#they cooperate on a semi regular basis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sophie1973 · 27 days

Text

(A bit more than) Seven Sentence Sunday

I was tagged for Wip Wednesday by @onthewaytosomewhere, @pridepages and @hgejfmw-hgejhsf and today by Mel as well and thanks to some work and a few great writing sprints with friends I can now share a last (unedited) snippet of chapter 2 of Bloodstream before posting the chapter (finally!) probably tomorrow.

Chapter one can be found HERE

“Are you seriously telling me that you hunt vampires and other night creatures on a semi-regular basis but you’re scared of getting into an elevator?”

The iron structure stands proudly against the Parisian sky, but Henry looks at it with a wary look. It is definitely a construction wonder, and Henry heard that its A shaped form was an homage to a woman named Adrienne that Gustave Eiffel had been in love with. He had no idea if that rumor was true, but the fairy-tale dreamer in him liked the idea. That doesn't mean he wants to climb on the damn thing. “Not scared, it’s just…It’s very high.” Alex grins. “300 meters to be exact, but we’re only going to the second floor, which is 115 meters high.” Henry frowns, trying to stall a bit more. Not that he has any chance of succeeding. Once Alex has set his mind on something, it is an impossible task to distract him. Henry doesn’t even try. “But isn’t it closed at this time?” Alex smiles smugly. “I have an arrangement with Gustave.” “Darling, I’m pretty sure you’ve never met Gustave Eiffel.” “Ok, no. But I know the next best person - the guy in charge of the visits. With a little convincing and a good wad of french money he was extremely cooperative. I heard the sunset is lovely from up there. You’re coming?” Henry sighs, unable to deny him anything, least of all a little elevator ride, especially if it is to watch the sunset together from the second floor of the Eiffel tower. His vampire is nothing if not a big romantic at heart, and Henry loves him and his sometimes crazy ideas all the more for it.

Tagging the lovely friends who tagged me on Wednesday as well as a no pressure tag for @stellarm @piratefalls @anincompletelist @itsmaybitheway @orchidscript@magicandarchery @happiness-of-the-pursuit

#red white and royal blue #firstprince #rwrb fic #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #Henry the Reluctant Slayer #Sophie1973

21 notes · View notes

pochipop · 2 years

Text

＃ MYSTIC MESSENGER !! ♡ — REACTING TO YOU GETTING HURT WHILE COOKING.

#. synopsis! — kitchenware can be dangerous .

#. characters! — jumin , saeran (ray) , yoosung .

#. warnings! — nongraphic depictions of small injuries .

#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @yyolkchi (reblog/spam) .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

𖦹. ━ JUMIN !!

It's not that big of a deal, but the way Jumin quickly jumps to action could have fooled you into thinking you were in mortal danger if you didn't know better. The second he heard you hiss under your breath, knife falling onto the cutting board with a little clanking sound, he was at your side.

"Are you alright?" He questions, a worried edge permeating every syllable.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you assure him quickly, "—it's just a cut. I was being careless."

"It's bleeding," he notes, pulling you away from the counter and over to the sink.

He turns the faucet, pauses as he waits for the water to turn lukewarm, and examines your slit finger in the process. It's just as you'd said: a small cut resulting from a moment's carelessness. But, this is one of the ways Jumin shows love. Little things can turn into monumental things when they impact you, and he wants nothing more than to be your knight in shining armor. Even if you don't need one, he likes to think that maybe one day, he'll have the opportunity to save you the way you saved him. So, when it comes to tiny things like this, you don't complain when Jumin takes a strong initiative.

He tests the water himself first, making sure it's not hot enough to scald you before gently pulling your hand forward. The few droplets of blood rush off your finger as the water cascades over, cleaning the wound out.

"It's really not a big deal," you say softly, knowing that he's worried and has worked himself up, —even over something as miniscule as this.

And he knows you're right. Your cut is barely worse than the papercuts he gets on a semi-regular basis whilst handling paperwork at the office, and he's known to deal with those by working one handed while he sucks the cut until the blood stops. But when it comes to you, he fears even the smallest of things could harm you in unimaginable ways, and Jumin's biggest fear is letting you get hurt and being unable to do anything about it. You're the strongest person he knows, but he'd go to the ends of the Earth just to keep you from ever dealing with pain again.

"We have a first aid kit in the bathroom," he mumbles as he turns the water off, acknowledging your comment with a pleading glance, —one that silently begs for your cooperation.

You comply.

He offers you his hand to squeeze when he applies some disinfectant spray. You apply a little pressure when he does, but it's more for Jumin than it is for you, and you suspect that he knows as much but chooses to say nothing of it.

The bandage he applies has little cat paw prints on it, and you stifle a giggle as he wraps it carefully around your finger. It's just so cute that you can't help yourself.

"Is that comfortable enough?" He inquires, dark eyes meeting yours, breaking his intense concentration.

You bend your finger a bit and offer him a delicate smile.

"It's fine," you assure him, "—thank you."

Jumin sighs a little, relief lapping at the shores of his heart.

"Go sit for a while and I'll finish dinner. Then we can eat together," he requests.

As long as you get something to eat, you don't really care who cooks it, so you nod your head. Jumin smiles gently and brushes his lips past yours, soft and sweet.

𖦹. ━ SAERAN !!

When Saeran hears you curse, he looks your way; expression as blank as usual, but eyes swimming with worry.

"Hey," he says from behind you in order to get your attention, "what happened?"

"Nothing," you lie, pushing the grater away from you, "everything's fine."

He stands, knowing you well enough to understand that you were lying to avoid the embarrassment of admitting you'd gone and hurt yourself.

"Everything's not fine," he says, bluntly so, reaching around you to take your wrist into his grip.

For someone who can be so incredibly intimidating, Saeran is almost startlingly gentle. At least, he is when it comes to you. His lithe fingers wrap around your wrist, the warmth of his palm pressed flat to your skin. You could almost forget the pain of the small nick on your finger with his touch soothing you down like this.

"Let me see," he demands, —not aggressively, but as if asking for permission.

You comply, and he eyes the little cut along the tip of your finger.

"You cut yourself with the grater?" He asks, to which your eyes avert away from his face.

"It was an accident," you say, perhaps a bit defensively.

Saeran sighs.

"How many times have I told you to be careful when you use that thing?" He asks, but doesn't expect a genuine answer.

He doesn't get one.

"You need to pay better attention," Saeran continues, pulling your finger close to his lips. "I don't like it when you go and get yourself hurt."

With nothing more to say, he opens his mouth and presses the tip of your finger to his tongue. Your eyes widen, but you don't make any attempt to pull away from him. His tongue slides gently over the tiny wound, lapping at the blood. It's a rather crude method of solving the issue, but you can't bring yourself to mind. If it were anyone else, you'd likely think it was gross and pull your hand away at the speed of light, —but it's not anyone else. It's Saeran, and if anything, this is oddly attractive to you.

"There," he mumbles, tongue raking along his bottom lip swiftly, "better?"

It wasn't much of an issue in the first place, but you nod in reply, a little embarrassed by his antics.

"Yeah. Thanks," you answer in a voice just above a whisper.

He doesn't mind the taste of your blood, but even he knows it would be weird to say something like that, so he keeps the thought to himself.

"Go sit down and try not to get yourself cut again," he says, "I'll finish dinner."

His words might be a little harsh, but the soft touch that lingers on your wrist for a few moments longer is anything but.

𖦹. ━ YOOSUNG !!

Yoosung's heart seizes in his chest when he hears you yelp from the kitchen in his small apartment. He doesn't even bother to pause his game before rushing your way. His chest caves a bit when he sees you holding your hand, eyes and nose scrunched up in pain.

"Y/n! What happened?" He asks, reaching out to clutch comfortingly at your shoulder, albeit a bit awkwardly.

"It's okay," you insist, still reeling a bit from the shock, "I burnt my hand a little, that's all."

In truth, it surprised you more than it actually hurt you. Still, you can't deny that the side of your hand is stinging, and though you haven't looked, you have a feeling that your skin might well be a bit discolored now.

Yoosung scrambles.

"Here, —put your hand under some cool water for a minute or two," he says, turning the faucet knobs for you.

He's sure to test the temperature of the water for you before allowing you to place your hand under the light stream. You flinch a little at the initial contact, still sensitive in the freshly burned area. Yoosung turns the burner of the stovetop off, hunger all but forgotten in the wake of your admittedly minor injury. Right now, he couldn't care less about his own needs. Even if everything is fine, —he can't help but be worried.

"How bad does it hurt?" He inquires.

"Not bad," you reply, hoping to reassure him. "It only stings a little now, and it should go away soon. Nothing to worry about."

Too late. When it comes to you, the smallest things can work Yoosung up. He can't help himself. If there's anyone in this life he hates to see in pain, no matter the severity of it, it's you.

"We should have some antibiotic cream somewhere," he notes, "just wait here for a minute, I'll be right back."

He fulfills that promise, returning quickly with a small, white tube of ointment and a fluffy bath towel.

"Let me know if anything hurts," he says, taking your hand softly into his grip.

Yoosung gently dabs the lingering water droplets away from the burnt area with the towel before taking a generous amount of the antibiotic cream onto one of his long, lithe fingers. He spreads it evenly with feather-like touches, keeping the agitation to a bare minimum. You can't help but smile at how incredibly gentle he is.

