#I USED THREE DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN

[no-144444]

outbursts- o.piastri

summary: your first season as an f1 driver doesn't start the best, and you quickly realise McLaren doesn't like women very much. On top of that, your race engineer is as smug as the rest of them, and you have to deal with him all the time.

pairing: race engineer! oscar piastri x f1driver! fem! reader

warnings: lots of misogyny, lando is an asshole in this, illusions to ed behaviour, reader is not in a good head space, all of mclaren is super sexist.

pls remember this is fiction and purely for fun!

(also i had no idea what to put as the third photo and it was either the sid (max) the sloth or fernando alonso so do with that what you will!)

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven | part twelve

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Monaco. Monaco. Monaco. 

You were starting P4. Lando was in P5. You had been given your orders. Keep him in P4, or get him higher if you could. Give him DRS every lap. Don’t fuck up his race. 

“Alright Y/n, good luck,” Oscar’s voice rang in your ears as the formation lap began. Part of you was still hurt from Imola. Oscar had made you feel like you mattered to at least one person in the team, but he turned his back on you just the same as everyone else. “Just stick to the plan.”

“Copy,” you answered, slotting into your grid spot. You were officially the highest scoring woman in F1 history. You were breaking barriers. Yet, you spent your winning night alone in your hotel room feeling like you mattered less than the dirt on Zak Brown's shoe. 

The light turned red, then they were out. You got a great start, and in one corner, somehow, by some fucking grace of god, you were in the lead of the Monaco Gran Prix. 

“What the fuck happened?” you radioed in. “Where did everyone else go?”

“You’re in P1, Y/n,” Oscar explained. “Drive.”

“Where’s Lando?” you asked. You hadn’t meant to take the lead.

“P5 still.” 

“How do I get him to the front?” you panicked. You knew what everyone would say. You were officially McLaren’s bitch. “Oscar, how do I get him to the front?”

“It’s Monaco,” he sighed. “You can’t.”

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It was torture. Crossing that finish line first. You’d won an F1 race in your rookie season. You were a Grand Prix winner. 

You were terrified to get out of that car. Daniel had to run over and make you get out. Max helped you out, and you didn’t even have anything to say. 

“You did it!” Daniel cheered, pulling you in for a hug. “You fucking did it!” 

You just nodded, searching at the barrier for Zak, for Oscar, for someone. They weren’t there. You were going back to an empty garage. You were nothing to them. 

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked, noticing the way your mood shifted. He looked at the barrier, and he saw no one in papaya. “Those fuckers…” he curseed. “Not even Oscar?”

“It’s fine,” you shook your head, trying to calm yourself down. “I didn’t stick to the plan.” 

“What plan?” 

“Help Lando,” you explained. Max rolled his eyes. 

“You’re a better driver than him, McLaren are lucky to have you,” Max told you. “Come celebrate with us, yeah?”

You nodded and continued on with your duties, diligently doing every interview, praising Lando for making up a place and joining you on the podium, while he bad-mouthed you to the press over ‘not following the plan’.

You walked into the garage and they all clapped. The first woman to do it. Highest female points scorer in history. You looked at Oscar, who offered you a sad smile. 

Someone called for you to make a speech, but you couldn’t do it. You walked into your driver’s room and you broke down. 

You’d never been the kind of person that was easy to break down. You hadn’t been the kind of  person someone wanted to break down either, but you were well past wondering why they had started to hate you. When you were signing your contract, you were so sure that they wanted you. You were positive it would be different from the last time, different from RedBull. You were wrong. A knock on the door silenced your sobs and stopped the thousands of thoughts running through your mind. 

“Y/n,” it was Oscar, of fucking course. “Zak wants to see you.”

“Fuck off,” you sighed. “I’ll talk later.”

“He really wants to see you-”

You swung the door open, angry. “For what, Oscar? For what? To berate me for being a good fucking driver?! To scream at me for not following the plan?!” you screamed, and caught a glimpse of Lando. “And another thing,” you turned your attention to Lando. “I am so fucking sorry that you can’t do things on your own, and you constantly need my help and Zak’s approval to live your life!” You turned back to Oscar. “And you, you. You can stop fucking pretending to be my friend, just to turn on me again. We all fucking know I’m not staying here next season, so let’s just get through the year and say our goodbyes, yeah?!” 

You slammed your door behind you. A few hours later you woke up from a nap you didn’t remember taking, and you saw Oscar sitting at your desk. The sun had set. 

“Evening,” he smiled. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked. 

“Everyone went home, I wanted to talk to you, so I waited,” he shrugged. 

“Why do you want to talk to me?” you questioned. 

“I’m sorry,” he started. “McLaren is a complete boys club, and it’s shit. I’m sorry that I’m part of that. I’m sorry that I’m not allowed to openly support you. I’m sorry that we’ve made you feel like you shouldn’t be a good driver. I’m sorry. I really hope you can forgive me and I can be here for you. Just as a friend, or someone to stand at the barricade for you, someone to be in your corner when everyone else isn’t.”

You stared at him. “Why are you doing this?” 

He shrugged. “My mom gave out to me after she saw your win and the fact that I wasn’t there.”

You nodded, a flat smile on your face. “Great, good for you.” 

“So, friends?” he asked. 

“No. Thanks though. Can you close the door on your way out?” 

He got up and sighed. “I’m not letting this go,” he told you.

“You should,” you advised. “I’m very stubborn.”

“I know,” he smiled. “But so am I.”

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In Canada, Oscar didn’t leave you alone all weekend. He ate lunch with you, speaking only about racing the entire time, though you did end up talking about his family for a little bit, and you found out he had 3 sisters. You told him that made sense, and he laughed. He walked with you everywhere, talking about the track or something to do with the car. It was nice. Not as nice as your pre-race playlist, though. 

