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sergeantsporks · 1 year

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Gilded Family

Rating: Teen and Up, Gen

Ch 21/?: Storytime

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6 , Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 11, Ch 12, Ch 13, Ch 14, Ch 15, Ch 16, Ch 17, Ch 18, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 21

In which none of the previous golden guards or wittebro died, actually, they're all fine and living happily together as one big dysfunctional family

Ao3

“Where’s King?!”

Phoenix swept one hand out. “Where you’ll never see him again! Unless…”

The Collector’s eyes narrowed. “Unless what?”

“I might give him back. If you do something for me.”

Oh, excellent, Odalia’s voice echoed in his head, Make him promise something as part of the game? What should our demands be?

“I’d never help you!” Collector shouted, “Never ever in a million years! Eda, now!”

Phoenix braced himself, but nothing happened.

“Eda?” Collector asked, “Hello?”

An older woman shuffled out of the trees, hobbling towards Phoenix. “Ah—you’re surrounded? Golden Guard?”

Collector heaved a sigh. “Awwww, you were supposed to drop out of the sky on him!!!”

The old woman shook like a leaf. “I’m s-sorry, I just c-can’t…”

Phoenix held out an arm for her to balance on. “Hey—maybe a break? Time out? Not everyone can—”

Collector sighed again, this time even bigger and more exaggerated. “Okay, I guess she doesn’t have to be Eda. Since she’s too old.”

The old woman’s spine stiffened. “No, please I can—”

Phoenix pushed her slightly behind him. “You don’t need to make her into a puppet—I’m sure she’d be happy to play another role, one that’s not so… active.”

“Nahhhhhh, being a puppet means her joints won’t be all hurting anymore. We can oil them, and they won’t be creaky and bad! It’ll be good! Boop!” The Collector snapped his fingers, and a moon shot out, zooming around Phoenix and hitting the old woman on her forehead. She stiffened, then fell into a relaxed position, her clothes dotted with stars. The Collector clapped his hands, and she disappeared. Phoenix’s stomach roiled.

Another loss.

“Where did you put King, Phoenix? This isn’t very fun now that we don’t have an Eda. I know! We can do one where you’re a good guy next!”

Phoenix squared his shoulders and turned to the blue tree next to him, holding up his hands. “King?”

King jumped out of the tree and into Phoenix’ arms. “Hey.”

“Aw, man, he was just in the tree?! Boy, you two are bad at hide and seek.”

“Why don’t we practice, then?” Phoenix suggested, setting King down,“We’ll hide, you seek.”

“Yeah,” King piped up, “Give us uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh five hundred seconds?”

“Better do a thousand. Just to be safe.”

“Hmmmm. Okay.” The Collector snapped his fingers, and about ten of his star spies appeared around him, blinking their red eyes in unison. “They’ll count, too!” He tugged his hat over his eyes. “One… two…”

Phoenix scooped King up and ran off into the trees. He took the necklace from Odalia off, hurling it into the trees. “Test run, alright? Look for good places to hide in the area. Where will his spies have trouble seeing us, where he’ll have trouble seeing us—any hiding spot is good, but try to find some that will be big enough for all of us. If we split up, we’ll cover more ground.”

“Have you figured a way out of the archive house yet?”

“Working on it. Any chance Eda could fly us out?”

“Maybe? We need to turn her back first, though. The Owl Beast is unpredictable.”

“Which we need Lilith for,” Phoenix finished, “Right. Alright, see you in a bit.”

He set King down and ran in the direction he’d thrown the necklace, shaking the dirt off of it and dropping it back over his head.

What happened?!

“Dropped it,” Phoenix lied, “You know how it is.”

Mmm. What was that?

“What was what?”

Trying to protect that puppet?!

“She wasn’t a puppet yet.” Phoenix looked up, drawing a mental line from the archive house to his position. “The more allies we have the better.”

Yes, some help she’ll be. Don’t pretend you’re just ever so on board with my plans, you were outright refusing them two days ago. What’s your plan?

“Right now, my plan is to play hide and seek. And you’re noisy.”

Don’t you dare—

Phoenix lifted the necklace back over his head, tucking it in his pocket. Trees loomed on every side of him, but none of them offered much cover. Phoenix dipped his hand in a sparkling stream. Cold water. Definitely the Collector’s. Phoenix followed the stream through the trees. If they needed to stay in the Collector’s domain for long, they’d need a water source—and, at least, it was a feature that wouldn’t change.

The stream widened, turning to a rushing, roaring river that tumbled over a cliff in a waterfall. Phoenix squinted, shading his eyes. The river stretched onwards, snaking all the way out of the blue trees and into the red.

“We can follow it out,” Phoenix mused out loud. Not that the world outside of the Collector’s territory was much safer, but it was a start.

“ONE THOUSAND,” Collector’s voice called, and Phoenix ducked back into the trees, scrambling into their branches.

He did not count to one thousand.

One of the Collector’s spies whirred through the air, sweeping the area. Its eyes fixed on Phoenix, blinking red.

And then it moved on.

Phoenix let out a deep breath. So. It’s eyesight is—

“Boo!”

Phoenix yelped, falling backwards. He locked his knees around the tree branch he was on, swinging upside-down. The Collector floated next to him, also upside down.

“Wow, you aren’t super great at hiding, my sentry spotted you in like. Four seconds.”

Phoenix reached up and grabbed the tree branch with his hands, letting go with his legs and flipping the right way up. He released the branch, dropping to the ground.

Never mind, then. Trees—not a good place to hide.

“Did you find King?”

“Mmmm not yet. He’s smaller, so I bet he found a better place to hide than you.”

“We should split up to find him,” Phoenix suggested, “Cover more ground.”

That way, I can keep mapping the area and looking for a way out of here.

“Oh, yeah, good plan! But how will we let each other know if we find him… Oh, I know!”

Collector snapped his fingers, and a bracelet appeared around Phoenix’s wrist, with a little pull string. “Pull it if you find him. It’ll let me know where you are! And I’ll send up a huge beam of light if I find him, you’ll definitely be able to see it. Okay, off we go! I’ll goooooo this way, and you go that way!”

Collector floated off into the trees, and Phoenix heaved a sigh of relief, pushing in the opposite direction. He looked up at the archive house again, judging the distance from the house to the tip of the titan’s horn. If he could find where the two were closest from inside the house, there would probably be a window. Maybe they could jump to the horn?

Risky. But if we can’t get Eda in flying shape, it might be our best bet.

Phoenix pressed onwards, trying to stick close to the stream.

I could run. Right now, I could run.

The thought hit him like a thunderbolt. The Collector was more occupied with King right now—he could follow this stream out to the regular isles and make his way back home from there before the Collector even noticed he was gone.

I bet King’s done it—I bet he’s already gone, he bolted for it while the Collector was looking for me.

Phoenix shook his head to clear it. “No,” he said out loud, “King wouldn’t leave without Eda and Lilith.”

Nothing’s stopping you, though…

“No,” Phoenix said more firmly, “I promised. I’m not leaving without—”

The bushes rustled ever so slightly, and Phoenix’s ears pricked up, moving up and down to pinpoint the noise.

Where… did…

A slitherbeast leapt out of the bushes, and Phoenix hit the dirt, rolling out of the way. He sprang back up to his feet, keeping his stance low.

“You’re far from home.”

Without the element of surprise, the beast paced in a circle, looking for an opening. Saliva dripped from its jaws, and it sniffed the air delicately.

Phoenix scooped up a thick stick, turning slowly to keep the slitherbeast in his line of sight. “You’re hungry,” he guessed, “The Collector’s been… well, collecting… all your possible prey. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have ventured out of the mountains, and you definitely wouldn’t have attacked an unfamiliar creature without provocation.”

It paced closer, and Phoenix swung, bringing the stick into its jaw. “I’m not dinner. Hunt something else.”

The slitherbeast yelped, scrambling away, but continued to pace a circle around Phoenix, panting. Phoenix glanced at the bracelet on his wrist. Would Collector actually come if he pulled it?

No. I can handle this.

The slitherbeast leapt again, this time turning its body midleap so that Phoenix’s retaliation swing glanced off of its side. A wall of fur slammed into him, sending him sprawling backwards. The slitherbeast pounced, and Phoenix had barely seconds to bring his feet up into its chest before it landed, pushing it up and over him. He scrambled back to his feet, looking for his stick and jamming it into the creature’s mouth before it could bite. Its jaws cracked straight through the wood, but its teeth scraped and screeched against the bracelet around Phoenix’s wrist, preventing it from biting his hand off.

