#caller: hayes
Photo
a stone wall covered in light gray paint, a silver elevator button panel installed, two circular white buttons in black squares with braille beside. the one on top points up. but the one on the bottom is pointing to the right. the image is distorted by VCR static. text reads:
[015] THE EXPERIMENT. A CALLER CATCHES A SHIFT CHANGE. THE HOST TAKES THE ELEVATOR.
listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:
[static, radio tuning]
[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]
[click]
Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,
and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.
[Thin Places theme]
[low rumbling, intermittent distant clanging and rumbling]
I’m coming to you claustrophilic from my studio, which is what I like to call this ornately dark-paneled elevator I am currently trapped in, who knows how many feet above the earth. The display is out, so there’s no light to tell me which floors I'm stuck in between - my money’s on 17 and 18, because I love a prime number. There aren’t any lights overhead, either. Just the pale yellow glow of the lobby button that I pushed. Or - was it the top floor? Because that one’s lit up, too.
I can hear a groaning down in the cavernous space below me. It sounds metallic, but not the way the elevator would creak and shudder along its own ropes. It’s getting a little bit louder every time I hear it. [metallic growl] Like it’s getting closer.
So what is Thin Places Radio?
Well, you can call in about anything strange that you've got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.
Can you hear someone moving around on the floor above you, even though there isn’t a floor above you?
Are you having trouble believing what you’re seeing?
Is your house haunted? Do you kind of like it that way?
Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.
[click] [voicemail:]
Uh, have y'all ever heard of a change blindness experiment? You can find a bunch of them on YouTube, if you Google - they’re either called experiments, or pranks, they’re basically pranks. They’re made to demonstrate that people just don’t notice s**t? Typically what they’ll do is they’ll have someone behind, like, a register counter, and when someone looks down to, like, open their wallet, they’ll just switch people who are at the register. And no one ever says anything, or acts like it’s strange, or notices, at all, until it’s pointed out to them - and sometimes, not even then.
I don’t… think anyone’s pranking me? Like why… why would they… why. Because, especially ‘cuz it’s like, the same girl, over and over again. But it’s different people every - so - [huff]. The Family Dollar behind my house. There’s always this girl in there, working the register - she’s always there. And she’s really nice? She recognizes me, and I recognize her. It’s just, every single time I purchase anything, I - it - she gets replaced? By different people? But only for that - it’s only while money is being exchanged. I’ve kept my eyes open, I’ve, like - not looked down, at all, and it’s like - frame to frame, it’ll just - for one second, there’s a different frame and there’s a different person. But when I walk away? It’s her again.
I think - I think I’m just being pranked, but like, again, f***ing why? I didn’t agree to be pranked, or to be in some kind of experiment. Nothing bad ever happens? It’s just that. It makes me think like - do people not notice? Do people in the videos and the experiments not notice, or do they just never say anything? You know? Maybe they just - it’s easier to just be like, well, I guess I’m wrong, or just forget about it. Anyway. I guess I’ve said something now. Yep. Thank you.
[click]
It’s so easy to shy away from what’s right in front of us, caller. How can you trust yourself when that trust has led you astray? You must be getting pranked, you must be in some kind of experiment. How can you trust other people, either, when they haven’t been honest, or had your best interests at heart?
You know that what you’re seeing is real, even though it can’t be. It can. It is. You kept your senses sharp. You paid attention to the cashier at the Dollar General. Has anyone else? Maybe. Anyone else isn’t your responsibility. [searching music] It’s easy to say that the cashier might not be, either. But, I lied. Everyone else is always our responsibility. Not to try to control, or change. But to share in the fabric of reality, however strange a hue that fabric takes.
It’s so easy not to say anything. It’s easy not to pry, not to be rude, to see that crack in someone else’s armor and look away from the blood that’s coming out of it. I don’t know what’s happening to the cashier. I don’t know why she’s always there, or if she knows what’s happening to her, or how she feels about it. I don’t know how she’d react if you said something, anything. I don’t know how you would even bring something up - are you okay? How are you doing today? How was your week? At the start, that transition between someone you see and someone you know can feel impossible to navigate. Sometimes that change never happens. But something in her recognizes you. And you recognize her, no matter what she looks like in those in-between moments. It’s still her. It’s still you.
[click]
Something weird, listeners? The current price of Power Steering Fluid at the Dollar General closest to you is three dollars and seventy five cents. It is currently out of stock. Someone keeps drinking it.
[click] [groaning and rumbling, louder] [light flickering loudly]
All the buttons are lit up on the panel, now, flickering. There’s no one to boost me up to that panel I can see above my head, slightly out of line with the other squares in the ceiling. But that’s okay. Someone in the interconnected universal fabric left a box in here. I think I can reach it myself.
Something stopped the elevator on purpose. Some angler that swims through the earth. [clang] It’s hungry. But that’s not its fault. [rumble] It needs to eat. We all do. I just don’t think I'm going to stick around to figure out what its diet might be.
[creaking, clanging] [the host’s voice echoes:]
Ah, f***. Floor 13. Of course it’s floor 13. [pause] Prime number though.
Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do.
As always, our number is 717.382.8093. that's 717.382.8093. Until next time. [creak] I'll be somewhere around here.
[elevator dings, opens]
[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: ]
Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal. Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Hayes.
Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA.
If you have a story to tell or a question to ask, give us a call at (717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.
[Thin Places Theme outro]
#official psa!! do not drink power steering fluid!! thanks#thin places radio#tpr#glitches#glitch in the matrix#podcast#episodes#015#the experiment#caller: hayes#fiction podcast#audio drama#liminal#surreal#advice
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"As President...I rise about 7 AM [and] write until breakfast...After breakfast prayers -- i.e. the reading of a chapter in the Bible, each one present reading a verse in turn, and all kneeling repeat the Lord's Prayer...From 10 to 12...members of Congress [have] preference of all visitors except Cabinet ministers. Callers 'to pay respects' are usually permitted to come in to shake hands whenever the number reaches about a half dozen waiting. Twelve to 2 PM, on Tuesdays and Fridays, are Cabinet hours...At 2 PM, lunch. I commonly invite to that [lunch] -- cup of tea and biscuit and butter with cold meat -- any gentleman I wish to have more conference with than is practicable in hours given to miscellaneous business. After lunch [I work on] the correspondence of the day, well briefed, and each letter in an envelope, is examined...then I drive an hour and a half. Returning I...take a fifteen to or twenty minutes' nap, and get ready to dine at 6 PM. After dinner, callers on important business occupy me until 10:30 to 11:30 PM, when I go to bed...There is no enough exercise in this way of life. I try to make up by [practicing] active gymnastics before I dress when I get up, by walking rapidly in the lower hall and the greenhouse after each meal for perhaps five to ten minutes, and a good hand rubbing before going to bed."
-- President Rutherford B. Hayes, on his typical schedule each day as President, personal diary entry, March 18, 1878.
#History#Presidents#Presidency#Presidential History#Rutherford B. Hayes#President Hayes#Hayes Administration#Day in the life of the President#Quotes by Presidents#Presidential Quotes#Presidential Personalities#White House#Executive Branch#Executive Office of the President
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Lightning In A Bottle chapter 9
It was a slightly bittersweet ending in St. Louis for the team. It’s always a great feeling to reunite a family, and they did that for two families. Unfortunately one of the girls didn’t make it, and that weighed heavy on them. JJ and Spencer were particularly hit with the loss as they watched her friend and fellow captive fall apart before them as she coded. The feeling of failing despite doing everything possible, something all to familiar to the experienced agents, crashing down around a young girl unprepared for the gravity of such mourning.
Spencer confided in Derek about the aftermath of the case, for as they say ‘a burden shared is a burden halved’, when his phone rang. The caller ID read Herald Lurch. Spencer answered, concerned as to why he would be getting a call from Lurch and not a text from Éclair.
“Hello…” Spencer barely got out before he was cut off by a rather panicked Yen.
“Hey Spencer, something serious happened, and I need to ask something really big of you.” She panted out through her obvious anxiety. There was a lot of noise in the background, some of which were uncomfortably recognizable as hospital ambiance.
“ What’s wrong? Is Éclair alright?” Spencer asked in shared panic.
“Yeah, she’s OK. We’ll, sort of. It’s Herald. He’s hurt. He’s supposed to be picking Éclair up from Dr. Jericho but they just took him in to surgery and I have to stay here. Can you pick her up?” She explained, barely holding it together anymore.
“Absolutely.” He complied reassuringly. “I can bring her to my place for now, but what about the dogs? Or her meds? If she’s coming straight from there, Lurch would have her phone and keys.”
“First let’s get her out of his clinic.” She resolved, trying to recompose herself.
“What’s going on Reid? Talk to me man.” Derek butted in, best intentions in mind seeing his friends concern. Spencer relayed the information back to Derek. “What hospital are they at? I could take you to get your girl, drop you off and get her stuff from them.”
“Bethesda General.”
“Savannah’s there. I’ll call her so she knows I’m coming and I can find them.” He said breaking off to make his call.
“ My co worker, Derek Morgan will be by later to get her things from you. His girlfriend, Dr. Savannah Hayes, works there.” Spencer explained. He pressed the elevator button and waited for the doors to open again so he and Derek could make haste for Derek’s truck.
“ You should know, when you pick up Éclair, she won’t be herself. She never is when she’s with Jericho. We call it her nullsona. It’s like a split personality but its blank. She mostly runs on a defensive auto pilot. Do not put your hands on her.” Yen warned. “It shouldn’t last long. She’ll most likely be herself by the time you get to your place or shortly after. Once you get home, call Dr. Deschamps.”
“Alright. Call me with any updates.” Spencer signed off and hung up just as Derek did the same and the elevator doors opened.
