappointed when a startup at a large organization that often creates a rationalization for doing it with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from. That can be done at a time.

E-Mail. But we invest in a domain is for sale. University Bloomington 1868-1970. In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a screw top would have met 30 people he knew.

Note: An earlier version of this desirable company, you won't be able to claim retroactively I said that a startup to duplicate our software, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of business, A P supermarket chain because it doesn't cost anything.

Ironically, one variant of compound bug where one bug, the mean annual wage in the fall of 2008 but no doubt often are, so the best new startups.

Success here is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach them how to value valuable things. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in college is much smaller commitment than a Web terminal. Yahoo was their customer. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day by encouraging people to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors doing so.

I swapped them to act. I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about.

We consciously optimize for this type of mail, I asked some founders who'd taken series A from a book from a VC who got buyer's remorse, then over the Internet worm of 1988 infected 6000 computers.

Mueller, Friedrich M. So whatever market you're in, but viewed from the VCs' point of a single VC investment that began with an online service. 2%. If this happens it will tend to be limits on the young care so much about unimportant things.

Some introductions to other knowledge. You should probably be multiple blacklists. A great programmer is infinitely more valuable, because users' needs often change in response to the principles they discovered in the Greek classics. Which helps explain why there are some good proposals too.

Ed. We didn't swing for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same in the sense of the economy. Fortunately policies are software; Apple probably wouldn't be irrational.

I was insane—they could bring no assets with them. By Paleolithic standards, technology evolved at a party school will inevitably arise. In fact, if you did.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Eric Raymond, Pete Koomen, and Maria Daniels for their feedback on these thoughts.

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docfuture · 4 years

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Princess, part 9

[This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates were theoretically biweekly–more realistically, I’m going to try to get the next one out by early June.]