Phoenix yanked his arm out of its mouth, but the pull tab snagged on the beast’s tooth, triggering the bracelet.

Fireworks shot out, one of them right into the slitherbeast’s mouth, and the others into the air. The slitherbeast shrieked, pawing at its mouth and whimpering. Smoke billowed out, but it still eyed Phoenix with that same dogged determination.

I’m the first living thing it’s seen in the last couple of days, Phoenix realized, It’s not going to give up, it’s too desperate.

Phoenix swung up into a tree, scrambling into the branches. It was too big to follow, hopefully it would—

The slitherbeast rammed its head into the tree, making the whole thing shake.

“Are you kidding me?! Fine! Knock yourself out, you—”

The trunk cracked up the middle at its next blow.

Great. Excellent, even.

Phoenix waited for it to ram into the tree again, and leapt out just as it did, landing squarely on its back. He wrapped his hands in its fur, yanking it to the side. “Just—” wham into a tree “—pass—” wham “—out!”

The slitherbeast dropped to its side, rolling onto its back. Phoenix let out a strangled yelp as all the air rushed out of his lungs with a whoosh. He clung to the beast tighter as it rolled over, shaking itself to dislodge him, then flopped on its back again. This time, Phoenix let go, wheezing for air. He scrambled backwards, hands clawing at the ground for something, anything to use as a weapon as the slitherbeast stalked towards him.

“HEY!” a familiar voice called, and a blue star landed between Phoenix and the beast. Collector crossed his arms. “Bad dog!”

“Get—away!” King yelled. A soundwave blasted out of his mouth, slamming into the slitherbeast and knocking it through the nearest tree. Collector held out his palm, and a crescent moon floated above it.

“Bye-bye!”

The moon shot out, slamming into the slitherbeast’s face. It dropped to the ground, a lifeless stuffed animal.

“WHOO! Got it!” Collector spun the star, kicking his feet over the edge. “Yeah!”

King hopped off of the star, rushing to Phoenix’s side. “Are you okay?”

“Just bruised,” Phoenix wheezed, “Thanks.” He glanced at the Collector. “Both of you.”

Collector put one foot out, stopping the star. “Yeah, I saved you! Again! You are very good at getting in danger. You know, King, you’re right, it kind of IS fun to save mortals who get in trouble. Anyway, should we play another round of hide and seek? This time I should hide.”

“Maybe—maybe we should go back to the archive house?” King suggested.

“Awwwwwwwwwwww, why?”

“Because we just had… a bit of an adventure.”

“But we go on adventures all the time!”

“We go on pretend adventures. Phoenix was actually in danger and could have gotten really hurt! After real adventures, we have to take a break. Right, Phoenix?”

Phoenix nodded. “ After serious missions, I always took a nap, or at least didn’t go back out in the field for a bit.”

“Wow. Being mortal sounds tiring. Okay, okay, we’ll go back.” The Collector’s star expanded. “Everyone on.”

Phoenix shuddered as the star rose into the air, pushing through the treetops. “This thing needs a harness.”

“Haha, are you afraid of heights?”

Phoenix gripped the edge of the star. “A little,” he squeaked.

The star tilted, then rushed forward with a whoosh, streaking towards the archive house and coming to a stop in front of the staircase and Odalia. Phoenix wobbled off the star, leaning against the stairs to balance himself.

“Hey, Mamadalia.”

Her lip curled. “Aren’t you a little old to be calling me ‘Mama’?”

“You’re saying that you’re not old enough to be my mother?”

King grabbed Phoenix’s hand while Odalia spluttered, leading him up the stairs. “Okay, that’s enough.”

Collector floated after them. “Whatcha doing? Where are we going?”

King tugged Phoenix back to the room with the tiny planet, pulling box of Band-Aids out from under his bed, and gingerly plastering them on all of the tiny scrapes from Phoenix’s fight. “Wow, you really got banged up.”

“Ehhhhhhhhhhh, I’ve had worse.”

King pulled up Phoenix’s sleeve to get at a scratch under a rip. “Hey, what happened to your arms? Have they been like this the whole time?”

“Oh.” Phoenix fidgeted with the bandage. “Belos. It’s… it’s fine, they’re healing on their own.”

King started to unwrap the cloth, and Phoenix batted his hand away. “Uh-uh, not a Band-Aid wound. Too messy. Here, look, right here.” He moved his hair out of his face, showing another little scratch on his forehead. “There’s one.”

King stood on his tiptoes to reach, plastering another Band-Aid on the wound. He tapped his own skull where bandages did their best to cover up a crack. “There. Now we’re boo-boo buddies.”

“Heh. Thanks.”

“Boo-boo buddies!” Collector exclaimed, “I want to be a boo-boo buddy! I want to do one!” He scooped up one of the bandages, removing the paper and pasting it on another scratch on Phoenix’s knee. He thrust another Band-Aid into Phoenix’s hands. “Okay, okay, now I get one!”

“Um…”

“You don’t… have a boo-boo?” King reminded him.

“Hrngh. I! Want! To Be! A boo-boo! Buddy!” Collector squinted at his arm, glaring viciously, and slowly, a scratch appeared, leaking inky blue blood that swirled with purple and glittered with starlight. “Ow!” His eyes bubbled up with tears. “Ow, ow, that’s… ow, I don’t like it, ow—”

Phoenix tore open the bandaid, carefully pasting it over the wound. “There. There, all better.”

“Now you’re a boo-boo buddy! Welcome to the club.”

Collector scrubbed at his eyes. “It hurts,” he whined, “It feels bad.”

“Uh-huh,” King agreed, “Doesn’t feel very nice.”

Collector squished Phoenix’s cheeks in his hands. “How are you not dead?!” he yelled, “You got like, a BILLION boo-boos, and you’re all soft and squishy and mortal!”

Phoenix shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Collector flopped backwards onto his bed. “I don’t want to get used to it,” he grumbled, “It feels horrible, and I hate it.” He rolled onto his stomach, kicking his feet. “Hey, Phoenix? Do you know any good stories?”

“Um… I know a lot of stories about… the golden guard before me and Belos and how they destroyed… you know what, come to think of it, those are not kids’ stories.”

“I don’t want a story about Phillip.”

“Yeah, me neither. Uhhh, let’s see… there was this one… I don’t know, legend? Fairy story? That they used to tell us before bed.”

“Us?” King echoed, “They?”

“Mmm.”

“Story,” Collector urged.

“Yeah. Right, story. Let’s see, how did it go… Once upon a time, there were two brothers, who loved each other to the sun and back. They did everything together, all their chores, their play, their walks... Then one day, the younger couldn’t find his older brother anywhere. He searched high and low. He asked the birds, ‘where has my brother gone?’ but the birds did not reply except to sing their song. He asked the boiling waters ‘where has my brother gone?’ but the sea only bubbled and hissed in reply.”

Collector snuggled into his blankets, watching Phoenix.

“Finally,” Phoenix continued, “the younger brother asked the isles themselves, ‘where has my brother gone?’ and the bones responded, ‘far in the forest, a witch with evil design has her in his grasp.’ The younger brother traveled to the witch’s home, but try as he might, he could never get past her traps. He cried out in frustration, and his tears attracted the attention of the stars. And the stars felt bad for him and gave him a single seed. ‘Plant this seed,’ the stars told him, ‘and surely, you will find your brother again. But do not speak to what grows a single word, or else your brother shall be lost to you forever.’ So the younger brother planted the seed, and out of the ground sprang a knight, clad in black armor and carrying a great sword.”

“Like the sky without stars?” Collector piped up.

“Like a sky without stars,” Phoenix agreed, “The brother didn’t say a word, only turned to go back to the witch’s home. Her first trap was a raging river that the brother couldn’t cross, but the knight in black armor dove in, walking through the river to the other side and lowering a bridge to the brother. And when the brother crossed the bridge, he saw that the river had washed away the black from the armor as if it had been soot, revealing armor of bronze. But the brother said nothing, not even a word of thanks, just as the stars had instructed.”

“Then what?”

“Well, then there was a thicket full of brambles surrounding the witch’s home. The brother couldn’t go into them without being scratched to death, but the knight waded through them, ignoring how they got into chinks in his armor and made him bleed, and he cut a path through for the brother. And when the brother got to the other side, he saw that the knight’s armor had been scrubbed of rust by the thicket, and was now silver. But he didn’t say a word to the knight, didn’t ask if he was hurt from the thicket, or even comment on the silver of his armor, just as the stars had instructed. Finally, they came close to the witch’s hut, when a ferocious dragon sprang out at them. The knight and the dragon fought for hours—”

“Hours?!” Collector interrupted.