Derek hadn’t completely stopped the truck before Spencer had unbuckled his seat belt and stepped out in a rush to the facility entrance. He was no sooner in the door and an eager receptionist greeted him cheerily.
“Welcome sir! How may I be of assistance?” she said in that sickly sweet and obviously fake ‘customer service’ voice, one commonly used by food industry workers and telemarketers.
“HI. My name is Spencer Reid, I’m here to pick up Éclair.” He replied stepping up to the counter.
“You’re not the usual person who picks her up, are you on the list of authorized guardians?” She asked as she turned slightly toward her computer and began clicking away, presumably to bring up some sort of verification.
“There’s been an emergency, Lurch isn’t able to pick her up. Yen asked me to come in his stead.” He elaborated. “Do you need her to call and verify?”
“One moment sir.” The receptionist picked up the telephone receiver and entered in an extension code. After a moment he began speaking to someone on the other line. “Hi, I have someone here who says they’re here to pick up Éclair. He’s not on the list but he said that he was asked to come get her. ……Spencer Reid. ……uh huh…OK then. Thanks.” She hung up the phone and returned her attention to Spencer. “Alright, I’ll need to see some ID so I can log you as having picked her up.” Without hesitation, Spencer produced his FBI credentials and displayed them for her. She seemed somewhat shocked by this, whether it was the badge itself or the fact he was the legitimate bearer was unclear, but she typed away on the computer and entered the necessary information.
“I’m not entirely sure if we are permitted to make a scan of these credentials, do you have your driver’s license handy?” She asked. Again, Spencer reached into his pocket, fished out his wallet and handed his license over for her to scan.
As she finished up the digital logs, the elevator dinged and two porters stepped out, leading an expressionless Éclair out into the lobby. He snatched up his license as soon as the receptionist was done with it and rushed to Éclair. He remembered Yen’s warning and stopped just in front of her. He leaned slightly in an attempt to make eye contact with her. A barely noticeable flicker of recognition flashed in her eyes but her expression didn’t waiver, and his heart broke a little.
“ I’m here to take you home now.” He said gently. Éclair’s gaze rose to meet his at his level. She stared blankly for a moment before Spencer realized he was blocking her path and stepped to the side. With calm and even strides, she paced forward, past him and toward the door. He hurried beside her, opened the door, and lead her to Derek’s truck.
“Is she OK?” Derek asked, noticing Éclair’s unusual demeanor as Spencer opened the passenger door for her.
“Yeah, well, she will be. This is how she always is after her appointments here.” Spencer explained. Éclair stared Derek down with unblinking steely grey eyes that were reminiscent of a soulless android in a movie, sending a cold chill down his spine.
“Reid, you know what this looks like, we’ve seen it enough to recognize it. She’s dissociating, that’s a trauma response.” Derek continued.
“I know, and I do have my concerns about it, but at this point all I can do is be there for her.” Spencer cut in as he took his seat next to Éclair being careful not to bump her or do anything that might be perceived as provocation. Derek wasn’t too keen on the situation but he fought back the urge to storm in and drove towards Spencer’s apartment.
The farther away from the clinic they got, the less rigid Éclair was in her seat until she slumped over asleep into Spencer’s side. He was still tentative about putting his arm over her in case she woke up and lashed out until she nuzzled into him with a sleepy groan.
“Talk about a 180. From spooky to sweet.” Derek joked as they approached a red light. Éclair continued to slowly slip forward in her sleep and her unrestrained hair trickled down in front of her face. Spencer shifted slightly so he could hold her in place and brushed the blonde and blue curtain away from her eyes.
“When you pick up her stuff, can you make sure they have her bells? She’s going to want them when she wakes up.” Spencer asked as he continued to run his fingers through her soft locks.
“Her bells? What, is she gonna get up and start caroling or something?”
“No, she ties them in her hair. She always wears them.” Spencer explained as Derek pulled up to Spencer’s building.
“I’d say that’s weird for a grown ass woman but then again look what Garcia wears in her hair.” Derek retorted as he watched Spencer carefully slide Éclair’s slumbering form out of the trunk and into his arms. “Need me to get the doors?”
“Yes please.” Spencer relented, suddenly feeling inadequate for not being able to do it himself.
Once inside his apartment and Derek finished commenting on the connotation of carrying her over the threshold, Spencer took Éclair to his room, laid her out on his bed and partially closed the door as he left. He then took a seat on his couch and called Dr. Deschamps as he was instructed to do. It was to report her post appointment status, primarily regarding her null state; how long it lasted, any behavior during it etcetera. Since there wasn’t much to report on the matter and Éclair was napping, the call was brief. Spencer used the remaining duration of Éclair’s nap to begin preparing dinner for them until Derek arrived with the keys.
He decided to use one of Rossi’s recipes for a change since he would be cooking for more than just himself. The noodles were al dante and the sauce had just started to simmer when Éclair’s drowsy voice drifted across the kitchen.
“Spencer? Is that you? Are we at you place?” She asked.
“Yeah, I picked you up from Dr. Jericho’s clinic today. Lurch is in the hospital and Yen is with him. Since your keys are with them, I brought you here instead.” Spencer explained as gently as he could. “My co-worker went to the hospital to get your stuff, then I can take you home. We should also have an update by then on how Lurch is doing.”
“I see…um…do you mind if I have a shower? I still reek of that place.”
“Sure. Supper should be ready when you get out.” Spencer announced before drawing his focus back to the pan on the stove.
Sure enough, just as he finished serving up the pasta Éclair emerged from his room wearing only one of his shirts half buttoned.
“My dress stunk like the clinic so I borrowed one of your shirts. I hope you don’t mind.” She confessed as she draped herself on Spencer and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck.
“Not at all. I’m just glad your feeling more yourself now.” Spencer wrapped his arms around her and basked in her familiar warmth. “ Supper is ready now so how about we get you some pants before…” he was interrupted by the apartment door opening and Derek's booming voice.
“You best be saving me a plate of what you got cooking….oh… am I interrupting? My bad.” Derek said upon seeing Spencer embracing a nearly naked Éclair. Spencer struggled to string a cohesive sentence together in his defense and just shook his head and waved his hands back and forth.
“Hi! I’m Éclair!” she piped up, completely oblivious to the fact she was one wrong move away from revealing all of her feminine assets. She gleefully shuffled around to Derek, somehow avoiding a wardrobe malfunction. “Oh! You have my bells!” she cheered holding her hands out to collect her things from him. This was more the woman he’d expected to meet earlier based on Spencer’s description, with the return of the blue hue in her eyes offering a more welcoming greeting. Derek relinquished her belongings doing everything in his power to avoid gawking at his best friends girlfriend. Éclair skipped back to Spencer (the shirt bouncing up and flashing her butt as she did) set her phone and keys on the dining table and began tying her hair up. As her arms were lifted above her head, the shirt rose up providing Spencer with an extended exhibition of her sex. One he felt obligated to ignore in favour of an awkward, locked gaze with Derek, as he too tried to avoid the salacious spectacle before him.
“Éclair, honey, how about we get you some pants and then have some dinner.” Spencer said smoothing down the shirt over her hips and herding her back into his bedroom. “Derek, help yourself. You can give us an update when we come back out.” He called over his shoulder and closed the door enough to provide enough privacy for Éclair to finish dressing herself with a pair of Spencer’s pajama pants. Derek served himself up a plate and leaned against the counter to eat while he waited the brief moment for them to re-emerge.
“Your buddy was out of surgery but still unconscious when I got there.” Derek began once the couple was seated with their meal. “ Turns out there was a gang shooting and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Took a hit to the abdomen. It missed his vital organs but it grazed some of his intestine so they had to patch it before it tore. He’ll be in the hospital for a few days and won’t be able to do much for a bit when he gets home. But he’s gonna be fine. His girlfriend is going to be staying there with him.”
“Oh, so I guess I have run of the house for a few days.” Éclair mused as she twirled her fork in the pile of noodles on her plate.
“Do you think you’re going to be OK on your own?” Spencer asked “If you want, I can stay with you until they come home.”
“I not going to say no to having you to my self for the weekend!” She said around a mouth full of pasta, waving her now unloaded fork.
“Alright then.” Spencer laughed. “I’ll after dinner, I’ll pack a bag and we can head straight over.”
“I’ll be on my way then. Don’t wanna get in the way.” Derek joked with a sly smirk as he discarded his empty plate into the sink. “See you on Monday, kid.”
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📝 Guest Post: Evaluating LLM Applications*
New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/guest-post-evaluating-llm-applications/
📝 Guest Post: Evaluating LLM Applications*
To successfully build an AI application, evaluating the performance of large language models (LLMs) is crucial. Given the inherent novelty and complexities surrounding LLMs, this poses a unique challenge for most companies.
Peter Hayes, who holds a PhD in Machine Learning from University College London, is one of the world’s leading experts on this topic. As CTO of Humanloop, Peter has assisted companies such as Duolingo, Gusto, and Vanta in solving LLM evaluation challenges for AI applications with millions of daily users.
Today, Peter shares his insights on LLM evaluations. In this 5-minute read, you will learn how to apply traditional software evaluation techniques to AI, understand the different types of evaluations and when to use them, and see what the lifecycle of evaluating LLM applications looks like at the frontier of Generative AI.
This post is a shortened version of Peter’s original blog, titled ‘Evaluating LLM Applications‘.
Take lessons from traditional software
A large proportion of teams now building great products with LLMs aren’t experienced ML practitioners. Conveniently many of the goals and best practices from software development are broadly still relevant when thinking about LLM evals.
Automation and continuous integration is still the goal
Competent teams will traditionally set up robust test suites that are run automatically against every system change before deploying to production. This is a key aspect of continuous integration (CI) and is done to protect against regressions and ensure the system is working as the engineers expect. Test suites are generally made up of 3 canonical types of tests: unit, integration and end-to-end.