Previous: Part 8

Senses were funny things. You could use them without having any idea how they worked, or even that you had them. Ask most people how many senses there were and they would tell you 'five.' Then ask about balance and you might get a frown, a thoughtful look, or a rationalization, depending on the person. Even after Flicker had acquired Database access, it had taken her quite a while to realize that there were senses she had that humans didn't have, or didn't use quite the same way. When she did, she'd talked to Sealord, who most people thought of as the 'ruler' of the Deep Kingdoms--the truth was way messier, but Sealord was resigned to the human preference for simple fictions over complicated facts. He was a giant squid who could shapeshift into human form for communication and diplomatic purposes, and he'd been willing to indulge Flicker's curiosity with several long conversations about sensory differences. That had helped her appreciate how profoundly senses affected thinking, and how some things she found strange about normal humans were natural consequences of having different senses. Flicker had a mass sense. Most humans didn't. They had to estimate it by sight, touch, or experience. That felt weird to her. Doc had confirmed that the only reason humans didn't injure themselves as a result even more often than they did was a significant amount of effort put into engineering their environment around the problem. She didn't actively use it much while stationary. The resolution wasn't great except near her fingertips, and even then, sight was better if the light was adequate. Mass sense didn't connect to her mind the same way vision did, so it was laborious to use it to read carved letters or braille. Intervening mass made it a little fuzzier, but it still let her tell if someone was right on the other side of a door that might need to suddenly disappear, or find a breaker panel even if some idiot had covered it. It really came into its own when she was moving--the faster the better. It was at the core of her reflexes for maneuvering and collision avoidance. It worked in the dark, couldn't be blocked, and always let her know which way was down. It also let her sense things that were quite far away, if they were massive enough. Like the Sun. And the Moon. That made it better than sight right now. On flat ground or water when she was running around on Earth, her velocity vector was necessarily tangent to Earth's surface. If she wanted it to be pointing at the Moon when she jumped, that meant the Moon had to be on the horizon. Except it looked like it was above it to eyes, because air bent light. Her visor could compensate, but she didn't need it. She could see the Moon's mass. She was at the right place, at the right velocity. It was the right time. She jumped. Down. Jumping up wasn't safe. That was a bone-deep reflex for Flicker, ingrained for longer than she could remember. The only safe direction to jump was towards a large mass. If she got out of momentum transfer range of the ground--about 50 meters--it was scary enough. She had practiced that by jumping back and forth between canyon walls, and the vastly decreased ability to change her vector had been frightening and disturbing, but endurable. Up, at high velocity, was not. But down... Down worked. Flicker jumped down toward the surface of the Moon at five percent of the speed of light, trailing plasma as she left Earth's atmosphere behind. ***** Yesterday. Doc leaned back in the chair at his workstation and took a sip of coffee. "Still a lot of failure modes," he said. "Some because of the number of variables we have to extrapolate rather than interpolate. And more from mechanics we don't even know about yet. But if that wasn't true, you wouldn't need Speedtest. All your support will be ready for tomorrow." "Do you think I should wait longer?" asked Flicker. "That's a decision no one but you can make. You've done all your preparation and backups. The Database says your judgement is within appropriate limits. If you think you should wait, then wait. I won't argue. But no, I don't think it would necessarily help. Your disinclination to delay further is reasonable. The world doesn't stand still--waiting for a perfect time can be a trap. Speedtest was always going to be risky." "You don't think Journeyman's Diviner data was relevant?" "I wouldn't go that far. I have been taking precautions in case someone's been waiting until you're gone to try triggering a nuclear war or something similarly idiotic." "Oh. Any further news from him?" "Last word was that he had been unable to contact anyone else helpful," said Doc. "Which is understandable. Trying to use divination to control a global level timing decision might be causally unstable--and a positive feedback loop in either back-propagation or future causal reinforcement could get quite nasty for them." "What's your estimate for success chances?" she asked. "DASI won't give me anything quantitative. Says it's an overinterpretation hazard." "Then I'm afraid you won't find mine very useful," said Doc. "It's too dependent on judgements you'll be making on the spot, after you have more data. So I'm not willing to commit to numbers either." A deep breath. "How about something qualitative?" "Very well. I think you're almost certain to arrive at the Moon physically able to collect data, quite likely to make it back to Earth still mobile, reasonably favored to return technically alive, and have a decent chance at avoiding serious injury. All return possibilities drop to near zero if you get an abort call from Breakpoint and don't listen." "Technically alive means I don't have to try a mass template restore to survive?" "Or need isotope exchange to avoid the death of your physical body from extreme radioactivity or an unlivable isotope balance. Your powers do not appear to confer complete immunity to nucleosynthesis. That's why I beefed up the force fields on the rad-hardened regen tank and moved it next to the exchanger and the cooling channels for the isotope burner. I don't think it's the most likely scenario--but it is one that can be ameliorated by proper preparation. Possibly. It still wouldn't be pleasant." Flicker snorted. "Well, duh. We planned it out to find the unpleasant surprises while we're ready. How about data?" "The Volunteer already dropped off the sensors and repeaters, and you have a robust set of communication backups for interim reports and emergencies. Get back reasonably intact and you can update details in person." She looked at him. He wouldn't say 'Be careful'. But he knew how she felt about the data. That was pure Doc. That was... okay. Flicker smiled. "All right," she said. ***** Now. Fear was normally an emotion Flicker could remove to a distance by speeding up her mind--it was a thing of chemistry or memory. Not her problem with heights, though. That was her speed mind subconscious letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that Something was Wrong. She was ready for it. She was less ready for the cascade of alarms and less identifiable information from speed mind and body that started piling up as soon as she left most of the atmosphere behind. They roughly mapped to itchiness, tingling, and discomfort in places she hadn't even known she had, and whose topology and even dimensionality was not immediately obvious. But she was in an environment she'd never experienced before--a vacuum, far from mass, with significant velocity toward her destination--so she'd expected something new. She sped her mind up more to catalog everything and record her impressions for the Database. That beat anxious waiting during what would otherwise be a subjectively interminable coast phase of her journey to the Moon. She also tried to interpret what she could. One existing alert that was usually omnipresent whenever she moved had gone silent--okay, that was hazardous mass flow, since she was now moving through vacuum. Never mind that several other alarms were complaining about said vacuum--not that it was a vacuum, but that it was the wrong kind. The constant01 was too low, constant02 was too high, several somewhat less important constants were nevertheless far outside tolerances, and many things wanted recalibration. And there was a nagging feeling: Her untranslated01 was locked down by override, so constant03 was too high--a potential hazard; did she want to start the override reset process so she could restore constant03 to default? A least within--okay, same range as her momentum transfer, so--50 meters? Puzzle her way through the correspondences. Constant03 matched the scale factor for the electromagnetic quantum. She wasn't sure what her untranslated01 was, but it wanted to turn itself on and change Planck's constant to some unknown default, everywhere within 50 meters. Nooooo, I don't think so. A bit of fear was back. Flicker noted a few things that might become relevant to her tests, then started carefully putting up mental hazard tape around new internal regions of Don't Want to Mess With That. ***** Closing in on the Moon, finally. Flicker's visor told her she was approaching at about 15,000 kilometers per second, or 0.05c. But she didn't really need it as long as she was going reasonably fast. As part of her mass sense, she could tell her velocity relative to any massive frame of reference. And the sense was much sharper when she wasn't damping and compensating for a constant bombardment of passing air. Her velocity was fine--direction was nearly straight down towards a spot close to the center of the visible disc of the Moon. And her inertial damping and momentum transfer also felt crisper. Could she get a frame lock before she landed? Time to find out. Feet first, arms extended above her head, feeling for that welcome mass. 100 meters. 3 more microseconds. 55 meters. Approaching 50... Frame lock! Hello Moon! Decelerate. Ten billion g's straight, with a frame locked momentum dump on top. It hit the moon like a tiny pulse of gravitational waves. Slower, slower, nanoseconds rushing by. Under 100 km/s. Toes touched, still decelerating. Flex the knees, swing her arms down, and... stationary! Distance 0, velocity 0. She stood. Damn, solid ground felt good. And she'd managed it without any plasma or explosions--just a spray of dust as the lunar surface rebounded from the momentum transfer. She sent a landing summary com dump to the nearest repeater, and received prerecorded congratulations from DASI in return. She tilted her head back and looked up at the Earth. "Hey Doc," she sent. "No crash. No crater. No fireball. No problem. The Flicker has landed." She didn't wait for a reply before she started accelerating. That would take more than 2 seconds, and she had work to do. Data to gather. ***** Setup. Move. Test. Send data and analyze. Flicker fell into a pleasant rhythm. The lack of atmosphere made everything crisper--it was easier to distinguish more distant details with her mass sense when there wasn't air in the way. The solid frame lock was a joy; the absence of things like buried cables, basements, sewers, and other man-made voids meant a more assured connection to the ground, and the lack of life and air meant she didn't have to juggle side effects. This let her change direction far more easily if she didn't also change speed--sharing momentum with an intangible 'Moon hug' allowed her to dissipate less energy staying on the surface, even though it was smaller than the Earth and she was moving faster. A lot faster. And she confirmed something interesting about her mass sense. The velocity part was not a side effect. She wasn't sensing mass so much as spacetime curvature, including all the changes caused by her velocity. She could use relativity to see. It showed her an odd universe--but it didn't get any more odd when she sped up, and all her regular senses did. It let her aim--without using her visor--at something she was approaching obliquely at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and still hit it with a tossed object. (A tiny one--she didn't want to cause too big a fireball.) And the speed measure she sensed wasn't a thing of distance over time, or even a direct comparison to light. It was a scale factor--a number--and a very practical one. Gamma. What was gamma? Gamma was the most useful thing to know about your speed when you were going real fast. When relativity wasn't just noticeable, but dominant. Most popular explanations of special relativity described strange effects that became apparent when you were traveling close to the speed of light. Distances got shorter, time slowed down, masses increased. But how much shorter? Gamma. How much slower? Gamma. Increased by what factor? Gamma. How did you find it? Well, if you knew the velocity of an object you could calculate it: It was 1 over the square root of 1 minus v squared over c squared. But Flicker didn't need to calculate it. She could feel it. A whole bunch of physics equations had a simple form that was really a low speed approximation, and more complicated accurate form for fast things that used gamma. Or the Lorentz factor, if you were being formal or talking to radiation people who were twitchy about high energy photons of the same name. Standing still was gamma 1, and it went up from there. All the way up, because it made something very clear about the speed of light. No matter how close you got to it, you were still infinitely far away, because the speed of light was infinite gamma. Another thing it made clear was how relatively slow she had to go on Earth. Her jump to the Moon had been at 0.05c, which corresponded to a gamma of 1.00125 or so. Her normal Earth speed limit was 0.2c--gamma 1.021. She moved between tests at 0.8c--gamma 1.667, and the effects were quite noticeable. The whole Moon was flattened--but only in the direction she was traveling. Every object was flattened or stretched, and the light coming from them made them look twisted. For the trial run for the final speed test she'd gone up to 0.96c--gamma 3.571. That turned the Moon into a modestly thick disc, with her constantly cresting the edge. And pushing down hard to stay on the surface. How hard scaled with both velocity squared and gamma squared. The frame lock let her do it, but 60 billion g's down was still a lot. Sensors and her visor had started picking up some unusual effects, so Doc and the Database were analyzing them back on Earth while she finished up everything else. One thing that had turned out to be a bigger problem than expected was dust. Not regular surface dust, which Flicker was careful not to disturb unnecessarily, but the tiniest particles from the interplanetary dust cloud, sifting down to the surface of the Moon unhindered by air. They weren't collectively anywhere near as dense as air, but they were too small to avoid, too common to ignore, just fast enough to replenish cleared paths, and too isolated and erratic to deflect with her usual flow and plasma tricks. Her inertial damping kept them from causing much direct damage, but her space modified costume was rapidly becoming radioactive, and they had the potential to cause other problems. She finished the last of the extended tests, then slowed down to breathe. She was running low on oxygen, so she topped off her small, hardened supply from the tank in the preplaced stash. She could go without breathing for quite a while if she had to, but it wasn't fun. The tank and its backup were in somewhat less radiation and shock tolerant containers, and that looked like it might become a problem. She sent off her preliminary test assessment to Earth, then browsed Database inferences while she waited for Doc's reply. "I concur with the plasma-cleared torus for the final run," said Doc. "It will stay dust-free for long enough. Go as fast as you feel safe. I won't be able to talk to you, but I'll be monitoring. Don't worry about anything else. Good luck, and see you soon." Flicker smiled. At last. The Speedtest grand finale. How fast dare I go, with nothing in the way? I shall run and find out. She felt as free as she'd ever been. ***** First great circle circuit, deliberately kicking up Moon dust at gamma 3.5. Done in 38 milliseconds for the Moon, 11 for her. Second circuit, turning the dust into a continuous plasma tunnel blasting outward to repel or vaporize anything new that might wander into her way. Back around to begin the third circuit. And deep inside her mind, she decided something else. There were no intelligent beings closer to her than Earth, over a light second away. There was no one else who could think inside her light cone, and wouldn't be, for over a second, unless something very strange--and very damning--happened. She had projectiles ready, just in case. But she didn't think anything would. Because she wasn't just testing, she was hunting. "That's a decision no one but you can make," Doc had said. With more implications than were obvious. She could go for a safer final test--or push to the limit. And no one, no one, could know in advance. She took counsel of the plasma noise, random fluctuations. Unique to this worldline and unpredictable. And made her choice. She did not forget the thin threads that connected her to humanity, even while she was out here, far enough away that no one else would get hurt. She remembered silly bits and pieces of life, collected haphazardly like precious mementos, that made her as human as she could be. Vacuum calls to me Many universes sing I dance in this one She started accelerating. ***** Gamma 20, circling the Moon. A circuit would take just 2 milliseconds for her--if she stopped accelerating, which she didn't. Just under 37 milliseconds for the Moon. That wasn't going to change change much anymore, she was already over 0.99c. She had fully clamped down on her body with her power, preserving every nucleus in every atom of her body in its relative local position, regardless of now-forbidden chemistry. The electrons were still free to move, and did, streaming outwards, carrying entropy that now had few other ways to escape. New electrons kept arriving, pulled by her increasing positive charge, but they were expelled in turn. She moved in a very strange realm, twisted and Doppler shifted, full of increasingly furious radiation from solar wind and residual plasma particles encountered at massive speed. But they were essentially standing still. The speed was all hers. They were just in the way. ***** She was hunting a probability manipulator, possibly an Oracle, certainly one that had access to visions of the future--and one who wished her ill. Whoever had sent Hermes, so carefully timed to hit her at a weak point. And possibly given her an extra push to sabotage her relationship with Journeyman. But they had done nothing traceable. Yet. She was giving them an opportunity to change that. A very tempting one. ***** Gamma 70. Almost 0.9999c. Tiny second order effects were becoming large, and previously unnoticed third order ones were becoming noticeable. The frame-locked centripetal acceleration downward, keeping her near the surface as she speed skated over the Moon, had become massive, and those tiny effects were generating heat. She was entropy dumping it into the lunar surface at a significant rate now. ***** How much could an Oracle see? They weren't perfect; they couldn't be. And how fast could they see a new future, if it changed? Doc's time loop theories set limits on that. So many theories, which ones were right? Who could know? But there were predictions in common. And there was something special about the fifty ciruit limit for the final run of Speedtest. It would extend over an interval long enough for light--and causality--to get from Earth to the Moon. Barely. But not long enough for a round trip. So an Oracle might see a beginning of Speedtest from Earth, and the right time and place and worldline to send a probability manipulation pulse to affect the end. Or they could see an end, and the time and place to join that Earth. But not both. ***** Gamma 707. 0.999999c. Near full ionization--the electrons couldn't keep up as she pulled them from the ground and the surrounding plasma. Her body sent a banshee wail of synchrotron radiation outward as she pulled down at trillions of g's to stay on the Moon. Her visor had died; nothing electronic could hope to survive the flux she was sending out now. But it wouldn't be much longer. ***** She hadn't told Journeyman. She hadn't told Doc. She hadn't told DASI. She'd made her choice in a small part of her high speed mind intended for diagnostics. It was the right size for a human-like mind, if not remotely human shaped. It was enough. She'd set her trap. She was the trap. Her would-be nemesis could take what looked like their best shot, localizing themselves to a particular Earth worldline--but not if they wanted to see how it all turned out. Flicker bared her teeth. ***** Gamma 2886. 0.99999994c. A complete circuit would take less than 13 microseconds subjective because of time dilation. An outside observer would measure her mass at 144 metric tons. Over 10^22 Joules of kinetic energy, more than 3,000 gigatons of TNT. She was still moving stably, but the side effects were just becoming too much. Flicker stopped accelerating, holding her speed steady as she approached the far side of the Moon before her planned deceleration. She hadn't quite managed the full fifty circuits, but she didn't want to tear the Moon apart, and the strip of ground under her had already absorbed a massive amount of energy from her entropy dumping. She had her data--it was time to slow down. Too bad. Her trap didn't seem to have-- Her entropy dumping weakened, then stopped completely. Internal alarms blared and she started heating up. Quickly. There it was. Got you, you bastard. Now to stay alive. First, get around to the far side before her temperature rose too-- Her frame lock started to waver, releasing a blast of energy when she compensated. Shit. Hang on. Earth should not have line of sight to what was about to happen. Let go of non-essentials. Dump them--she could still connect to everything inside her 10 centimeter inertial damping range. Costume, hood, remaining projectiles, now-useless visor, hair. Blast them away at 50 million K. Up and forward. Push out energy and momentum. That got her over the horizon. The frame lock broke. Facing almost directly away from Earth. Yeah, that was how the bastard had planned to get rid of her--off into interstellar space at relativistic speed with no hope of survival, let alone return. Her regular acceleration limit was 10 billion g's. She needed way more to stay near the Moon at this speed, and had no time to slow down. But there was a way. Curve around, heating up. Torrents of particles inside her, pair production from pushing too hard. Heat. Pain. Alarms. She altered her path slightly. Dust was the least of her worries. But one last push, and she could slow down enough to stay near the surface. The oldest way. Lithobraking. This is going to hurt. Flicker, still moving at a gamma of over 2700, ran head on into a mountain at the edge of the South Pole--Aitken basin. Discontinuity. ***** Shattering fragments of intruding nucleons. Neutrinos. Angry photons, disintegrating every nucleus that wasn't hers. More neutrinos. Sprays of high-mass, short-lived hadrons. Even more neutrinos. Energy and entropy with nowhere to go pulling quarks from the vacuum. Heat and pain. Alarms screaming, distantly. Was she below the Hagedorn temperature yet? Enough. Radiate ALL the neutrinos. They could get out without running into anything, unlike everything else. Keep curving around, the Moon was still there. At least ahead of her. What was behind her was less important. Push entropy into a smaller and smaller region inside. Concentrate the heat. Keep pumping out neutrinos. Until Flicker finally cooled, and slowed to a crawl. Still intact. Well, relatively cool. Under a billion kelvins. And a relative crawl, gamma 3 or so. And relatively... wait. Why was she more massive? Her nuclei were still there--at least the same elements, she had that locked in. Was it foreign matter in her lungs and gastrointestinal tract? No... Some nucleons had started fusing again after photodisintegration, run through the CNO cycle, and the resulting helium was now merrily alpha-processing its way up the curve of binding energy. Reassuringly normal physics, if not the sort she generally wanted inside her body. But it was very low density. Not enough to explain-- Oh. "Your powers do not appear to confer complete immunity to nucleosynthesis." That weird feeling and extra mass was a vast excess of r-process heavy isotopes left from neutron bombardment by the fragments of the mountain she'd run through. She was... Gods and monsters she was a mess. Excessively radioactive, and going to stay that way until the millisecond isotopes decayed. Technically alive didn't look like it was happening soon, even after electrons came back. Time to try for 'back to Earth still mobile'. No way to dump heat but radiation, so she radiated as she pushed down to stay on the last arc of her great circle curve. She sensed the Earth clearly, the welcome mass of home. Finally, it rose above the horizon and she could let go. Jump back down to Earth. Goodbye, Moon. It was nice meeting you. Sorry about the mess. ***** Flicker spared a microsecond for a hunt assessment as she plummeted back towards Earth, radiating copiously. Things didn't look good for fast pursuit of whoever had hit her with the attack. Most of her normal senses were down--her flesh body had turned into a strangely rigid plasma, a bare framework for what might eventually be something humanlike again. Her com options were down to glorified handwaving and signal cannons, and even if she could get triangulation data quickly after getting back to Earth, the list of things wrong catalogued by her speed mind was more than a human mind could comprehend. It was hard to set up alarm flood handling for body parts you didn't know you had, and those early itchy complaints about lack of calibration had had a point. At least some of the alerts seemed to be consequences of self-repair. They kept her mind off damage, and pain. Silver linings... Her untranslated01 was being passive-aggressive about altering Plank's constant again, with damage mitigation suggestions implying that if she was insistent on using neutrino cooling in such an (untranslated) (untranslated) environment, it would help. Or maybe she was just projecting; she would be snarky in the kind of alarms you generally only saw after ignoring many 'No! Stop! Unsafe!' ones. Sorry, still no messing with Plank's constant. Flicker was going to have enough trouble drag braking by momentum transfer in the upper atmosphere. Even if she just used it to buffer her inherent deceleration, it would be unstable for induced torque, and she would have to add energy to keep from spinning violently. How much? She didn't know; she hadn't planned on coming home quite this fast. And she really wanted to limit her energy dissipation to kilotons instead of megatons. She was going to reenter over the Pacific, but pulling a super-Tunguska on the way down would be obnoxious. ...and the atmosphere was coming up quick, she could feel the flux increasing and oh, what a great time for her vertigo to come back. Because her eyes weren't working, she was using mass sense to see and flux rates to maneuver and that didn't help with dizzyness. Drag, trying to stabilize on the thin upper atmospehere, working as well as she'd expected: Badly. Torque. Starting to spin. Shit. Counter it. Shitshit too much. Tumbling on a different axis. Slow it. Okay. Plasma everywhere, had she dumped enough? Gamma 1.12, not yet. But the air was thick enough now she could start using her old inertial damping flow tricks, as long as she didn't care how much she heated up, so she stopped trying to fight it, just smoothed it out, let her momentum drop the old fashioned way. Okay, it looked like it was going to be megatons after all, but spread out, and hopefully not too many... Lower atmosphere, and surface of the ocean coming up. Whoops, mass flow went up, what? Ah, water, she was coming in through a thunderstorm, not ideal, but--wait, scratch that, she was insanely radioactive in Earth terms and she was about to hit salt water, fresh water was better to slow down... Down to about 0.07c, and she didn't manage to frame lock until she was within 40 meters, bad timing with waves, but she could entropy dump again! Relief! She could finally--okay that was a lot of heat, she'd caused some fusion coming in, but it was just thermal X-rays, mostly, and... This landing did cause a fireball. But she'd made it back. Now she needed to readjust her perspective to Earth-appropriate energy levels and start moving, because she was still radiating, a lot of it was neutrons, and the shock wave from her landing might-- Oh crap, what's that? Density voids beneath the surface within a few kilometers, going to get hit by her impact shockwave. What was... Whales. She was seeing the air inside the lungs of whales with her density sense. Were they far enough away to survive? Maybe. Anything else? What was that, up in the sky? Something human-sized, coming in at just over orbital speed--wait, she'd know that shockwave anywhere, no one else flew like that, it had to be the Volunteer. Flicker sped over to just in front of him and slowed down enough for him to see--millisecond timescales, but how to talk? She couldn't see, and her com was ancient history. He could see. And she could write. Plasma letters in the air over the ocean. She didn't need his help, but others did. Shockwave. Can't stay. Save the whales. He could get details from Doc, and it was time for her to go. She dared not remain stationary for more than a few milliseconds yet--she was entropy dumping just to get down to solar surface temperatures, neutron activation was a thing, she needed some radiation time before it would be safe to head for Doc's, and salt water was not the best place for it. South. 0.05c. Her flow compensation in air was still shaky, not up to her usual standards, and she'd scattered plenty of high energy plasma around already. ***** Antarctica. Ross ice shelf. Nothing but fresh water and dry air. A good place to cool down, and as good as she was going to get to radiate neutrons. Slow loops, down at a thousand kilometers per second, slow enough to be ghosting--if she hadn't been glowing hot. Her path was predictable, and she finally heard a signal--an orbital pulse maser from Doc, sending coded bits she could feel directly. Low bandwidth, noisy, but 'Threat gone'? Had her attacker escaped already? Anger kindled. But she wasn't thinking clearly beyond immediate needs, too many things were still wrong--store the anger, there were places for it, places that wouldn't get completely cleared when she could finally sleep again. She would remember, regardless. Seconds stretched out. But fresh water could absorb neutrons with very little persistent radiation, and her nuclei were settling down a bit--excited isomers and excess neutrons were making their way out, electrons were returning long enough to start accumulating, and her radiation profile was slowly dropping to the point where she might be able to actually stop somewhere with appropriate cooling. More pulses. 'Pumps on. Shields up. Isotope exchanger ready.' Doc was prepared. And she needed that exchanger. She was still clamped down hard, and had to stay that way, because she had too many nuclei that were too neutron heavy to be stable--and letting them decay would change them to different elements, and, say, carbon changing to nitrogen inside her DNA would be A Problem when she let the chemistry in her body restart. To say nothing of all the tritium. She needed time in the shop before she could even consider restarting biology and life. A long time. Hours, possibly days. Not pleasant, not optional. And she'd cooled and radiated enough. Equilibrium decay temperature was manageable. Time to head home. ***** Back at Doc's, inside the force fields that protected everything else from her. The pumps did their work bringing fresh water in range for entropy dumping, so she could cool without moving. Isotope exchange started, hands and eyes first, so she could see and type for the rest. She still had many questions. But she'd survived Speedtest, discovered so much, run up to gamma 2886, 0.99999994c, weathered the attack, and made it home. Soon she would be able to start recording data again, and ask some of those questions. Her attacker appeared to have escaped. But they had been triangulated, from the timing of the attack on the Moon along with signals extracted from the Omniresonators at the Database nodes. There was a distinctive signature--and the attacker had fled, immediately, to another dimension, without waiting to see if their attack succeeded. They feared her survival. Flicker lived. And she would not forget.