"Okay," he smiles over at you softly, "that should do it. Does it feel any better?"

"My hand feels fine," you answer, leaning over to press a kiss to the apple of his cheek. "Thank you."

He blushes, eyes lighting up in the wake of your lips.

"I'll make dinner," Yoosung tells you, "—I hope you don't mind ramen. . ."

800 notes · View notes

dwcmarshalarts · 1 year

Text

The ICC: A brief civics lesson

Given that today is Election Day in the United States, I thought it appropriate to do a brief rundown of the Interstellar Cooperation Circuit’s overall framework.

This’ll be a rare time where I’ll voluntarily lore dump like this. It isn’t that there isn’t lore to be spread, but that I just hate giving it all in a text dump instead of telling it organically.

Let’s go over.

OVERVIEW

The ICC, or Interstellar Cooperation Circuit is a supranational political federation between 32 member states. What it isn’t is a state in it of itself. Formed some time during the 22nd century originally as a purely economic arrangement between several major post-Earth star nations (originally named the Interstellar Trade and Commerce Circuit), the ICC developed into a formal political union over the course of a couple decades. Eventually this Federation started to acquire further domestic powers usually reserved to its member states. Broader jurisdiction over regulatory powers, standardization, increased cross-national projects such as infrastructure and the construction of the hyperlane highway system, are among the major reasons as to the gradual centralization of the ICC. The ICC, however, did not comprise all post-Earth star nations, and eventually in order to protect the Circuit from external threats, a move was made to create a federation-level military (The ICC Armed Forces). While certain member states could opt out and continue to maintain their domestic armed forces, the ICC Armed Forces would grow exponentially and in some cases supplant the local militaries entirely (as is the case in the largest and most powerful member state, the State of Greksil).

Overall, the ICC is a federation with almost three dozen member states, whose original economic focus was altered into a tighter and more centralized political union.

As an addendum, it is important to realize that the member states that comprised the original ITCC were the major descendants of old Earth, Western nations, with the post-American descendant being the State of Greksil, and the post-British descendant the Commonwealth of New Westminster being among the top most powerful nations in the ICC. While it’s relevant to go over cultural heritage, probably more important is the overall economic structures that bound the member states. All of these nations prioritized private and semi-regulated economic activity as the backbone of their economies, all of these nations to some degree practiced some form of economic exploitation of underdeveloped regions, and all of these nations had an effectively rigid system which hindered general economic mobility while ushering in massive profits for the well-to-do.

The ICC, by no means, is a star utopia, nor necessarily an improvement of real world economic conditions. Its legacy is a continuation of brutal imperialist hegemony, simply masked in the veneer of a commitment to liberty, while using an idealized version of the past to legitimize its cultural primacy over other star nations.

THE INNER WORKINGS

The ICC, as a federation, does not function the way a regular domestic state would. While, by the mid 24th century, the legal and cultural boundaries between each member state would exist largely as formalities, the ICC still put into place several stopgaps that still “technically” protected the sovereignty of each member state. This was represented in their three-pronged approach to the governance of the ICC. A Parliament would pass laws, a commission would enforce those laws and administer the Circuit, and a Council would check the power of an overstepping federation.

The Circuit Parliament What they are: The ICC Parliament is a unicameral legislature comprised of 1,200 seats, with proportional representation of each member-state on the basis of overall population. How they get appointment: The members of the ICC Parliament are elected every 5 galactic standard years, with every member state having districts in line with the number of seats they have in the Parliament. Candidates for CMP can run on any party ballot. Duties of the Parliament: After each election, CMPs are expected, as part of their duties, to pass laws on a whole host of issues, ranging from annual budgets, to economic regulation, to foreign aid, to special investigations, etc. Being directly elected by local populations, CMPs are also expected to be more directly tied to every day constituents, and are ostensibly meant to be the “people’s representatives.” CMPs form committees within the ICC Parliament to, on a more targeted basis, assess specific legislation, and are put on committees and boards based on seniority.

Who’s in charge: At the top of the Parliament are the elected officers, the head of which is the “President of the Parliament.” The President of the Parliament is more often than not the head of the party which controls the majority of the Circuit Parliament, or the head of the coalition of parties that head the government. As such, they can be considered the “Head of Government.” The Parliament President as such gets broad powers over setting the agenda and the passage of laws, and is responsible for getting support for legislation. What the Parliament President, as well as the Parliament itself, does not have power to do, is to affect the day to day administration of the ICC itself. There are no term limits.

In summary: In short, the Parliament merely comes up with and passes laws, in a multiparty unicameral legislature, elected directly by regular people in the Circuit. It does not enforce those laws.

So who does enforce Circuit laws?

The Circuit Commission What they are: The ICC Commission is a high-level board of administrators appointed by committees within the Circuit Parliament. The board includes chairpeople heading entire, Circuit-wide departments (such as for infrastructure, defence, foreign affairs, etc). How they get appointment: These individuals are not members of the Circuit Parliament themselves. While they may originate from the Parliament, they abrogate their seats upon appointment and become heads of the vast ICC Bureaucracy. Who’s in charge: At the head of the Commission is the Commission President. The Commission President administrates, oversees, and for all intents and purposes is in charge of the day-to-day running of the Circuit itself. They enforce the Circuit laws, they travel between Circuit member states to discuss cross-Circuit affairs. They travel or send delegations to foreign star nations and negotiate interstellar deals. They direct military prerogatives and security apparati. While the Commission President has more than several checks on power by, particularly the Council President (we’ll go over that later), the Commission President, as “head of state,” de facto ends up being the most powerful of the ICC heads. There is a 2 term limit to Commission Presidents, with elections being held every 5 years, offset by 2.5 years from the Parliamentary elections. They can be removed from office by 3/4 majority vote of the Circuit Parliament, or by unanimous action by the Commission board.

The Circuit Council What they are: As a vestige from the early, decentralized days of the ICC, the Circuit Council was formed as a means of checking the power of a central ICC government and enforcement agency. How they get appointment: The small, 128 seat (4 for each member state) Circuit Council gets its members via direct appointment from the member states. This means that each member state decides on their own terms how they want their Council members appointed, and entirely locally decides who they send. What they do: These local, member-state government appointed representatives then convene on the regular to oversee the administration of the Circuit Commission or advise the Circuit Parliament if any laws appear to threaten member state sovereignty. They also, every 10 years, elect a new Council President, the chief sovereignty consultant of the ICC. In practice: It’s been decades since the ICC has been hung up on member state sovereignty. As a result, the office of Council President, and the whole Council itself is more or less purely ceremonial. Given this state of affairs, the Council President more than anything spends their time promoting ICC culture, administering cross-Circuit festivals, advocating for local traditions, and serving as the “democratic chief-of-state,” a largely figurehead position that affords little effective power, and more an office of de jure cultural legitimacy. They, while at this point have little real power over the Commission, are the cheerleaders of cultural practices within the ICC.

THE POLITICS

This section will be comparatively brief. The ICC Parliament, unlike its previous American ancestor, and more like its European ancestors has a strong and vibrant multi-party system. As such, no one single party tends to control the entire ICC legislature. The Parties run on their specific platforms come election time, and the members of each party tend to be seen as less relevant than their actual party manifestos. The ICC has a diverse range of political expression within the context of a liberal democracy. Major parties include the left-wing Social Democrats and the right-wing Union Party. The parties in charge in Parliament, by the time of the Percivals story in the mid-late 24th century, are the centrist Liberal and Democratic Unity Party, in a coalition with the smaller center-right Conservative Party, led by Parliament President Marcus Aster. Their platform is largely status quo protection: strong central federation authority, low-to-moderate economic regulation, emphasis on private sector led economic growth, belligerent foreign policy, and protection of individuals (including protected minorities) within the framework of ICC guaranteed rights pursuant to their constitution.The Lib-Dem Unity led coalition is not particularly bent on reshaping the ICC in any direction, not wanting to shift rightward toward either more open markets or outright despotism, but also not budging leftward in their allegiance to private property, and only fulfilling certain basic social programs like retirement/disability pensions, and free social services for low-to-no income earners. Their main representative in the Commission is President Nikita Meyer, whose reputation as a tactful legislator during her Parliament days manifests in her now second administration as a smooth political operator. The daily affairs of the Circuit are smoothly run by her subordinates in the various ICC bureaus and departments, while her eyes focus on external matters, especially around the ICC’s southeast neighbor, the Advocati Star Order.

The Council is as apolitical as the branches get, with the members appointed often being civil servants or cultural figures themselves, as opposed to lifelong politicians or career bureaucrats.

#lore #percivals lore #dwc marshal arts #interstellar cooperation circuit #icc #dwc lore

10 notes · View notes

govindhtech · 1 month

Text

Quality assurance using IBM Ignite Quality Platform

IBM Ignite Platform

QA is a vital phase in the software development lifecycle, verifying that software fulfills quality standards before release. QA is a systematic approach of discovering, preventing, and correcting issues throughout the development process.

But there are a number of issues in the QA field that impact defect volume, test case automation, and test case inventory. The huge number of test cases might make managing the inventory difficult and result in inefficiencies and resource shortages. Test case automation is useful, but it may also present difficulties when it comes to choosing the right instances, ensuring adequate upkeep, and obtaining thorough coverage. Software quality and release schedules are impacted by defect volume, which is a constant source of worry.