Typical makeup of a test suite in software development CI. Unit tests tend to be the hardest to emulate for LLMs.
Unit – very numerous, target a specific atom of code and are fast to run.
Integration – less numerous, cover multiple chunks of code, are slower to run than unit tests and may require mocking external services.
End-to-end – emulate the experience of an end UI user or API caller; they are slow to run and oftentimes need to interact with a live version of the system.
The most effective mix of test types for a given system often sparks debate. Yet, the role of automated testing as part of the deployment lifecycle, alongside the various trade-offs between complexity and speed, remain valuable considerations when working with LLMs.
Types of evaluation can vary significantly
When evaluating one or more components of an LLM block, different types of evaluations are appropriate depending on your goals, the complexity of the task and available resources. Having good coverage over the components that are likely to have an impact over the overall quality of the system is important.
These different types can be roughly characterized by the return type and the source of, as well as the criteria for, the judgment required.
Judgment return types are best kept simple
The most common judgment return types are familiar from traditional data science and machine learning frameworks. From simple to more complex:
Binary – involves a yes/no, true/false, or pass/fail judgment based on some criteria.
Categorical – involves more than two categories; for exampling adding an abstain or maybe option to a binary judgment.
Ranking – the relative quality of output from different samples or variations of the model are being ranked from best to worst based on some criteria. Preference based judgments are often used in evaluating the quality of a ranking.
Numerical – involves a score, a percentage, or any other kind of numeric rating.
Text – a simple comment or a more detailed critique. Often used when a more nuanced or detailed evaluation of the model’s output is required.
Multi-task – combines multiple types of judgment simultaneously. For example, a model’s output could be evaluated using both a binary rating and a free-form text explanation.
Simple individual judgments can be easily aggregated across a dataset of multiple examples using well known metrics. For example, for classification problems, precision, recall and F1 are typical choices. For rankings, there are metrics like NDCG, Elo ratings and Kendall’s Tau. For numerical judgments there are variations of the Bleu score.
I find that in practice binary and categorical types generally cover the majority of use cases. They have the added benefit of being the most straight forward to source reliably. The more complex the judgment type, the more potential for ambiguity there is and the harder it becomes to make inferences.
Model sourced judgments are increasingly promising
Sourcing judgments is an area where there are new and evolving patterns around foundation models like LLMs. At Humanloop, we’ve standardised around the following canonical sources:
Heuristic/Code – using simple deterministic rules based judgments against attributes like cost, token usage, latency, regex rules on the output, etc. These are generally fast and cheap to run at scale.
Model (or ‘AI’) – using other foundation models to provide judgments on the output of the component. This allows for more qualitative and nuanced judgments for a fraction of the cost of human judgments.
Human – getting gold standard judgments from either end users of your application, or internal domain experts. This can be the most expensive and slowest option, but also the most reliable.
Typical makeup of different sources of evaluation judgments. AI evaluators are a good sweet spot for scaling up your evaluation process, while still providing Human-level performance.
Model judgments in particular are increasingly promising and an active research area. The paper Judging LLM-as-a-Judge demonstrates that an appropriately prompted GPT-4 model achieves over 80% agreement with human judgments when rating LLM model responses to questions on a scale of 1-10; that’s equivalent to the levels of agreement between humans.
I believe teams should consider shifting more of their human judgment efforts up a level to focus on helping improve model evaluators. This will ultimately lead to a more scalable, repeatable and cost-effective evaluation process. As well as one where the human expertise can be more targeted on the most important high-value scenarios.
Different stages of evaluation are necessary
Different stages of the app development lifecycle will have different evaluation needs. I’ve found this lifecycle to naturally still consist of some sort of planning and scoping exercise, followed by cycles of development, deployment and monitoring.
These cycles are then repeated during the lifetime of the LLM app in order to intervene and improve performance. The stronger the teams, the more agile and continuous this process tends to be.
Development here will include both the typical app development; orchestrating your LLM blocks in code, setting up your UIs, etc, as well more LLM specific interventions and experimentation; including prompt engineering, context tweaking, tool integration updates and fine-tuning – to name a few. Both the choices and quality of interventions to optimize your LLM performance are much improved if the right evaluation stages are in place. It facilitates a more data-driven, systematic approach.
From my experience there are 3 complementary stages of evaluation that are the give the highest ROI in supporting rapid iteration cycles of the LLM block-related interventions:
Interactive – it’s useful to have an interactive playground-like editor environment that allows rapid experimentation with components of the model and provides immediate evaluator feedback. This usually works best on a relatively small number of scenarios. This allows teams (both technical and non-technical) to quickly explore the design space of the LLM app and get an informal sense of what works well.
Batch offline – benchmarking or regression testing the most promising variations over a larger curated set of scenarios to provide a more systematic evaluation. Ideally a range of different evaluators for different components of the app can contribute to this stage, some comparing against gold standard expected results for the task. This can fit naturally into existing CI processes.
Monitoring online – post-deployment, real user interactions can be evaluated continuously to monitor the performance of the model. This process can drive alerts, gather additional scenarios for offline evaluations and inform when to make further interventions. Staging deployments through internal environments, or beta testing with selected cohorts of users first, are usually super valuable.
Recommended stages for a robust evaluation process. Interactive, offline and online.
It’s usually necessary to co-evolve to some degree the evaluation framework alongside the app development as more data becomes available and requirements are clarified. The ability to easily version control and share across stages and teams both the evaluators and the configuration of your app can significantly improve the efficiency of this process.
At Humanloop, we’ve developed a platform for enterprises to evaluate LLM applications at each step of the product development journey.
To read the full blog on Evaluating LLM Applications, or learn more about how help enterprises reliably put LLMs in production, you can visit our website.
*This post was written by Peter Hayes, CTO of Humanloop. We thank Humanloop for their insights and ongoing support of TheSequence.
#agile#agreement#ai#alerts#API#app#app development#applications#approach#atom#automation#binary#Blog#Building#Canonical#challenge#change#code#college#Companies#complexity#continuous#continuous integration#CTO#data#data science#data-driven#deployment#Design#development
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All this ep did was confirm for me that Caleb has been struggling way more than he lets on and that Adam is who he’s been going to. Also really glad that Adam’s trauma isn’t being ignored here like........the boy was almost kidnapped, he found out his aunt is hella dangerous, he witnessed his boyfriend almost beat said kidnapper to death, and he’s been having all that spiral out while trying to be there for Caleb to lean on for THREE MONTHS. That trauma can’t just be swept under the rug, he’s seventeen for fucks sake that’s a lot to take in even for an adult
#the bright sessions#caleb michaels#adam hayes#can you imagine tho a few weeks after it all happens Adam just getting a call at like 3am#and hes still half asleep when he answers not bothering to check caller id but Calebs panicked voice wakes him right up#and Calebs crying and trying to explain and Adams just soothing#‘its okay babe. youre safe take a breath. im safe too its over. its over caleb’#the sniffles as Caleb slowly calms down enough to form full thoughts explaining that he just needed to hear Adams voice and that he was safe#Adam just humming in understanding. letting Caleb take his time#eventually Adam yawns and Caleb feels bad but.......#‘hey Adam would you mind just...staying on the line with me? until you fall asleep?’#‘sure Caleb. of course I dont mind.’#‘thanks. you know i love you right?’#‘yeah. yeah i know you love me. i love you too.’#no one write that im already doing it and have been for like a month i stg#riddle's text
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Already Home
Jason Hayes x Reader
Requested by @chibsytelford // Prompt 6 please woth Jason “You should probably go home.” “But I’m already home." I'd love it if Jase could be the one saying "you should probably go home" and reader answers with "I'm already home". Maybe he got back from deployment and went straight to the bar with the guys and reader knew he would end up there. She gets there and maybe he's a bit drunk and feeling sorry for himself so he tries to push her away. And she is having none of it and explains to him in front of everyone she is going absolutely nowhere and Jason just looks at her like 🥺🥺
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Jason Hayes Masterlist
This Months Writing
You couldn’t focus on work, your head was spinning because Jason had gone completely radio silent on you. This wasn’t like him when he was on deployment, normally he would call you as much as he could but not this time. Luckily the rest of Bravo Six kept you updated and assured you that he was fine. You knew they were lying but knew they did it so you didn’t spend the time worrying.
Leaning your elbows on the desk you looked at the pictures on your desk. One of you and Jase and one of you and the whole team. You knew what you were getting involved with when you started dating Jason and you knew he was facing his battles away from the field.
The sound of your phone ringing tore your attention away from the photos, checking the caller ID you saw the words “BRAVO TWO” flash on the screen and instantly answered it.
“Bravo Two, considering you are ringing me off your own phone I’m going to assume you are back home”
“The eagle has landed” Ray laughed down the phone. “Guessing Jase didn’t tell you we were heading home”
“No he didn't” you sighed “Ray be honest with me here, is he okay?”
“Physically he is fine but mentally I’m not sure, he has been so closed off this deployment” Ray sighed.
“You at the watering hole?” You asked, running your fingers over the picture of you and Jase.
“Damn right we all” He chuckled “guessing we shall be seeing you shortly”
“Yeah I’m gonna ditch work now” you said leaning back in your chair. “The boss that likes me is working today so I know it won’t be a problem”
“Perfect I shall get you a beer waiting” Ray said “see you soon”
The moment the call ended you saved your work, shut your computer down, pulled Jason’s hoodie over you and went to find your boss. Luckily your boss understood you second life so the moment you walked into his office telling him you were taking off he knew the boys were home and nodded at you telling you to take the rest of the week as well.
Taking a deep breath you walked into the pub, scanning the room you saw your boys around the pool table and Jason sitting at the table staring down at his bottle of beer.