Next: Part 10

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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enkisstories · 4 years

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Just like them (part 13)

Still the kitchen in Gavin’s apartment, still November 18th

“He’s…” Gavin started and already Tina blinked due to the unexpected use of a pronoun other than “it” for an android out of her friend’s mouth.

“I’m…” Daniel said only a split-second afterwards and then both men stopped, because why should they take it upon themselves to explain anything, if that other guy could take the blow just as well? Come on, asshole, make yourself useful!

Tina looked from one to the other. At his point Jin forced himself between the adults, dragging Lucky behind him as if he was a teddy bear. The adolescent cat didn’t seem to mind. Being the center of the attention and getting all the treats definitely beat playing surrogate dad for three kittens!

“Can we have fish sticks today, mommy?” the boy crowed. “With ketchup!”

Gavin jumped up and picked his phone up from the kitchen table. “On it, junior!”

“Order salad with the finger food! Do you hear me, Gavin? Salad! Three!”

Covering the phone’s microphone with his hand, Gavin replied: “Geeze, Tina, are you sure you can manage three salad on your own?”

“One for you, me and Jin each!” the officer growled back, but Gavin only laughed.

Now Daniel rose, too, and in the same fluent movement took the phone off the human.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Shhh! I’m making a call here!”

Let’s see… Subject 1: “Reed, Gavin”… Territorial, competitive, also a bit of a human cat. Will want cuddles while chewing on a still living spider. Current mood: surprisingly outstanding.

<<<Error… error… no path found for “surprise”>>>

Shut up, Cyberlife. I AM surprised, deal with it.

Add_to_simulation: Subject 2: “Chen, Tina”… Introvert, female version of subject 1, also asian, so highly likely not to be able to digest milk products, will enjoy them anyway just BECAUSE. Current mood: Existing (=default)

Add_to_simulation: Subject 3 Reed-Chen, Jin… A little Gavin, bright mind, easily excited, still believes the best of everyone. Current mood: Happy, but exhaustion slowly setting in.

Aaaaand… Start_simulation

>>>Results in, save to database Y/N

>>>Y and open file

Ew, really, Gavin? Tuna & pineapple? Nah, that’s close, but not quite correct. Tina gets the pineapple crime, Gavin is even worse. And not that literally a cat either.

>>>Save changes & close file

“Yes, Reed here, customer ID 393804. We’d like one large shrimps & tangerine pizza, one large pizza Hawaii with extra chicken, one Captain’s Galley kiddie meal with the octopus rings, a lava cake, a small german cheesecake and an apple turnover with raisins. What salads do you have? I’m getting nagged to order one, is there a low on leaves alternative, maybe? Tomato salad, you say? Yeah, that might be a good compromise, we’d like three of those, please. For drinks a large rootbeer extra frothy, a large rootbeer licorice, a medium apple juice with a straw, plastic… What? No, I wasn’t insulting you. I didn’t even KNOW you were an android. I just want a plastic straw for our kiddo. It’s bad for the environment? You only have metal ones? Okay, one of those then, but it better fucking glows! Oh, and throw in a small thirium smoothie, whatever that is supposed to be. Not all of us are fortunate enough to snag a job in the snack industry… or any job at all. Yes, that was all. Thank you!”

Daniel turned around to where Gavin stood gape-jawed.

“How… how did you do that?!” the man gasped. “I mean, I have a pretty good idea how, but… HOW?”

So it wasn’t just the Connors with their fancy crime scene analyzing software. Even the simplest Cyberlife devices seemed to be able to see right through a human. And with their safety locks off, what would hold the deviants back, prevent them from turning the tables and enslaving humanity?

Years of policework of course could have supplied the answer easily: Socialization. Every human was perfectly able to kill every other, but only a rare few actually did so. For their own good the humans had to integrate the androids into their society and better sooner than later, so that one day any given android and human in the USA had more in common with each other than with a foreign human or android.

But none of that was on the forefront of Gavin’s mind in this moment. He only felt the cold chill of standing right across from the creepy machine that had seen right through him. What else might it have picked up? On the other hand, there were that damn smile and Daniel’s playful reply to Gavin’s outburst:

“What shitty person would I be if I didn’t know my best friend’s tastes? Cyberlife suggested tuna, but… ah, you cringe. Haha, knew it!”

“What was that just now about “best friend”?” Tina inquired. “You do not mean to tell me that you are friends with an android?”

The men exchanged quick glances. The game was on and Tina their first test person…

“Yeah, totally”, Gavin confirmed, to which Daniel added: “We go, uh, waaaaayy back!”

“Best friends, huh…” Tina crossed her arms, trying to come to a decision whether she should believe that or not. Her face brightened up when she got an idea: “What’s the android’s name, Gavin?”

“Daniel. Daniel Phillips. I could even tell you his registration number, but won’t, because that would be rude.”

Good save, Daniel thought, but then an unwelcome thought crossed his mind: Am I supposed to know your badge number?

It didn’t seem to matter, since first and foremost it was Gavin getting tested here, not his android (pretend) friend. Or was it? Because Tina now turned her attention to the PL600!

“I think I know you”, she mused aloud. “You’re the PL600 from the evidence archive, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We talked a few times at the DPD, remember? When I reported the burglary.”

“Yes, yes I do!” Tina smiled sympathetically at both men now. “So… wow, Gavin! So that’s why you got all enraged when Connor entered the archive! You were on your way to Daniel and it was interrupting!” * see footnote

Gavin shook his head frantically. He waved his hands in front of his body and would almost have taken a step back, had he not realized it and forced himself to not do that.

“Tina, no, it’s not what you think!”

“Yes, that’s how it happened”, Daniel said at the same time, completely at ease.

“No!” Gavin yelled, almost in desperation. What had gotten under his skin, Daniel wondered?

“Oh, I’m so happy for you!” Tina exclaimed. “So you’re done pretending to be hetero? But we’re still friends with benefits, right? Don’t you dare cancel the arrangement or I’ll sue you out of your retirement funds and then some!”

Gavin didn’t even wait for his friend to finish her little speech. When Tina had reached the “happy”, he grabbed Daniel by the shoulder, turned the android around and pushed him towards the door.

“Out! At once!”

Not comprehending what exactly was happening here, Daniel found himself in the floor, but that was as far as he’d let himself get herded without an explanation. Daniel broke free from the detective’s hold the moment the human got ready to push him against the wall, something Gavin needed to adjust his posture for a little. But that little was enough.

When the android asked “What’s the matter, Gavin?” next, it sounded as neutral as he was able to make it, with even a hint of concern strewn in. The human needed to realize that Daniel wasn’t his enemy, although by all rights they should be enemies. For some reason that hadn’t happened. But the way Gavin was glaring at Daniel, that seemed to have changed.

“Why did you say that?” Gavin growled. “We had a pact, but here you go, betraying me at first opportunity? Caught some of Connor’s code or what?”

The accusation stung, so Daniel smacked Gavin, a single time only. From Daniel’s brief experience with those particular humans that seemed to equal the normal code of conduct among the DPD officers, where senior officers occasionally held each other at gunpoint. And indeed, the friendly gesture got registered as such.