୨ৎ⋅୨ৎ⋅

In Spain you two went and got dinner while the rest of the team celebrated Lando getting P2, while you were in P1. He stayed true to his word, and after this win you even let him hug you at the barrier.

“Why didn’t you call anyone after your win in Monaco?” he asked after you’d both had a little bit too much wine and you were both a bit loose-lipped. 

“No one to call,” you shrugged.

“Family?”

You chuckled. “They don't care. I haven’t spoken to them in years.”

“But you’re 22?” he reminded you. 

“When I went to F3 and moved to England, they cut me off,” you explained. 

“I’m sorry-”

You waved a hand. “It’s fine. It’s just like that for some people. Tell me about your family,” you prompted. 

God, Oscar could talk for hours if someone let him. You wondered why people thought he was an introvert, he talked all the time. 

It was nice. 

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The next few races went by in a blur of points and shitty team meetings. Oscar did what he said he would though, he stood at the barrier after every race with a smile and a hand shake, with congratulations on his lips. 

You accepted them, maybe still a bit disconnected from him, but as Spa rolled around, and you rolled 8 times because of a mistake Lando had made, you were thankful that he’d been the one to ride with you in the ambulance. You’d pulled 60G. You had a bad concussion and some broken ribs. He waited with you all day, listening to everything the doctors said and taking notes for your trainer (your new trainer, he’d somehow convinced Richard to quietly leave. Maisie, your new trainer was much nicer), and sat there, watching you all night. 

When you woke up with his hand in your hand, you felt… safer. You weren’t as weary as you had been. Some part of you trusted him. 

“You’re awake,” he yawned. “Morning.”

“You stayed here?” you questioned. He nodded.  

“I was hardly going to leave you alone,” he scoffed. 

“Thank you,” you said, sincere for once. 

“No problem,” he smiled.  

And you felt something you hadn’t left for a long time. 

You felt cared for. 

It was strange, but it was wonderful. And it scared you.

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Oscar's POV:

He had to do something. He had to help you. That’s what he kept telling himself. He got Richard to leave and stop with his ED bullshit, he got Maisie, a new trainer who would actually care about you. He stuck up for you in every team meeting, getting on Zak’s nerves, but he didn’t care. 

He hadn’t been lying when he said his mom had given out to him. She’d reminded him that she hadn’t raised him to be an unkind, unjust person. She reminded him of your devastating radio messages in the Monaco GP when you apologised for winning. 

It sucked because she was right. He knew he’d been in the wrong for months and he knew it. He wanted to befriend you and help you. He wanted to support you, genuinely. He was putting his job on the line for it, for fuck’s sake. So he was going to. 

He somehow went through weekend after weekend, telling you small fun facts and talking your ear off for days at a time just so you could open up to him. He wanted to be there for you, so he became the most extroverted person he’d ever heard of. He talked more than Daniel, which was saying something. He listened to the same music you did, he ate with you, he listened to you when he spoke. 

And he enjoyed himself. You were great company. You were an interesting person. He liked making you laugh. He liked seeing you smile after a good race. He liked the fact that you went straight to him after a race. He liked your new tradition of getting an ice cream with him after a win. 

He liked you. 

So when he saw you flip 8 times in Spa of all places, his heart dropped. He’d been known to be a calm, collected, and stoic person. The way he screamed ‘fuck’ when you crashed was anything but calm, collected, or stoic. The way he spoke to you on the radio, begging you to answer him, he wasn’t calm, he was terrified. 

When you answered, the sigh of relief he let out was anything but stoic. The way he sat in your hospital room with you the entire night, waking up to check that you were still breathing, that was anything but normal. 

He was falling for you. In some insane turn of events, his quest to become your friend had taken a nosedive. 

And he was fucked. 

He knew it because he couldn’t help but smile when you reached out for his hand as you slept, and his heart skipped a beat. 

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[theresattrpgforthat]

My roommate made a joke about wanting to play a sonic the hedgehog tabletop game. Is there a ttrpg for that?

THEME: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Your roommate is about to be surprised because there isn't just a single Sonic ttrpg. There's at least seven.

Speeding Bullets!, by Princess Grace.

In SPEEDING BULLETS!, you play as three to five intrepid, plucky anthropomorphic animals on a quest to save the day- or end it. It’s up to you, some six-sided dice, and your beloved SO (Shadow Operator) to determine the fate of the world.

SPEEDING BULLETS! is a single-page Lasers and Feelings hack where your stats are FAST! (hero) and GUN! (antihero). You and your friends will create Sonic OCs, randomly assign them backstories like "Dark Warrior's Advent" or "Purification via Ruination" from a table of 326 genders, and put them up against insurmountable odds, Dr. Robotnik, and their own rivals.

Lasers and Feelings games all have the same basic premise: you have one number that represents your abilities in two different stat, in this case, Fast and Gun. Rolling above the number is good for one stat, while rolling below the number is good for the other. Roll your number exactly? Then something special happens.

What Speeding Bullets takes from Sonic is rivalries, a perpetual quest to defeat Dr. Robotnik, and an alternate suggestion for playing as your character's rivals, taking references from Dark Mirror. The game also comes with a Gender Table, a roll-table that appears to reference every Shadow the Hedgehog ending.

Rainbow Runaways, by UkeleleBard.

You are an animal living in a human’s world. The humans have found you, and the military will pursue you with every weapon, vehicle, and trap they have at their disposal. You’ve only got one option. RUN!