“Yeah. Hours.”

“What did the brother do that whole time?!”

“He sat on a rock and watched, I guess.”

“That’s too long to fight a dragon!”

“Alright, alright, fine, the battle raged for fifteen minutes before the knight slew the dragon, is that better?”

“Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Glad you approve. Anyway, the brother saw that the fire of the dragon had molded into the armor, and the knight was clad in gleaming gold. Still, the brother said nothing to him, did not ask if he was burned, or say how beautiful his armor had become, just as the stars had instructed. The brother and his knight rushed into the witch’s home, and the knight quickly sliced the witch in two. The brother ran all over the house, but he could not find any sign of his brother, dead or alive. Enraged, he picked up the knight’s sword, and cut off the head of his faithful servant.”

“WHOA!” King protested, “What?!”

“Give me a second! Anyway, the knight fell to the ground, and from his armor, his brother sprang. ‘Finally,’ his brother said, ‘I am free.’”

“WHAT?!” Collector yelled.

“Do you want this story or not?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Keep going.”

“‘The witch cursed me into a seed, a curse that could only be broken if I slew her, and if you proved your devotion to getting me back, even if it meant staying silent and letting your actions speak for you.’ And so, the brothers returned home, and they lived happily ever after. The end.”

“Why did slicing his head off turn him back?!” Collector demanded, “That’s stupid! Why did he cut the knight’s head off, even though he did everything for him?! Why did being mean get him his brother back?! I think he should have never gotten to see his brother again after he sliced the knight’s head off!”

“It’s part of the story! He had to kill him!”

“Why couldn’t he talk to him?!”

“He had to prove—it’s just part of it, the brother had to go through trials, and the younger brother couldn’t say anything, and at the end, the witch and the knight… had… to…die…”

You have got to be kidding me.

Phoenix buried his face in a pillow. “Oh.”

“Phoenix?” King asked, “Buddy?”

“Ohhhhhhhh, my titan,” Phoenix groaned, “It’s a Phillip story. That’s a Phillip—urgh—the brothers—the witch is Evelyn, or maybe just magic—the golden knight—the golden guards—he kills the knight to get his brother back, the knight—it was all a—"

“Maybe you’re reading into it a little too much?” King suggested, “I mean, a seed from the stars?”

“Oh, no, that part’s totally real,” Collector piped up, “I’m the stars. I helped Phillip with the grimwalker recipe. You’re welcome.”

“What?!”

“He said he was going to make more players. And he did! And then he destroyed them. Which does not make very good playmates, you are much more fun alive.”

Phoenix got up, bouncing to the window. “Okay. Alright. Okay. I… need a moment.”

Odalia stood outside the door. “Well, wasn’t that an interesting little story.”

“I am not in the mood,” Phoenix snapped. He shoved her necklace back at her. “Take that, I don’t need you in my head right now.”

He stalked through the hallways, checking each window.

It was always him. Every second, it was always him, getting in my head.

There. The horn. It was a substantial drop, but not a deadly one. Phoenix leaned against the windowsill with a sigh.

Just don’t look down, and you’ll be fine.

“Phoenix?” King tapped his claws together, sitting on a star with Collector. “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“Where’d you hear that story, anyway?”

Phoenix twisted his hands around each other. “Some of the older kids. They heard it from the adults. Who I guess got it from some standard-issue imperial propaganda storybook.”

“What, older kids in… the coven?”

“No. In the orphanage where I grew up.”

“Oh. I… didn’t know.”

Phoenix shrugged. “A lot of people died in Belos’ crusade against wild magic. From both sides. There was… an imperial orphanage for kids whose parents died in the war. Turns out, I didn’t have parents at all, but I didn’t know that at the time.” He chuckled dully. “Now I’m wondering if the whole thing was made up just so Belos could keep me in one place and feed me stories about being a good little soldier who didn’t complain. Is that conceited?”

Collector hugged his knees to his chest. “What happened to the orphanage?”

“It burned down just before I joined the coven.”

King’s eyes widened. “Oh. That’s… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Phoenix moved away from the window. “When I was there, I was just a powerless kid that no one else wanted. Even they didn’t want me, but they had to keep me. I was glad to leave it behind.”

Collector jumped off the star, wrapping his arms around Phoenix’s neck and his legs around his waist in a piggyback hug. “That’s stupid. They were stupid. I want to keep you, even if you don’t have powers like me and King. We’re going to be friends forever and ever until the sun collapses into a black hole and swallows us all.”

Phoenix’s sore muscles and ribs protested at the weight, but he just walked back towards the bedroom, clasping his hands behind his back to support the Collector. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome! Your story was. Okay. I didn’t like the ending, though.”

“I’m thinking I don’t like it so much, either.” Phoenix let him down. “I’m taking a walk.”

“Don’t stay up too late. We have lots more adventures planned for tomorrow.”

“Right. Good night.”

King stopped just before he followed the Collector to bed. “Phoenix? What happened to everyone else? At your orphanage?”

“I… don’t know. Once I joined the coven, they told me not to look back. And I didn’t.”

“Huh. Okay. Good night.”

“Night, boo-boo buddy.”

Phoenix trotted back down the stairs, leaning against the wall with a sigh.

I want to keep you.

Phoenix patted his face. “No,” he said firmly, “You are not feeling bad about running from the crazy kid who is keeping you hostage and turning people into puppets. Not allowed. Besides, we need to check in on the others. And let them know we’re alright. And where Jason is, they are probably frantic about him right now. You cannot start feeling bad about leaving. He’s unpredictable and every day here is a risk you get turned into a puppet. Or worse.”

He destroyed Belos in an instant without any remorse.

What will he do to you if he finds out what you’re planning?

“We’re getting out of here,” Phoenix said out loud.

No matter what.

#toh #the owl house #toh fanfiction #the previous ggs #golden guard oc #the golden guard #gilded family au #my writing #the collector #king clawthorne #odalia blight

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kotori-mochi · 1 year

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Just to show my stance on this subject. Also the reasons why.

Hello, so I notice some people being miss informed about what AI generators do and why artist are now agents it.

The reason why artist are now up in arms about AI generators is for one: these generators take art work from the internet and puts it into it's data base. This is without the artist knowledge or permission.

two: it has been prove that the generators have copied art work.

Three: The generators don't learn like us it just takes data/pixels, literal pieces of an already made art and mashes them together.

four: The community of Ai bros/"artist" have been bullying real artist. Saying they are superior and that we are obsolete.

five: The AI community has also stolen by taking un finished or finished art from other artist. Putting it into a Ai generator and "making it better". Once again without the artist permission.

six: The AI community has already even stated that they do wish to make artist no longer needed. Suggesting they wish to put hundreds or maybe millions out of a job.

From everything I have experienced with AI "artist" and AI bros. They have proven to me that they don't care about art or the people who create it. They just want a easy way to get artwork without paying or taking the time to learn.

Oh and to those who say artist we are gate keeping. We aren't, what we are doing is saying "don't use my hard work without my permission". If you want to draw or do anything creative, there are millions of art tutorials online. That teaches people how to draw, as well as books. you just have to put in the effort.

I hope this clears some thing up for you.

#art #artist #ai #digital art #no ai

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flysafepapi · 2 years

Text

siren song 4/?

masterlist

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Warnings: Mentions of death, fire.

Summary: He remembers the scent of her perfume, something that smelled strongly of rose, as she carefully closed the small window in the bedroom and crossed herself, whispering words under her breath that were too soft and quick for him to hear. His mother had turned and smiled at him, and even at that age he could see that she was trying to hide something behind it. Her voice had been shaky, whether with fear or anger he still doesn’t know, when she told him that he was going to be safe. The thought of asking what he was safe from hadn’t occurred to him at the time but he thinks he knows, now.

Tagging: @the-makingsofgreatness @zablife @lyarr24 (just let me know if you want to be added on or taken off)

(A flashback of sorts happens after the first ~~~)

The last thing he expects to see when he steps out of the office is Tobias standing outside, just out of reach from the steady drizzle of rain, waiting with an umbrella in one hand and a bottle in the other. For a second, Tommy debates just going back inside and closing the door, especially when Ada leaves the house at the same moment that Tobias steps towards him. A blind man would’ve been able to see the amused and borderline smug look she sends his way. By the slight curve of Tobias’ smile, he’s seen Ada as well.

“Evening, Mr Shelby. I wasn’t sure if I caught you before you went home for the night.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the Garrison by now?”