To overcome these obstacles, a careful and proactive strategy is needed to reduce the number of errors in the QA process, maximize the efficacy of automation, and simplify test cases. Delivering high-quality software solutions that satisfy user expectations and industry requirements requires striking a balance between these factors.

IBM Ignite testing Test case optimization must be the main priority if test case volume is to be decreased. In order to cover different situations, this method entails finding duplicate or overlapping test cases and unifying them. It’s crucial to prioritize test cases according to crucial features and possible hazards in order to maximize testing efficiency. By maximizing coverage without sacrificing quality, teams may also direct resources where they are most needed by using risk-based testing. Careful design and ongoing maintenance may improve the efficacy of test case automation.

Another approach is to carefully choose the test cases for automation, emphasizing crucial, time-consuming, and repeated circumstances. Automated test scripts must also be updated on a regular basis to ensure their relevance and dependability in the face of application changes. Implementing strong testing approaches, such as shift-left testing, where testing activities are started earlier in the development process, is a proactive response to faults. To find and fix bugs early, development and testing teams should emphasize cooperation, use tools for static analysis, and conduct comprehensive code reviews.

All of this is provided by IBM via The IBM IGNITE Quality Platform (IQP), a DevOps-enabled single sign-on platform that optimizes testing using proprietary techniques and AI capabilities. The platform introduces shift left strategies that support an organization’s end-to-end testing lifecycle by accelerating automation with healing capabilities and predicting and preventing problems. These approaches also lead to high-quality delivery.

IBM Ignite tool Handle: Supported by an integrated platform that centrally and in one location controls several tenants, users, apps, projects, and all the functional and technical settings required for the testing process. It also encourages the quality plan journey, which lowers faults as its goal. Additionally, it incorporates several third-party connectors, including top git-based repositories, test and defect tools, and cloud-based web and mobile testing tools, as well as quality suggestions that come from other components.

Optimize: Aimed to bring in a shift left in revealing faults early and provide the best possible collection of testcases with 100% coverage.

Requirement analytics (RA): A natural language processing (NLP) tool for requirements analysis that drives in shift left, finds ambiguities, and assesses complexity. Additionally, it helps identify important features for the optimization journey in a semi-automated manner.

Search Tag & Model (STAM) Using a text-based analytics tool called Search Tag & Model (STAM), users may quickly analyze a large number of pre-existing tests to find redundancies and pinpoint important characteristics for the optimization process.

Optimization (TO): A tool based on the Combinatorial Test Design Methodology that facilitates the creation of an optimized test plan with the greatest possible coverage using YAML, relational data, existing tests, and current requirements. incorporates ideas of functional context modeling and attribute pooling for reusability.

IBM Ignite test automation The goal was to swiftly create, automate, and run many unattended tests on a range of platforms, data, and settings.

Assists in producing TO model-based and nonmodel-based tests that are prepared for both automated and manual testing (Test Generation, TG). Additionally, it facilitates the rapid conversion of bespoke Selenium-based frameworks to IQP-specific automation, automated BDD script development using recording mechanisms, and custom BDD generation for client-based frameworks. Optimized Test Flow Automation (OTFA) is a scriptless test automation framework based on Cucumber that supports the automation of Web, Mobile, REST, and SOAP-based applications. It integrates Jmeter-based performance testing with visual testing and has an integrated test healing feature.

Analyze Skilled in comprehending the defect patterns of a client, cognitive test components facilitate speedier defect resolution, provide insight, and forecast potential issues. These predictions lead to preventative advice that may be used to both Agile and conventional engagements. Better planning and fewer test cycles are also facilitated by its failure prediction capacity.

Defect Classify (IDC) is a plug-in solution that enables automated defect assignment and categorization while on the move, facilitating quicker defect analysis and resolution. Defect Analytics (IDA): Designed with the defect reduction approach in mind, this tool comprehends the flaws’ semantics and offers preventive advice to further minimize them. In order to improve test management and planning, Defect Predict (IDP) evaluates and forecasts the trend of defects in a test cycle. IBM’s unique methods to automation

IBM is prioritize optimization over automation as part of their multiple shift-left methodology approach to reduce the waste snowball effect. IBM make use of a contemporary framework that integrates low-code techniques and supports behavior-driven development (BDD). IBM methodology encompasses a thorough automation of Web, Mobile, API, and SOAP-based applications, which is smoothly combined with performance testing.

Their approach is to carefully integrate every function into the DevOps pipeline, encouraging a unified and effective development lifecycle, all while adhering to the continuous testing concept. Beyond this, they also support Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions and cloud deployment, promoting scalability, flexibility, and accessibility in a quickly changing technological environment.

Proof of the effectiveness of the IGNITE Quality and Test IBM’s main goal is to provide their customers with measurable value by strategically minimizing testing requirements and while fostering client trust. IBM’s multi-technical experience allows them to provide a full and adaptable solution that fulfills their clients’ needs. IBM consistent results and client trust have reinforced their market leadership and dedication to meaningful solutions.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#ibm #qa #ibmignite #devops #saas #ai #analysis #technology #technews #govindhtech

0 notes

commercialroplants · 8 months

Text

What Is A Commercial RO Plant? What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Commercial RO Plants?

Water in business settings can be treated using Commercial RO Plant , a water purification technique that employs a semi-permeable membrane. It's hard to call this membrane technology a filtration technique. In reverse osmosis, osmotic pressure—a cooperative feature driven by chemical potential, a thermodynamic parameter—is overpowered by an applied pressure.

Advantages of Commercial RO Plant

Proper impurity disposal: Reverse osmosis effectively removes contaminants by capturing them. Because the RO system correctly disposes of the contaminants inside the mains water feed, no hazardous chemical water is released into the drains. Without using any ions, chemicals, resins, or other agents, the membrane eliminates the contaminants.

Less Dangerous Water: The Reverse Osmosis system creates water that is less dangerous. This is so that pure water can be produced without the use of chemicals. This is one of the greenest industrial wastewater treatment methods available.

Easy discharge process: The discharge procedure is made simple by the correct and simple disposal of contaminants without the use of any chemicals. In general, chemicals have a significant negative influence on the environment if they are disposed of carelessly. However, this procedure has gotten simpler as a result of RO technology, and wastewater can now be released into the environment even without treatment.

Let’s see if there are some disadvantages of Commercial RO Plants?

1: One disadvantage is a leak in the drainage or faucet systems. In essence, this occurs when the system components of a RO plant are ill-fitting. You should always keep an eye out for where the leaking is occurring, to receive relief from the leakage system.

The tubing can then be further inserted into ports, drain saddles, and valves, once you have tightened the fittings on that component. This will aid in the joint system's improvement.

2: One must deal with Reverse Osmosis plant’s loud sound emanating from the faucet or a drain, anytime you install a new system or change the filters, especially cartridge filters. Although, this issue goes away in a week or two, the loud noise will annoy you greatly for two weeks.

You can always call our specialists and professionals for assistance if you need to get rid of this.

3: Sometimes it causes the water to taste or smell terrible. The main cause can be exhausted filters and worn-out membranes. To fix the issue and improve the taste of the water, you must replace the worn-out filters and membranes. To lessen air and bubbles, the water that has been kept for a long time, must also be changed on a regular basis.

4: Slower water flow than necessary for operation is another issue the commercial RO plant faces. You must measure the water tank's capacity for this. When the bladder inside the tank can no longer withstand the pressure, the entire tank needs to be replaced.

5: The system runs non-stop, which is the final but not insignificant issue. This generally occurs when the valve is damaged or doesn't close properly. The membrane can sometimes even be installed incorrectly and yet cause the system to function. Therefore, you can monitor the pressure in the storage tank and subsequently change the valve as necessary, to stop the continuous flow.

6: Wastewater produced from reverse osmosis systems can be lost up to 20 times, as it is produced. This is wasteful for the environment as well as for households or businesses, whose water bills may be much higher.

7: Systems for reverse osmosis filtering are expensive.

8: Once a reverse osmosis system is operational, it can be expensive to operate properly and may call for expert maintenance, to assure safety and efficacy.

How can we assist?

Netsol Water assists its clients in achieving their goal of treating wastewater produced from Commercial RO Plants, and reusing it for different purposes. We use the most recent technology that complies with the established industrial standards and quality, because we care about the environment.

As a result, you don't need to be concerned about the services, as we are one of the most affordable businesses dedicated to protecting water resources. Further, to discuss your needs, contact us at 9650608473, or send an email to [email protected] with your inquiry.

Visit the link for more information about the water plants: What Is The Capacity Of A Commercial RO Plant ?

#commercial ro plant manufacture #commercial ro plant #netsolwater #compact stp plant #urbanstpplant #watertreatmentplant

0 notes

itswavelengths · 2 years

Text

Overwatch 2 Is Asking Too Much Of Me

I'll admit: I wasn't really keeping an eye on the Overwatch 2 launch situation over the past few months. The reason I'd not been keeping an eye it is that, simply put, Activision Blizzard is a nightmare company and I didn't want to waste my time or energy thinking about it. What I had absorbed through osmosis before yesterday was that the game was originally planned to include a split focus on improving the already-stellar competitive multiplayer while also introducing a new suite of cooperative modes in an attempt to bring in new players who might not want to get yelled at over the mic by wannabe pros. In a sense, Overwatch 2 was to be something more similar to Destiny than its predecessor — an all encompassing game for all kinds of players — which is a tall order requiring mountains of effort and money, all of which Activision Blizzard hypothetically had access to (including literally owning Bungie / Destiny while they spun up development). I also knew the game launching yesterday would not be including the cooperative element and would instead be a pared down release, only featuring the newly updated multiplayer with a few additional playable characters and an updated monetization system.