Rainbow Runaways was created for the Caltrop Core game jam, and runs on the Caltrop Core engine by Titanomachy. You can play it Solo, or with a GM, with a deck of cards and a 1-3 d4's per player.

The goal is simple: escape the military by reaching the edge of the city. You track this by using a clock with 12 slices. The deck of cards represents the actions of the military as they pursue you. Your character is composed of three stats and three techniques.

All in all, Rainbow Runaways is succinct and to the point. I think one of the benefits of fan games like this is that much of the lore is already assumed to be known by the players, and as a result reading the game book can be much quicker, since you just need to learn the rules.

Edge Hedge Arena (Beta), by ANIM TTRPGS (@anim-ttrpgs).

Throughout all human history, people have been given names. You thought yours was only mean to be used as an identifier, but you were wrong. Your name was chosen carefully, with the conscious (or subconscious) knowledge that one day it would inextricably link you to a champion of immense power who is also a hedgehog. This “game” serves as a set of instructions for revealing this mighty guardian, so they can defend your honor and name in a battle to the freaking death!

Still in the early stages, Edge Hedge Arena is partially a battle game. This is firmly a pvp game, using your weapons, powers and style to give you an advantage in the arena. However, first and foremost, Edge Hedge Arena feels like a bit of a love letter to the Sonic Fandom, more than Sonic itself. When you make a character, you actually have to search for art of a hedgehog OC online!

Chaos & Control, by farmergadda (@farmergadda).

Chaos & Control is a hack of Lasers & Feelings by John Harper, inspired by a similar hack, Steel & Spirit by Occupied Hex. In this game, Players will take on the roles of colorful, cartoony animal people and go on adventures through fantastic locations, facing off against maniacal foes, and looking really cool while doing so.

Another Lasers & Feelings hack, Chaos & Control adds the use of character types to further differentiate your characters, as well as tokens that can be used to trigger powerful moves unique to your character. For the GM, there's a number of roll-tables to help generate locations, problems, badniks, and so much more.

Rings and Running Shoes, by RingsandRunningShoes.

Welcome to Sonic's World - A universe unique and beyond what you know from the SEGA games! Where, inspired by Sonic and other heroes of the franchise, you and your friends will create a team of heroes that will save the world from the forces of evil!

The system is based on PbtA with heavy modification to fit the care-free power fantasy of Sonic's Adventures, but anyone familiar with the core game, should know the basics. On a very surface level the gameplay loop consists of alternating between "Peace and Quiet" and "Stages" sections. During P&Q your group will rest, prepare for the Stage, roleplay and develop your characters.

One of the benefits for PbtA games is playbooks. Playbooks keep most of the information that a player will need to know in one place, allowing you to choose a character type based on vibes, and then make selections within just the options provided to you. It's excellent for minimizing choice paralysis, and it can make teaching the game simpler, as each player has a number of references to the rules that are specific to their character in front of them at all times.

Mobius, by Ioan Davies-John.

Mobius is a fan-made tabletop wargame based on Archie Comics’ 24-year run of Sonic the Hedgehog, allowing you to fight Large Skirmishes in the gone-but-not-forgotten take on Sonic's World!

It features stats for all your favorite heroes and villains, and rules to suit every play-style from hordes of Eggman Robots to squads of elite Freedom Fighters. There’s an ever-evolving plethora of army books and supplements to represent the many factions within the pages of the world’s most way past cool comic!

Mobius is a tactical wargame, focused on moving little guys around on a map and taking down your opponents. There's plenty of minutiae here for folks who love figuring out what strategies work for them, including various extra rules, as well as 14 different factions to choose from. If you're not sure who you can play this with, the designer has a link to their community discord on their Itch page!

If you want something a little different in theme but similar in spirit, you might interested in Davies-John's other sonic game, a naval wargame set in the same universe: Egg Fleet!

Radical Spin, by Will Uhl (@raffitheowl)

Will you beat your evil twins, stop the robot army, and survive the perils of high school?

Radical Spin is a micro-RPG about melodramatic action animals. Hedgehog heroes, will you beat your evil twins, stop the robot army, and survive the perils of high school? Live out your bad fanfic fantasies today!

I don't know much about this game, but based on what I can find out about it, it seems to be designed to shine when you're exploring Sunday Morning Cartoon-style plots. I'm expecting characters with abilities that are larger than life, as well as a fairly simple rule set that's easy to pick up and learn without much trouble.

You might also be interested in...

My Silly Games recommendation post, which has a link to a Sonic game called Spindash!

I've also got a Ko-Fi account where you can leave me a tip if you like what I do!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Granted, tumblr’s search function may broken but I can’t find a post on your blog centered on Alya’s writing. As a person constantly on the look out for critical examination of Alya’s role in the narrative and the compromises on her principles, relationships and competences made to artificially engineer the episode’s story, I’d be very interested to see your thoughts

I use Alya's writing as an example of a character done dirty all the time, but I don't think I've ever done a sugar post focused on her and I totally should. Before we get into it, I will openly admit that her bad writing bothers me more than Marinette's or Adrien's because she is best girl and we stan her. What can I say, I'm a writer whose best friend is an artist with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. I like characters who are writers and with artsy, anxiety-ridden best friends. They are my people and that gives us a great starting point for this post.

Marinette is the unambiguous main character of the show, so it makes sense to design both her hero partner and her best friend around balancing her out, giving them strengths to fill out the spots where she is weak. It's how you make a strong cast. When Alya is allowed the shine, she fills that balance role wonderfully and I love it! Some of my favorite moments are when Marinette goes on one of her rants and cool-headed Alya drags her back down to Earth:

Marinette: We're gonna stroll over there real cool as if we just happened to be passing by. Alya: Then what? Marinette: Then? I'll invite him out for a fruit smoothie at the end of the photo shoot! Then, we'll get married! Live happily ever after in a beautiful house and have two kids? No, three. And a dog! Maybe a cat? Nah, forget the cat. A hamster! I love hamsters! Alya: Let's just start with just happen to be passing by and see if we can get to that smoothie.