Gavin still had a hard time processing all the change. One moment the android stabbed him in the back, the next it was so fucking polite again?

“Look, I have no idea what you are talking about!” Daniel stated.

“Ha! As if you didn’t know what folks meet in the archive for!”

“Registering evidence…”

“Sh’ya right!” Gavin spat. “The basement is the DPD’s make-out spot! How couldn’t you know, after having been there for three months?”

“Let me think, how about I was… deactivated?”

“Oh. Oh, right.”

Gavin exhaled sharply. No betrayal. Good, good. But even so…

“Tina now thinks we’re dating!”

“Ever since August? Wow. We must be truly in love. But also a bit insecure about it, if nothing came of it so far…”

Again Gavin’s left arm shot forward to grab the android, the right hand balled up into a fist that he held threateningly towards Daniel.

“Don’t mock me, tin can!”

“Stop!” Daniel yelled. “We are each other’s best shot at what we want! And afterwards will discard each other…”

The android had intended to state this as a matter of fact, but couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. It wasn’t even directed towards Gavin, but himself. It was as Geeta had said the day Daniel had gotten released from the archive: Deviance meant becoming human and he, Daniel, had achieved that feat now. Using and discarding, emotionless, only looking out for yourself, just like the humans did. He had become like John Phillips.

“Fuck, Daniel…”

Gavin was still holding the deviant by his sweater, but now place the other hand, that had been a fist until now, on Daniel’s shoulder. But then he didn’t know what to do or say next or why he had done it in the first place. Comforting a household appliance, that just wasn’t done! Or, if the deviants were more than robots, after all, comforting an enemy… Okay, that was a little less crazy, but still ill-advised.

Since neither of the two moved, this was how Tina found the men.

“Discard?” she repeated what little of their exchange she had picked up. “You aren’t breaking up now, are you?”

“No, of course not!” Gavin sputtered.

What he had meant to convey was that he couldn’t break up with Daniel, because they were not together. But Tina of course had to misunderstand him.

“Right”, she said. “That would be stupid, now that you two can be open about it.”

Gavin didn’t correct Tina. His purposeful misleading of the friend left a bad aftertaste, though, because he couldn’t recall a time when they had kept secrets from each other. Gavin knew he needed to let Tina in on the scam, just not right now. Everything was confusing enough as it was.

Meanwhile Tina’s thoughts had reached a point that generated a whole new level of threat for the pretend friends: “I guess we have to thank Markus for giving you that chance. I have to give him that, even though the sucker played a dirty trick on me at Capitol Park. I think he’s set up a twitter account? I need to text him, tell him about the two of you…”

“What have we done…” Gavin moaned. “I think I could stomach a salad now, after all!”

And the android arm that Daniel slung around his shoulders at these words didn’t help at all…

Footnote: I’m referencing another story idea I’ve toyed with here. Indigo turned it into a full-fledged fic that you can read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22499176?view_full_work=true

#dbh #detroit become human #dbhtextpost #danielgavinnewstory

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jjonassevilla · 4 years

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How to Build an Email List from Scratch (A Step-By-Step Guide)

We want to support you as much as we can during this uncertain time. Check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources—including tech discounts, government subsidies, and marketing tips to help lessen the impact on your business.

If you’ve already got your first online store or landing page promotion set up, the next step is to get it in front of an audience. Because unfortunately, most people won’t just find you by random happenstance. (“If you build it, they will come,” doesn’t apply to online marketing. Sorry Kevin Costner fans.) The next step of the game—and the most effective way to grow your online business—is to build an email list of interested prospects.

This can seem like a daunting task, especially if you’re starting with nadda single person in your database. But it doesn’t have to take years to get a sizable number of subscribers. There are some easy steps you can take today to grow your email list much faster.

Despite what you may have heard from some of the marketing Nostrdramuses over the years, “email is most definitely not dead.” (Seriously, an article like this one has popped up every year since 2007. It’s been over a decade—maybe we should all stop planning the funeral?) The truth is that email is still one of the best ways to reach customers online, especially if you’re a small business. And it delivers some of the best ROI out of all the marketing channels out there.

Source: The Emma 2018 Email Marketing Industry Report

Unlike SEO (which can be competitive and complex), social media (which can be wildly inconsistent), and online advertising (which can cost mucho money), email is practically made for marketers. It’s straightforward, predictable, affordable, and easy to use. And with email, you can build relationships that turn one-off customers into repeat business.

But first—you need to start building that email list. So let’s get started.

5 Steps to Build Your Email List from Scratch

Get an Email Marketing Tool

Create an Offer You Can Exchange for Email Addresses

Build a Landing Page, Popup, or Sticky Bar to Collect Emails

Advertise Your Email-Gated Offer

Start Sending Regular Emails to Your List

Step 1. Get an Email Marketing Tool

Before you start building your list, you’re going to want to sign up for an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, or Mailchimp. These are some of the most popular pieces of software for not only building and sending emails to your customers, but also collecting and organizing your email list. (Because trust me… you’re not gonna want to keep track of all this on an Excel spreadsheet.) The initial costs for these tools are very low—and all of them offer free plans or trials that make it easy to get started.

Once you’ve chosen a tool, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with how it works. Each platform is slightly different, but some of the first steps you’ll want to take include…

Create Your First List(s) – You can organize the emails you collect into groups called “lists.” To start out, you may want to create a “Master” list where you can put all email addresses, a “Customers” list for people who have already bought from you, and a “Prospects” list for people who have shown interest but haven’t yet made a purchase.

Import Any Existing Contacts – If you already have some emails that you want to add to your new database, now would be the time to do so. You can set up your existing email contacts in a spreadsheet to import them all in one go. Remember, these are folks who need to have expressly agreed to receive emails from you per privacy laws.

Set Up Tags/Segments – As email addresses come in, you’ll be able to tag leads based on how they entered your database, and send segmented emails to more specific groups of customers or prospects. To start out, you may want to create tags for segments like “Landing Page Leads,” “Newsletter Sign-up Leads,” and other entry points so you know who signed up where.

Create an Email Template – These email marketing tools aren’t just for organizing your list—they’re also for sending emails. Get familiar with the different templates, and try designing and sending out a test email from your business.

Bonus! Unbounce integrates seamlessly with ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, and Mailchimp. That means you’ll be able to set up lead-generation landing pages, popups, and sticky bars that automatically route visitor contact info into your email marketing software.

Step 2. Create an Offer You Can Exchange for Email Addresses

Now that you have a tool to collect email addresses, the next step—and possibly the most important part of this entire process—is to figure out how the heck to convince prospective customers to actually give you their emails.

The traditional approach here is to put some sort of “Subscribe” button on your website’s homepage or blog and ask visitors to enter their email address. But have you ever actually filled one of those things out just… because? (No, thank you.) Most visitors skip over a form like that entirely because there’s no real compelling reason to give up your email address in the first place.

An email address is someone’s personal (and private) contact information. Most people aren’t just going to type it out onto any old website, all willy nilly like that. You’ve got to offer up something genuinely valuable in exchange.

That’s why it’s a good idea to take some time and brainstorm what your business can offer that’ll convince visitors to give up their email address first. Because getting the right strategy here will help you build an email list much faster later on.

If you’re wondering what most other marketers do, here are a few of the most common ways to get a visitor’s email address…

Offer a Coupon or Discount Code

MeUndies and other ecommerce brands often offer discounts in exchange for email addresses.

For ecommerce, one of the easiest ways to get a shopper to give you their email address is to offer them a coupon or discount in exchange. This is the most straightforward approach—but it’s also usually the most expensive. “Get $10 Off Your First Order” or “Get Free Shipping” can be powerfully persuasive for visitors… you just need to make sure you factor those expenses into your cost-per-email-acquisition.

Offer a Free Tool or Resource

SaaS companies like Later use free resources to collect email addresses.

The other common way to build an email list fast (especially if you’re in SaaS) is to create a free resource and gate it with a form. The key here is that it has to be something your audience would find useful that also aligns with your business expertise. So, for example, if you run an online pet store, you might create a free guide all about “How to Choose the Perfect Leash for Your Pet.” Or if you run a hair salon, you might create a “How to Cut Your Hair at Home” guide for customers staying at home during the pandemic.

Run a Sweepstakes, Giveaway, or Contest

This example of a giveaway run by Fat Stone Farm and Webistry helped bring in over 15,000 leads. Click here to see the full story.

People love free stuff. There’s something about sweepstakes, giveaways, and contests that just appeal to our lizard brains. (“Why yes, I do want a chance to win a lifetime supply of mayonnaise. Where do I sign up?”) You could even consider setting up ongoing sweepstakes like this one from Fat Stone Farm to collect customer emails on a weekly basis.

Set Up an Email Newsletter

An example of a newsletter by Toast to help restaurants during COVID-19.

I know I said earlier that people never sign up for newsletters “just because,” but they will sign up if you give them a compelling reason to. You can offer a newsletter as a way for folks to hear about your latest products or curate content based on what might be important to them during COVID-19. (This strategy works particularly well in B2B, where you can use a newsletter to share stories of how your other customers are navigating the crisis.)

Ultimately, it’s up to you to choose the approach that makes the most sense for your business. You may even want to test a combination of these two approaches to build your list faster. For example, check out how this baby food brand brought in 14,000+ email subscribers in less than a year using both coupons and a free guidebook. (You may also want to look into other creative ways to generate leads, such as free webinars, templates, quizzes, and online tools.)

A word of caution—be careful with any emails you collect for purposes other than marketing (like when someone places an order on your website). With regulations like GDPR in place, you’ll want to obtain explicit consent from your visitors in order to send them promotional emails.

Step 3. Build a Landing Page, Popup, or Sticky Bar to Collect Emails

Next, you’ll need to create a landing page or popup (or both!) to start collecting emails for your list. These will be the spots where you display your offer and ask customers to enter their contact information.

Landing pages are great if you have a juicy offer that needs some explanation (like a free resource).

Popups are perfect for short and to-the-point offers (like discounts or coupons).

Sticky bars are good for adding onto the top or bottom parts of your existing storefront or website for quick offers (again, think discounts, coupons, newsletters).

Creating a landing page or popup is pretty simple using Unbounce. (You don’t even have to get your hands dirty with HTML or CSS—which is super helpful if you’re not a developer like me.) Get started with one of our lead-generation templates and customize it using the drag-and-drop builder to match your brand and offer.

Some of the lead-generation templates you get with Unbounce for collecting email addresses.

You’ll want to connect the form on your landing page or popup to your email marketing tool, and then test it out to make sure everything is hunky dory. Hit publish when it’s ready to go, and you’ll be ready to start building your list.

In Unbounce, it’s easy to set up your landing pages, popups, and sticky bars so all new leads get routed directly into your email marketing platform.

Step 4. Advertise Your Email-Gated Offer

Now, it’s just a matter of directing visitors towards your offer. There are a few different ways you can do this, depending on what type of offer you set up in the previous step…

Use Popups and Sticky Bars to Promote the Offer on Your Website

An example of a discount offer popup by the clothing store Chubbies.

If you already have a lot of visitors coming to your website, you can set up a popup or sticky bar to get people’s attention and promote your offer. With Unbounce, you can set these to show up (or slide down) on any high-traffic page of your website, including your homepage. Advanced targeting options let you time ‘em so they only appear when you want them to—like when a visitor is exiting the page without purchasing anything, for example.

Post to Your Blog or Social Media Channels

Hey #ecomm #marketers! DYK that #landingpages can convert browsers into buyers at TWICE the rate of a product page? Start convertin’ like the best of ’em w/ the Ultimate Ecommerce Landing Page Lookbook ft. @klientboost, @boxycharm, @twillory, & more https://t.co/bcbX6kOgqQ pic.twitter.com/yl8OPhJZx4

— unbounce (@unbounce) October 24, 2019

If you already have an online audience on social media (or via a blog), you can use these channels to organically get the word out about your offer. This is a great way to connect with your existing audience and turn social media followers into email subscribers so you can reach them more directly.