Well, dear reader, I have played Overwatch 2. And honestly, I'm having a good time with it despite the icky feeling I get every time the Blizzard logo pops up on my screen. And every time the game prompts me to get the battle pass. And every time a challenge completion popup tells me I've earned enough in-game currency to maybe buy a cool cosmetic in eight to ten months if I can keep this pace up. I think this switch from a game riddled with loot boxes to a free-to-play game honing in on a seasonal battle pass is really the biggest takeaway here, because it shifts the entire focus of play as much as it does the business model of those making it.

I've done a bit of digging in the more hive-mindy parts of the internet and the prevailing sense in the Overwatch community is that the loot boxes were better than the current monetization path. As of this writing there is literally a post towards the top of the Overwatch subreddit with the title "I miss loot boxes" which is frankly wild as hell. The truth is that loot boxes were predatory and problematic enough to literally get outlawed by multiple governments around the world. It is also simultaneously true that the loot box model rewarded players with cosmetics on a semi-regular (but still infrequent) basis. By moving to a freemium battle pass model, the best rewards possible are now locked behind paid tiers of the pass while smaller, free rewards are scarce and uninteresting.

With loot boxes, the focus of playing Overwatch was getting better and climbing ranks — just continuing to play in this way would occasionally grant you items that may or may not be rewarding. The focus of Overwatch 2 is climbing battle pass tiers, which means players will be railroaded into completing daily / weekly / monthly / event challenges possibly antithetical to their play-styles or desires in an attempt to min-max cosmetic unlocks before they disappear forever. Both models are predatory and troublesome for different reasons, but I guess it’s not so shocking to see people putting on rose-tinted glasses in regards to a monetization system they once hated given the new path is so withholding by comparison. Generally speaking: When a battle pass season launches, players can make a judgement immediately by seeing the reward tiers if it’ll be “worth it” to purchase or not. Loot boxes allowed for the entire item pool to exist in the possibility space of rewards which was more exciting — but also more alluring to those with a hard time avoiding falling into the gambling-adjacent side of the model.

The overarching problem here is that Overwatch 2 needed to prove more to its returning playerbase¹, and the (admittedly still great) multiplayer from 2016 will feel largely unchanged to casual fans. The takeaway, then, is that Overwatch 2 is more a fun dip into a nostalgia pool than it is a game reclaiming its rightful spot at the top of the hero-based shooter genre. Again: I'm having a great time jumping into the solo-queue and exploring all of the characters that have been added since I last played². Changing teams from six players to five is welcome, and the more aggressive play is a joy — but it still feels distinctly similar to a game I already decided to leave behind years ago. So all I'm left with is a battle pass asking me to make this game my full-time hobby, but I've picked up a lot of those since 2016. If anything, I'm trying to drop some instead of adding more.

⏆

---

¹ I didn't even get into how Blizzard now makes you link a phone number to your Battlenet account but specifically disallows pre-paid phone plans. I’m sure the intention here was to prevent people from setting up fake accounts for cheating or other nefarious reasons but it is also creating a literal economic barrier to entry for a “free” to play game. Even people who purchased the launch bundle can’t play if they’re on a pre-paid plan. It's literally classist, and is going to cost Blizzard a lot of returning and potential players.

² Even going back to the original release of Overwatch, Pharah has always been my go-to character. She'd had ups and downs in the time I was actively playing the first game, but she absolutely rules in Overwatch 2. I've been trying to experiment more with tanks and supports (I also used to main Lucio), and truly haven't found a hero I dislike playing as yet. Everyone feels awesome, and that's remarkable.

0 notes

honourablejester · 3 years

Text

Since I’m apparently on the subject of bioluminescent mermaids again, I went back and dug up some worldbuilding notes for the story I originally had the idea for, and which basically never actually got written. It was essentially going to be a sci-fi/horror/noir set on a maritime planet (Lemuria), starring an eldritch abyssal mermaid nightclub performer and her nightclub-owner human partner (in all senses), dealing with industrial sabotage and race relations in a submarine city run by geothermal power.

If you want to see what my worldbuilding notes for stories often look like, this is (sometimes) it. Sometimes. Actually, this is quite organised for me. Normally I just wing it on the day.

Lemuria Notes

Contents:

Planet Lemuria (geography, inhabitants, language)

Major Nations/Peoples of Lemuria

Interplanetary Issues (Galactic Ruling/Judiciary Bodies)

Actual Story Idea

Planet Lemuria:

Lemuria has a very slow rotation around its own axis, especially compared to its solar orbit, with one full Lemurian day lasting two thirds of a Lemurian year. Planetary nights last for four months at the equators. The planet is primarily oceanic at this phase in its geological history, with two small continents still in existence, both largely on the same ('continental') side of the planet, and a series of many occupied island chains in the vast oceans on the other ('oceanic') side of the planet. Lemuria is home to a significant human colonial population on these landmasses, being gradually settled over the past 300 galactic years.

Lemuria is also home to what are called the demimondaine, which is a (human) collective term for the two or three loosely connected species of semi-humanoid aquatic beings (‘mermaids’) who are the original and continuing inhabitants of the planet. Demimondaine are broadly divided into three main types: surface or island demimondaine (warm-blooded, amphibious, very humanoid surface or upper water column demimondaine), ocean or deep water demimondaine (cold-blooded, amphibious, semi-humanoid mid-column demimondaine from the deeper oceans away from the islands and continents), and abyssal demimondaine (semi-humanoid, biomorphous, non-amphibious demimondaine from the sea floor and abyssal plains/trenches). The demimondaine form several major nation states on the planet, and have a (mostly) friendly and cooperative relationship with the human colonies, having granted permission for human settlement on their planet three hundred galactic years ago.

A note on languages and names: as most of the demimondaine languages are unpronounceable and largely unintelligible to humans, owing to the difference in vocal construction, most of the names given in this document are the human names for places and beings. Communication between humans and demimondaine is largely text-based, as demimondaine have several glyph-based writing systems (most language groups have one or two) that are translatable to human systems. Electronic text-based translation is the standard, though there are also several pidgin sign-languages in use, particularly in trade cities like Jasconius, Zaratan and Ys, and in the Island Union, since hand-shape is largely similar between species.

(Further note on all of this: I am bullshitting to the max, having no scientific background on any of it at all)

Nations/Settlements of Note:

Zealandia: the largest continent and surface nation, located in the southerly continental oceans and generally enjoying a very warm and humid tropical climate. Lemurine, its capital city, is the administrative colonial capital of Lemuria. The continent hosts 54% of all colonial residents and off-planet visitors to Lemuria. Zealandia is the main surface agricultural production area, and it boasts a significantly different and human-orientated diet to much of the rest of Lemuria. Baralku, the primary Lemuria-to-orbit spaceport, is located just south of Lemurine City.

Kerguelen: the smaller continent, located to the north west of Zealandia on the continental side of the planet. Kerguelen has a colder climate than Zealandia, and is primarily home to forestry and ore mining, with a small agricultural zone. It is the other main colonial settlement and nation state, along with the Island Union on the oceanic side of the planet. Kusu is the capital for this landmass.

The Island Union: a nation state comprised of several of the largest island chains in the central and southern oceanic seas, controlling much of the territory west of Deep Mu and east of Zealandia on the oceanic side of the planet. The Island Union has the most integrated mixed human and demimondaine population on Lemuria, with both species represented in its ruling body. It also has the widest range of both human and demimondaine languages in current use.

Kibu Island/Spaceport: the main Lemuria-to-orbit spaceport and atmospheric transport hub on the oceanic side of the planet, Kibu spaceport and arcology complex is built on a large semi-artificial atol island chain in the equatorial ocean, with the main spaceport tower complex on Kibukuth island.

Bohol: one of the main island chains in the southern oceans of Lemuria, it's the third largest land-based and colonial settlement on Lemuria, and the largest single non-Jasconian demimondaine surface settlement. Considered the capital and administrative center of the Island Union, and a significant point of contact between humans and demimondaine.

Jasconius: a large demimondaine floating city complex and independent city-state, inhabited primarily by deep ocean and surface demimondaine. Jasconius famously circumnavigates the planet on a slow, continuous basis to keep itself on the daylight side of Lemuria, with regular excursions to the following dawn-twilight zone. It's always morning in Jasconius. The city's heart is sixteen hundred Lemurian years old (equivalent of twelve hundred galactic standard years), making it the oldest continually-occupied demimondaine settlement on Lemuria's surface, a very popular tourist destination, and a primary human-demimondaine trading city.

Zaratan: a smaller floating city complex, located exclusively on the oceanic side of the planet, Zaratan is essentially a floating market city that travels along trade routes in the Island Union and several outlying micronations in more northerly waters. Largely inhabited by island demimondaine, and also considered an independent city-state, though it has strong trade and political ties with the Island Union.