This banter from Stormy Weather is fantastic. It's exactly the type of thing I want to see from these two as it gives Alya a very different flavor of supporting role from Adrien. While Alya and Adrien are both card holding members of the Marinette hype squad, Alya is more of a voice of reason while Adrien is there to validate Marinette and follow her crazy schemes without question.

This brings us to the first issue with Alya's writing: when the plot demands it, they make her a gullible tabloid journalist even though it goes against everything her character should stand for. The reasons I'm comfortable saying this are many. The first one is that Alya is very clearly supposed to be seen as a serious journalist. That's why you get scenes like this one from Feast:

Alya: Now you know back in the day sculptures were painted, right? Most of the paint vanished over time, but tiny microscopic pigments still remain. Thanks to this special app, witness how it originally looked. But here's the big thing. All these works of art have something in common. It's the same symbol! Look, everywhere. It's like some kind of secret society emblem. As if a kind of Order of the Guardians has been watching over the superheroes since the beginning of time!

This scene would not exist if Alya was supposed to be the kind of person who only cared about getting blog hits because this type of content isn't where the money is. But money and clout aren't what Alya cares about. She's just a passionate reporter (or fan girl) who wants to know everything she can and who is having fun sharing her obsession with the world. This is an extremely important aspect of her character because it brings us to reason two that she clearly wasn't meant to be a clout chaser: if she was a tabloid journalist who only cared about hits, then she should have never been given a miraculous.

I could go on a rant her about how poorly Alya's blog is used after she becomes Rena Rouge, but I'll spare you the word count and just say that, as soon as she joined the team, she should have stopped sharing secrets on the blog. It makes sense that a blog would initially fill her need to share the fine details of her obsession, but once she's on the team, the blog should have been replaced by her teammates. She could still have the blog, but it shouldn't have things like the freaking guide to how the miraculous work that we see in the season four episode Gabriel Agreste:

Alya: The Miraculous are magical jewels that give powers to superheroes, like Ladybug's earrings and Cat Noir's ring. But supervillain Shadow Moth also has two Miraculousbrooches in his possession, and they will give him his powers. We can figure out from this that the Miraculous can either make a superhero or a supervillain. It's all riding on who wears it, which is why these jewels can't fall into just anybody's hands.

Alya, you are supposed to be Marinette's sole confidante at this point. Why are you giving the world this information? The writers are doing you dirty, my dear, and I'm so sorry. The best I can do is to promise to never treat you like this in my stuff.

Now, to be fair, there is some nuance to this. Alya is a human being. She's allowed to have flaws, so I can absolutely forgive her for getting caught up in the moment and posting scoops to her blog without thinking (see: Oblivio). That's honestly a great weakness for her character to have as it makes perfect sense for a fan girl to fan girl. At the same time, if you want to have a fan girl character who becomes part of the things she's a fan of, then you usually need to give that character something that will tone them down and make full fan girl mode something other than the standard setting.

Making your fan girl a serious reporter is a great way to do that! It allows you to have that initial bust of fan girl hype that quickly switches into serious get-the-details mode. Without that kind of complexity, Alya would just be another Wayhem and one Wayhem is already one too many.

While I will give Alya some grace on this topic and even call it a good thing for her character, the same cannot be said for her writing because the writers fail to embrace her hype as an in-the-moment weakness and it ruins her character. To put it another way, a lapse in judgement about posting a photo is excusable as a photo is quickly acquired and posted. A lapse in judgement about a full interview with a total rando who is claiming to be Ladybug's best friend is not excusable (see: Volpina). It's a completely different flavor of poor judgement as - at a minimum - it requires Alya to stand there talking to a person for several minutes and never once question what that person is saying. Those are not the behaviors of a good journalist.

Of course, this brings us to the most glaring example of Alya's character assassination: the Lila thing. Almost everything about this arc paints Alya as a terrible friend, which is a massive missed opportunity as Lila is the perfect antagonist for Alya! Who better to take down a liar than a truth seeker? It's such an easy way to give Alya her own mission to focus on, especially if you make Lila more subtle. You don't even need to have Alya believe Marinette without question. Just have her be an investigative journalist who is like, "You know what, this new girl clearly bothers Marinette and I know Marinette can get caught up in her own head, but it doesn't usually last this long. I think something is up, so I'm going to use my skills to see if Lila is telling the truth that way I know if I'm supporting the right person here." Don't have your character claim that she checks her sources and does research if you're going to turn around and have her believe whatever she hears without checking any of it!

Even outside of the Lila thing, I wish we saw more of Alya's research skills! They were such a good thing to give Marinette's best friend as Marinette is great at focusing on a clear task, but research is the kind of thing that would overwhelm her, so it makes perfect sense to make her best friend a researcher as that lets the team have someone to help track down whatever Gabriel is calling himself this week. The writers even understood this to some extent as we saw in Mr. Pigeon 72:

Alya: Marinette, how long have you been working on this? Ladybug: I dunno, six-seven days, maybe ten. Now that we're on spring break, I finally have time to put my whole heart into it! Alya: When was the last time you worked on one of your own designs? Ladybug: I do loads of designing! Look! (pointing to the contraption at her door) I designed a security system so that nobody can enter my room when I'm not in it. And if I put on this hat (puts on modified hat) I hear everything that's going on in here, even when I'm out of the room. Alya: I'm gonna have to break it to you because I'm the only one who can. THIS IS TOTALLY INSANE! Girl, trust your BFF. When I'm researching something obsessively and I can't think of anything else, that's when my mind can get really blocked. You know what you need most right now? A break! Ladybug: No way! No breaks until I find out how to keep Shadow Moth from reakumatizing people!