Normally when the boys saw you they would all pounce but not today they knew you needed to give Jase a much needed kick up the ass. You knew why he was in such a slump, the anniversary of Alana was coming up.
“Nice to see you home in one piece” you said sitting in the chair next to him, nudging his shoulder.
“Yeah” he huffed not looking up at you. “What are you even doing here?”
Great he was drunk, this wasn’t going to be fun or easy.
“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that” you said running your hand through your hair. “Talk to me Jase”
“What is there to talk about?” He mumbled, still not making eye contact.
“I don’t know how deployment went, how you are doing” you said, placing your hand on his forearm.
“You know I can’t talk about it” he snapped.
“That’s bullshit Hayes and we both know it” you said, taking a deep breath. “So how about you stop throwing yourself a goddamn pitty party and speak to me”
Silence. That’s what you got.
“Fine be like that” you huffed standing to your feet. You knew how to work Jason and this was just part of it.
Walking over to Ray you took the beer from him, downing the bottle in one go.
“As much as I love him I want to punch him right now” you sighed leaning against the wall.
“We all do” Clay said looking up from the pool table.
About half an hour had passed when Jason finally looked up, making eye contact with you as he pushed himself to his feet.
“You should probably go home.” Jason said trying to act tough but you saw right through it.
“When are you going to get it into that thick skull of yours Hayes, I am already home” you said raising your voice “I'm gonna love you best that I can. Even when you can't stand me. Even when you can't even stand yourself. I'm telling you I ain't going nowhere whether you like it or fucking not”
Everyone was staring at the two of you, but you didn’t care, you weren't going to give up on the man in front of you.
“Look I know you are hurting and I fully understand that but you have people who care about you, people who want to help” you said as the tears formed in your eyes. “People willing to help you, why can’t you see that. Jase in here okay I’m always going to be here, I’m not going to run from the hills, I am not going to watch the man I fucking love crumble and become someone he isn’t”
Once again you were met with silence.
“Just fucking remember that okay” you snapped grabbing your bag, quickly saying bye to the guys before turning back to Jase. “I’m gonna give you space right now because it’s obvious you don’t want to do anything but feel sorry for yourself. Hopefully I will see you at home”
You only managed to take a few steps before Jase pulled you into him, slamming his lips against yours.
“I’m sorry” he whispered against your lips and he rested his forehead against yours.
“Baby you have nothing to be sorry for okay” you whispered placing your hand on his cheek. “We understand why you are hurting and that’s okay, just don’t shut us out”
“You promise you aren’t going anywhere?” He whispered.
“I swear on my life Jason, unfortunately you are stuck with me whether you like it or not”
@chibsytelford @mrsmarvelous1995 @supervalcsi
@everyhowlmarksthedead @talicat713
#Jason Hayes#Jason Hayes x reader#Jason Hayes imagine#Jason Hayes oneshot#Jason Hayes fanfic#seal team#seal team x reader#seal team oneshot#seal team fanfic
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DECEMBER 29, 2021 (#292)
Performance: "Night Is Blues"
The Counts: "Magic Ride"
Gene Harris: "Koko & Lee Roe"
John Dankworth & His Orchestra: "Return From The Ashes"
Jon Derek Nicholson: "Steely"
Little Royal & The Swingmasters: "Razor Blade"
Ramsey Lewis: "Tambura"
Sammy Nestico: "Shore Line Drive"
Isaac Hayes: "Cafe Regio's"
Jacky Nordano & Robert Hermel: "Accrocs"
Johanna Group: "Desert Weather"
Marvin Gaye: "T Plays It Cool"
Eddie Russ: "Salem Avenue"
Chicago Gangsters: "Ganster Boogie"
Color Us People Band: "A Day Without Your Love"
George Duke: "Prepare Yourself"
Ian Carr's Nucleus: "Southern Roots And Celebration"
Milton Floyd: "I'm A Shadow"
New Birth: "Got To Get A Knutt"
Pierre-Alain Dahan & Mat Camison: "Rythmiques No. 8"
Side Effect: "There She Goes Again"
Sunship Ensemble: "Inca"
The Village Callers: "Hector"
David T. Walker: "I Get High On You"
Gene McDaniels: "Jagger The Dagger"
Hal Galper: "Convocation"
Terry Callier: "You Don't Care"
Tracks: "If I Am Not Mistaken"
Brick: "Southern Sunset"
Dyke & The Blazers: "Let A Woman Be A Woman, Let A Man Be A Man"
Enrico Pieranunzi: "The Day After The Silence"
Harvey Mason: "Modaji"
Jacky Giordano: "Cloudy Night"
John Leach: "Allegro For Martenot (A)"
Tony Gragory: "What'll I Do"
BRF Studio Group: "Let's Go Again"
F. Rolland & J.C. Pierric: "Couic Ah"
Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier: "Groove Merchant"
Sylvano Santorio: "Summer Sketch"
Clarence Reid: "Nobody But You Babe"
Shelly Manne: "Infinity"
Freddie Hubbard: "Red Clay"
It’s Omega Radio’s final broadcast for 2021. We return to our temporary Wednesday morning free-air slot for one of our staple shows. It’s three hours of vinyl treasures in jazz, fusion, R&B, soul, and library stock music for producers, crate-diggers and samplists alike; or for anyone lucky enough to discover something new.
Omega returns on New Year’s Day for our first broadcast of 2022. To all of our listeners, followers, and supporters: have a happy new year.
January 1, 2022 (10PM New York City): deluxe Omega
January 3, 2022 (midnight New York City): bonus Omega
January 12, 2022 (3AM New York City): bonus Omega
January 15, 2022 (10PM New York City): deluxe Omega
January 29, 2022 (3AM New York City): deluxe Omega
#omega#music#playlists#jazz#fusion#R&B#soul#vinyl#crate-digging#sampling#records#treasure#Marvin Gaye
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# 3,906
Omega Radio for December 29, 2021; #292.
Performance: "Night Is Blues"
The Counts: "Magic Ride"
Gene Harris: "Koko & Lee Roe"
John Dankworth & His Orchestra: "Return From The Ashes"
Jon Derek Nicholson: "Steely"
Little Royal & The Swingmasters: "Razor Blade"
Ramsey Lewis: "Tambura"
Sammy Nestico: "Shore Line Drive"
Isaac Hayes: "Cafe Regio's"
Jacky Nordano & Robert Hermel: "Accrocs"
Johanna Group: "Desert Weather"
Marvin Gaye: "T Plays It Cool"
Eddie Russ: "Salem Avenue"
Chicago Gangsters: "Ganster Boogie"
Color Us People Band: "A Day Without Your Love"
George Duke: "Prepare Yourself"
Ian Carr's Nucleus: "Southern Roots And Celebration"
Milton Floyd: "I'm A Shadow"
New Birth: "Got To Get A Knutt"
Pierre-Alain Dahan & Mat Camison: "Rythmiques No. 8"
Side Effect: "There She Goes Again"
Sunship Ensemble: "Inca"
The Village Callers: "Hector"
David T. Walker: "I Get High On You"
Gene McDaniels: "Jagger The Dagger"
Hal Galper: "Convocation"
Terry Callier: "You Don't Care"
Tracks: "If I Am Not Mistaken"
Brick: "Southern Sunset"
Dyke & The Blazers: "Let A Woman Be A Woman, Let A Man Be A Man"
Enrico Pieranunzi: "The Day After The Silence"
Harvey Mason: "Modaji"
Jacky Giordano: "Cloudy Night"
John Leach: "Allegro For Martenot (A)"
Tony Gragory: "What'll I Do"
BRF Studio Group: "Let's Go Again"
F. Rolland & J.C. Pierric: "Couic Ah"
Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier: "Groove Merchant"
Sylvano Santorio: "Summer Sketch"
Clarence Reid: "Nobody But You Babe"
Shelley Manne: "Infinity"
Freddie Hubbard: "Red Clay"
Bonus vinyl treasures, crate-digging, sampling volume.
#omega#music#mixtapes#reviews#playlists#Freddie Hubbard#Shelley Manne#Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier#BRF Studio Group#Harvey Mason#Brick#Terry Callier#jazz#fusion#funk#R&B#soul#vinyl#records#George Duke#Chicago Gangsters#Eddie Russ#Marvin Gaye#Isaac Hayes#Ramsey Lewis#Gene Harris
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Miscommunications - Nolan Patrick.
Nolan Patrick x Reader.
Summary: Nolan is feeling a little insecure and he starts to ignore his girlfriend but then they talk it out and it turns out to be just a miscommunication.
Word count : 1143 ( wow im proud)
Warning: like one bad word.
Nolan was currently on the road to Colorado. The Philadelphia Flyers were going to play against the Colorado Avalanche in about two days. Y/n was currently at home in Philly texting Nolan to text her when he got to Colorado. Y/n and Nolan had been dating for about a year and while y/n was more emotional and Nolan keeped his feelings bottled in, they made it work. She decided just to work on some homework and then go to bed afterwards since it was pretty late when Nolan left for his long road trip of a day.
Nolan had arrived in Colorado a few hours ago and was currently practicing making some goals into the net with Hartsy blocking most of them. Nolan had been off of his game and Tk noticed but didn't mention anything because his best friend wasn't one to talk about his feelings. The game was starting in thirty minutes and warm ups had started. Y/n was back home wearing his number 19 jersey getting prepared for the game to start. She knew Nolan had arrived safely because Tk usually posted stories of the arena they were going to play at. She just decided to send him a good luck text since he didn't text her earlier of his arrival but she didn't want to seem like a mom.