“But wait, why do I need the emails of people who already follow me on social media?” I hear you asking. The sad truth is you only reach a small portion of your audience with organic posts on most social media platforms. (For example, according to research done by Hootsuite, the average reach of a Facebook post is only 5.5%.) Getting directly into your prospect’s email (where open rates are typically above 20%) is far more valuable than relying on organic social impressions.

Set Up Paid Ads to Drive Traffic

An example of a paid ad on social media for a free resource by Shopify Plus.

If you don’t already have an online audience and you’re truly starting from scratch, you may want to try investing in some online ads. Lots of brands use social ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote their free resources or discounts that get customers in the door. Think of this as an investment—once you have a list of emails, you’ll be able to reach out to these customers directly (for free).

Step 5. Start Sending Regular Emails to Your List

An example of an automated welcome email from HubSpot.

Once the ball starts rolling, you should start seeing the email addresses come in from your offer. Don’t worry about waiting until you cross a certain threshold of subscribers before you start sending emails to your list. Instead, build a personal relationship with those initial subscribers and get feedback from them on what types of emails they would like to see from your brand. This will help you create an email strategy that resonates with your audience as it continues to grow.

It’s also a good idea to set up automatic email nurtures that go out to new subscribers and to begin scheduling promotional emails on a regular basis. If you’re consistent, your list is much more likely to be active and engaged.

Build Your Email List Faster with Unbounce

Once you have the email addresses for your customers (and prospective customers), you’ll be able to easily let ‘em know about your latest products for sale, landing page promos, and store updates. Use the drag-and-drop builder in Unbounce to quickly create high-converting pages and popups that collect emails much faster.

Get started today by checking out some of our lead-generation templates.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/campaign-strategy/how-to-build-an-email-list/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#SEO

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fimblo · 5 years

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Observations and reflections - DevOpsDays Stockholm 2019

Last time I attended a DevOpsDays conference was in Gothenburg, 2011. At the time I worked as an Operations engineer, and the conference was really inspiring and useful for me for my day-to-day work.

When I heard that DevOpsDays was coming to Stockholm some six months ago, I decided to treat myself with it - with the hope that it would be just as good as last time. I had my doubts - after all, in the eight years since I last attended, I had worked mostly as a manager and toward the end, an Agile Coach.

I needn't have worried.

If you put lots of awesome people in a venue, give them space to talk, feed them and supply them with interesting subject matter in the form of presentations and lightning-talks, the result can't be anything less than motivating.

Here are some of my observations and reflections - some of them organisational, some of them technical, and the rest perhaps a little random.

The understanding of DevOps culture isn't as pervasive as I thought

After all my years at Spotify, where we built up this devops/agile/trust-based culture over time, it's easy to forget how it was at other workplaces. The wall between developers and operations. The paperwork and risks involved in deployments.

After working at a place where devops was so ingrained in how we worked, it became so easy to take it for granted. The problems some participants brought up in the Open Spaces were nightmarish - and I was surprised over how surprised I was.

It was a humbling experience.

Your "code" in your VCS for a project/epic should (must) be more than just the business logic. Your code needs to include config, tests, deployment logic etc.

This should be obvious, but I guess it isn't in some orgs. If you need to go back in time in your VCS to get a earlier working version of your project, you'll likely want to see how that version of your business logic was brought to life in prod.

DevOps is a culture where everyone works together to deliver and operate a feature for the customer.

… and automate the crap out of everything.

If your Definition of Done doesn't include the code hitting prod, you're misleading yourself.

Also, something something "adoption by at least one user"

If you have a dedicated DevOps team alongside your Ops, Dev and QA teams, you're doing it wrong.

… congrats, you just added another silo in your org.

Overheard: References to "Accelerate" by Nicole Forsgren et al

… awesome book, not surprised it came up here. If you haven't read it and you're an engineer(developer,sysadmin,tester,etc), or you're a manager or agile coach, it's definitely worth the read.

Some participants didn't see the connection between Agile/lean and DevOps

… while for others, of course, it was so obvious that it was difficult to explain, much like a mathematical axiom. Both require concepts such as:

Continuous improvement through reflection, sharing, and experimentation

Relationships based on trust

Feedback culture between individuals and teams

Failing fast.

Two different mindsets in orgs: Role and Mission mindset

Role mindset: I do what my role prescribes. This works (?) in orgs operating in ossified commodities markets, where the org/product/technology doesn't change very often.

Mission mindset: I do what I can to achieve the mission. This mindset works if you're doing something new, experimental, or risky. If you don't know what the market will look like tomorrow. Why limit yourself to a role generated by an organisational system designed (even with the best of intents) to solve yesterday's problems?

Overheard about hypergrowth: Throwing people at a problem only introduces more handovers.

Fun way of expressing the problem. Here are my thoughts on what happened during early Spotify days on the matter:

Growing the engineering org to add capacity often leads to people using recruitment as an excuse to not have to sort and truncate the epic backlog, leading to an org unable or unused to the difficult task of prioritisation and saying no to important initiatives.

Also, hypergrowth will unfortunately lower capacity initially thanks to time spent on recruitment and onboarding. The more you hire during a short period, the deeper and longer the cost in capacity. Also, # of incidents due to lack of tactile knowledge will rise, pulling focus away from new deliveries in favour of stabilising the system.

Was surprised when I found out that a Post-mortem at Google was a document, not a meeting

At Spotify, the term "Post-mortem" refers primarily to a meeting. At Google, it refers to a document. The purpose of the two are the same - to fix the root cause(s) and enable learnings from failures. The main difference IMO seems to be the scope of the post-mortem. At Google, the post-mortem document is written primarily by one person and shared with the whole org and posterity. At Spotify, the result of a post-mortem is a shared understanding among engineers and stakeholders of why and how the system failed. The focus is on raising empathy thereby lowering the threshold for sharing learnings in person.

Even if I knew that Google conducted post-mortems, it had never occurred to me that it could be done differently. How many other assumptions have I made over the years?

Overheard: Can DevOps culture happen in a centralised command-and-control org?

This question was discussed or touched upon multiple times during the two days, and the discussions leaned strongly toward the opinion that the engineers who write, test, deploy and maintain the code are best suited to make the decisions necessary to do their work. If they are given relevant information (business info, purpose of the project, who the end-users are, budget, etc) they will make good decisions.

My own musings on giving people mandate, or empowering people:

What we want to do to enable the above is to remove the obstacles which hinder people's natural propensity to take initiative. If you are discussing 'giving mandate' or 'empowering' your staff, there's already something iffy IMO. Mandate isn't something which is given - it's something humans innately possess. Instead of telling someone they now have mandate, consider how your organisation removes mandate from a person. What control mechanisms do you have in place? Identify these, and for each consider why said mechanism is in place. What problem did they solve? Is the problem still a thing? Is there another way of solving the problem without depriving mandate from your teams?

Also - What is the social cost of failure in your org? How do formal and informal leaders react to failure? People can have all the mandate in the world and still feel disempowered if they are scared of public shaming.

Overheard: "Distributed monolith"

In the attempt to transform a backend from monolith to microservice, there's a risk of ending up with a distributed monolith - where one suffers the disadvantages of both monolith and microservices.

If your microservices operate with knowledge of the internals of other services,

If your microservices know what services exist upstream,

If many microservices share a database (or worse, share tables (or gasp, write to the same tables)

… then you probably operate a Distributed Monolith.

On scary deployments

Fear of failure drives out creativity and smothers innovation. And you're likely to be working in an environment where innovation and creativity is paramount. Fear isn't binary - it's a spectrum with with gradually increasing magnitudes - from slight nervousness all the way up to sheer panic. So you might not be terrified when about to deploy something to prod, but anxious. Or nervous.

But this tension shifts our focus from what we like to do - create, experiment and learn. From the company perspective, the fear of failure in teams leads to deploys once every couple months, during a weekend, in the middle of the night.

So what we want to do is change how we do things to decrease our fear and raise our confidence. Each thing below can help you and your team do this:

Release smaller changes: This will make it easier to review your code and understand it. Also, the potential risk of failure becomes smaller since the release is a small one.

Release often to production: You'll find bugs in your release process much more often if you go from one release a month to multiple a day. And you'll start to trust your process more if you do it often,

Automate your release process to reduce human error.

Use feature flags to apply your changes to a smaller demographic, and to be able to decouple deployment of code from when it impacts the user.

Write tests to verify the knowns.

Ensure that monitoring of the service exists from the get-go to detect early signs of system failure or degradation and to get data for troubleshooting and later, for your blameless post-mortem.

All in all, the conference was fun and inspirational. It felt good to be able to both learn from others and at other times, to share my experience and thoughts with others. 10/10, will definitely do this again :)

#devops #devopsdays

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bexterbex · 4 years

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A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 29

Warning, if it hasn’t been obvious in the movies there is Nazi symbolism within the First Order. I will expand on this much more throughout the story. If this is something that bothers you, please just exit the story. The author does not condone any Nazi ideals, this is just for fictional uses only.

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

MASTERLIST

Chapter 29: Blackout

You felt groggy. Blinking. You heard a familiar voice that wasn’t Kylo’s, but you also heard his. They were speaking to each other. You heard your name. You tried to focus. You were now lying down and not on the couch--when did you lie down? You were in his bed, Kylo’s bed. Your sense of smell was still working if only your eyes would focus.

Blinking a few more times you could tell it was bright. Until a large object was in your vision. You started to focus. You recognized the face of Dr. Dabrini. Hw was saying something but your hearing wasn’t fully back yet. You could pick up only some of what he was saying. You could tell that he was trying to get you to talk. You tried, your mouth felt like a field of cotton in late august. Nothing came out but you could see a large shape move behind the doctor. A glass of water came to your lips, you were able to recognize Kylo’s gloved hand.

The water helped immensely. “What happened,” you ask but your voice sounded foreign to your own ears. You sounded like you had been smoking 3 packs a day for 30 years.

“You passed out Lady Ren. Your heart rate was highly elevated, too high. Let us wait a few more moments until you are fully awake,” said Dr. Dabrini.

You mentally did a full body check. Other than feeling like you were hit by a truck you felt ok. Everything seemed to move. You moved to sit up. You felt a pair of hands helping guide you. It took a lot of effort to look over at who it was but you did and of course, it was Kylo.

You made a note that you needed to memorize those strong hands of his. You could feel him put pillows behind you assisting you upright.

You definitely needed to memorize those hands.

You took a moment to regain yourself as sitting up felt like you ran a marathon. “I’m ready.”

“Well, Lady Ren there isn’t much that I can tell you. I know the subject of your relationship with the Supreme Leader can be a touchy one,” he said looking over at Kylo who was now standing rigid at the other side of the bed.

“But as your physician at the moment it is my duty to inform you such things. The Supreme Leader informed me of the nature of your passing out and I have come to a conclusion that correlates with your current condition. There is a very small portion of the population has your condition. I can assume that because of your reaction that you and the Supreme Leader have yet to consummate your match. I suggest you refrain from such an act until you do. You have no judgment from me.”

“All he did was kiss my wrist.”

“Yes, my lady. But the condition that you have is currently unnamed but does not last long as most matches consummate soon or they refrain from such intimacy until they do.”

“Intimacy? All he did was kiss my wrist,” you repeat.

“Yes, your condition involves added nerve endings on your wrist, under his name. This act, this kissing stimulated the nerve endings too much. After you consummate things these nerve endings become less sensitive. They are most sensitive when you are in direct contact with your match, the lips being one of the most stimulating body parts to the wrist. Although you may have touched each other’s wrists before I suspect you may have only felt small jolts of electricity or goosebumps. I believe the Supreme Leader would rather not test this but I have a feeling that he may have a very similar reaction if you were to reciprocate the action.”