Remember who ultimately figures out how to keep Shadow Moth from reakumatizing people in this episode? Alya! Because her creative style is all about researching and looking at the evidence. You know, the classic skill set of a reporter?

I really do mean it when I say that the show has a fantastic setup for telling a good story. Alya's character should have been a perfect addition to Marinette's team. My favorite lineup is the line up from season two with Kagami and Luka in non-love-interest bonus roles that I won't get into here since it's a little too deviant from canon to make sense without explanation. Instead, I'll just give you the clear roles they perfectly set up and then squandered for the original miraculous five:

Ladybug: Battlefield commander

Rena Rouge: Big Picture Strategist (basically Marinette excels at reactive thinking/leading during a battle while Alya excels more at proactive thinking/long-term tactics)

Chat Noir: Peacekeeper/Heart/Hype Man

Carapace: Protector/Stop Button (much like Alya and Marinette, Nino and Adrien should have been two sides of the same coin with Adrien being focused on making everyone happy while Nino focuses on keeping everyone safe)

Queen Bee: Wild Card/Chaos Element (I love a good chaos element who is there to suggest the options that won't occur to people who have been raised to follow the rules.)

I'll also point out that this lineup would show that the characters weren't interchangeable and make the two main couples feel more unique and meant for each other. For example, Nino's tendency to encourage others to stay safe would pair terribly with Marinette's need to not get too caught up in her own thoughts. The second Nino second guesses one of her plans she'd fall apart, so she needs Adrien to be her Chat Noir. Similarly, Alya's impulsivity weakness would make her a terrible match for go, go, go Hype Noir! She needs a partner who makes her take two seconds to second guess herself. There was so much potential here you guys! So much potential! It could have been beautiful! Instead, we got canon...

There you go, my broad love letter to Alya. I could keep going, but you didn't request a specific topic, so I'm just going to end it there. Feel free to ask for more, but please do it in another ask as this is already super long and - out of kindness to my followers- I try to avoid essay after essay on the same post unless they really need to be connected.

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, May 4, 2025

My posts

I am still struggling with the fifth Silent Hill 2 commentary; the video I recorded last week (4/30) also isn't usable. Like, maybe I'll post it on Patreon as an extra at some point, but it is not the level of excellence we strive for here at Cleolinda Industries. Within hours of that, April's parting shot was to knock me down with another head cold, BUT, now that I have escaped its grip (April's, not the cold's. I'm still sick), I may have solved my OBS problems. I DON'T KNOW. WE LIVE IN HOPE. 

Meanwhile, Ian's off in fuckin' Brookhaven Hospital. IT'S. FINE. (I'm in the chat, we figure out some good stuff about the lore, it's a good time.) Also, at the top of his stream, he had sound engineer Andy Sudol on to talk about the differences between the 2001 and 2024 soundtracks. 

Signal boost while we're talking about games: I'm doing really well on light combat in SH2, except for when my neuropathy acts up and my fingers just decide they don't want to participate anymore (it's a good bet this has happened if I start screaming "JAMES WHAT ARE YOU DOING??"), so these mods and resources for disabled gamers caught my eye.  

Reblogs of interest

@mamoru looking out for us on the food safety front

Y'all, I don't know what's going on with Pinterest, but don't breathe too hard right now. An update from Reddit: More news outlets are reporting the sudden mass ban wave these last two weeks

My personal question: how does it actually BENEFIT companies to make their product unusable, though? I understand the answer, and yet, as a person who can think more than five seconds ahead into the future, I completely do not understand the answer.  

This question was also partly inspired by Polygon getting sold/gutted, in the sense of this Reddit reply.

Oh, I wasn't even thinking of Duolingo asserting itself as an "AI-first" company even as people complain that the quality of the app has plunged, so fuck them too I guess

PSA about some scam call techniques

I had to tell my therapist that I was facetiously done with life and everything in it, so I get this post

Good (and cute) news: "you can sponsor your own big beautiful TB- or landmine-detecting rat through APOPO HeroRATS"; "First-of-its-kind lab breeds bumblebee babies to save species from extinction"

Zines: I Am Not Your Asian American Doll

Speaking of Silent Hill 2: "this is how tag searches feel"

"askjeeves how to smuggle 30 naked prisoners (assorted genders) out of vampire mansion time sensitive."

"no, you’re thinking of fusion and fission. Bisexuals result in two nuclei that are identical to the original nucleus. Pansexuals result in four nuclei with half the number of chromosomes of the original cell"

"oh to be the black blob of a cat in vanessa stockard's paintings"

In tough times, there is one thing thou must always remember

All of these are horses

"Goblin learns they have a racist sword": some fantasy ideas

Flip the Frog gets restored

I'm particularly amused by these Vanillary reviews because I have it as a solid perfume and it's fine. 

I agree with all of these expletive/accent pairings.

A feline boo ghost to go with last week's ghost dog photoshoot

"The tribes of Tumblr appeared to worship Apollo as their primary patron deity, most often under the epithet Apollo Spairahemon ('Apollo the Ball-Thrower')"

Video

Wet beast Wednesday: "MOVE IDIOT"

Blumineck has a new approach to the three-arrow trick shot

"i know this is a predator. like a hardened killing machine. tempered by hundreds of years of evolutionary prowess to fine tune him into a living weapon. but"

Finsync

Good guy who talks like a bad guy

I honestly was not prepared for anything in this anecdote about buying a printer

The sacred texts

The iconic "girl… what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament 👀"

Personal tags of the week

I will be adding to "with mama" as often as possible. (You know what? I also need to add to dragons.)