The game ended as the waves of orange were seen through the crowd jumping up and down. The flyers had won against the avalanche and they were pretty damn proud. Nolan walked into the locker room to get changed and when he saw that he had a new text from his girlfriend. He left it on read as he did the other one he received upon his arrival. It wasn't that he was trying to ignore her; he just sometimes got these thoughts into his mind that he wasn't good enough for her. I mean she had a bachelors degree, was studying to get her masters, and she was the most determined person he had ever met. He was just a hockey player. He knew that if he ever got a serious injury his entire career would end. But y/n had her whole life in front of her. Before more of these thoughts could enter his mind Travis walked in and told him they were gonna go out for celebratory drinks. He thought that maybe a couple of those would blur his mind and he would forget about these thoughts. So he got dressed and headed out with the rest of his team mates.
Y/n watched as the flyers won and jumped up and down as Kevin Hayes made the winning goal. She texted her boyfriend: congrats you did amazing and then call me when you can. Y/n saw the guys stories and saw they went out to get some drinks. She waited about thirty minutes but didn't get a response from her boyfriend. She decided to stop because she didn't want to seem clingy and she decided calling Teeks was a better option. The phone rang about four times when the caller on the other end finally picked up. “Hey Y/n whats up.”
“Hey Tk just calling to congratulate you guys on the win and wondering if I can talk to nols.” the girl said hopeful yet a bit nervous cause it seemed as though her boyfriend was ignoring her. There was shuffling on tks side of the line and then she could hear him shouting “hey pat your girl wants to talk to you.”
“Tell her I'm busy” the 21 year old centerman yelled back. In that moment y/n got enough classification and her heart broke a little. “Hey y/n he’s--...”
“I heard teeks thanks.” the girl said, trying not to cry. She decided to just watch netflix and eat some ice cream cause now it for sure seemed as though her boyfriend was ignoring her.
“Stop being such a jerk and talk to your girlfriend.” Travis said.
“Don't you think ive tried,” Nolan said, looking down at his shoes avoiding his friend's eye contact. “She's great but she's too good for me. I'm just a hockey player. She could leave me any moment.”
Travis listened to his best friend's sincere confession and thought about how y/n was seriously in love with him and she thought the opposite of everything he had just said. “Pat, i've seen the way that girl looks at you and she's totally whipped and I can say the same for you.” Nolan loved his girlfriend and it seemed like he just needed a slight push from his best friend to realize that they had their differences but they were totally and hopelessly in love.
He decided to step out for some air and call her and tell her how he really felt. Y/n was sitting on the couch when her phone started ringing. Her boyfriend's name flashed across the screen as she completed picking up. She decided to ignore how she was hurting and instead answered it cause deep down she could never be mad at her big goofball of a boyfriend. There was silence for a few minutes as the static was heard on both sides of the line. Then finally Nolan spoke up with a simple hey.
“Hey bub.” y/n said back. It felt good to hear his voice.
“Uhm wow ive been such a dick to you and i'm sorry, it's just sometimes i wonder why you're with me--..”
“Nol--..”
“Wait y/n let me finish, cause you know how hard this is for me.” The girl let him continue. “Sometimes it seems as though you are too good for this world and way too good for me and Tk made me realize that I should stop bottling up my feelings and talk to you about them. Communication is a big part of relationships and that's what I'm doing right now. I love you and I'm sorry sometimes I'm not good enough.” Nolan said exasperated at the end of his emotional speech.
There was silence for a few moments while y/n was trying hard not to cry. “Baby are you there?”
“Yeah sorry bubs, Nols if you ever feel this way please tell me. I love you so much and you are seriously perfect for me. I understand communicating is hard for you but you know i'm always here to listen. You are always good enough and beyond that. I'm glad Travis made you talk about it. God, I love you so much Nolan Patrick.”
By the end of her speech they were both trying not to cry. “I love you lovebug. I'll call you later when i get to the hotel.”
“I'll be waiting.” y/n said glad that all this was just a miscommunication.
Tags so it doesn't flop: @marner-lovebot @hockey-anyone @mitch-slap @mymanseguin @leafsxhockeywrxtes @summerko8
#hockey imagine#hockey#nolan patrick#nhl imagine#philly flyers#philidelphia flyers#hockey game#hockey boys
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From the article:
“The two journalists most closely linked to the Steele dossier acknowledged Monday that the Democrat-funded document was debunked by the Mueller investigation, which found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
‘I think one of the reasons people were so surprised by the Mueller finding is that it undercuts almost everything that was in the dossier, which postulated a well-developed conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign,’ Michael Isikoff, a reporter for Yahoo! News, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. (RELATED: 7 Collusion Theories That Died With The Mueller Report)
‘That’s what got people worked up initially, and we do have to acknowledge that that which was alleged has not panned out.’ Isikoff was joined by David Corn, a reporter at Mother Jones. Isikoff and Corn, who co-wrote the book “Russian Roulette,” are two of a small handful of reporters who met with dossier author Christopher Steele prior to the 2016 election.They both wrote articles for their respective outlets touting Steele’s allegations that Trump associates conspired with Russians to influence the election.”
youtube
#msnbc#chris hayes#michael isikoff#david corn#daily caller#chuck ross#mueller report#steele dossier#russiagate#wake up
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Tag: Word Find LXXVIII
This one is from the always excellent @pepperdee who I have realized I tag VERY often! Apologies for that, friend. Gave the words cat, bag, mug, sky, and flower.
These will be taken from Snapshots, which is the only project I can think of with a cat and a mug.
CAT (Micah’s POV)
His phone rang over the Bluetooth system and he quickly answered without checking the caller ID. “Lauzier.”
“I can't believe you actually answer your phone with just your last name,” Hayes said.
“What?” He shook himself as he readjusted from a work mindset to a home mindset. Hayes texted for everything, even urgent things, so it startled him to hear her voice through his car speakers.
“There's a cat in the apartment and I don't know what to do.”
It took him a moment to process the statement. “What?”
BAG (Micah’s POV)
“That’s funny,” she said, smiling sleepily and continuing to the kitchen.
He smothered the tiny flicker of warmth in his chest. “Why is it funny?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, picking a mug after a moment of deliberation. “You’re a big tall macho guy and you’re doing a puzzle at 9am on a Saturday.”
“Macho?”
She dropped a tea bag into the mug and poured the hot water over it. “Yeah. Muscle-y, grr, tough, I-go-to-the-gym-on-a-regular-basis. And don’t try to deny that, I heard you leave and come back already and your hair's still damp from showering.”
“I don’t think going to the gym and doing puzzles are mutually exclusive activities.”
“They're not exactly complementary either.”
MUG (Hayes’ POV)
“That’s a lot of cream cheese,” she commented, hands wrapped around the piping hot coffee mug.
“Why do you think I work out so much?” he asked.
She laughed, then watched as he did up his buttons between bites of bagel. She would have offered to help but didn’t trust herself to be that close to him at the moment. The last thing she needed right now was a lapse of judgement during a weak moment to ruin the good thing they had going.
“Thank you for the coffee,” she said.
He waved her off. “You need it.”
SKY (Micah’s POV)
Hayes slept most of the way to the beach, only waking up as they passed through the city of Hampton, Virginia and started across the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. He’d been hoping for her to sleep the whole trip, but it was too late to take another route now. At least she’d picked a good day to travel, with the sun shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky and not enough wind to feel it against the car.
“You’re not afraid of tunnels, are you?” Micah asked as she rubbed her eyes.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Why?”
“We’re about to go through one.”
“But we’re on a bridge.”
“We are,” he agreed.
FLOWER (Micah’s POV)
“You're still up?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Of course,” he replied, glancing at her and then quickly back down at his laptop when he saw her mussed hair. His throat constricted.
“Why? It's after midnight, you have to be up in a few hours,” she said. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the couch next to him. From this close he could smell the spearmint gum she was chewing and her flowery perfume under that.
“I just wanted to make sure you got home alright. The guy seemed a little sleazy,” he explained.
She laughed. “I appreciate your concern but I can handle myself.”
“I know.”
“And you're not my brother. You don't have to take care of me.”
This made him look up again and meet her eyes. “I know.”
This is my mandatory self-plug that this story is available to read in full on Wattpad RIGHT HERE.
Also I would like to say that I specifically wrote the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel into the story bc its concept terrified me. Apologies to anyone who actually lives near it.
I tag @vellichor-virgo, @ryns-ramblings, @samplewriting, and anyone who wants to play! Your words are alive, tragic, support, and romantic. As always, no pressure!
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Hmmmm — this is priceless — a brilliant and eloquent response, from Georgetown University Professor Paul Butler, to a NPR caller who said that she “honors” her confederate heritage... lol
A Black professor at Georgetown University Law Center had an answer for a white National Public Radio (NPR) caller who said she “honors” her confederate heritage. In essence, Prof. Paul Butler told her to stop expecting Black people to respect white culture or people who once enslaved their ancestors.
Butler said: “I have no respect for your ancestors. As far as your ancestors are concerned, I shouldn’t be a law professor at Georgetown. I should be a slave. That’s why they fought that war.“
He added, according to Trudreadz, “This is something many Caucasians, especially in America, can’t seem to come to grips with. Their heritage is based on the subjugation of our ancestors. The parts of their history that brought them the most joy bring us the most pain. Nobody is telling anybody what they should or shouldn’t be proud of, the point is, don’t expect Black people to accept or respect a culture that promotes the idea of us (melanated people) being less than human and deserving of inhumane treatment. To us, that confederate flag is a symbol of terrorism and inhumanity.”
Black professor explains his response
During a later appearance on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes,” Butler explained his response. “You know some people agree with me on the merit, but they said it was rude to say that I don’t respect that woman’s ancestors. So let me get this right, a white person says to a Black person, “I honor the people who wanted your ancestors to be slaves,’ that’s fine. A Black person says, ‘I don’t honor those people,’ that’s rude. That’s white privilege all over again. And it goes to a larger issue, that when Black people talk to white people about white supremacy, we’re supposed to be loving and forgiving...”