Deep Mu: Largest and most powerful of the two known deep nations, located in the vast western abyssal plains between the Zealandia continent and the Island Union, Deep Mu is home almost exclusively to abyssal demimondaine who rarely come to the surface. Its capital is unknown to the surface, but there are rumours of a vast cave complex in the wall of the Zealandian continental shelf that serves as the main Muean city. Owing to large geothermal activity at several points on the sea floor, Deep Mu is the producer of around 60% of Zealandia's energy supply, which is a serious political bone of contention between Deep Mu and the surface.

Ys: an independant deep ocean city habitat and power station located just on the edge of the Zealandian continental shelf, Ys is the primary connection point between Lemurine and Deep Mu, and a major trading hub for deep water demimondaine in the continental oceans. It's one of the few places where humans, deep water and abyssal demimondaine intermingle.

Vaalbara: the other known deep nation, located in the colder northern waters to the east of Kerguelen. Vaalbara has two main cities, an abyssal city deep in the Cipactli Trench on the eastern edge of the territory, and the deep water city of Sedna on the Imap Umassoursa submarine plateau about four hundred miles off the coast of Kerguelen. Vaalbara is to an extent isolationist in relation to humans. The abyssal city again has almost no contact with humans, although Sedna does have a limited trade relationship with Kerguelen, mostly conducted via coastal settlements on Kerguelen itself. Surface fleets from Sedna also have some contact with Zaratan on the extreme north-westerly loop of Zaratan's circuit, and Jasconius makes a stopover above the city itself roughly every year-and-a-half when taking its northern circumnavigation route.

Interplanetary Issues:

Galactic Systems Alliance (GSA or the Alliance) - Interstellar Governing Body of which Lemuria is a member state.

Alliance Planetary Justice Commission (APJC) - Alliance justice body which investigates and regulates primarily intra-planetary/intra-system interspecies incidents from a supposedly neutral outside perspective. May be called in by system authorities and/or sent in by the GSA if reports are made to them of gross injustices in defiance of galactic law.

Story Idea:

Yes, all this was basically random worldbuilding for a single story, which wound up not being written, though bits of it still live in my brain. The original idea was for a mermaid vampire story, which morphed into a maritime sci-fi/noir/spy story in what became the city of Ys. It featured APJC agents being sent to investigate terrorist/industrial sabotage threats aimed at the Mu-Lemurine geothermal power conduits, and ending up getting involved with Yssian protectors in the form of an abyssal nightclub singer/secret agent/femme fatale and her human nightclub owner/handler/detective partner.

Serene, the abyssal singer, is strongly inspired by the black dragonfish and similar creatures on Earth, and is basically a shapeshifting black bioluminescent nightmare with glass-like bones and needle teeth who hunts in pitch darkness using self-generated infra-red light, on the grounds that if you're trying to sabotage a deep-water geo-thermal industrial complex, this is exactly the kind of nightmare you really, really don't want coming after you. She also uses the bioluminescence to perform underwater glass tank lightshows at the club ('Last Light', incidentally, for a variety of fun reasons) as a cover, as suggested by her human partner Eshe (who is also black, but in a human blazing-sun-and-light sort of way, as opposed to alien product-of-a-lightless-abyss type way). It takes the poor Apjacks a while (and some minor friendly fire) to get used to working with the Yssian ladies, but by the time the case has headed towards threatening citywide structural collapse and interspecies war levels, they've caught on well enough.

That was the idea, anyway, before I basically got distracted spending two days researching mythical island names, real and mythical sunken continents/cities and random sea deity/monster names in order to do some rather random worldbuilding, and then the story just sat there for five years doing nothing. (Yes, most of the place names are one of the above, with a couple of afterlives and ancient supercontinents thrown in - it does make in-universe sense as well, though, since they're all human names for places on an alien marine planet where native placenames are largely unpronounceable). Behold, one of the dangers of worldbuilding. Heh. Sometimes, you do too much worldbuilding, you never write the actual story.

It's an awful lot of fun, though ...

#worldbuilding #original fiction #science fiction #mermaids #detective noir #bioluminescent mermaids are always excellent #dangers of worldbuilding #namely: you do it too much and never write the story #but hey

6 notes · View notes

max--phillips · 3 years

Note

I'm back with more rpf bullshit.

I just read a book where the main character is in the public eye and reads rpf (referred to as fanfiction in the novel) about himself and his friends/family on a semi-regular basis and it's passed off as normal.

I feel like Bradley Cooper from the Silver Linings Playbook movie

UH YEAH

I feel like most people who feel that way haven’t actually thought about what it’d be like to be in that situation. Like, I’m sure there are celebrities out there who don’t mind it but… idk man just don’t. DoNt

#tori answers questions #max answers questions #thewayofthemandalorian

1 note · View note

elleelix · 3 years

Note

1-40!

1. spotify

2. room is semi-clean... it could be a lot worse and usually is so i’m gonna give myself half the credit that it’s clean (:

3. dark brown

4. yes! i like how its not a common name and my mom named me after her goddaughter

5. single

6. compassionate, adventurous, shy/conscientious

7. coloured to be brown with some blonde? not really sure LOL

8. blue mini cooper

9. dynamite, h&m, uniqlo,

10. honestly in a rut with my style atm; only been in scrubs cause of work and sweats for the past 9 months

11. tumblr & twitter

12. queen

13. 2 older brothers

14. always dreamed to live somewhere in europe like the netherlands or in australia

15. do people still use snap?? mm i remember there was one where you could be a potato

16. nyx, covergirl, fenty

17. everyday usually cause of work

18. so hard to choose a fav show... mm boy meets world? tend to always go back to watch random clip/episodes every year

19. size 8

20. 5′7

21. sneakers

22. yes but haven’t gone to the gym since march

23. picnic overlooking a view (skyline, beach, etc) then watching the sunset and then the stars together; or also ive always wanted to sit in a back of a truck with a bunch of pillow and blankets watching the stars or even at a drive-in theatre

24. i don’t carry cash oops

25. white

26. 3 pillows

27. im a dental hygienist!

28. i talk to 3 friends on a regular/daily basis

29. getting a speeding ticket? LOL i cant think of anything else

30. candles that are apple scented

31. ?? wouldnt say fav but i like the names: jaden, ethan, jeremy

32. same not favs but i like: kehlani/kalani, audrey, alexis

33. can only think of ryan reynolds at the top of my head

34. anne hathaway?

35. leo in his prime in titanic & romeo + juliet

36. ive watched tangled over 10 times LOL tangled or finding nemo (: love any disney movie

37. i used to read a lot before hs + uni happened; fav books would be: harry potter series a series of unfortunate events the miracles of namiya general store

38. intelligence

39. only nickname from my family which is 阿妹

40. only once from what i can remember; but i apparently had surgery when i was 18 months old but i have no recollection of it

also, thanks for keeping me busy with answering these tonight (:

#ask #personal #me

2 notes · View notes

goldkirk · 4 years

Note

Since you mentioned Superman in chapter 18 of Blackbird, I was wondering what the batfam's place in the Justice League is? Like, are the Titans or Young Justice still a thing? Also, I am absolutely in love with your narration style. It really brings Tim and the rest of the fam to life!

Aaaaahhh it makes my heart so happy that you love my style, thank you!

SO! Batman is a member of the Justice League, which is tight knit and very cooperative. Dick still runs with the Titans on a semi-regular basis whenever his day job and family commitments allow, and mentors younger Titans on and off. Jason never really got into the Titans hardcore, but he does run missions with them sometimes. He’s not big on leading them, he prefers being more of a flanker. (funnily enough, that’s what he likes to be when playing Overwatch with Roy, Kori, and Dick, too). Young Justice is BECOMING a thing, in the background—Tim will have his friend group making up the core four soon. I’m not really going to write that bc I haven’t read enough YJ to feel comfortable writing all their dynamics and voices yet, but at some point I’m sure it’ll come up lol. When the time is right. Cass isn’t going to join any group, but she will meet and hang out with both Titans and Young Justice, and everyone will like her. Of course! And Steph is a wild card but she’ll for sure run with the Titans a little bit if she ever has the ability to leave Gotham for longer periods of time once she’s back with her mom.

The big thing is that in this AU, Batman mostly keeps his own to his own, but when they really need help or one of the other JL members would be invaluable in a situation, he DOES call on them. He reaches out. And Gotham getting attacked like it did in the last chapter definitely requires the big guns lol.

#shutterbug series #anonymous #katie answers asks #bruce definitely takes one or more kids along to the watchtower sometimes

18 notes · View notes

carelessgraces · 3 years

Text

@valiantsword said: ❛ What odd turns our lives have taken. ❜ ( reign sentence starters | accepting )

It’s a nice change.

The spell still needs some work. They’ve been testing it out with little injuries, nothing serious and nothing over the palm of the hand, no matter how dramatic it would have looked, that seems unnecessarily unsafe and definitely impractical. He’s still healing at about the same rate, and she’s healing, at least, so that’s something. It could use some tweaking, especially before either one of them goes back to work in a field that involves people shooting at them on a semi-regular basis.

“Can you imagine,” she’d laughed, “if I was giving someone a tarot reading and I dropped dead halfway through? Do you know how hard it is already to convince people that the Death card doesn’t actually mean they’re going to die? God, I’d get such good reviews on Yelp, though. Went for a psychic reading. The reader died and came back to life. She’s definitely speaking with arcane knowledge from the Other Side.”