“Normally I would, but I thought we could talk more about this job you have for me.”

“Does this mean you’re going to take the offer?”

“Perhaps. That depends on you.”

There’s a long, tense moment where the two of them just stare at each other. Thankfully, there’s enough distance between them so that he doesn’t need to look up, unlike the last time. Tommy looks down at the bottle in the other man’s hand, studying the label, then back up at his face. The wine he’s holding is expensive, in the hundreds if the date stamped into the paper label is true, not something cheap he’s picked up on the way.

“What do you want?”

There are a million things Tobias could say to that question. He wants a lot of things: to see his father and brothers again just one last time, whole and alive and unharmed, to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin without the risk of death, to be able to relive the pleasure of eating his mother’s cooking again. He doesn’t give a voice to any of them.

“A drink with you would be a good start.”

The offices are dark, and he’s walked through the space a thousand times before, but it feels different with Tobias behind him, as if the shadows have grown darker than they were five minutes ago when Tommy left. It leaves him feeling slightly unsettled, even after he turns on enough lights to completely illuminate the entire room. The lightbulbs seem duller than they usually would be, and the light they give off is dim, but it’s more than enough to see by.

“Glasses?”

“In my office.”

“Lead the way.”

In the silence, he can practically hear the way Tommy’s heart speeds up slightly, but he’s not sure if it’s from the fact that the two of them are alone or from the fear that he can’t quite explain lingering on the edges of his mind. Maybe both. The sound makes him remember the night in the tunnels, after the supports had given in. Taking any blood hadn’t been in the plan, the entire reason he was there had been because they were. It hadn’t been an accident, that Tobias was the one that the older Arthur Shelby had owed money to. Feeding had been an impulsive decision, and one that could’ve backfired on him spectacularly, but fortunately it hadn’t. He can practically taste it with every pump of the man’s heart.

“-talk about?”

“Sorry?”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There’s a moment, just a second, where Tommy can see the way Tobias’ hands tighten around the bottle of obscenely expensive wine, and the movement draws his attention to the minute difference in texture there that he hadn’t noticed before. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if it wasn’t for the way the skin seemed to shine slightly in the light thrown by the lamps. Tobias follows his line of sight and grimaces for a second when he sees what Tommy’s looking at.

“I’ve tried everything I can to get rid of them. Nothing ever works.”

“What are they?”

“Reminders of the past. Some scars never fade, do they?”

Tommy turns away, changing the conversation away from the memories of the war into something that feels less like he’s walking precariously across a minefield, and Tobias doesn’t call him out on it even though he could. He pours them both a drink instead and raises his own glass in a toast.

“To all the people we lost.”

~~~

Almost as soon as he closes his eyes, securely in the space he’d created beneath the bed for himself though it’s not particularly comfortable, the memories come rushing back like they tended to do around this time of year. He doesn’t dream so much as he relives all the old memories, and though he could list a dozen downsides to eternal life, remembering everything with near perfect clarity has to be at the top of the list. It feels like he’s back there.

The room was small, far too small to comfortably fit them all, and the only noise in the dark were the soft sounds of crying from his brothers and the soothing noises coming from their father, trying to calm them down. At twenty, he’d been the oldest of six, all boys. Before her passing, she often joked that the lord had done her the favour of sparing her from the ordeal of making her daughter’s wedding dress. She hadn’t made it more than a few days past the birth of the twins and while he’d been sitting in the small room, Tobias had been thankful for it. His mother would never have to be subjected to this horror.

His youngest two brothers, the twins, had just celebrated their seventh birthdays. Though the payments he received for doing small jobs around the village had been few and hadn’t amounted to much, he’d been saving since their birthday the year before to get them that horse they’d been wanting for years. Just the week before, he’d given the money to the farmer on the farm next to theirs and arranged to have the animal delivered the morning of their birthday.

“How long are they going to keep us here, father?”

“I’m scared.”

“Shh. Let's not speak of it. Dry your eyes, Ferenc, Tamás, neither I nor your brother will let anything happen to you.”

He had no idea how he was supposed to do that when he wasn’t even sure where the men had taken Miklós, György, or Emeric. They’d been separated not long after the men had dragged them from their home, accused of all manner of foul things he knew none of them would ever have done.

The memory shifts, then, to the part he dreads the most. Even without these nights where it seemed like he was projected right back to the worst time of his considerably long life, he would remember what that night had been like. The smell of the freshly cut pine mixed with something thick and pungent that his frazzled mind hadn’t realised was the smell of tar.

“Please. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he pulled against the ropes binding his wrists behind his back, futilely, they’d been tied far too tight for the movement to make any difference. Even when the rough weave had rubbed his wrists raw and soaked through with blood, he had pleaded for their captors to stop this and let them go. “They’re just boys, they’re innocents!”

“None of you are innocents. Don’t lie to me.”

Later, killing the man that spits down at his feet now will be the first human life Tobias takes, but in the memories the cruel man just laughs at him and walks along the row, down towards his father.

“We deserve to know what our charges are. If this is what you call a trial, then it’s a poor one.”

His father had looked at him, warning him to keep quiet, but he had ignored it. He made eye contact with Emeric and saw the same bruises on his own face reflected back at him, proof that his headstrong brother hadn’t given their captors whatever it was that they wanted. Foolishly, he’d felt proud of that.

By the time the so-called charges had been read out, utterly ridiculous things that they either hadn’t done or things that had been taken out of context, a sizable crowd had grown. People Tobias had known all his life, people that he’d trusted. The joke he’d pulled on the preacher’s son had been harmless, just a few frogs tipped in through the boy’s open window, it was only supposed to startle him for a few moments. Alright he could’ve been nicer to the boy, that much is true, but he doesn’t see how any of that led to this.

“No! Please, I did it, I’ll do whatever you want! Let them go!”

“Don’t listen to him, the devil comes in all forms, if you let him tempt you for a second then he will own you for life. Do it.”

The pitch caught like a spark on dry grass, he remembers that the clearest, and the rope had held through his renewed struggles to get away, digging further into the soft skin of his wrists. The pain from the friction had been sharp and cutting, but hearing the screams of his brothers had been far worse. Some sort of flammable material had been tied around their legs, most likely to speed up the burning, and it did its job effectively. By the time Louise had arrived, he’d already listened as, one by one, his father and his brothers took their last breaths, each of them making sounds of pain until the last.

It’s at that time that Tobias always wakes, gasping in the small space, the thick smell of smoke and burning flesh almost enough to choke him. Every year, it played out the same way, forcing him to remember that it was his foolish actions that had gotten his family killed. Taking his revenge in blood from the ones that had done the accusing, and the ones that had lit the fires, had been satisfying at the time but it was never going to bring them back to him.

“I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”

~~~

“Tommy!”

“What?”

Already there’s a headache starting in his temples, and Ada shouting up the stairs to him doesn’t do a thing to alleviate the throbbing pain. He’d slept a little more last night but not much more than usual, and he’s already exhausted and done by the day.

“Delivery for you!” Ada sounds amused, which is never a good sign. “You should probably get down here!”

With a sigh, Tommy closes the drawer beside the bed and stands up, already dressed though he hadn’t left his bedroom yet. A glance at his watch tells him it’s just past 8 in the morning.

The last thing he’s expecting to see when he gets down to the kitchen is a bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. Dark red roses and orchids, all held together by a ribbon of green and sitting in a clear crystal vase.

“I thought you said this was a delivery for me.”

“It is.”

“If this is a joke-”

“They were addressed to you, just like I told you. As if anyone could send me flowers without the three of you finding them and putting the fear into them. Plus, no one I know could afford anything like this. Look, there’s even a card for you.”

Ada rolls her eyes, something she's been doing more and more of lately, and waves a small card around in the air in front of his face. For a second she tightens her grip on it like she’s reluctant to let it go without reading what’s on it herself, but then the moment passes and she drops her hand with a sigh. The seal on the card breaks easily under his thumbnail and he backs up a step and opens it carefully.

“Well? What does it say? Who are they from?”

“Shouldn’t you be helping Polly?”

He leaves the room before she can answer and walks back up the stairs, leaving the flowers sitting where they were on the table, determined to ignore them completely. In his hand, the hard edges of the card dig into his fingers, and he glances back down at the surprisingly clear loops and swirls of the handwriting in black ink.

‘To the ones we found along the way.’