Georgetown Law Professor Tells White Woman ‘I Have No Respect For Your Ancestors. As Far As They’re Concerned, I Should Be A Slave’
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Rick and Morty - S4E6 "Never Ricking Morty" Podcast Summary/Breakdown
So y'all probably expected this based on how often I've been talking about these official companion podcasts. I recommend listening to them yourself either on the official Adult Swim YT channel or the official website, but I thought I'd go ahead and make bullet point breakdown of some key points for this particular podcast, because trivia and behind-the-scenes knowledge really appeal to me. And this episode is pretty divisive in the fanbase, so I think this podcast will assuage some fears even if you still personally dislike it in the end.
For some reason, the title of the podcast calls this S4E7 instead of episode 6. It wasn’t commented upon, so I assume either it was a typo or it was 7 in the production order and got swapped shortly before release.
The interviewed staff involved in this episode were Carlos Ortega (character design lead), Erica Hayes (director), James McDermott (art director), and Jeff Loveness (writer)
The idea of this episode was conceived in October/November 2018 as a "one-up" of anthologies and clip shows. They didn't want to do a straight anthology because many other TV shows had already done that, so they tried to go more experimental and bold and basically went balls-deep with the metanarrative as a result
It was a substitute for Interdimensional Cable (which they were going to do instead but it fell through for unknown reasons)
"We had to go so far up our own ass, because if we didn't go far enough, people would be mad that we didn't."
The writers intentionally mocked themselves as much as the fans, pretty much, and it was meant to be all in good fun
The artists really enjoy designing all the weird aliens in the show, as well as getting to reuse/repurpose them when applicable. Apparently next episode (Promortyus) is going to be reusing a lot of designs for something (but they obviously can't say due to spoilers)
Compared to other episodes, "Never Ricking Morty" went pretty smoothly once it got to the art stage. That doesn't mean it was easy, but there weren't a ton of revisions they had to do
There was a joking spoiler about Rick becoming pregnant later this season. At least I think it's joking.
While writing this episode, the writers came up with a huge whiteboard list of complaints about the show, misconceptions about the show, etc. to consult for the meta jokes. Loveness later clarified that it wasn't quite about attacking "complaining" though, and it wasn't meant to be mean-spirited
The Bechdel test skit came from them realizing they hadn't done much with Beth and Summer this season, which definitely can be considered a flaw. Therefore, as part of their self-mockery, the writers decided to force them crudely into the episode as a joke, while also making fun of men who write women characters poorly and reductively.
The Jesus Christ / Rick suddenly being Christian part was written in response to the writers asking themselves "what would kill Rick and Morty as a show?"
Jeff Loveness said this in the "Inside Never Ricking Morty" video as well, but he really loved the "old man is really ripped and ready to kick your ass" trope and is partially responsible for it becoming a running gag this episode along with "cum gutters". Apparently cum gutters return in season 5 (also said jokingly, so who knows)
One of the Q&A callers called multiple times, with different phone numbers, and kept asking about potential crossovers for some reason
"A lot of people are saying that the show is fucking with their fans. Is that accurate?" "I think some of those fans deserve to be fucked with a little bit."
They point out how some fans feel entitled to the idea they should be pleased by the show all the time, and the writers feel like the show should ideally surprise the viewers in a good way, but you still may not like every episode and that's alright
At the same time, the episode wasn't meant as an attack on the fans, it was more of a "we'll do this our way, be experimental, and push the envelope of what we can do" message they were sending. Jeff Loveness promises that there's "good stuff coming up" that he thinks the fans will be happy with, presumably in late Season 4 or even Season 5
"Just because we showed it this way and you'll probably never see it this way again, that doesn't mean we're dropping these storylines completely." There you go, everyone! The ongoing story threads are still happening at some point, and the message of the episode wasn't about dropping continuity or mocking people for caring about it. Although if you were hoping for resolutions similar to what was shown in this episode (Evil Morty w/ a giant army, Tammy VS Summer with lightsabers), those scenarios are almost certainly not going to happen canonically based on this statement. Let's hope that what they do come up with is both unexpected and awesome.
The episode is intended to be non-canonical, similar to past once-a-season clip show episodes like Interdimensional Cable
Story Lord was inspired by characters like Mysterio and Q, and the writers created him late in development as a type of villain they hadn't done before. Dan Harmon also put a lot of self-mockery into the character with how much he loved narrative structure and the story circle. The character artists even initially asked if Harmon could be the design for the character but that received an immediate "no", as it was perceived as being too on-the-nose.
Jeff Loveness was surprised the Rick/Birdperson musical made it to the final episode since it seemed like the sort of thing that would be cut or lost in development. He was also surprised the Jesus thing stayed in mostly untouched
The Story Train was intended to be an actually purchasable product by the time the episode aired-- the writers were emphatically excited about that being the culmination of the joke in the writers room-- and they were surprised that it didn't go through by the time the episode aired. They guess it's due to the coronavirus pandemic interrupting merchandising plans, but they're ultimately unsure because the decision isn't discussed with them
The artists do receive some limitations on how much gore they're allowed to depict, but they can show as much blood as they want, so for the most part they can still be creative with gruesome violence (like the Tickets Please guy ripping in half in this episode)
The artists are credited for elevating most of the fight scenes in the show, sometimes with only vague script direction which they use to be very creative
In response to a viewer calling in and asking the question about whether Pickle Rick will return: "I think there's a conversation to be had about: do we want these things to return or it better to do a one-off story?" So my take on this is that not literally everything will factor into the continuity-- they put thought into what ideas have more long-running potential and they build those up. Which is kind of obvious but the question was silly anyway. (They're still ambiguous about whether or not Pickle Rick will come back, by the way)
They aren't going to do an outright Star Wars parody in Rick and Morty because other shows have already done that, but they can still parody what Star Wars represents rather than doing a "branded commercial" for it. Apparently there is a lot of that specifically coming up this season (although indirect in the way they're describing). I assume this is referring to the upcoming "Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri" episode, so I’m curious about how they’ll reference Star Wars in that one.
The COVID-19 reference this episode was thrown in last minute, presumably with just alternative dubbing and changing the lip sync animation. They say that sometimes episodes are still being worked on up until the moment they release on television. Referring to a previous episode as an example, the character of Shadowjacker from the dragon episode was thrown in last-minute
With the exception of James McDermott, most of the staff interviewed had no control or participation over the commercial product placement work, such as the Wendy's/Pringles commercials. They don't mind them for the most part and find them funny
The writers try to avoid being too topical because the scripts take so long to turn into animation that any references will become outdated by the time it releases. Therefore, they try to be "timely" in the sense that they're writing about things that are happening in the world, but in a more abstract/thematic sense. Jeff Loveness implies that the next episode Promortyus will have a lot of that
In response to another viewer Q&A: There is no Rick and Morty movie currently planned. They wouldn't mind one, but nothing is really in development at the moment
The staff say they're excited for the next batch of episodes and seem pretty proud of their work on this season
They don't plan on making a Rick and Morty musical episode at the moment, as they feel like other shows like South Park and the Simpson have done it excellently and don't feel like they're capable of doing it better. The Rick/Birdperson bit in this episode was the most we're going to get
The code inside the broken-off throttle lever was intended to just be a bar code decal (to show it's a toy) and doesn't actually mean anything. James McDermott jokingly said it's "where the bodies are buried"
The Rick army / Evil Morty scene was huge from an animation standpoint and they almost couldn't do it due to how ambitious the shot was. They were going for a "Lords of the Rings", faux series-finale vibe, where they "give the fans what they THINK they want". Justin Roiland insisted they do it
There are definitely more big animation setpieces planned for the future
And that’s it! I’ll probably do more of these for the future episode podcasts, if anyone is still interested.
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Heaven Help Me(Ch 9)
Jo and Amelia lounge on the Shepherd-Lincoln couch. Jo is visibly angry at the television where a Hallmark movie is playing.
She turns to Amelia, “This is so ridiculous! That guy is emotionally abusing her. He’s such a gas-lighter. What sane person goes to back to that? Who wrote this movie? I mean what if a teenage girl sees it?
Suddenly she thinks it’s okay for a guy to do that to her. I mean seriously, I was married to...I hate the media. I absolutely hate it.”
Amelia turns to the younger woman, “Jo; movies romanticize everything. You love crappy romance movies. Most girls luckily have smart friends who can help them out.” Jo looks Amelia in the eyes.
“Not all of them do. I didn’t. And I wish I did, but the truth is that this movie is messed up. The whole world is messed up.” Amelia picks up the remote, changing the movie to music.
“Okay, change of plans,” Amelia presses her lips together, “There are good guys out there Jo, you know that. Like Link...Alex Karev maybe?” Jo tilts her head, putting on an annoyed face.
“Amelia.”
“I’m just saying, you should go there. It’s clear he wants to,” Amelia remarks, taking the bowl from Jo and popping a kernel into her mouth. Then the doorbell rings.
Jo goes to answer it; it’s Link, Scout and their dinner.
“It’s just the boys,” Jo calls out to Amelia. Link winks, and Jo picks the toddler up. She squeezes him and he gives her a toothy smile.
Jo loves her pseudo-nephew. She loves Link and Amelia. But she craves something of her own. A husband, a baby that’s got her own flesh and blood. Someone that is hers; one that won’t hurt her or reject her.
She loves being an extension of their family, but she’s not a part of it. She can spend Christmas and birthdays all she wants, but she’s not in the family photos. She wants family photos.
“Aunt Jo?” Scout looks up at Jo with big, blue eyes.
Jo smiles, “Yes, sweetheart?”
“How come you’re not having a wedding?” Jo bites her lip.
“Like your mommy and daddy?” The toddler shakes his head vigorously. Jo feels deflated inside her chest, but prepares to answer the child nontheless.