"Can’t have your Yelp score hurt,” Arthur drawled in response, holding a washcloth to a small cut on her arm while the skin slowly knit itself back together, and he leaned closer to press a kiss to her temple. “Should I start coughing up blood whenever you’ve really got to sell a haunting?”

An hour later they’d popped down to the shop — if she was going to be tweaking spells and testing injuries, she wanted some aromatherapy to go with it — and he’d sneezed when she took in a breath of a candle that smelled so strongly of patchouli it made her eyes water. “That might undermine how smooth you are,” she’d pointed out. “You, staring down the barrel of a gun, daring the bad guys to make their move. A thousand miles away, I smell some flowers, and then instead of — god, I don’t know, what’s your move there? Cocking an eyebrow, saying make my day — ”

“What exactly do you think I do?” he asked, laughing, and she only grinned and powered through, picking up another candle.

“ — you let out that monster of a sneeze. Or you’re hiding out somewhere, preparing to bust out into the open and take advantage of the element of surprise, but I’m visiting with a new cat and discover an allergy — ”

She would have rattled on indefinitely if he hadn’t simply slung her over his shoulder, one arm around her legs to steady her, her whole body shaking with laughter while he carried her back up the stairs and stopped only to snatch up a candle that smelled like cranberries.

She’s looking at that candle now, burned down to half its height — it’s the same candle she would have picked, if she’d gotten to it, and there’s a small smile playing at her lips as Arthur comes back into the bedroom, depositing a cup of freshly brewed tea at her bedside table. ( For a woman who has been so resistant to being seen, to being known, she certainly has come to relish it. ) Her smile only widens, and on a whim she shifts onto her knees on the mattress and tugs at the front of his shirt until he leans forward, just enough for her to reach him.

Her arm is still a little sore — that last minor injury still hasn’t healed all the way — and she’s fatigued from the constant healing and spellwork and she’s feeling the start of a headache, hence the tea, but he takes her face in his hands like she’s something precious and he kisses her like he can’t get enough of her and Astoria thinks she’s never felt better, never felt more like herself.

“No more tests tonight,” she promises. “I’m wiped out. Come to bed? We can watch Vikings and you can tell me about all the historical inaccuracies. I’ve been curious about the armor.”

“Nothing like winding down to the sounds of battle.”

“You’re right. I found a new documentary on Netflix. It’s about exorcisms — ”

“I stand corrected. Nothing like winding down to the screams of the eternally damned — ”

It’s a pretty picture, said screams of the eternally damned notwithstanding: the two of them sitting beside each other, blankets pulled up and pooled in their laps and the cats draped across them, Astoria’s phone on silent and cast aside for a change while business carries on without her and no threat that Arthur will have to take off to save the world any time soon. The elder of the cats makes her way to Arthur’s lap, chews on his hand until she falls asleep, and Astoria lets out a contented sigh wholly at odds with the scene playing out on the television across from them.

He casts her a grin, careful not to move his hand and wake the cat. “What odd turns our lives have taken.”

She knows what he means. The both of them have become desensitized to the bloodshed and the violence that follows them; their opportunities to breathe easily are rare, so often dependent upon the cooperation of the rest of the world, notoriously uncooperative as it is. More than that, they have become desensitized to half-truths and outright lies, to the numbing quiet of returning to an empty home, of having so few people upon whom they can truly rely. He sees her set off sparks in her hands or light flames with a touch and he smiles; she watches the little cuts and scrapes from the cat’s claws fade from his hand, from her own, in a matter of seconds and minutes and home feels more and more like home with him in it.

Last thousand years never prepared you for domesticity? she wants to laugh, but the teasing dies in her throat and paves the way for sincerity. She leans away from him only long enough to blow out the candle on her bedside table, the smell of cranberries still hanging in the air, before nestling into his side again.

“Yeah.” Odd turns, indeed. “I like it.”

#valiantsword #v. it hurt for the first few times but at last i've learned to love a little blood in my wine. ( main timeline: modern witch | collector )#i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers )#(i really intended to get action-y but they got cute instead and who am i to argue)#iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )

1 note · View note

churchsplayground · 4 years

Photo

“Symbiotes are aggressive creatures, we are tasked with the duty of controlling them. Zachary is my host and is my job is to protect him while he does so… Maybe I’ll get it right this time.”

The Bishop Symbiote - LF Symbiotes

Bishop is only 33 years old, having been spawned at the life foundation (1986) as part of an anti-symbiote project. They are considered the youngest of the siblings, however, they all are the same age, except the Knight symbiote.

Bishop is referred to as He/Him currently, however, this is subjective and based only on their current host's gender. They do not retain any personal preferences.. or at least are not supposed to.

Bishop has a fixed height of 7′2″ as a humanoid, it does not change despite the host. -

Bishop lives at the LF with his siblings and parent symbiote in a special container just for him.

Bishop is a timid, shy symbiote often getting nervous around new people or even other symbiotes. He doesn’t often get out, mainly he lives at the LF in a special container and only comes out for ‘missions’. He’s very easy to pick on and is often the target of his siblings fun. Even going as far as getting nervous from his own host on a regular basis.

Bishop is very smitten with love for his host, Zachary, however, he sees no interest in his alien teammate and is lovestruck for Rook’s host, Noah. Now, it’s not like his host even knows that there’s a certain alien fawning over him, Bishop keeps himself hidden knowing it is very wrong for him to feel any way at all, it’s very possible neither he or his host recognize them as being capable to feel.

Bishop is very robotic in a sense when it comes to his feelings and personality however it is easy to cause extreme distress to him, and very easy to show his true feelings. Bishop, however, will not acknowledge this as his actual self and will correct himself if caught doing this or he catches himself doing this.

Bishop is very unaware of current day knowledge and doesn’t know what most things are. This including mannerisms/social cues, everyday items or activities, he, however, is a huge nerd in the things he knows, those being from his host or was taught at the LF. Bishop is the smartest symbiote in the project rivaling even the humans. Not bad for a supposedly ‘non-sentient alien goo pile’.

If you noticed Bishop wears a hood! He’s really self-conscious about just about everything about himself and completely refuses to take it off or leave it off. Knowing this his sibling will pull it off his head every time they can just to get him worked up.

He really, REALLY likes chocolate only getting a taste on one special occasion. Since it considered unnecessary to his current diet, which provides everything he needs he has not tasted it since. He can live on mush and rabbits alone, he’s been doing it for 33 years already, he doesn’t know what anything else tastes like.

Bishop’s hood does, in fact, have a name! It’s Bakemono or just “Mono” for short. Its a secret… don’t tell anyone! He thought it would be nice to give them a name since they are one of his bestest of friends, or rather… his only friend.

Bishop takes surprisingly well to foreign symbiotes, he’s very unlike his siblings who would probably be going into attack mode he just stands there starring dumbly probably because he’s a pacifist or maybe because he just doesn’t know what to do besides calling his siblings over to get them.

Bishop and his host work as special intel gatherers for their team and the LF, often tasked with gathering info on people, groups or ‘enemy’ symbiotes since his skills set him up at being a wonderful spy.

Bishop is extremely protective of his host… for reasons.

Bonus: Bishop is one of the only symbiotes in his family that has five claws, besides Knight. Pawn, Rook, and his parent symbiote all have only 4 claws on each hand, assumingly some weird symbiote mutation in his family line.

Bonus: ...probably a weeb. Did you see what this loser named his hood?

Symbiote Specific Abilities:

Bishop is capable of turning semi-invisible with the ‘help’ of their hood, only semi-invisible because it’s easy to spot them if you’re actually looking for him otherwise they are not very noticeable.

Along with being able to blend in, they are able to mimic scents/smells or mask their own scent/smell. This is used in the special application of deterring animals such as guard dogs but does not have further use... unless you want a symbiote air freshener.

Bishop is able to change the shape of their hood in order to minorly mimic forms or (animals) some including, dogs, or large ominous creatures with the use of their hood patterning. The main application is as a scare tactic or animals or humans alike.

Minor - Bishop for some reason is deathly quiet when doing anything.

Minor - Semi self-protection: Their hood can be used as a thick layer to protect from sharp objects or bullets, however, this is limited and can cause pain to the host from the impact or multiple impacts.

Minor - The power of Shy!: Shy tall symbiote, he’ll capture your heart in a moment. Don’t act like you don’t love a shy alien trying not to get nervous and flustered around you. He can barely handle not getting nervous around his host.

Minor - “Weapons”: Much like his sibling he is able to form blades from himself, however, he does not use them seeing he is a pacifist. If he did, his weapon would range between long blades or even a scythe one. However, until he does decide to withdraw from his ways, that’s not happening. Ever.

Human Host - Zachary “Zack” Ohenn

Zack is 5’6” and of the latest is 24 years old.

Zachary has been working for LF for 3 years now, previously an engineer student intern, Zack was a transfer from an LF partnering organization sent to work on the project due to his skill set being needed. He’s the newest recruit to the team. -

Hims wears glasses, he’s as blind as a bat.

Zack is not Bishop’s first host, unlike the other LF symbiotes who’s previous hosts retired, Bishops host died during the project. Details are currently known to him as the LF refuses to release them or acknowledge the incident. Maybe it’s just a thing to spook him made up by his teammates, or maybe it’s true. Only Bishop can truly confirm or deny, it seems he refuses to think about it.