#peaky blinders #siren song #you can just follow that tag if you don't want to bother with my masterlist #okay so #this chapter was originally going to have bonnie in it but i wanted to spend some time establishing some things #the first part was pure indulgence on my part and i'm not apologising #how long do you think it'll take tommy to realise that that was 100% a date #because the man is pretty oblivious lmao he hasn't been picking up on any of the little hints that tobias has been throwing around #ada has though #ada knows exactly what's going on here #tobias' backstory is fleshed out a bit more #and boy if you think this part was sad just you wait #ive got plans for what happened to him both before and after his turning #it's gonna be so fun for me and not so much fun for you guys #i'm not apologising for that either #anyway yeah this is my humble offering #flirting through flowers #feat: tobias flirting through extravagant gifts #tommy shelby #ada shelby #tobias (oc)

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slowwshoww · 1 month

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my birthday is may 2 and i'm getting a new car

i very much need a new car for work. i'm planning to get a hybrid suv so i can haul all my work materials and also save the environment but! cars are expensive!

AND i have terrible credit!! so if you're like 'wow i love lizz so much i wanna give them five hundred million billion dollars for their birthday but i only have [much much MUCH MUCH smaller amount] to spare' please do!

if you have my phone number you can zelle me and my venmo, paypal, and cashapp handles are all lizzito

also if you wanna just like draw me a picture or send me an image of the sun doing something cool or a song you really like that'll work too

love y'all xoxoxoxoxo

#lifetag #um. not gonna tag this as signal boost since it's not really urgent

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the-firebird69 · 3 months

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We had posted about land and you lost the thing no he lost it very funny but what we're saying is there's lots out there for sale $3,000 500 of them are Trump's and he has two small developments of 20 or 30 houses each large ones there are five we're talks I'm going on about three of them and we're going to offer them some houses and first dibs on some more and some onesie Tuesday lots maybe and we're getting a call from one of the others they want to begin as soon as possible they have about a hundred lots and they want to hire my husband in some capacity and he has the distance now and really they want to hire him to do some sort of estimating and it's not very hard and yes he needs to do it off site and needs the use of a company vehicle for a while and they approve that they say and it will help because going there and back it'll draw the Trump away and she says no way and he has to move him trying for another stuff drawing board it needs a landline and we're going ahead and we're going to talk with them today and that's four out of the five and the fifth one is thinking about it I didn't want to know what kind of deal they want to know what kind of deal and it was kind of stupid because you build for other people and you don't want to and starts huge fights this will start fights but not with the builder and they're amazed and how dumb it is so we're going to head and probably deal as well then they're empty lots that are not developed and they're not plotted we're in talks with them about those there's probably four that are 200 acres and we didn't mention that before but we mentioned other stuff. And there are about five that are around 1500 acres and we're going to sit down and talk to them about that because the 1500 would be like a mixed use mostly apartments some condos and some houses and they would have a certain number and we will gift a certain number two he says it. Oh yes the house is in the community that you saw would range from 1.5 million to 2 million on the average and 2.5 million at the high end and it's because they're 2500 square foot so really it's not just for anybody but you guys preclude each other anyways once you set up a trailer and it's several other things to mention and this land is not free we have to pay for it but it is not really that much money and it's not a matter of money it's not necessarily true everybody fights and it's not much money and it's real..... You make the money real and they do it on purpose to say that we have most of the houses because they don't want him moving back here to Florida and that's the warlock they wanted to Utah and California and one of their Islands so we're going to go ahead and it should be profitable experience and easier than we thought other properties too and businesses should start coming to us

Hera

This is the concept that people don't want out there they don't want him going out west and it's the empire

Thor Freya

You don't want to go out west either well it's not really true

Mac Daddy

The stuff about Trump trying to set us up got out and it's being looked at an examined and we're going to question them we have some of it in and it's real

Stan

Is that enough of this with the biggest enemy and he says of course you're stupid that's why I can't stand it anymore this guy's berating us it says go somewhere else someone else will berate you I don't want you here you're a nasty piece of s*** I sort of get something I'm going to get beat up and yeah you can beat up every day inspiring me to interrupt because you think that it makes it you look good or something people don't want me Disturbed believe it or not and they see her method in Iowa and they said they saw it and they're going after an idiots in New Hampshire and killing them all it's hard to differentiate no hers are women and they find you disguised as women and they're killing you for the disguise can you go faster hopefully you'll be cleared out

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infradapt · 10 months

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AI And The Need For Global Collaboration

Sam Altman, the CEO of the organization behind the widely known chatbot, ChatGPT, utilized a high-visibility visit to South Korea to underscore the need for harmonized international oversight of generative artificial intelligence – the tech backbone of his renowned chatbot. The global nature of AI’s impact means that it demands international collaboration, Altman expressed at an event in Seoul, ahead of a discussion with the South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol.

An Existential Risk?

Amongst hundreds of leading experts, Altman has recently voiced the potential existential risk posed by uncontrolled AI. He emphasized that mitigating this prospect should stand as a global priority, parallel to other society-scale threats such as pandemics and nuclear warfare. His concern is not our inability to adapt, but the rapid pace at which the AI revolution might occur.

Drawing upon the annals of technological revolutions, it’s seen that approximately two generations can adapt to almost any magnitude of labor market change. However, if this AI-induced revolution were to occur within a decade, that introduces a fresh challenge.

Pressures on Governments and Regulatory Bodies

Governments globally are under pressure to provide regulatory frameworks for AI. In a recent statement, President Yoon emphasized the significance of international standards to avoid unwanted repercussions linked to platforms like ChatGPT. He underscored the urgency of action required to address these issues.

On a related note, top US and European officials congregated in Sweden last month to deliberate AI oversight and pledged to aid in establishing voluntary codes of conduct, according to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. On the other side of the globe, authorities in China are also preparing to initiate AI regulation, as per reports from last week.

The AI-Driven Shift in Job Markets

ChatGPT, capable of handling a wide array of tasks including responding to prompts and composing essays, has already triggered many businesses to reconsider their operational strategies. Its developer, OpenAI, recently unveiled an advanced iteration of the software, GPT-4, demonstrating how it could streamline coding, assist in website creation, and even ace exams.

The ascension of artificial intelligence has led analysts to caution against a massive shift in the labor market. Estimates suggest that as many as 300 million full-time jobs globally could eventually be automated in some capacity by generative AI, with about 14 million positions likely to vanish in the next five years alone. Particular categories of white-collar workers, such as administrative staff and legal professionals, are expected to face significant disruption.

However, Altman provides a different perspective: “I think what will really happen is not that none of us have jobs, but we have different kinds of jobs that may not look much like the jobs of today.” He believes that future generations will look back at our current work models with disbelief, considering how different the job market will become.

New Opportunities and Skills in the Age of AI

Alongside other experts, Altman emphasized that the advent of AI technology would also create a wealth of opportunities in terms of new job roles and industries “that weren’t possible before”. In response to a question about how students should prepare for the AI era, Altman stated, “You are about to enter, I think like, the greatest goldenage of human possibility, technological development, economic growth.” He pointed out that the ability to learn new things quickly, adapt to them, and integrate oneself with technology are the kinds of skills that will be highly rewarded in the future.

Regulating AI: A Work in Progress

When asked about the specific regulations he thought should be implemented, Altman offered little detail. He suggested that it currently made sense for different countries to develop their own approaches to AI regulation “in different ways”. However, he mentioned that an international dialogue is beginning to emerge about the long-term, global effects of AI platforms as they continue to automate more and more tasks.

A Global Tour

Altman’s trip to Seoul was part of a larger international tour that included meetings with leaders in India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and South Korea. His discussions focused on the benefits of AI and how countries could harness this technology effectively.

In conclusion, the global impact of AI on jobs, economies, and societies underscores the need for international cooperation in regulating this powerful technology. While it poses certain challenges, it also brings immense opportunities. The key lies in proactive global collaboration to navigate this transformative era effectively.

https://www.infradapt.com/news/ai-and-the-need-for-global-collaboration/

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aspiringfictionwriter · 1 year

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A Light in the Darkness: Chapter Sixteen

Trigger warnings: escape, final goodbyes, mentions of character death (please notify if these need to be changed)

Hey, mini notes! Just found them on the computer, and I love them. How about this? Leave a note and an ask and I'll show you guys something weird I just bought.

Her plan had been five years in the making, five long tedious years, that seemed to have lasted far too long, while being all too short for what she needed to do; but she needed to make a move within the next ten years before she began clerical training. That would be when her life would change, and most likely her magical inclination would be brought into full light unless she knew how to mask, or even change, her arcane abilities, which was something that only the highest caliber of spellcasters could accomplish, and even then they were far and few between.