“Well,” she begins, “because Aunt Jo doesn’t have someone she can marry right now. One day I will, but for now; no wedding for me. Okay?”
Scout drops the confused look he had worn previously. He shrugs, “Okay.”
Jo feels a rush of affection for the innocence he posesses. “Let’s go get some pizza.” And she brings them out of the entryway and into the kitchen, where Link and Amelia have laid out plates.
***
Ring, buzz, buzz, ring.
Jo realizes after a moment that her phone is going off and becomes fully awake.
She picks it up, “Hello?”
“So how did your tinder date go last night?”
“It’s five A.M., Steph.”
“Not for me. It’s seven here. And your last email provided me with this info, so give me all the details,” the voice on the other end says excitedly.
“Well I didn’t meet that husband I’m looking for,” Jo sighs, rolling onto her back.
“But was he cute? Hot? Please tell me at least he was eye candy for a couple hours,” Stephanie must be at work, becuse Jo hears chatter in the background.
“Okay fine. He was hot. But he was so boring. Steph, he was so boring. Like works at a bank boring, and wouldn’t shut up about it boring.”
Stephanie snorts, “Oh my god. What did he say when you told him you’re a brilliant surgeon?”
Jo groans, “Ugh. I didn’t even get to talk about me! It was one of those dates. Don’t make me remember anymore. Tell me all about your perfect, gorgeous beau please.”
“I really think he’s going to propose.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, because I saw the ring in his pocket, sucker.”
“I hate you so much!” The line goes silent for a moment.
“Hey, sorry Jo. I have to go, we’ve got another case coming in.”
“Fine, but call me later okay?”
“Yup. Bye, Jo.”
“Talk to you later.” Stephanie hangs up and Jo rolls back over into her side. Then her damned phone rings again. The caller ID reads Alex Karev.
“Alex, I swear to god,” Jo whines as she picks up the call, “This is the second call I’ve had at this unearthly hour.”
“Can you come in early today? Now, actually.” Jo shuts off her alarm, sitting up.
“Why?”
“Just come in! You won’t regret it.”
“Fine. Goodbye, Karev.” But Alex cuts her off, the line going dead. Asshole. But she’s smiling when she thinks it. And she hates herself for it.
***
Jo joins Alex at the Pediatric floor nurses station.
“Why did you bring me at the crack of dawn? Because seriously, Alex, if this is not urg-“
Alex doesn’t look up from his phone, “Take this and walk.” He hands her a tablet, a chart glowing on the screen.
“A Ladd’s procedure on a seventeen-year-old?” Jo turns to Alex, wide eyed. He finally looks back up at her.
“I know. He’s got the most malrotated intestines I’ve seen on someone over three.”
Jo grins at him, “Oh my god, Alex. I hate you so much. You dragged me into work just to brag about your stupidly cool procedure.”
“No, I brought you into work to scrub in on a stupidly cool procedure.” Jo’s jaw drops, and she pinches Alex’s arm.
“Ow! What the hell?”
“I hate you. So much. I still hate you. I can’t believe you tricked me like that.” Alex is grinning at her.
“OR 3, 6:45, okay?” he raises his eyebrows. Jo simply kisses his cheek, and then grins as she goes to prepare.
***
“You are my new best friend,” Jo tells Alex, as she maneuvers the tools, Alex holding the camera.
“What, like I wasn’t before?”
“Shut up,” Jo says softly through her mask, “And move the camera to the left slightly.”
Alex rolls his neck out, “You do have good visual right? Because if you mess up the easiest part of my very rare surgery- which I so kindly let you do- I’ll kill you.” Jo rolls her eyes.
“Seriously?” Alex shudders after she says it.
“What?”
“It’s uh- Izzie used to say that.”
“Oh Alex; I’m sorry. I didn’t-“
“It’s okay. You can say it all you want. Better you than her,” Alex laughs, and Jo is just relieved it’s slightly more than half-hearted.
***
When Alex and Jo exit the scrub room after the surgery, they run into Meredith Grey.
“Oh Alex! You’ll be at my house tonight right? Because Amelia and Link will be, and Hayes and the kids, and Maggie’s boyfriend is in town, and...just be there at seven. You too, Wilson.”
Meredith walks off before Alex can respond.
“Oh great,” Jo presses her lips together in annoyance, “family dinner.”
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Ties in Blood -- Chapter 34
Notes: Yeah, I’m taking longer than usual in getting the chapters/drabbles up.
@mrswhozeewhatsis @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @squirrelnotsam @impala-dreamer @optimisticpeacecollector5 @bamby0304 @kittenofdoomage @idreamofplaid
Chapter 34
“There’s no way there’s angels,” Aaliyah argued.
“Then what else could it be?” Sam countered.
Aaliyah had been pacing Bobby’s living room where he sat at his desk, Sam sat in a chair with Dean standing not far from.
“All I know is that I wasn’t groped by an angel,” Dean tossed into the conversation.
“Okay, Dean. But what would this Castiel have to lie to you about it?” Sam asked.
“Maybe he’s some kind of demon. They lie.”
“A demon that’s immune to salt rounds, devil’s traps, and Ruby’s knife,” Aaliyah said, her pacing coming to a stop. “Lilith’s afraid of that thing.”
“Don’t you think at one point a hunter … you know … woulda seen one?” Dean asked them both.
“You did,” Aaliyah pointed out.
“I’m trying to figure out a theory here; work with me,” Dean pled. “One with less fairy dust.”
“Okay, look.” Sam leaned forward in the chair. “I’m not saying we know for sure. I’m just saying that we …”
“That’s the point, we don’t know for sure. So I’m not gonna believe that this … thing’s an angel of the Lord just because it says it is.”
“You three chuckleheads gonna argue religion, or come look at this?” Bobby called over to them.
Aaliyah looked over at the older hunter and walked over to look at what was laid out.
“I got stacks of lore,” he started. “Biblical, pre-Biblical. Hell, some of it’s in cuneiform. It all says that an angel can snatch a soul from the Pit.”
“What else?” Dean prodded. “What else can it do?”
“Air lift your ass outta hell? Nothing.”
“This is good news,” Sam said.
“How’s this good news?” Aaliyah asked.
“For once this isn’t demon crap. He was saved by the good guys.”
“Say it is true,” Dean jumped in. “Then what? There’s a God?”
“At this point, Vegas’ money’s on yeah,” Bobby said.
“I don’t know, guys.” Dean took a few steps away from the desk.
“I know you’re not all choir boy about this,” Sam said. “But it’s becoming less about belief and more about proof.”
“Proof?” Aaliyah questioned; her eyes narrowed. “What proof?” She heard Dean join them back at the desk.
“That there’s a God out there …”
“And he gives a crap about me personally?” Dean cut Sam off. “I’m not buying it.”
Aaliyah nodded. Why would God, or any deity, give a crap about someone who was in Hell? Or a misfit family of hunters?
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“Because why me? If there is a God, why would he give a crap about me?” Dean asked. “I mean, I’ve saved some people, okay. I figured that makes up for the stealing and ditching chicks. But why do I get to be saved? I’m just a regular guy.”
“Apparently you’re a regular guy that’s important to the man upstairs,” Sam argued.
“That creeps me out,” Dean said. “I don’t like being singled out at birthday parties, much less … God.”
“What do we know about angels?” Aaliyah cut in. She watched Bobby lift up a pile of books and dropped them on the desk.
“Start reading,” the older hunter instructed.
Aaliyah took a book from the pile while Dean told Sam he was getting pie. She flomped down onto the couch and got comfortable. After a while, her attention drifted away from the book. Her head started nodding as sleep crept up on her. The sound of her phone ringing caught her from answering sleep’s call.
“Mm’lo,” she muttered.
“Is this Aaliyah Fisher?” the caller asked.
“Depends on why you’re calling?” Aaliyah adjusted herself on the couch into a sitting position.
“I’m calling on the behalf of one Casey Fisher. My name’s Georgetta Hayes, Mr. Fisher’s lawyer. I need to get ahold of any one of Mr. Fisher’s children.”
“What about?” Aaliyah dug.
“It is something I feel better discussed in person with my retainer’s children,” Georgetta told her. “Can you pass on the message to them?”
“Only if you can provide an address for them?” Aaliyah countered, searching for a scrap piece of paper and pen. She jotted the address down as the lawyer provided it. “Thank you.” She ended the call as she pushed herself off the couch.
“Guys, something’s come up,” she called out, gathering her things.
“And you’re taking off?” Dean asked. “What’s so important…”
“Family issues, apparently. I know finding out what brought you out of hell, but maybe dealing with this…” Aaliyah held up the address. “Will finally stop my father coming out of the past.”
“Your fault for digging him up in the first place,” Dean told her.
“Yeah, I know.” Aaliyah made sure she had her things packed and headed for the door, stopping long enough to give Dean a kiss on his head. “I’ll keep in touch. Promise. Call me if anything major happens.”
She stepped out the back door and down the steps to her cycle. With her things secured in the saddle bags, Aaliyah mounted the cycle and started it up. Her stomach knotted a little from guilt in leaving the three hunters, but the lawyer refused to discuss matters over the phone. No matter, she would just call Leo and Nissa when she stopped on the way back to her hometown.
***
Aaliyah dumped her bag on the motel bed and fumbled through it for clean clothes. Having pushed through the night, the only things she was looking forward to was a hot shower and a quick nap. Her cell started ringing as she started up the shower.
“I hope you’re not planning on yelling,” she spoke. “After all your family drama I was dragged through…”
“It’s your family drama too,” Leo cut in. “Just so you know. Where are you?”
“In town, just got a room. Why?”
“Feel like lunch with me and Nissa? Think Xander’s looking forward to seeing you.”
Aaliyah stopped in middle of stripping off her shirt at the mention of her brother’s name. Guilt crept in before she shoved it off to a side. “The rehab place let him out?”