Zack works on the team as a co-leader to Noah handling most of the hard paperwork, he acts like a work office intern more than anything. But he honestly doesn’t mind doing the work, its totally worth it in the long run.

Zack may or maybe not have a crush on Noah.

Zack often can be seen trying to have convo’s with his symbiote, however, Bishop doesn’t often know what he is talking about. For these reasons, he tends to gush over Noah to him. Bishop just listens, making small remarks back, his host for some reason never seems to fully catch what he says.

Zack was told the symbiotes are not capable of human thinking or feeling, he, however, is starting to doubt this as he further talks to his symbiote. Is it possible LF has lied?

Zack is somewhat aware of the LF’s corruption but often questions some of the tasks they are set to do. Zack doesn’t want to be too nosy seeing what happened to Edan (the host Knight/Church was originally planned to be bonded to in the LF symbiote project). This is way too important for him to get kicked out now.

< Special Notes - LF issued Warnings:

This symbiote is considered to be under special watch due to previous host incidents.

This symbiote has been observed as being nonaggressive and has been seen preventing hosts from causing majorly bodily harm to other beings. However, seems to be cooperative when assisting others [LF symbiotes] in these actions.

Due to the [2016] symbiote incident. This symbiote is not to be taken off grounds unless instructed or permission is granted. >

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sorry for the long wait on these, I’ve been a little down lately! I’ll be posting the others soon enough. If I’m lucky enough to be blessed with time.

As always if you’d like to know more about them you can always ask here. I always answer, unless the ask gets eaten or I’m stumped for an answer.

Also ~ In the keep reading undercut, you can find more 2 more drawings such as his host and a full body ref bc he’s wearing a hood and it doesn’t show his patterns!!

Timestamp: January 12th, 2020 Related Links/Continuations: Siblings Ref - Pawn

- BISHOP FULL BODY REF 2020 -

Significance: What he looks like with no hood, bc I even have a hard time remembering for drawings. Please ignore the line it's killing me inside.

- LF SYM HOSTS GROUP PICTURE -

Significance: A group drawing of all the LF symbiote hosts. This including Zack as a half drawing, meant to showcase all the hosts just having a group photo. This is included in all the symbiotes refs.

Left to Right: Zachary Ohenn (Bishop), Noah Keil (Rook), Amy Bergg (Pawn)

~ Thanks for reading ~

#Bishop symbiote #refs 1

3 notes · View notes

freedom-shamrock · 5 years

Text

Chat on a Hot Tin Roof - Chapter 1

Also on AO3

Marichat May prompt #13, villain.

Note: while this will have some fluff, it will lead off with some angst.

Chat Noir was enjoying a peaceful night run over the rooftops of Paris. It was one of his preferred ways of winding down before bed, especially when he'd been through a particularly busy spell as Adrien Agreste. Today he'd sat for two midterm exams, had an overly long modeling shoot paired with an absolute diva, and double Mandarin lessons to make up for missing last week's due to an akuma attack.

He'd hoped his father would relax his hold on Adrien's leash as he grew up and proved himself responsible. If anything he found himself in a veritable stranglehold, with even less time for friends and his own pursuits. He wasn't sure he could put up with another two years of this and was strongly considering moving out and cutting ties with his father. Two years ago, he would have been shocked to think such a thing, but the mansion had only gotten colder and his father's criticisms harsher over time.

He was dashing over a rooftop in the neighborhood near his old lycee when he heard scuffling feet and muttering. He threw his momentum into a roll, allowing him to stop and check it out. Peeking down from the top of a three-story building, he was surprised to find a familiar friend. He tilted his head, puzzled as he watched Marinette striding down the sidewalk talking to herself.

"It's not that weird… but it is … and his name means butterfly. He's been using the logo since he started, but…" Even his sensitive ears couldn't quite pick up everything. "He's had the grimoire for years , and if he's just using it for designs I'll eat my…"

"Good evening, Princess," Chat said, dropping down in front of her and bowing majestically. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake and upon further reflection, he realized that surprising anyone at night, especially women out on their own, should never be done at close range.

"Aaaahhhh!" Marinette shrieked.

He wasn't quite sure what she did next, just that he found himself suddenly making friends with the sidewalk. His arms and legs had somehow been bound up behind him, and his face hurt. "Mmpf?" he asked the cobblestones.

"Ohmygod!" she blurted. "Chat Noir? Is that really you?" She sounded horrified. He'd heard horrified Marinette enough in the last three years to know it. "I'm so sorry!"

His limbs were loosened, and he realized she'd trussed him up like a prize buck with his own tail!

"Are you okay?" she asked urgently, helping him stretch out and roll over.

He looked up at her, bent over him, concern clear on her face, and couldn't help but smile. Ouch. That hurt his cheek. The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck him. Chat Noir, hero of Paris had been taken down by a tiny helpful cupcake. He flopped onto his back and laughed.

"Oh no," she whispered. "I've concussed him. Crap. Should I call an ambulance? Maybe I can find Ladybug…"

"No Princess," he said around the chuckles. "I'm fine. Just struck by how amazing you are."

She didn't look like she believed him, but she sat down next to him and peered into his eyes. "I'm not so sure about that. I just threw you on the ground. I'm a disaster, a danger to those around me."

He shook his head. "I'm fine. Ladybug has thrown me much farther."

"I scuffed up your cheek." She sighed sadly.

"It's fine," he insisted. He wondered if it would get him out of modeling for a week, or if his father would eschew his usual feelings about heavy makeup and photoshop to keep Adrien in place. "But this does bring up a serious question. What are you doing out so late on your own? You working through a vicious fashion problem?" It was a safe question. Chat Noir had interacted with Marinette on a semi-regular basis. They weren't quite friends, but they were as close as he could realistically be with a civilian. She probably knew him as well as Ladybug, who was fine with the generalities, but never wanted to hear the specifics of his crappy days. While Adrien knew she was a much more than just a designer, Chat only had seen through a tiny window of Marinette's life.

Frowning, she shook her head. "I wish it were just a design that didn't want to cooperate." She held out a lavender envelope. "I got this today."

He opened it to find an acceptance to an internship at Gabriel, and his heart jumped happily. He was so proud of her for making it through the hoops. She was going to be the youngest intern they'd ever had, and she was going to rock it. "Isn't this good news?" Though she'd told Adrien she no longer looked up to his father as a person, it had always been her dream to work at Gabriel. What had changed and why didn't he know? He was doubly her friend. He should know all the important things.

She almost looked like she wanted to cry. "It should be good news, but...." Her finger pointed at the signature, Gabriel Agreste, a flourish in lurid purple.

He kind of wondered what his father was going for with this bold statement of color. The man had gotten weirder and weirder, and everyone chalked it up to him being a creative genius, but Adrien was wondering if it was too early to have him tested for dementia. And since when did his father sign his name like… shit. He froze.

"You see it, too, don't you," she said.

"It's subtle. I almost missed it." The way his father had signed his name left a void of white space, well lavender space. When reversed, it bore striking similarity to the magenta outline Hawkmoth's victims wore when he spoke to them.

Check out chapter 2 (coming soon) >>

30-minute sprint in the dance hallway.

And if you’re so inclined, feel free to support me over on Ko-Fi

#Miraculous Ladybug #fanfic #my writing #angst #Marichat may #Marichat May 2019 #Chat Noir #Marinette #Chat on a Hot Tin Roof

42 notes · View notes

theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to The Spin Cycle, a semi-regular look at how the impeachment inquiry is being sold to the American public by Washington-types — both those who are looking to oust the president and those looking to save him.

The most marked quality of the last three years of American political life is the sheer number of news-making events that have occurred. Those events and their aftermath can be near-impossible to keep track of.

Impeachment has only complicated things, which is impressive, since the facts of the Democrats’ inquiry into President Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine seem relatively straightforward. But of course, impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one — the founding fathers were vague about what “high crimes and misdemeanors” meant, perhaps so that generations of lawyers could earn their nut figuring it all out.

Impeachment, as it turns out, is really about politicians selling the public on the facts as they’d like them interpreted; it’s a public relations operation as much as a constitutionally-allotted power. We decided it makes sense not just to keep track of the inquiry’s pile of evidence, but to also track how politicians are interpreting that evidence and how the public responds to their spin. We are interested, in other words, in how the facts get laundered.

The facts are themselves crucially important, of course. But finding the truth in politics often means wading through ankle-deep, barnyard-sweet bullshit. The spin. The grandstanding. The press conferences in front of helicopters and flags.

So let’s be organized about this and lay things out as they are on October 11, from facts to spin to public opinion.

The inquiry’s central facts

If the Ukraine impeachment scandal was a dish of Chicken Kiev, think of these facts as the chicken breast, pounded thin under the pressure of high-wattage political scandal: On July 25, President Trump had a call with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Text message exchanges between Trump officials and advisors to Zelensky later revealed that the Trump administration was in negotiations to secure the investigation — the Americans dangled a visit to the White House as bait. Around the same time, the White House blocked $400 million in aid to Ukraine, suggesting that the Ukrainians may have faced additional pressure to comply with Trump’s request.

An ever-expanding cast of characters animates those central facts. There’s the CIA whistleblower whose formal complaint about Trump’s call with Zelensky allowed all of these facts to be spilled out into public view — he’s the herbed butter of the Chicken Kiev, bursting with flavorful information. (Ok, I’ll stop.) He has been followed in recent days by a new whistleblower, who reportedly has first-hand knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine interactions.