[clitorises]

Any advice on finding and going to kink events?? I’d love to go out to one if I get the courage hehe but I’m not sure where to start or what the etiquette tends to be or whatever

Yes!!! I was more confident about giving advice about this pre-covid. So first and foremost, be safe, your health and the health of others is more important than social gatherings. I have my own comfort levels (I haven’t been to a bar or club since pre covid and don’t see myself doing that anytime soon, for example, and anywhere I’m going to be indoors around people who haven’t tested I wear a mask, typically an N95) and so like… that has put a bit of a damper on my kink social life. What was I talking about.

OKAY. Right. Kink events. Honestly, most of the advice I have to give isn’t, you know, revolutionary or genius. My strategies have been “make friends in the city I move to and ask them where is cool” and “look online.” I only recently started using fetlife to browse for events, it seems alright, but I haven’t found anything there I hadn’t already heard about through word of mouth. Alternatively, you can search-engine-of-your-choice “BDSM dungeon [your city]” and look for an events page.

With pride coming up, you’re likely to see vendors and groups out and about. Go up to them and ask them questions! People who are advertising what their thing is are going to be thrilled to talk to you. A lot of clubs and dungeons have socials and munches (vanilla events that take place offsite where you can just get to know people) and the great thing about BDSM people is that they are educated on consent and negotiation—the etiquette of an event like that will be clearly laid out.

Listen though, for real? If you want to meet kinksters and you don’t know how, fetlife seems sketchy and dating apps are annoying and all your tumblr mutuals live on the other side of the globe and pride events aren’t really your thing? Go to your local game store and join a dnd group. I am being one thousand percent serious. The venn diagram of tabletop nerds and people who are into kink is very nearly a circle. The difference with that, of course, is that it’s impolite to waltz right in and ask right out of the gate “who here is into sexual domination?????” but if you also enjoy geeky hobbies and will have fun even if you don’t happen to stumble upon a fellow pervert… then I recommend giving it a try. My closest friends in kink I initially met through tabletop.

This is getting long BUT you asked about general etiquette and what to expect so I’ll give you a quick rundown. In my experience, there are three types of kink events: formal play parties, casual play parties, and munches. A formal play party would take place at a dungeon or club (sometimes private residences but that’s less common), somewhere with designated hard points, gear you can use, and dungeon monitors making sure everything runs smoothly. Typically, anything particularly dangerous (blood play, breathplay, etc) will be completely disallowed. You can watch other people doing scenes, or approach people and ask if they’d be interested in doing a scene with you. Casual play parties are just sex parties at somebody’s house, typically much smaller, and something you’d only be invited to if you knew the person who owned the place or a friend of theirs. You’d typically be expected to bring your own gear. And lastly, munches are vanilla events out in public where no play takes place, you just have drinks and food and get to know people!

I hope this is anything close to the answer you were looking for 🖤

[blazehedgehog]

Man, that's crazy and unfortunate what happened to that level designer on Sonic Heroes. Is there a source for those stories you could share?

Unfortunately it came from a Game Informer interview on their website back in 2016. Thanks to the efforts of Gamestop, everything about Game Informer was basically wiped from the internet about a little over a week ago.

Digging around a bit I found this Wayback Machine post for the article, titled "Where Sonic Went Wrong", written by Brian Shea.

Iizuka recalls the development cycle of Sonic Heroes, the first multiplatform mainline Sonic console game, as the most stressful of his career, in part thanks to deadlines. He was based in the United States while the rest of the development team was in Japan, and mismanagement took its toll on the team. "The level design for Sonic Heroes was made by two people: me and one other person," he says. "As we got to the later stages of development, this other person got pretty sick and didn't show up to work, so level design was made by one person! So for those very last stages of the game, I didn't sleep at all and I was constantly working. I lost about [22 pounds] because I was just cranking away and it was just work, work, work. I didn't sleep because I had to finish the game on my own. Almost dying!"

From what I've heard, this isn't the first time somebody has mentioned this about Sonic Heroes, just the first time in an English interview.

For the other information:

The information about Sonic 2 comes in the wake of Hirokazu Yasuhara's Digital Dragons talk in 2017, where he revealed a significantly different and more ambitious early design for Sonic 2 that was scrapped in favor of something they could do faster and easier.

The information about Sonic 3 comes from the Hidden Palace dump of a Sonic 3 prototype. The creation date on their prototype is maybe three months before its retail release and the state of the game at that point can charitably be described as a disaster, something their news post explains thanks to information provided by the person who offered the prototype.

Sonic Adventure 2 being made by half the people in half the time is original research by me. Sonic Team is on record that the 3D Sonic World in Sonic Jam was a prototype for Sonic Adventure on the Sega Saturn, putting development of SA1 starting around late 1996 or early 1997. If you count from there to when the finishing touches were put on the International (American) release of SA1, that gives it a development time of around 2-3 years. SA2's development started probably around December of 1999, and came out in June of 2001, making for a development time of 18 months. You can compare developer numbers yourself using Mobygames. (Shoutouts to The Golden Bolt for also looking down a similar path.)

Similarly, just look at the production credits for Shadow the Hedgehog, CTRL+F, and search for "Takashi Iizuka"

After Shadow in 2005, Takashi Iizuka was no longer an active developer on the Sonic series for the next five or six games, mostly relegated to distant "supervisor", "concept" and "special thanks" roles. Instead, he worked on NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, another game Sega jerked him around on. He came back to the Sonic franchise and started doing press again midway through the development of Sonic Colors in 2010.