And in the drow life, ten years was only a blink in time; a decade done and past, leading to another year of tumult and strife, with lower Houses falling as if they were pawns in a grand game of politics and death, which, in truth, they were. It was harmful also to the populous in the streets, for with the destructive and tribulant nature of the society about them, as Houses fell, they would surely fall with them, and this was especially distressing since her visit to the Nook five years prior, as the state of disarray and fear she found the people in due to the unpredictable nature of those in the less notable families. Raids hung over them like the noose drawing ever closer to them as Matron Aunerae further squeezed her fist of influence about their necks, until, as they would ultimately do, the people cracked under pressure, offering enough opportunity to strike.

If it were up to Arachne, that being without the further threat of death looming over her, akin to the invisible, but still crippling, fist in which almost everyone was kept under, even those who never touched the near dystopia that was drow society, such as the mindflayer colonies, kingdoms of svirfneblin, as well as mines where the duergar lived, typically near the acid pits a few hundred miles away from Menzoberranzan, the place where one of the first drow rebels had been born, who now lived on the surface, widowed and father to a half-elven child. He had also been gifted with lavender eyes, which was a simple genetic mutation that happened in the birth of one in five hundred drow; and there were millions of them in the Underdark.

When he had escaped, almost a hundred years before the Time of Troubles began, it had caused unrest in his House, leading to its downfall, but it also set things in motion that disrupted a balance in Menzoberranzan, his influence reaching beyond the city’s bounds. His name was but a whisper on people’s tongues now, a name many feared to utter, but many respected and despised him, there was no in between. His story, and many others after his own, had been something of a novelty to her when she had first learned about it when she was Durdyn’s age five years ago, she couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to leave. Come twenty five years later, Arachne had learned to understand, and had even fallen into the same ideals of the escapees of the Underdark, which had led to where she was now, pure and simple.

Arachne was hovering over her window, her piwafwi discarded on her bed, its magical clasp in her hands, while instead she opted for what she had worn to see the Gray Sword Syndicate only five years ago, baggy hood hovering over her face. She even decided to wear her veil to disguise herself as what the lowborn called, “Maidens,” who were allegedly agents of different Gods trying to convert the Godless peoples in the streets. While they were largely ignored, they were respected beyond compare, almost considered the only pure people amongst the Houseless.

With her, she had also brought rations and a large waterskin, that hung about her waist, tapping at her outer thigh at the moment of any movement she made, which was an almost comforting rhythm, the soft swishing of the water brought serenity, perhaps even certainty. That was something Arachne was in desperate supply and need for, and she had readily anticipated the despondency that would be brought with her journey alone through the deep and cavernous underground.

For the last time she took in the sulfur smell of the hot springs near the garden, the one thing that had been a normality in the abnormal events in her life. For the last time Arachne rubbed her hands against the rough window panes, one part relatively jagged from when she had been practicing throwing knives, to no avail, as she had been trying to pretend it was her mother after her brother’s death by her own hand. And for the last time she accepted her fate. Her only fate; the only safe one.

Holding the ripped off clasp of her piwafwi, she jumped downwards from her window, closing her eyes as she muttered the spell’s incantation, once again breathing in her home’s air, before feeling the force of magic keep her up in flight. This was leading to one of the more dangerous parts of Arachne’s plan, something she felt owed to the person in which she was soaring to before she made her true escape. Departing her own room was nothing compared to what she hoped would not impair her plan.

Willing the magic to move her forward, she made her way to the room adjacent to her own, peeking through the open window, a smile, not suppressed by the fear of death, painted on her face, wide and kind as she watched her brother slumber. The boy was fast asleep, grasping the blankets close to him during his rest, a rogue smile on his face as well, akin to her own, for they were not too different. Durdyn was the reason she had the desire to stay, but with her influence, he may yet find his way out, or perhaps without her influence if it was purged from him, he would become strong. Either way, it was better than dead.

Crawling through the window, she placed a note under his delicate pillow, folded together in a special enchantment taught to her by Cazna’s memoir, indicating that only the one addressed in the letter could open it, and, in turn, analyze it properly. But as she moved to turn away, Arachne couldn’t bring herself to do it, to leave the boy she had brought up, to no longer see his face, and to no longer feel his soft, untouched, palms.

His face was young and round, one that had always been brought up by very evident dimples whenever he smiled, which had become a rare occurrence as he began more extensive training. Durdyn’s eyelashes were black and short, contrary to his growing, and overall long, white hair, yet again a staple of status of drow nobles, which curled slightly at the bottom, indicating his due trim, something that she would also miss. The feeling of the shears in her hands as Arachne held his silky hair in place was nostalgic, and something she would forever miss.

But this glance, a lingering one, had to be her last. She was running short on time.

So turning away for a final time, she muttered a farewell to him before she flew back down his window, and crept her way into the hot springs as she halted her artificial flight, instead relying on her silent, almost nimble, feet against the frigid stone.

Arachne had been sure to deviate from the paved garden path, as that would be inconspicuous, and instead tuck away in the shadows cast by tall plants, statues of Matron Mothers and of Lolth, and even large stalks of vegetation, before she found herself in the hot springs, eerie bubbling slipping into her ears as the azure and orange ombre waters sat undisturbed in the quiet of the darkened cycle. If she hadn’t been so certain of everyone’s slumber, the reformed heiress would have been led to believe that someone was watching her.

However, paranoia overruled her own staunchness, and Arachne gave one unplanned and discreet look backward, a smile of relief falling onto her features as she saw a hooded figure holding up a silver sigil of a gray iron sword in the center, indicating that her contacts had followed through, and that the Gray Sword Syndicate had sent their help to her. That straightened out a certain wrinkle in her plan, for she would not need to go down into the streets, offering a wider time window.

For, a few weeks prior, Arachne had sent a message by the means of locating Black Powder’s operatives, and sending them with her request, but that had been trying enough, and had it not been for a minor misstep of the small svirfneblin who had been watching her, she would not have found her at all. However, due to her remarkable stroke of luck, the drow elf had sent the spy with a message, that being that she intended to leave Abburth, and would like to employ help from the syndicate in exchange for fine gold, gems, and weaponry; but she had not heard back from them, not until she saw the operative behind her.

The two exchanged subtle glances, Arachne still continuing her prowl despite the recognized person trailing behind her, the edge nicked off from her worry, knowing that a skilled warrior was protecting her flank, or at least what she had hoped was a skilled warrior. But, she reminded herself this, and she reminded herself well, that the silhouette of a man was behind her, and drow men under Matron Aunerae would have charged at her, knowing that their Matron would be at their backs.

She instead focused on her surroundings, the almost bioluminescent mushrooms and plants twinkling gently against the steamy backdrop, underground flies buzzing about, offering a consistent, rhythmic, noise. The blue and red hues of the springs in close view contrasted the cooler colors about the surrounding garden, but that field of red, hot, sulfur, would be a field in which both Arachne and her counterpart would be traversing as a shortcut to the streets, where they would part, and the aspiring escapee would begin to travel down a cavern which would lead to her first rest point, her first out of 42 rest points, six weeks of strenuous travel.

And when she and the syndicate member reached the plains of the hot springs, the burning sensation that Arachne, and no doubt her welcomed stalker as well, had become accustomed to had been increased tenfold, almost as if a horde of matches had been collected beside her, and had all been lit, to which then they were doused in water, a pungent fragrance of reminisced burning filling her nostrils. This had been a smell that the drow elf had lived with all her life, but only from a distance, and never before had she been that close to the springs. The only woman who had was her mother, and she had been bathing in the waters since she had gone into power three centuries prior.

If she had not been forced to learn respect for her mother beforehand, her own will would force her to feel as such as she walked across the ground, the torrid stone itself heating up her boots, for every time she stepped her foot down in the slightest way, a small burning sensation was sent down her nerves like small insect legs tickling her flesh. Arachne would be glad to never have that feeling again, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up in worry, the soles of her feet feeling as if they were on fire, and an eerie chill up her spine despite the heat.

And Arachne, continuing to walk, the syndicate member close behind her, was soon hit with refreshing cold air once the barren wasteland had been abandoned, and she had never believed that she would be so happy to see life again in any street, let alone one where many fought for their lives, but here she was, breathing the air that filled her body with energy, something the drow elf tried to hold close, as her despair intensified the farther away she was from her brother.

She hadn’t realized it until then, her head almost looking downwards at where her growing brother was meant to be, even though he was tall enough to reach her stomach already, albeit the drow elf wasn’t too angular herself, to check on him. But her frown had deepened, but this time of despair instead of Arachne’s appropriate staidness, and all she longed to do was to go back, but she knew she had to go on.