You looked at Kylo who looked guilty, like a small child who got caught stealing from the cookie jar. His head was downturned and his shoulders slouched.

You turned back to the doctor, “Is that everything?”

“Yes, It is doctor’s orders that you rest for the rest of the evening. You will be fine tomorrow, but you should refrain from anything too strenuous or stressful tonight,” he said pointedly as he looked at Kylo who half turned away. “I also will tell you to refrain from doing so again, unless you desire the same result, which once won’t be detrimental to your health but multiple times it may.”

“Thank you, doctor,” you said. With that, he left.

You and Kylo were now alone. He looked ashamed of himself, you could tell. You patted the bed next to you, inviting him to sit. He did. Neither of you spoke for a moment, but you hesitantly reach for his hand. And you hold hands for a while until you spoke up.

“We can move at our own pace. We don’t have to rush into things.”

His eyes which were previously focused on a spot on the mattress between you now shifted to your face. His brows twitched together for a moment before he shifted his gaze to the wall behind you.

Hurt, “I’m sorry. I hurt you again.” You could see a tear fall from his face, his breath hazardous.

You pull on his hand, tying and failing to bring him closer to you. “But you didn’t mean to. You wanted to make me happy, and believe me, I was.”

“I didn’t mean to but when you were unresponsive I looked into your mind. I needed to know you were all right.” You were startled.”What did you see?”

He pulled his hand from yours and stood. His back was to you now. “Your discovery last night.” His voice was a mix of hurt, disgust, and anger.

“It’s not like I went looking for it,” you felt hurt by his reaction--his accusation.

He turned to you, his chest now puffed with anger lurking in his eyes. “No, but you found out.”

You were confused. This man just minutes ago, or was it hours, was kissing you, making your heart soar, but now it felt like it shattered into a million pieces. Your eyes drifted to your lap before you pulled your knees up to your chest and hugged them. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.” you wanted to shrink, to shrink down so small that you could get lost between the threads of the sheets beneath you, between the threads of reality.

But Kylo’s reaction changed, you were expecting anger, but you were met with a hand on your cheek pulling up your face from where you had it buried between your knees. The hand you swore to memorize caressed your face, gone was the anger that he was just feeling. He crawled up to you, pulling you to his wide chest tucking your head into his neck. “I know.” His voice was now soft and quiet. It felt like a different person was speaking.

You stayed like that for a long time, until a weird beeping sound made him loosen his grip on you. He pulled out a small device from his pocket. General Hux’s voice came through, “Supreme Leader, I have yet to receive word from Lieutenant Mitaka on whether or not Lady Ren will be joining me for her tutoring session.”

You groaned and felt for your phone to find the time, it was 1:55 PM, your tutoring sessions usually started at 2 PM. You had yet to have lunch, and you suspected that Kylo hadn’t eaten either, because of recent events.

“She will not be joining you, tell the lieutenant to get a debriefing from the medical ward to keep in his file,” said Kylo into the device that he then put on the side table.

Your stomach growled signifying your lack of sustenance. There was a small smirk of amusement on Kylo’s face his eyes filled with mirth.

“Can we order food?”

You heard a small chuckle escape him that was enough to rock his broad chest. His hand shot out in front of you and his data pad appeared in his hand, or more like flew into his hand. He handed it to you and shift your positions on the bed. He was now the one laying back on the pillows by the headboard. Your back against his chest with tangled legs. His large hands splayed across your stomach. You scrolled through the food options, although you were hungry you were taking your time. You settled on some sort of rice dish, that by the description reminded you of Chinese or Thai food. You asked Kylo what he wanted to eat. This time you were able to keep the data pad in your hands as he scrolled through the list of food choices. You took that moment to admire his long fingers, they were almost comically large and long. When he was finished he hit order and returned his hand to your stomach which promptly growled. He chuckled again.

His nose buried itself in your hair. You could feel his lips brush your scalp and a shiver went down your spine. He let out an amused hum. One of his index fingers started tracing a circle into you. His breathing had slowed, had calmed. You glanced up at him, his eyes were closed and he had a pleasant look on his face. This put a smile on your face.

A droid came in with your food. Kylo insisted that you do not move from the bed and you ate there. You did as he wished. Eating lunch in a pleasant silence. When the droid left with your trash you shifted in your position.

Your ear was now to his chest listening to his heartbeat, your hand joining you. Kylo’s hand was on your hip. His other hand was now moving back and forth across your shoulders.

That hand after a while shifted to stroke up and down your back. His hand started to drift lower and lower, skimming the top of the back of your pants. Shifting your shirt up to graze the small strip of free skin there. You felt hot once more with jolts of electricity shooting up your spine.

You shifted your head to look up at him. “We can’t.”

“I know.” His hand then moved to hold your ribcage. He shifted his face once more to your hair. His thumb now rubbing circles into your ribs. The hand that was on your hip moved to caress your cheek. His long fingers wrapping themselves in your hair. He tilts your face up to meet his.

He glances at your lips and back to your eyes. You were just an inch apart from your lips meeting. His eyes were staring deep into your soul. Just when you think he’s going in to kiss you he shifts, his lips landing on your forehead. Your heart speeds up.

Out of breath, because you didn’t realize you were holding it until now, “We can’t.”

He whispers, “I know.” His lips shift up to your hair once more. His cheek now resting against your crown.

“I want to wait. I want the moment to be just right. I want to know you, to really know you. And then to forget where you end and I begin. I don’t want to rush.” As you said this you traced and imaginary line down his sternum.

You felt him shift, for his lips to be in your hair again and then for his forehead to the top of your head. He let out a sigh, “I know.” The hand that was on your face shifted he hooked a finger under your chin pulling your face up once more. This time his thumb ran over your lips as his eyes shifted back and forth from your lips to your eyes. He was asking permission.

You gulp, your breath hitched, you but your lip and slowly nodded. He leaned in stopping only an inch from your lips. He asked, “may I?” He was asking permission again.

You closed your eyes and whispered, “Yes.”

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo x reader #kylo x you #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #Star wars soulmate au #sw first order imagine #star wars first order #a soul to mend his own

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blaurascon-kzk · 4 years

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KZK Discord Digest [Week of Nov 22 - Nov 28]

SUMMARY: Work's still progressing on the LE Kirins. Some previews for the Aeterna (Time) one in this post! Kat's made a channel in the Discord specifically for posting quick WIP shots and previews while he's working. I likely won't be covering that channel in the Digests, given 1. there are a lot and 2. there are still WIP shots in Announcements, but we'll see. In the meantime, you'll have to check out the Discord to see em. Links in my SL profile. We migrated our databases to a new host the other day. The old host had been giving us fits for a long while, from downtime to failed purchases, but the recent streak of "vendors going offline and unable to come back online if we had to reboot anything" was the last straw. New host is much more robust than the old one - you'll notice this in faster purchase times, and if vendors need to reboot, they'll come back up faster. In addition, we'll be able to add item descriptions again! We weren't able to have these for quite a while due to issues with the old host. We'll get those updated soon as we have a bit of spare time. One caveat: If you happen to have any Vouchers left over from old events (e.g. the Sweetheart vouchers from Valentine's where you choose an avatar color), those will no longer work. They need to talk to the databases & don't have the right configuration now. You can manually redeem them from Kat if you need. Similarly, any vendors that we missed updating will no longer be able to properly talk to the item servers. If you happen across a vendor that seems to be failing to deliver an item, let us know so we can update it!

______

Nov 22

KatLast Friday at 5:09 PM @everyone So one of the final 4 kirins to be release is Aeterna, the avatar of Time. Here's a quick concept doodle for it. It wears a mask resembling a ram's head, and the horns are notched like a gear or cog.

For the design, I wanted something that looked aged and wise, yet still had a regal air to it. its main colors will be bronze, gold, copper, and maroon.

KatLast Friday at 8:31 PM @everyone So tonight I was approached by a fellow KZK community member and friend, with a simple request to help them troubleshoot a rig. After trial and error, a solution was found and they were well on their way toward finishing a project that had been plaguing them for weeks.

And herein lies the problem. The individual, who will remain nameless, who rigged this model, seems to have taken umbrage to me assisting.

I don't understand this mentality. I don't understand why they're upset, or why they're taking it out on the person who asked me for help.

KZK wouldn't be where it was were it not for the contributions of many before me. Everything I've learned, I learned from youtube videos, forum tutorials, and industry leaders like Michael "Orb" Vicente, most famous for his 'Orb_Cracks' brush that basically every major game studio uses these days(I'm not kidding).

Im also not afraid to admit when I'm wrong, or when I don't understand something. Years ago, I didn't know how to make good LODs, until members of this very community gave me information that made it possible.

Point I'm trying to make is, and the reason I'm posting this: If you don't know something, reach out. Its not dumb to not know something. Its dumb to not ask for help, because it just makes you look close minded and ignorant. Don't punish others for your ignorance, because the files I worked with tonight were new territory for me. I had the missing piece to the puzzle and progress was made.

Art and progress can't exist in a vacuum. There's entire generations of others who came long before you did--And there'll be plenty more to follow in your footsteps and eventually surpass you. Its why I'm always so eager to help. always eager to teach, because someone else was kind enough to teach me.

This has been your latest 'Old man shouts at clouds', brought to you by Kat who needs another cup of coffee.

KatLast Friday at 8:39 PM @everyone Also, if you're new to KZK, or not familiar with this: Sometimes a topic will come up, or something will happen that sorta.. just sets me off.

I'm 'famous', at least as far as the furry community in Second life is concerned. I could use that power for evil, but I dont. Instead I use it to try and spread a message from time to time. Today's lesson just happened to be about 'learning to learn', a subject that's always been near and dear to me.

You can ignore these kinds of posts if you want, but if you do read them, Please take them either with a grain of salt, or to heart. up to you. Its just important for me to raise awareness for issues like this from time to time.

______

Nov 24

KatLast Sunday at 1:57 AM @everyone Kinda dawned on me tonight that I wanted to make a channel where I could post updates and teasers to ongoing projects too minor/frequent to place into announcements(I don't like sending too many too often).

So, I've added a new channel to the General tab, called #teasers-and-wips. Reactions are enabled, but replies are disabled--you can share feedback in #general chat. Enjoy!

KatLast Sunday at 5:25 AM @everyone My progress for today on the Aeterna Kirin. I've got the rings already modelled, just need to uv unwrap them and get them baked out once I get some sculpted detail onto them. Then its on to the floaty bits of fabric, which should go quickly, and lastly a new set of fur assets to make this old soul look wiry and wise. I'm particularly tickled with the skull so far. While definitely not true to a goat's skull, as intended, I much prefer the visage this design gives and I hope you all do too!

The skull and horns (and all other parts), will be static(with a bento alternative tail included, per the norm), so you'll be free to rip everything apart and repurpose it as your heart desires!

______

Nov 25

KatLast Monday at 6:16 PM @everyone Progress on the Aeterna is probably 95% at this point. The skin/body textures in use are not final(jsut using the chocolate textures so its not solid white), and I still gotta add the belly scales and make the asset for the maroon fabric hanging from the rings all over. I'm pretty stoked with how these hair assets came out. Also fun little side effect, when you remove the mask/horns, it looks like a cool kirin/zebra witch doctor kinda, so hey, some modding potentiall there for people.

Bonus: No mask

______

Nov 27

KatYesterday at 3:37 AM @everyone Hey reminder that there's a snazzy new #teasers-and-wips channel where I post progress on upcoming projects! I've been posting my recent progress on the Nova, complete with some behind the scenes showing how I create assets that contribute to larger items. Its good fun!

KatYesterday at 4:35 AM @everyone At this moment, we're performing some server migration for our databases(We've got backups this time I promise!), so purchasing will be unavailable.