Sonic Unleashed being expensive comes from, to my memory, an IGN Developer Diary that's impossible to find nowadays, where the director admits one of the producers at Sega pitched the Werehog as a way to slow players down and appreciate all the effort they put into environment art. Also they literally developed a whole entire rendering engine just for that game, of course it was expensive.

Here's a 2009 post mentioning a "Sonic Anniversary" leak from Sega's FTP. Details are fuzzy, but a Sega Spain leak a year later clarified that "Sonic Anniversary" was a game coming to Wii, DS, PSP, and PS3. A (physically) broken prototype of Sonic Anniversary for the PSP reveals a very early version of what would become Sonic Generations for the 3DS. And given how much content is shared between Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, it's not hard to connect the dots between Colors being built from the proposed Wii version of "Anniversary" (Generations). There may be a more direct source for this straight from the horse's mouth, but I can't find it right now.

Morio Kishimoto was a game designer for Secret Rings and Black Knight, his first games for Sega, and got promoted to Director for Sonic Colors where he's stayed ever since. He mentioned not being a part of Sonic Forces at first, but was brought in to get the game back on track, and the game's troubled development is corroborated by Takashi Iizuka in the liner notes for the Sonic Forces soundtrack.

You can compare the metacritic for Secret Rings and Sonic 06 to see just how much more favorably Secret Rings was received, despite both games coming out less than six months apart.

Here's an archived IGN interview from 2007 with Yojiro Ogawa describing how Secret Rings was split off from the development resources of Sonic 06. Exact dates would be fuzzy, but it's easy to assume the entire game was developed in less than a year.

Here's a 2010 Eurogamer interview where Takashi Iizuka (not Kishimoto, whoops) says Sonic Colors is a Sonic game meant to appeal to Mario fans.

As for Sonic Lost World being Sonic Colors 2, my source on that is "I mean, just look at it."

(For people many years in the future, this post is in response to this.)

[mariacallous]

A few years ago I wrote about how, when planning my wedding, I’d signaled to the Pinterest app that I was interested in hairstyles and tablescapes, and I was suddenly flooded with suggestions for more of the same. Which was all well and fine until—whoops—I canceled the wedding and it seemed Pinterest pins would haunt me until the end of days. Pinterest wasn’t the only offender. All of social media wanted to recommend stuff that was no longer relevant, and the stench of this stale buffet of content lingered long after the non-event had ended.

So in this new era of artificial intelligence—when machines can perceive and understand the world, when a chatbot presents itself as uncannily human, when trillion-dollar tech companies use powerful AI systems to boost their ad revenue—surely those recommendation engines are getting smarter, too. Right?

Maybe not.

Recommendation engines are some of the earliest algorithms on the consumer web, and they use a variety of filtering techniques to try to surface the stuff you’ll most likely want to interact with—and in many cases, buy—online. When done well, they’re helpful. In the earliest days of photo sharing, like with Flickr, a simple algorithm made sure you saw the latest photos your friend had shared the next time you logged in. Now, advanced versions of those algorithms are aggressively deployed to keep you engaged and make their owners money.

More than three years after reporting on what Pinterest internally called its “miscarriage” problem, I’m sorry to say my Pinterest suggestions are still dismal. In a strange leap, Pinterest now has me pegged as a 60- to 70-year-old, silver fox of a woman who is seeking a stylish haircut. That and a sage green kitchen. Every day, like clockwork, I receive marketing emails from the social media company filled with photos suggesting I might enjoy cosplaying as a coastal grandmother.

I was seeking paint #inspo online at one point. But I’m long past the paint phase, which only underscores that some recommendation engines may be smart, but not temporal. They still don’t always know when the event has passed. Similarly, the suggestion that I might like to see “hairstyles for women over 60” is premature. (I’m a millennial.)

Pinterest has an explanation for these emails, which I’ll get to. But it’s important to note—so I’m not just singling out Pinterest, which over the past two years has instituted new leadership and put more resources into fine-tuning the product so people actually want to shop on it—that this happens on other platforms, too.

Take Threads, which is owned by Meta and collects much of the same user data that Facebook and Instagram do. Threads is by design a very different social app than Pinterest. It’s a scroll of mostly text updates, with an algorithmic “For You” tab and a “Following” tab. I actively open Threads every day; I don’t stumble into it, the way I do from Google Image Search to images on Pinterest. In my Following tab, Threads shows me updates from the journalists and techies I follow. In my For You tab, Threads thinks I’m in menopause.

Wait, what? Laboratorially, I’m not. But over the past several months Threads has led me to believe I might be. Just now, opening the mobile app, I’m seeing posts about perimenopause; women in their forties struggling to shrink their midsections, regulate their nervous systems, or medicate for late-onset ADHD; husbands hiring escorts; and Ali Wong’s latest standup bit about divorce. It’s a Real Housewives-meets-elder-millennial-ennui bizarro world, not entirely reflective of the accounts I choose to follow or my expressed interests.

Meta gave a boilerplate response when I asked how Threads weights its algorithm and determines what people want to see. Spokesperson Seine Kim said what I’m seeing is personalized to me based on a number of signals, “such as accounts and posts you have interacted with in the past on both Threads and Instagram. We also consider factors like how recently a post was made and how many interactions it has received.” (A better explanation might be that Threads has a rage-bait problem, as this intrepid reporter learned.)