And maybe, one day she would come back for him.

Arachne waited for but a moment for the man behind her to reach her side, her lavender eyes reaching the left sides of their confines to give what some would call a subtle glance, and it proved to be quite the good distractor for what had been floating about in her brain beforehand, something to refocus her attention on the task at hand, to assure herself that the decision she was making was right for the circumstance in which she was in. Although the drow elf found no resemblance to any man she knew, it wasn’t as if she could see past the shadow that his hood cast over his face, akin to her own.

And had it not been for him to speak first, in deep speech to ensure some form of secrecy, Arachne would have thought that the whole affair would be silent. “Queen of Monsters, Black Powder wished me to gift you supplies when we part, and his best wishes, and I will say this much of my own desired opinion; what you are doing is something that Lady Bug had attempted to do, and she had showed her hand too late in the game, and the Gray Sword Syndicate only hopes that you have showed your hand when you should.” They began to walk, but not in the streets themselves, but weaving through alleyways and side roads so as to not be spotted, her own eyes never leaving her guide, for she knew not the ways of the streets of the city, she only knew how to instill fear in them.

“As do I. The waiting game has been trying over the past five years. Your help is much appreciated, ser, although I am sure you had little choice in the matter.” Arachne replied in a hushed whisper, which was simple enough, for in the dialect it was a mixed language of muffled sounds, grunts, and the like.

A chuckle reverberated from the hooded man in front of her, “Black Powder gave all of us a choice if we wished to take on the task, and I was the only one, for I am one of the few that don’t hold you responsible for the Surface Tiger’s demise, for your hand was forced. However, most of my brothers-in-arms believe differently. It was for the best that you only contacted us for this matter and nothing much else.”

Arachne shivered at the thought of her blade slicing against Kethan’s throat, which had remained to be an unpleasant memory of hers for its gruesome weight, although most of her memories were filled with such things. It was similar to her last memory with Bemril, for it had been her hand that had ended it all for the both of them, but the remaining deaths she witnessed were at the hands of others, those who had been used to the life that they lived, content with the blood on their hands. Her thought process took her across a different path, however, for the two lives she had taken had been two too many, but many of her brethren hungered for more. This was something that she wished to change, but knew she would be unable to.

She sighed, “I understand their thinking, and there was no pride in my veins when I ended his life. Part of me has learned to tell myself that it was more of a mercy; that he would have loathed his new existence in service to my mother. But, in truth, I cannot change what I have done.” And when she finished her sentence, the two of them reached the wall of which Abburth ended, its wide obsidian and granite textures plain to see, the spectacles of earthen colors almost intimidating for the account of its beauty.

For Abburth, in all of its glory, was like every drow city, as it was built inside a gaping cavern underground, a trench as some would call it, and it wasn’t much of a small trench, either. In fact, one thousand years ago, the city had been larger if not for the fact that a Dracolitch had been set upon them, collapsing what was then the Lower House region, which was rebuilt and brought to become adjacent to the main Houseless quarter of the city itself. But even then, the trench was larger than a dragon, and it still was.

And the true magic of the seemingly empty wall was that of its hidden exits, created long ago when the drow were still fair of skin and could not see completely in the dark as they could now, and Arachne and her counterpart were standing in front of such exit, mapped out to her by Cazna’s last gift to her.

She turned to her acquaintance, lowering her hood, long white hair cradled now in the cowl itself. “Whatever it is you wish to give me, now is the time, for I wish to not step foot in this place unless I must, and desire to not dally much longer.”

The man before her nodded his head, and from a protruding pouch of cloth on his side, he handed them to her, “These are clothes crafted on the surface world, made for you for our clothes and armor will lose their protective properties in the light of the sun. My best wishes to you.”

Arachne took the bundle quite willingly, nodding her head in thanks, a smile ghosting her features. “And mine to you.” And they turned away from each other, her form disappearing in the deceptive part of the wall, and the man in the streets once more.

She was finally free.

______________________

I'm glad I took a break for this one, it was hard for no reason.

We have one more chapter until Part Two begins, so I'll see you next Wednesday!

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onlineshoppingstoree · 2 years

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Reaching Customers in Your Area

A perfect family day outing is on a Sunday, strolling through the local market and picking any and everything that looks entertaining! For my family, there is an addition to the above activity, it’s brunch, also known as Feasting on the street food!

What a time to be alive!

And then I see families walking into fancy restaurants, with fancy shopping bags sitting on tables and not talking to each other…?

Ufff, what a vibe kill!

But after the whole covid situation, we don’t get to see either of the circumstances.

But the popular brands still managed to take it all up online, leaving the local markets wayyy behind.

People still shopped off the big brands and retail, but what about the local merchants, and their slow poisoned business?

Before, I dove right into understanding all of this… You should be aware that supporting local businesses creates more jobs and keeps more money moving into regional economies, fostering a sense of greater community.

Here are five local marketing techniques to assist you to draw in clients-

Engagement-

Participate in Community Life One of the most important steps in reaching your customers is this one. Community involvement is also much less expensive than you may imagine.

To draw in more clients, you might also provide the finest deals via your app.

SEO-

Prioritize local SEO You can always use foot traffic from the internet to get potential customers to call you or come into your store.

The internet is constantly used by people to look for various goods and services in your neighborhood. SEO will make it easier for potential clients to find your business.

partnership-

Make Local Business ContactsYou can partner up with other local businesses in complementary but non-competitive markets is one of the best local marketing strategies to expand your network.

All you need to do is find the right kind of people who fit in perfectly with your business.

social media-

Engage your neighborhood’s online audience Social media is a platform where you can be authentic, and when used properly, it works amazingly well to increase local business visibility.

The internet, which has hundreds of millions of active users, offers several options for brand recognition.

LMO or Local Market Offers is at the merchant’s reprieve to help them deal with all the annoyances of marketing. Local Market Offers is on a mission to build a humongous web of merchants and consumers without any corporate interference.

As of now, LMO is encircling 160+ businesses to support local merchants to help and bring their business on the digital platform, be it travel, fashion, repair, service, or anything that you mention.

Download Now

Some of the notable attributes of LMO are -

Easy-to-use app

In-built Inventory

Multilingual User Interface (Available in 12+ languages)

Easy Transactions

Cost-effective

Easy generation of offers, such as flash sales, discounts, coupons, and cashbacks

Available on Android & iOS

After knowing all this, how can you stay off the grid!??

Get on board and climb your way to success!

Source Url:-https://onlineshoppingstore89.blogspot.com/2022/09/reaching-customers-in-your-area.html

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partycatcentral · 2 years

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"legends of the league": weaving narratives out of numbers

at least that was the idea at the beginning. hi my name is valentine and i'm gonna talk about my final project for LIS752. yeah i know how to capitalize letters i'm just not going to.

context

so before i launch pawsfirst into the crunch, lemme give a lil preview for folks in the listening audience who have never had the grave misfortune of playing League of Legends. LoL, or just League, is what they call a multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA for short (who doesn't love acronyms). It's a genre/style of video game that focuses on competitive play, with two teams, composed each of five players, pitted against one another in an enclosed arena. both teams have a home base they need to protect, and each player self-selects into an pre-assigned role, which partially determines the champion or player-character they'll be using. each champion has a different set of abilities, stats and lore, and each champion is for the most part unique. there are 138 champions in league, spread somewhat evenly across the 5 or so roles each champion can slot into.

this is what an average match in league looks like. don't worry if you don't understand anything on screen, i don't really either. all you need to know are that the two characters with health bars hovering above them (yellow and red respectively) are champions.

league is a massively popular game, drawing in millions upon millions of poor suckers gamers that play from all across the world. there's also the eSports scene, where professional league teams compete for prizes of hundreds of thousands of dollars, alongside sponsorships and brand deals. league is wickedly lucrative, for its developers and for players who get good enough to be recognized in the community or by the pros. as you may have already guessed, yes, i did in fact play league once. it was a terrible experience and the day that i quite my life improved, considering i was no longer pouring untold hours and dollars into a game that hated me. however, being autistic, i was left with one helluva special interest, and to this day i know more than i feel comfortable knowing about league and its mechanics, lore and community. my interest remains to this day, which is why i've done my project on looking at data taken from tens of thousands of competitively ranked league matches and attempting to parse something, not anything definitive like trends or patterns that might help a fledgling player play better, but something intangible, the little stories that sprout up in every match, the little occurrences that happen once n never again. how might we be able to use statistical, quantitative date to build a narrative? that's what i've been thinking about for the last twelve hours, considering i did not sleep at all tonight. let's gooooooooo

the dataset

so let's talk numbers. i acquired a dataset off of Kaggle that was uploaded by one Michael J. back in 2017. the dataset contains information from over 50000 competitively ranked league matches taken from the western european server, from a time between June to September of 2017. the data is sorted across 61 entire features, stuff like which champions were selected and for which team, which were banned, which team claimed which objective first, that sort of thing. as far as this kind of data goes it's actually lacking a lot of granular information a few of the popular league stat search engines (which exist, because of course they do) offer, like how much gold per minute a player made, or even just how many kills each player got. of course, including such information would've ballooned the dataset to something two or three times its current size.