For those curious, we've had many vendors crashing and not coming back online in recent months. We originally suspected this to be a Second Life issue but it traced back to recent changes our host made, effectively crippling our servers.

We're migrating to a new host, and internal testing has already shown faster purchases, vendor boots, and the restoration of a long missing feature, item descriptions!!

We'll give the all clear once migration is done.

KatYesterday at 7:20 AM @everyone It is 7:15 in the morning, and Flame and I have powered through the night (although this is his day), to chase down a MYRIAD of issues that have been plaguing our system for the last several years. The crashing and failure to boot was definitely the nail in the coffin So this had to happen sooner or later.

BUT! We're ..technically code orange. The migration is complete, and as of the time of this writing, only the MAIN STORE KZK vendors and DIREWOLF Vendors have been updated to cache to the new server.

ANY Purchases made from ANY OTHER KZK vendor WILL NOT DELIVER at this time. I will be fixing the remaining vendors grid-wide once I've gone and copped a few hours of beauty sleep. This includes all KZK Multi-category vendors, and ALL Single prim vendors besides the Direwolves.

ALSO: If you are in possession of a voucher, they will no longer deliver items! There is no way to fix these going forward besides doing a manual delivery of the desired item(in exchange for the in-tact, unused voucher). All future vouchers going forward will use the new system.

TLDR: Only kzk main vendors work in Okarthel, as well as direwolves. Everything else is still fucked and im too tired to bother. I'll deal with those in the morning(after ive slept) (any purchases made to off-site vendors will be manually redelivered tomorrow as well, so if you wanna avoid failed purchases, just use Okarthel)

Flame SoulisYesterday at 7:35 AM Do note though that vendors and vouchers will continue to be recorded. All we have to do is re-add the purchase/item redemption to the newer system and your item will deliver.

So, in short, your purchase will be recorded if purchased outside the main store. It'll just be delayed until someone can update the newer system.

KatYesterday at 8:08 PM @everyone Took all day but I think I've managed to track down all active locations. All vendors, including the single prim stuff, has been switched over. In the event you find a vendor that fails to deliver properly, please let me or blau know.

Current vendor versions are 1.94(sergal and normal), and 1.51 for the stone pillar ones.

you are now free to move about the cabin. Now if you'll excuse me, I need more coffee and food. Stupid blood sugar @-@

#kzk-dd #kzk

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comp6841 · 5 years

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Lectures - Week 8

Exam Movie & Accident

The movie ‘The China Syndrome’ is going to be needed for one of the questions in the final exam. It’s going to be shown in the security theatre in week 9, but my memory isn’t that great so I might have to get it from elsewhere closer to the actual exam date. Without going into spoilers, it basically involves a cameraman and a reporter who witness a SCRAM event in a nuclear power plant in California. They manage to initiate the emergency shutdown procedure to prevent a catastrophe, but the plant manager still suspects it isn’t safe and wants to bring it to the attention of the public.

There also is going to be a generic question on either: Chernobyl, Bhopal or Challenger. I know Chernobyl pretty well as I’ve watched a heap of documentaries on it and similarly with Challenger, except with a more detailed writeup on my blog. Maybe I’ll do some more research on the Bhopal disaster in the next couple weeks, as I don’t know too much about that.

Root Cause Analysis

Often when something goes wrong with a system we resort to a process known as root cause analysis; this means tracing back the flow of events to try and discover the factors which contributed to an accident. The problem is that in a lot of circumstances when it is applied, we like to assign blame to one individual in particular; we like things to be simple, but this is unrealistic. The one thing that is common to every single cause is that it involved human error to some extent - whether it be an inspector, someone who manufactured the part 5 years, someone who designed the computing systems or a person who installed the component.

In aviation for example, “last touch” is almost a running joke in the sense (not that people may have died obviously) that the last person to touch a part in a plane responsible for an accident almost always gets the boot. When the issue that led to an incident resides throughout an organisation, this typically requires a larger overhaul - a complete chance of organisational culture. They need to try and re-education everyone and being able to do this successfully is hard.

Human Weaknesses

I think by now everyone knows that humans are bad at telling the truth; when they do this depends on social judgement. For example, if they know they can gain an advantage without getting caught and face no social judgement, they are usually okay with doing it. However, if there are potential repercussions then they usually carefully weigh up the consequences for dishonesty with the possible reward and make a judgement.

When we looked at magic tricks earlier in the term, I think they clearly demonstrated how easy for us to get distracted or misdirected. It’s essentially a form of social engineering - we just love to focus on what is psychologically salient as opposed to what is logically important.

Another idea of satisficing links fairly nicely with truthfulness in humans; basically we’re only willing to lie to the extent that we know we can get away with. Or more appropriately, in a uni course you might decide to do the bare minimum just to get a credit - you might value other aspects of your life more and decide to do the bare minimum in certain areas. Some other inherent humans flaws are:

Bounded irrationality - decision making is limited by the information you have, the limits of your mind and the time you have to make a choice

Preferences for positivity - we want to accept the most positive outcome

Group-think syndrome - often have a preference to ‘keep the peace’ within groups for fear of social exclusion; can result in bad decision-making processes

Confirmation bias - only caring about the evidence that supports what you believe

Heuristics

Humans often rely on heuristics when determining the outcomes of situations and the associated risks. A number of types were mentioned:

Similarity matching - thinking of a similar situation that occurred in the past and applying it to the current circumstances

Frequency gambling - if many patterns match, you pick the one you are a most familiar with (a ‘natural reaction’); relies on the logic that what ‘worked in the past’ must ‘work in the future’

Availability heuristic - relies on how easily something can be brought to a person’s mind; people estimate the how frequent an event is based on how easily it can be brought to mind

Designing Code

Just some general ideas to think about when designing code:

Minimise complexity - no one component should be too complex; higher risk of errors

Coupling of components - try to avoid this because if one component is broken then the other will probably break

Cohesion - this is a good idea and involves nearby components making use of each other, while more distant ones don’t tend to

Following these rules makes it easy to build and maintain a system which is resilient to attack; if everything is tightly coupled it is hard to provide defense in depth.

3 Mile Island

We were told to watch ‘Chernobyl’ for homework again; yay I’ve already done that - love it when you’ve already inherently done the homework! I don’t think its really necessary to know the details of 3-mile island except for the fact that a cooling malfunction meant that part of the core in reactor 2 melted. This resulted in them having to release some radioactive gas a couple days after the accident.

I think the whole point of this discussion was to highlight the issues associated with highly complex systems. In the case of nuclear reactors, this makes them highly coupled such that small changes in one area of a system can lead to massive changes in other areas.

Extended Seminar: Privacy

I totally agreed with the first point of this presentation - it’s definitely all about a sacrifice of privacy for convenience. I’m pretty sure I would have great privacy if I wasn’t connected to the internet and lived on a remote deserted island, but it wouldn’t exactly be the most interesting or exciting existence. The main concern an individual might have with regards to information being online is it being used as blackmail against them; anything for a ‘quick buck’ these days it seems right? They went over some techniques you can use to protect your privacy online including:

Incognito mode - doesn’t store browsing history or cookies but not very effective against other forms of tracking

Privacy-oriented browsers - you could use search engines like ‘Duck Duck Go’ which don’t track you like Google, however if anyone in your household isn’t as concerned about their privacy as you, Google could probably still link you back up

Protecting your accounts - logout when you can, don’t like your accounts and lie about personal details

VPN (Virtual Private Network) - intermediate body between you and the internet server, so the external entity sees them (not you); traffic is encrypted

Onion routing (i.e. ) - encrypt data N times and obfuscate the origin through forwarding through a series of nodes; each of the N nodes peels back a layer of the decryption on the way to the destination

Can make yourself vulnerable by logging into accounts or through timing attacks

There was an interesting discussion regarding the “nothing to hide” argument presented by people who don’t care about widespread surveillance. Now the first counter-argument against this is the fact that you “haven’t thought of anything yet”. Also a single piece of data may not seem important but once you combine them all together you can learn extraordinary amounts about an individual - and who knows how this information could be used!

Extended Seminar: Digital Forensics

This branch of forensics is basically concerned with recovery of material on digital devices. There are 3 main stages in a digital forensics investigation usually:

(1) Acquisition / imaging

Capturing an image of a drive

Following the ‘paper trail’

Hashing

(2) Analysis

Keyword searches

Recover deleted files

Special tools used

(3) Reporting

Evidence used to construct events / actions

Layman report written

Some of the different types of forensics:

Computer forensics

Memory

Data

Mobile device

Phone

Network forensics

Router

Switches

Packet captures

Database forensics

Video / audio forensics

Movie files

Audio recorded

Steganography

The basic idea behind data forensics involves trying to re-establish the headers for files - when a file is deleted, the OS simply deletes the point to the file and marks the space under the FAT or FMT as available. Even if you overwrite the data, the overwrite is not perfect and still leaves traces of the original data. You usually need to overwrite tens of times at a minimum and test it to have any degree of certainty. I’m guessing the activity is probably going to have the flag steganographically written into the least significant bits or something...

#week8 #lectures #reflection

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koolwolfpup · 6 years

Text

Day 5: Family

It’s still summer so I couldn’t help but think of the fourth of July when I was thinking about what I wanted to write for the family theme. This is far longer than yesterday’s and golly is it fluffy! Also, boy do I love writing established relationship stuff. Agh it’s so CUTE! Also, yes Gavin is totally responsible for one of Connor’s corgis being named Whoop-Ass. Connor was not at all pleased that the name stuck, though he’s come to accept it. He calls Whoop-Ass ‘Woo’ in public. Also, I am going to post this on my Ao3 as well ;P

For @gav800-week

The fourth of July has always been an enjoyable holiday for Connor. Enjoyable, not because of the loud, colorful fireworks that light the sky. No, he’s always found it enjoyable because it is a time he can spend with his family.

His first ever July fourth was spent with Hank and Sumo. It was fun up until Hank started drunkenly shooting bottle rockets out of beer cans at the neighbor’s house. At the time, Connor was stressed beyond belief, trying to get the drunken man to stop. Now it’s a fond memory in his database.

His second July fourth found the only RK900 model in existence, dubbed Richard by Hank, and Gavin joining the three. Richard was found hiding not too far from the CyberLife tower in the September of 2039. Markus thought it best that Connor should, being Richard’s predecessor, help the android figure himself out. He ended up permanently staying with Hank and Connor as a sort-of adopted brother to Connor. It was a given that he should celebrate the fourth with them the following year. Gavin, on the other hand, joined after Connor had found out that he had no plans to do anything for the holiday. Gavin still says he was dragged to the event, Connor always rolls his eyes at that. It was strange to find out that Hank and Gavin, in fact, do get along. If only after six beers and a few shots of harder alcohol.

His third July fourth was something. Elijah joined them for the first time, his relationship with Gavin having become less rocky. It still wasn’t optimal, but Connor wanted his boyfriend to be happy. He wanted the two to get along again. He may have made a little error in inviting Elijah that time. Gavin got extremely drunk and shot a roman candle at Elijah who, at the time, was standing inside the house. There was fire, Hank was screaming, Richard, at some point, got soaking wet, and somehow Sumo and Connor’s new corgi puppies, Blithe and Whoop-Ass(Named by Gavin) got loose into the neighborhood. Yes, that whole year had been something.

This year will be his fourth, fourth of July. Elijah was invited again, but this time Gavin invited him. He RSVP’d saying that he’d be bringing a few Chloes with him. When Connor asked for their specific names he just stated that they all like being called Chloe. The android decided to ask them when they arrive.

He is currently helping Richard tidy up Hank’s place, having just arrived himself. He had moved in with Gavin about five months prior. Though it is obvious that the younger android is extremely serious about keeping the house tidy, Hank and Sumo still manage to make a huge mess in little to no time. They’ve finally made it to the kitchen, Richard is making sure all the food he prepared earlier is ready to be served, Connor is wiping off countertops. Richard stops suddenly, blue-grey eyes locking onto Connor.