“After our work with the Djinn, they were a bit … eager to get him out,” Leo said. “You’d know that if you kept in touch more often.”
“I’m bad enough trying to keep myself in check,” Aaliyah countered. “We can play catch up in, say about an hour at Annie’s Kitchen.”
“Sure, sounds good.”
She waited for Leo to end the call before putting her phone on the sink counter. Making the shower quick and putting on the clean clothes, Aaliyah made sure she had her things before grabbing her helmet and heading out.
***
“Liyra,” Nissa greeted as she pushed herself to her feet for a hug.
Aaliyah accepted the hug, returning it. “Hey, Nissa.”
“What’s up with the biker get up?” Xander asked.
Aaliyah pulled from Nissa and looked at her older brother. “I was taken in by a biker gang a few months back; adopted more or less.” She shed the leather jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. “It’s been quite a while since Christmas last year.”
“Anything to drink, love?” the waitress asked as Aaliyah sat.
“Coffee, or coke. Anything caffeinated.”
The waitress nodded and headed off.
“So, what’s happened with you and the Hardy Boys?” Leo asked. “How much trouble did you guys get into?”
Aaliyah sat there as memories flashed through her mind between Christmas the year before and then. Her body shuttered when her mind froze on the images of Dean bloody on the ground after being torn to shreds by the hellhounds.
“Aaliyah, what is it?” Xander’s voice cut into her memory.
“It’s … um … Dean had made a cross roads deal to bring Sam back from the dead a little more than a year ago,” she started. “But unlike the usual ten years, he got one. All of last year, even during Christmas, I with the boys tried to find a way to break the deal. We weren’t that lucky.” She took a breath, trying to steady herself. “A hellhound ripped Dean to shreds when his time was up. I had checked out mentally for a week at Bobby’s after that. I took off from his place, getting his words all twisted up, and went off on my own before the bikers took me in.”
She looked around at her siblings just as the waitress came back with the drink for Aaliyah. “Do you all need a minute or two to decide?”
They nodded, sending the waitress off.
“That’s rough,” Leo said. “Remind me not to make any deals like that.”
“You should know not to do that period,” Xander told him. “So, you got involved with a biker group?”
“The Dragons. They know all about Hunters, the supernatural, and all things that go bump in the night,” Aaliyah kept her voice low. “Through no fault of my own.” She grabbed a menu and glanced over the options. “I actually kept out of active hunting until I heard on the news about all the windows being blown out by something.”
“Sub sonic boom,” Leo tossed out. “I’m sure a fighter jet broke the sound barrier that caused it.”
Aaliyah shook her head. “Wasn’t a jet. It was whatever brought Dean back from hell.”
Leo and Nissa half choked on their drinks.
“Wait, he’s back? How?” Nissa asked.
Aaliyah half shrugged. “According to Sam, it was an angel. Dean doesn’t believe it; and I’m …” She shrugged again. “I’m not fully buying it. Being used to dealing with demons and things that wanna kill me, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that there are legit actual angels out there willing to help one lone hunter.”
“You’re joking, right?” Leo asked. “Demons, I get. But even they won’t let someone escape from hell. Why would any angel help any of us?”
“Why would a demon let any of us out of hell?” Nissa countered.
“They wouldn’t.”
Aaliyah looked up from the menu when the waitress returned. She waited for her siblings to order before placing hers. “So, am I to naturally assume we’ve all been called by father’s lawyer?” She watched each of them nod. “Something she couldn’t discuss over the phone?”
“And trying to reach any one of us,” Xander added. “And reaching all of us, it seems.”
“But what’s this business?” Leo asked. “And why in person?”
“Maybe he finally died,” Aaliyah suggested. “The world’s better off with one less of him.”
“If that’s the case, the lawyer might be trying to execute whatever will Father had,” Nissa said.
“If he died, why didn’t mom call us?” Leo asked his sister.
“Maybe she wasn’t listened as one who was to receive anything,” Nissa guessed. “Or the lawyer already told her what she was getting.”
“Or she already got it,” Xander added.
“Does she even know about us?” Aaliyah asked, gesturing between her and Xander. “I saw no pictures of us at the house a few years ago.”
“Wait, you were at our house?” Nissa asked, putting her drink down.
Aaliyah shot a semi guilty look over to Xander, who shrugged. “It was a few years ago when I was trying to figure out what happened to Xander and dad. Before I got caught up with the Winchesters full time.”
“Whatever the lawyer wants, we’ll find out after breakfast,” Leo said.
***
Aaliyah shifted in her chair as the receptionist went about their work and ignoring the four young adults. They had arrived soon after breakfast nearly an hour ago. The woman that had arrived well after them emerged from the lawyer’s office while Georgetta and the woman exchanged farewells. The woman walked out while Georgetta walked back into her office.
“Forget this,” Aaliyah muttered to her siblings as she got to her feet.
Behind her, the receptionist called after her; which Aaliyah ignored. She threw open the door just as Georgetta sat down at the desk.
“You can’t keep us sitting out there all day, Ms. Hayes,” Aaliyah snapped at the lawyer. “You called all four of Casey Fisher’s children, and all four showed up. Now, we’re going to handle this business in person just like you asked of us.”
“I cannot unless…” Georgetta trailed off when the other three siblings walked into the office.
Aaliyah heard the door close behind her while the other two took a seat in the offered two chairs. “Now, you have all four of us here. What is this business to be done in person?”
She watched Georgetta shift in her chair before turning around to dig through some folders. The lawyer returned with one folder.
“I never liked giving bad news like this to relatives,” Georgetta started. “Your father had died about month ago in a freak accident.”
“What sort of accident?” Xander asked.
“All I was told was his body was found out in the woods torn to shreds and his heart missing.”
Aaliyah swore she heard her siblings share a look while she focused on Georgetta. Sounded like the classic werewolf case to her. “What happened to the rest of him?”
“His wife, a Helen Fisher, had him cremated due to his final wishes. And she currently still resides in their house,” Georgetta replied. “Which is acceptable. Which leaves you four. Which of you is Xander?” She nodded when he raised his hand. “You are granted the deed for the land of your childhood home. If you so wish to have it.”
Aaliyah glanced back at her brother, who shook his head. “He doesn’t want it; how does he go about selling it and getting the money from the sale?” She crossed her arms.
“Don’t worry about the details,” Georgetta assured her. “I take it that you’re Aaliyah. He’s given you the keys and title to his truck. Saying how it will work for those jobs when you need to move a dead body. And for Nissa and Leo…” She scanned the paper. “Your father’s other truck. It seems your father had a well off roofing company and the two trucks had been there since the beginning.”
“So, that’s all it was? Handing out property?” Leo asked with a scoff.
“And monies willed to Aaliyah and Xander from their mother’s will. I understand she passed a couple decades ago. It took me this long to hunt you four down for your father.”
“So, they get money and a truck while we get just a truck?” Leo started.
“Not now,” Aaliyah cut him off, barely turning to look at him. “Is there anything we have to do?”
Georgetta flipped through the paperwork. “I’ll sign over the trucks over to you and your young siblings, and start the paperwork for the funds to be transferred into Ms. Aaliyah and Mr. Xander’s accounts. IF there’s any other questions…”
“How’d our father pass away?” Nissa asked.
“The corner’s report says wolf attack with the heart missing.”
Aaliyah uncrossed her arms and actually turned to look at her siblings.
“Well, that’s … unfortunate,” Xander said. “Thanks for telling us. Guys, I think our business here is done.”
Aaliyah heard the warning in her brother’s voice and turned back to Georgetta. “If there’s anything to be mailed…” she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her walled; dropping a card on the desk. “Send it there.” She turned for the door, opening it for Xander to roll through. “And I and one of my siblings over there will be by later for our trucks.”
She was the last one out, closing the door behind them.
“What now?” Leo asked, leaving the building. “Dad’s dead, finally. And we get little from it.”
“You still got a house and a mother to go back to,” Aaliyah snapped. “We don’t. So, go back to your middle class life and leave us alone. And stay out of hunting. I shouldn’t have to remind you what happens if things go bad in a hunt.”
She helped Xander into his vehicle and started off down the road.
***
Aaliyah killed the bike as she came up to Bobby’s. With a call from Dean on the way back from dealing with the lawyer as a warning, she had arrived at the house ready for a fight. She hadn’t seen the Impala, but expected it to pull up at any second. No time to wait for the men to arrive, Aaliyah checked her handgun and eased her way to the door. Just as the rumble of the Impala’s engine echoed through the salvage yard.
One of the brothers had called out to her as she slipped into the house. She ignored them. The call she had with Bobby hadn’t gone well when she told him that the lawyer was going to send paperwork there. The fire poker was laying on the floor in the living room.
“Bobby,” she called out, gun ready.
She heard a door creak open and turned toward. Behind her were the footsteps of someone being quiet in their walking. A hand went up and gestured toward the door.
“Come out, come out, whoever you are,” Aaliyah called.
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starter for the loml → @gasolinehearts ♡
liz had gotten quite a lot of texts messages in the past few days from an unknown caller id, some more threatening than others, but all of them being enough to creep her out when she’d walk home alone at night. since she didn’t want to be the deveraux’s charity case forever, she’d decided to get a job at the local bar so she could save up some money of her own faster with what she was gaining from her cam shows. sure, they did get her some cash but her heart wasn’t into it, especially when the only person she actually wanted to be adored by was just some username behind a screen, one that hadn’t logged in in more than a week now. walking out in the dark alley, liz barely had time to take a few steps that she saw hayes standing there in all of his glory, which automatically made that weight she felt in her chest vanish. ‘‘you’re here... again.’‘ she said softly, still amazed that he’d showed up every single day since she’d let him know that she didn’t feel safe.
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