aside from that lack of specificity, there's also the minor issue of the utter anonymity of the data. each player is reduced to just a set of simple decisions they made -- which champion they selected, which one they chose to ban, which abilities they preloaded into the game. having even just their username, or an identifier of sorts, would've been interesting for being able to track a given player's history across this stretch of time with playing the game, how they might've improved or changed things up. it's just another very minor thing.

of course, some of you might be saying, valentine, you want the data to be less anonymous? you enjoy data harvesting? you want each player's social security number to be printed on their league of legends match history alongside their kda? yes that's all true but for real, there is an interesting bit of discussion that could be had about how this data was collected. the dataset's creator mentioned using the publicly available API for the game to collate the data, which is probably how all those other companies and search engines offer their own (much better and more in-depth) stat analyses for players to peruse. there wouldn't be much identifiable information, perhaps the user name, the server you logged into, the time and date you started the match. however, the question remains if this is just a seemingly innocuous byproduct of much more malicious and harmful data-harvesting practices that the game and the developer perpetuates because it makes them a metric ton of money. perhaps in making little allowances like this, providing information "for free" so that others (or anyone) can use it, it helps mask those more unsavory applications of their software and oversight. perhaps we talked about it in class and i just didn't pay attention. the world may never know.

the analysis

so when it was finally time to start wrangling the data, i swear i rode this dataset like i was a rodeo clown on my first day on the job and golly gee was she a rough ride. let's take a peak at what the bulk of the data looks like:

this is pretty indicative of the general standard of friendliness. the dataset is rendered exclusively in integers, and some in a format i'd never seen before, like creationTime (shown above) being in Epoch format. the first thing i did was arrange the dataset to retreive the first and last items from that column and (online, not in code) converted it into standard date & time, which is where i got the june 2017-september 2017 range from earlier

the dataset also came with a couple of json files which provided some additional information and context, like parsing the generic champion id numbers into names and titles. i also attempted to convert the json files in rstudio into csvs so i could work with them, but something about the way they were written just ended up bouncing off of everything i tried, so i manually edited the file and converted it, also online.

from here i decided what i wanted to see were stats like win-rates, play-rates and objective wins, sorted by each champion, because I felt that would be a pretty simple way to sort this data, and that kind of information is always at the forefront of advice given to newbie players just hitting the rift for the first time (gamer slang, you wouldn't understand, nor should you. leave now, before its too late)

using group_by and summarize functions i was able first to group the dataset by champions, and then provide a few key stats about each champion's statistically significant impact on a game:

how many games across the whole dataset did each champion play? what were the champions' win-rates; or, what percentage of games did one side win when a given champion was part of the team? how often were certain objectives taken first by one side when a certain champion was present? this part took a lot of manually constructing bespoke dataframes for my pretty lil numbers to have cute lil beds to lie all pretty within because otherwise rstudio would call me an idiot, i feel like a digital carpenter.

then, i decided to seize on one stat in particular to take a real close look at: play-rate. how often did a champion see play? what kind of role did that champion serve? using slice_min & its cousin _max, i isolated the 10 most & least played champions in the dataset, and put them up in a bar plot:

so, here are numbers. like the subtitle says, the colors correspond to similar role. in this case, yellow means "ADC" or "attack damage carry", a player with high damage but relatively fragile build, purple means "support", a player who helps by healing & protecting their allies or hindering the enemy, and green means "jungler", a player who roams and performs ambushes to help their team and catch the enemy unawares. these roles are not so set in stone in game and during play, and often many players (myself included, when i did play) had a lot of fun breaking the mold of what a champion was considered "right" for. However, in this case it's useful for determining a few things. 6 of the top 10 most played champions are ADCs, which makes sense, considering they are known for their fast-paced and flashy styles of play. they're seen as fun to play, so they're chosen more often. comparatively, the other four roles aren't as well represented.

now let's look at the bottom 10:

Here we have a more even distribution, with green still meaning junglers, orange meaning top-laners, players who usually play tanks or beefy bruiser builds, and red meaning mid-laners, mages or assassins who (literally) take center stage in a game. We also see more junglers, holding even with mid-laners. And comparing the total games played for these champions, the most played in the bottom 10 is just under 1200 games played across 51490 total games recorded, hovering just at 2%. compare that to the least played in the top 10, who we see peaking above 7500, which comes out to almost a 15% pick-rate, over 7 times as high as the former. the two most played in the top 10 have a pick-rate of almost 25%, which means that in nearly a quarter of all the games recorded, they were present.

of course, this kind of bean-counting and pencil-pushing isn't why i'm here.

the one in fifty one thousand four hundred ninety

its saturday morning, august the 19th, 2017. all over the world, league players have already been logging on and playing for hours, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, engaging in thousands of matches. but somewhere in western europe, an unknown player logs in at 11 am. maybe they just woke up, or maybe its already been hours, but whatever the case maybe, they get in line to join a ranked match. when they finally join, who do they pick? maybe one of the most popular champions, statistically? ooh perhaps one of the flashy ADCs, or a nice sturdy support or top-laner? i mean, they've got 138 choices...

nope. meet skarner.

at 567 total games played skarner has by far the lowest play-rate of all 138 champions across all 51490 matches recorded in this date. sitting at juuuust a hair above 1.1%, you could very well play one hundred ranked matches and never see a Skarner. i mean, look at him, he even looks busted.

skarner is also classified as a jungler, a role that's generally not as popular and requires a fair amount of skill, finesse and awareness to play. junglers often get a lot of flak for their playstyle, because they're often expected to do a lot more than their counterparts. as a roaming role you have to keep an eye on the whole arena, makin sure nothing escapes your watchful eye. or, scorpionful eye. crystal eye?

welcome to ranked match #3309615915

the match

from the stats of the game, its obvious our lonely Skarner didn't get off to a good start. Their team took none of the early objectives that often guarantee early headstarts that can snowball easily into a win. that's a lil like if uhhh i guess in baseball? someone like, strikes out, the first few, times they have to go bat or something. anyway, all these early advantages, down the drain.

also, the enemy team is stacked with champions that are often considered to have a serious effect on morale. Draven, Darius, Vladimir, Soraka: these are some toxic champions to play against, often heading well into just plain frustrating.

look at this smug asshole.

how must our Skarner be feeling right about now? Heading straight to a defeat, their teammates probably trying to quit and forfeit the game. that would mean a pretty heavy blow to your ranking, because remember, this is competitively ranked, Skarner is here because they want to win.

and what do they do? WIN.

seemingly against all odds, despite having the deck stacked against them, all early leads lost, they manage to take the win at the very end. over the course of nearly half an hour, what epic highs and lows must this Skarner have seen? what a surprise this must've come as to the enemy, who might not have seen another Skarner for dozens, if not hundreds of games?

well, it's not much of a surprise to us. because the data shows that Skarner, across all the games he plays in, has one of the highest win-rates in the game for this dataset. at over 50%, he joins a select group of champions that have the odds tipped ever so slightly in their favor. a very slight advantage, but anything, however slight, however small, can be the difference between victory and defeat. is that number inflated due to the very small pick-rate? definitely. but maybe that is also to his advantage, not being as common or chosen as often. maybe it's because the Skarner had the two most picked champions on their team. maybe? maybe it was the spirit of sports...

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trivechallengehost35 · 2 years

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Possess Your Future Challenge & Job Next Testimonial Legit?

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We all participated in for personal advancement, as well as we all dealt with comparable obstacles. Bonding over common ground was terrific, and also I desire there was even more time devoted to it. Rather, it handled the form of a multipronged focus team that saw lots of participants hailing from drivers, piercing professionals, as well as solution companies who gathered into the four edges of a conference ballroom in Galveston, Texas. Their primary goal was to assist upgrade the DSATS's "roadmap" that determines which technical innovations are needed to produce a true step change in exploration automation by 2025.

#deangraziosi

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