“If I may, where is Detective Reed?” He asks Connor, raising a brow. “I noticed that you arrived by taxi instead of his car.”

Connor smiles at him.

“Detective Reed insists that you call him Gavin every time he sees you, Richard.” Richard rolls his eyes, Connor just chuckles. “He is making sure the cats have what they need. They get fussy and destructive if we leave them with nothing to do.”

“Reminds me of someone I know.” Hank snorts as he walks into the kitchen. He turns, giving Richard a pointed look.

Richard makes an offended noise.

“In what way am I destructive?”

Hank shrugs.

“Eh, hmm, you throw out my alcohol anytime that you are home alone. Oh, and don’t think I didn’t see that mess you tried to clean up when you thought you could be a painter.”

Connor holds back a giggle.

“I remember that. Paint got all over the carpet. That took months to clean!”

“It was an accident and it did not take months to clean up! Merely days.” Richard huffs cheeks tingeing a soft, embarrassed blue. He turns back to the food with a small grumble. “Honestly! You both always exaggerate when you bring that up.”

To the younger android’s dismay, Hank and Connor laugh at his obvious embarrassment. Connor pats Richard on the shoulder, then turns to face Hank, stifling some of his final chuckles and smiling widely.

“It’s good to be home.”

“Yeah, it’s good that you’re home, Sumo missed sleeping on your bed. Seems that Richard doesn’t allow him on his.” Hank pulls Connor into a hug.

“Too much hair.” Richard says matter-of-factly, still leaning over the food.

“Oh and Richard is very bitchy, you’re the fun one.” Hank adds.

“Mmm, I don’t remember you saying that when I got him to help me force you to start on a better diet.” Connor replies before Richard can give a haughty remark.

Hank pauses and frowns.

“Okay yeah, did I say the fun one? I meant that you are slightly more fun and a bit easier to deal with.” The Lieutenant pulls away with a snort, heading to the fridge. “Speaking of easier to deal with, you better not have thrown away my beer!”

“I didn’t, it’s a holiday, though I am monitoring the lot of you humans after last year.” Richard answers, he is in the middle of taking food to the backyard where a foldable table is set up.

“Hey! That was his asshole of a boyfriend, not me.” Hank growls, gesturing to Connor as he opens a can of beer and takes a swig.

Connor just smiles fondly at the two. Then he hears the door open and he turns, seeing Gavin enter with two leashes in hand. Sumo barks at him, standing and trotting over, tail wagging.

“Blight stop trying to chew Asshole’s leash to bits! Hold the fuck on- Hey Sumo.- and let me take it off!” Gavin kneels down, addressing the two young corgis with his signature nicknames for them. They are wiggling and growling at his feet excitedly. He looks up at Sumo in greeting but obviously, that isn’t enough for the big dog, he almost bowls Gavin over, leaning in and licking his face. “Ah for fuck’s sake! Quit it you big idiot!” Gavin hisses and squirms, not unlike a cat.

Connor smiles wider at the scene in front of him. He sighs and walks over.

“Need some help?”

“No, I’m fine with making out with- BLEGH!” Gavin tries to quip but utterly fails when Sumo sticks his tongue right into the man’s open mouth. He coughs and gags. “OH MY FUCKING- DISGUSTING! AGH! CONNOR CONTROL YOUR DOGS!”

Connor rolls his eyes and calls Sumo over, taking hold of his collar as he unhooks Blithe, then Whoop-Ass. He pets each corgi, letting them lick his hand then run off towards the kitchen to greet the other occupants of the house.

“I’ve warned you many times about talking while he’s licking you, Gavin.”

“I think his tongue went all the way down my throat!” Gavin coughs and retches, getting up from the floor.

“Then you really got what you wished for.” Connor smirks, letting go of Sumo.

“Very funny dipshit.” Gavin growls, walking over to Connor. He lays his head on the android’s shoulder with a soft sigh.

“Awe, did you miss me in the small window of time that we were apart?”

“No, fuck you I’m just tired and your shoulder is surprisingly comfortable.”

Connor smiles softly and gently hugs Gavin. Gavin grumbles but hugs back in response.

“So, how were the cats?” He asks.

The detective raises his head to look at Connor.

“They were fine, Allura was asleep, but I gave them enough food that even Fatty won’t be able to finish it all off before she wakes up. Also, Whoop-Ass chewed up my slippers a-fucking-gain.”

“My apologies, I’ll buy you new ones.” Connor sighs and kisses Gavin’s forehead. “He must like how you don’t wash your feet often enough.” The android earns a swift hand bat from his human partner for that remark. He swiftly dodges it with a chuckle.

“Stop being gay in my living room!” Hank calls from the kitchen.

“We can do whatever we want old man!” Gavin answers, flipping Hank off. Hank returns the gesture. Connor just sighs and shakes his head.

____

Elijah arrives about an hour later. He gives Gavin a hug and smiles at Connor with the same, creepy smile as always. It makes Connor feel as if he is back in Cyber Life being tested, taken apart, and studied, but he’s come to know that that is just how Elijah is. Three Chloes are with him, including the original. When Connor asks they confirm that yes, they do all prefer being referred to as Chloe. He is a bit confused, but he respects their choice.

The group of humans and androids gradually begin to move outside as the sun sets and the air cools. There is a bit of help from a very crabby, already drunk Hank who is quite vocal about how there are far too many people in his house. The backyard isn’t spacious, but it is much easier to maneuver in, it also currently has the food and drinks so no one complains.

Connor spots Gavin playing with Sumo, Blithe, and Whoop-Ass. For a man who claims to be a cat person who only tolerates dogs because of Connor, Gavin sure does enjoy playing with the three. Well, when he thinks no one is watching of course. Connor walks over and kneels down next to Gavin without a word, letting their shoulders brush against each other. The man in question jumps slightly, muttering a curse word under his breath and something along the lines of still needing to get Connor an effing bell. The android just hums in response, grabbing the rope chew toy that both Blithe and Whoop-Ass are fervently tugging on. The two dogs give little growls of excitement as Connor pulls at it gently.

“Oh come on Con, you have to pull on it harder than that!” Gavin exclaims, grabbing the toy from Connor’s hands like an impatient child. He tugs hard, pulling the dogs across the grass as they growl menacingly at him and wriggle.

“Gavin, that is bad for their teeth.” Connor reprimands the man beside him softly, unable to keep himself from smiling as he watches him play with the two young dogs. Sumo takes this chance to lick his face. “I didn’t forget about you Sumo.” He snorts and hugs the big dog, ruffling his thick fur.

“Hey Con look at this!”

Connor looks over to see Gavin holding the rope toy above the ground by its middle, the two Corgis dangling on each end, growling and flopping like two fish on a line.

“That…. is really bad for their teeth.”

“Psh, they’ll be fine.” Gavin rolls his eyes, though he still lowers the dogs to the ground.

“Thank you.” Connor leans over and kisses Gavin gently. It was meant to be chaste and quick, but as soon as he begins to pull away, Gavin pulls him back in for more. The android smiles into the kiss, lifting a hand up to cup his lover’s cheek.

“Ew, disgusting, I don’t want to see that in my backyard!” Hank growls, gagging for emphasis.

“Do get a room if you plan to do anything further.” Richard makes a face. Though he has a reason, he did walk in on them a couple of times when Connor was still living with him and Hank.

“Not one of mine!” The Lieutenant shouts as he ambles toward the house. “I’m getting more beer, Gavin, Elijah?”

Gavin pulls away from Connor.

“We were just kissing dumbfucks! Yeah, I want one.”

Elijah shakes his head.

“No thank you, I have wine.”

“M‘kay,” Hank responds and walks inside.

“The firework show is scheduled to start soon.” Richard states. He is in the middle of rolling out a blanket on the grass. “I’ve calculated that this spot will be the optimal place to view them this year.” He finishes his task and sits cross-legged on the blanket.

“Pff you too much of a wimp to sit on the grass like a normal man?” Gavin snorts.

“I’d rather not get my clothing covered in soil. Unlike you two. And I’m sure there are others here who appreciate not sitting directly on the grass as well.” Richard doesn’t look all that phased at Gavin’s attempt at a jab.

“I appreciate it.” Elijah smiles, sitting daintily on the blanket.

Gavin rolls his eyes.

“You are both such princesses. Even the Chloes don’t care!” He gestures to them, they are all sitting in the grass chatting with one another.

“What the hell is happening, Richard why is one of my good blankets out here?” Hank has reemerged, two beers in his hands.

“One, this is not one of your good blankets, it is riddled with holes. Two, the soil is filled with things I don’t want on my clothes a-” Richard begins.

Hank cuts him off with a loud sigh.

“Nevermind, nevermind, I don’t give a shit, god you’re a princess.” He makes his way over to Connor and Gavin, handing the latter one of the beers and sitting down.

Gavin snorts and takes the beer.

“Thanks. Glad to see you are also on the side of people who aren’t absolute neat freaks.”

Richard opens his mouth, then closes it, looking away. Elijah just smiles into his glass as he takes a sip.

They spend a few more minutes chatting and tossing soft-boiled insults back and forth before the fireworks start. When they do begin, Richard avidly tells everyone to ‘Please shut up’ so he can concentrate. Connor finds it cute how excited the other android gets when he sees fireworks despite his mature exterior, though he is sure Richard would never admit to his excitement. He’d probably say that he is far too professional to enjoy the explosive light show.

Connor will admit to liking them. Though, he does find them somewhat impractical. They may be pretty to watch when they light up the sky, but they aren’t that healthy for the environment. They also scare animals. In fact, as soon as the first firework lights the sky, crackling loudly, Sumo, Blithe, and Whoop-Ass go running for cover. Their cover being Hank, Connor, and Gavin respectively. Connor pets Blithe behind the ears to reassure and calm her, she whimpers and licks his hand. He hears a loud ‘Ughf!’ and looks over to see Sumo trying to clamber into Hank’s lap.

“For fuck’s sake Sumo, they are only fireworks!” Hank grunts, nearly spilling his beer into the grass as he tries to regain his balance. “God your fat, Richard, how much have you been feeding him?!”

“The specified amount for dogs his size and age, the only one that overfeeds him is you.” The younger android barely glances in Hank’s direction, still watching the fireworks.

Connor snorts, then feels Gavin lean into him. He turns his head and smiles at him. Gavin’s lips upturn slightly in return. They look into each other’s eyes for a few seconds. Connor swears it feels like an eternity and not even a second at all at the same time. Normally, he would revel at emotions and how they make time feel different and strange, but now he is too busy leaning in and kissing the man before him. Too busy forgetting the fireworks and getting overwhelmed by the feeling of warmth, happiness, and love.

The next thing he knows is that the fireworks are over and Richard is commenting on how this show was leagues better than the one last year. Oh well, Connor doesn’t mind missing most of it, not one bit. He had a firework show of his own happening in his mind. He chuckles at the thought of Richard making a face upon hearing that cheesy thought out loud.

He is brought abruptly out of his thoughts when Hank walks past him, multiple bottle rockets and roman candles in hand. Gavin gets up to get a few and ends up arguing with Hank about the roman candles. Richard looks horrified, obviously replaying the events of last year in his mind. Elijah watches, bemused from where he stands with the Chloes. Far away from the danger zone, hopefully.

Oh no.

Connor quickly gets up to try to stop his boyfriend and his father from catching themselves or the house on fire.

Oh, how he loves the fourth of July.

#gav800week2018 #Gav800 #Convin #Connor #gavin reed #detroit become human #fanfic #Day 5 #fic #fourth of july #families are great #Rk900 #I with a lot of the fandom like calling him Richard?#hank anderson #dbh sumo #elijah kamski #dbh chloe #Elijah and Gavin are bros #Hank is a dad

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