And just this week, two associates of the president’s lawyer and America’s (former) mayor, Rudy Giuliani, were arrested and indicted for violating campaign finance law. The indictment says they helped funnel foreign money to candidates for office. The men, American citizens born in eastern Europe, appeared to be part of a pressure campaign to remove the American ambassador to Ukraine — reportedly at the behest of Giuliani — from her post.

The political spin

The Democrats

The Democrats are waging a two-front war of sorts: one in the hearing rooms of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the other on the 2020 campaign trail.

On the Congressional front: In her September 24 speech opening up the impeachment inquiry, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “The president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically. The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of betrayal of his oath of office and betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.” She was saying the president has already committed an impeachable offense and that we already have the evidence of him doing so. No spin needed.

Of course, “no spin needed, just the facts” is a spin of its own. “Every new piece of information has corroborated the basic facts, which are devastating for the president,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney told the Times, in a perfect demonstration of the restrained (for now) party line.

To reinforce their fact-gathering mode, on October 4, Democrats sent a subpoena notice to the White House for documents relating to the Ukraine dealings. Failure to comply, the letter said, “shall constitute evidence of obstruction.” Other administration officials have since received subpoenas, as well.

On the campaign front: Democrats running for president have caught onto the idea that the de rigueur line on impeachment is “the facts speak for themselves.” Speaking at a campaign event on October 5, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has run a campaign based on what she’d have you believe is a core Midwestern ethos of not rocking the boat, said, “I think that all of us believe that the evidence is there.”

Joe Biden has been slow to stir up big news when it comes to the impeachment drama, perhaps because it’s his family’s name being dragged through the scandal. But on October 9, Biden called clearly for the president to be impeached, not just to be investigated, which was further than he’d gone in his previous comments on the matter.

The Republicans

There’s a lot going on here. It started out a little messy but a couple of weeks in, the party line on the impeachment inquiry seems to have coalesced into, “It’s a partisan witch hunt!” and stall, stall, stall.

On October 8, the White House counsel wrote back to congressional Democrats’ document subpoenas with an elaborate, eight-page long “hell no.”

Calling the inquiry “constitutionally illegitimate,” the White House is refusing to cooperate. On the substance of the call with the Ukrainian president, the letter concludes, “The record clearly established that the call was completely appropriate and that there is no basis for your inquiry.” The State Department also prevented Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a key player in the text message exchanges, from testifying before congress.

Trump, for his part, has spent the past few days trying to normalize the call with Ukraine and his requests to a foreign government to interfere in a U.S, election by investigating one of his political rivals. Trump’s 2020 campaign has released an ad that spins the phone call as innocent and the impeachment inquiry as an effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election. His Twitter timeline is a litany of tweets about the supposedly partisan nature of the whistleblower’s complaint, making liberal use of the phrase, the “Do Nothing Democrats,” and calling for Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to be impeached.

Perhaps the most interesting twist, though, is the mixed response of Fox News. Tucker Carlson, a fanatical Trump supporter, co-wrote a column in which he said, “Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent … there’s no way to spin this as a good idea.” On Oct. 10, the New York Times reported that Attorney General Bill Barr had a private meeting on October 9 with Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox’s parent company. (“Succession” writers, take note.) The morning after the meeting, Trump tweeted angrily in a response to a Fox poll that found 51 percent of Americans think he should be impeached and removed from office. So, all is not well in the right’s political-media nexis; the inquiry is setting teeth on edge, not least the president’s.

How’s it all playing?

All in all, there’s more noise coming from the Republican side of things. For now, though, they’re not winning the public opinion battle. According to our impeachment tracker, support for impeachment has only strengthened over the past couple of weeks. At this writing, 49.3 percent of Americans support it and 43.5 percent oppose.

So for now, the Democrats’ arguments are convincing more voters than Republicans’. But I’ll be interested to see whether the White House efforts to stall and delay will create the impression that Democrats are unfairly persecuting the president. Even Republicans’ and independents’ support of impeachment has increased in recent days, though, according to the polls.

Given a Democratic debate coming up next week, it’s unlikely that Trump will have any reprieve from the talk of his impeachment. We’ll be keeping our eyes glued to his Twitter, and our ears perked for the emerging talking points.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Clare Malone

2 notes · View notes

sol1056 · 6 years

Note

(3/3)his brings me to the question of how much the Galra people even know is going on? Zarkon is TEN THOUSAND+ years old. he's probs like a god to his people. how do the deal with his death? how terrified are they of Voltron now? i feel like the 'victory or death' is the only reason the Galran commanders aren't surrendering to voltron. i mean i guess the writers realized they couldn't kill the entire Galran empire and made Lotor the ruler, but its the general Galran population i keep thinking of

This is a crucial aspect of worldbuilding: other people exist. It’s another form of empathy, in a way. Even if they’re just people on the street, they will have an opinion, whether good bad or indifferent.

Way back in S3, I was already frustrated with the opening scene where Blue and Yellow sweep in – with the Marmora – and apparently free an entire planet by taking out one military base? It wasn’t clear. What was clear was that a) it didn’t look like the people themselves were doing anything, and b) everyone was, apparently fine with passively being freed. Well, until they decided to complain because they hadn’t gotten the entire giant robot show.

me:

There is no such thing as an amicable split when a civilian population is involved. Some would welcome their new overlords, but some percentage – rarely the majority, but always much louder – who want one or more of the following: no more overlords, the excuse to wreak havoc on their neighbors, to take advantage of the chaos to make it worse, the chance to shoot anyone who looks at them funny, or just to run around in a panic. This will bring out some of the first group in defense or retaliation. Expect riots, fighting in the streets, and if there’s a local/native militia, also some firefights or bombings.

After that, a third group would also be unhappy but moving quickly to ingratiate themselves with the new regime. They were doing just fine under the old overlords, and the last thing they want is a democratic government that might punish them for their lovely corruption. That third group – we call them collaborators – are the most likely to take over power in the wake of such an event, because they’ve got the resources stockpiled from years of cooperating with the old overlords.

Some amount of the first two groups are then going to turn around and riot again, this time in protest of allowing collaborators to remain in charge, with the system basically unchanged except for the colors on the flag, at best. That usually prompts martial law, and serious clamp-downs, and next thing you know, the new political system (if things don’t hop right to dictatorship) might look democratic but the cards will be stacked against anyone but the collaborators being in power.

Historical case in point: after the US ended its administration in South Korea, in 1948, there were five Republics. The first was autocratic, and collapsed in 1960. The second pretended to be democratic and slid into autocratic military rule, collapsing after a year. After three years of military rule, the Third, Fourth, and Fifth said they were democratic, but were mostly more of the same. South Korea didn’t achieve a stable and functioning democracy until 1987. In short, it took South Korea 39 years to recover from war preceded by occupation preceded by the fall of its monarchy.

Second historical case in point: same deal, but this time Taiwan. In 1949, the KMT relocated to Taiwan as its last stand against the PRC. It also declared martial law, and that order was not lifted until 1987, and for 38 years that order was used to keep the populace down, silenced, and unable to do a damn thing about the KMT comfortably ensconced in power. In this case, it was a reformist president who started introducing policies that reversed a lot of the KMT’s previous stances. The process of democratization still took over a decade.

Empires do not go down easy. Collaborators who benefited from the previous systems do not go down easy. In any system – including colonial, occupied or left at arm’s length – there will be people who benefited enough that their lives weren’t all that bad, people who benefited enough that change will end their cushy existence, and people who’ve been ground under the heels of the previous two. All of them will have something to say about any new regime, and none of it’s going down easy.

And that’s just a single planet. When Zarkon died – or even just fell off the radar for too long, leaving some unknown kid as emperor pro tem – some chunk of the populace should’ve broken into panic. Maybe in isolated spots, but it’d grow, calm, rouse up again. When Zarkon died for reals, the only way you’d get relative easy change is if the people have been through it at semi-regular intervals, enough to know it’s not the end. But Zarkon’s ruled for 10K years, which means (well, we assume, who knows how long Galra actually live) this might be the first time there’s been anything like this in living memory.

The only thing VLD got right was the dissolution into factions. What it missed is that this will happen at all levels, from those high-up generals battling it out in space, to people on the street, trying to take back (or keep hold of) whatever power or goods they possess. Basically, the entire empire should’ve exploded into a shit storm the likes of which have never been seen before and never would, since. Utter chaos, dogs and cats, living in sin, the whole nine yards.

And from there, Voltron could’ve made its merry way along, working with the rebels, picking off one planet after the next. Of course, there’s a huge risk that the so-called leaders who come out to greet Voltron are actually collaborators looking to stay on top of the system – who in turn will go autocratic to make sure they stay there – and that’s how it’ll stay for a decade, two, or longer. Voltron will have freed the planet from one overlord, and abandoned its people to the despotic rule of the next one.

I can hear some of you already protesting that’s too much for a children’s show. Maybe it is – but in that case, don’t write a goddamn war story as the basis of your children’s show. Do a story about a bowling team or something. But war is not pretty, and it’s not bloodless, and sometimes, no one wins.

#empire #warfare #analysis #vld #voltron #meta

29 notes · View notes