What scares me most about this is not that Meta has a shitbucket of data on me (old news) or that the health hacks I’m being shown might be completely illegitimate. It’s that I might be lingering on these posts more than I realize, unconsciously shoveling more signals in and anxiously spiraling around my own identity in the process. For those of us who came of age on the internet some 20 to 30 years ago, the way these recommendation systems work now represents a fundamental shift to how we long thought of our lives online. We used to log on to tell people who we were, or who we wanted to be; now the machines tell us who we are, and sometimes, we might even believe them.

As for Pinterest, I granted the company access to my account so they could investigate why the app recommends ageist, AARP-grade content to me in its emails. It turns out I hadn’t actively logged in to the app in over a year, which means the data it has one me is, ironically, old. Back then I was researching paint, so the app thinks I’m still into that.

Then there’s the grandma hair: Not only had I searched on Pinterest for skincare products and hairstyles in the long-ago past, but Pinterest gives a lot of weight to data from other users who have searched for similar items. So perhaps those other, non-identifiable users are into these hairstyles. The company claims its perceived relevance for recommendations has improved over the past year.

Pinterest’s suggested solution for me? Use Pinterest more. Un-pin stuff I don’t like. Threads also suggested I can fine-tune my own feed by swiping left to hide a post or tapping a three-dot menu to indicate I’m not interested. It’s on me, young buck. In both cases, I’m supposed to tell the algorithms who I am.

I’m supposed to do the work. I’m supposed to swipe more. I’ll be so much better off if I do. And so will they.

[devotedlyghostlyenemy]

Tutorial 3D model to sims2

(first part )

Now that I'm learning how to convert Sims2 clothes from 3D models, I'm going to write how I do it in case anyone is interested.

First of all you should know that this is my way of doing it, I don't know if it is the most correct, if someone knows other things they can contribute them here 🤗

You must keep in mind that you have to be very patient, not everything turns out well the first time, nothing happens, you try as many times as you want until you get the result that you like the most. 😉

It is just a game, it is not real life nor is it a job nor is it an obligation, therefore you should not get frustrated, just have fun ☺️

We start 🕞

You will need :

-- a page to download free 3D models, there are many, you just have to search on Google or your usual search engine.

-- blender and milkshape

-- simpe

-- adobe photoshop or similar

-- bodyshop

We download a 3D model that we like, and we put it in a work folder that we are going to use 📂

Preferably we are interested in OBJ files, but the 3D models are not always in this format, if they are in DAE they are also useful for us

If you don't know what format you downloaded your 3D model in, right click, properties on the file and it will tell you what type of file it is.

If your file type is OBJ, you will go directly to the Milkshape phase, which I will explain later, if your file type is DAE... follow these steps:

open Blender

click on any point to remove that screen

You will get a white cube that we have to eliminate

now we can start

We import our 3D model with DAE format

We look for our file in the folder where we have saved it, when we have found it we click on import (up to the right)

We zoom in on our model by clicking the mouse wheel to increase its size and see it well if you want.

and we export it as an OBJ file, which is what we really need, you don't have to do anything, blender transforms it, you just click on file export wavefront obj

Choose which folder you want to save it in and give it a name, then click export OBJ (top right)

Close Blender, it is not necessary to save the changes when it asks you, so exit without saving if you want

Open Milkshape :

(If your file was OBJ from the beginning, you skip the entire Blender process and start here directly)

we import our 3D model obj file

Normally it sells completely black, I explain how I change it, I eliminate the material that is assigned,

I select my clothes, (group, select)

and I hit vertex, cat's normal smoother… and now we have it white

Now comes the most entertaining part, for this you will need your patience, normally the 3D model will not have the right size for the Sims 2 body, so you will have to modify it to adjust it

First, import a base body, of the age you want (adult child, etc.), the one you need according to the clothes you are making.

file, import ,sims2 unimesh import v4.09 , say acept, say noi

you choose your base body and say no

and say yes

now you have the sims 2 body and you can see the size difference in my case 😅

It's time to have fun, we select our clothes, (group select), and change their size until we find the one we want, (model scale)

We must change the numbers of X Y Z,

If we write 1.98 in X, 1.98 in Y, 1.98 in Z, we point to U and click on scale (the scale button below where the letters x y z ) our clothes will grow

If we write 0.98 in the three x y z, doing the same, our clothes will shrink

to be continue ...

[edwardos]

Is there a way we can play your mod or is it not public yet

(First time tapping on this blog btw)

Wow. Always an uplifting surprise to find that.

I'll give you the short answer, and then a monologue. NBODE is not public yet, nobody but me and allegedly just one other person has played it, and it's expected to stay that way until Alpha 1.0.0 is complete on Modrinth. I'm projecting that this will take a few more months.

(Monologue)

It greatly boosts me to hear that people who are on my blog page like what they see in my mod and are interested in playing it - especially if they've only been on it for like 20 minutes at the time. Probably because I've been working on it for more than 24 months now and have been having a lot of fun playing it on a private server. I honestly can't wait for the day that it's public. Once this mod is released and gets attention on a bigger, playable scale, I will truly be the king of Beta 1.8. I think I'd like to see what let's plays happen on it a lot. Most retro Minecraft mod let's plays are unailed by the video-design scourge that clickbaitifies and controls modern Minecraft videos.

Most of the screenshots one will see from Noticeably Beta 1.8 on this blog are either development screenshots or pictures from a multiplayer server I run myself for me and practically one other person. It's called Monty Cabin, and the three worlds it uses are called Elder Hills, Mount Creep, and "Castle God". Working title on that last one. I've shared download links to Noticeably Beta 1.8 patches (it runs in ModLoader and ModLoaderMp) in the place where me and some online friends meet, but for all I know nobody but me and the one guy have ever downloaded or played it. My other friends have access, but supposedly no time to join in.

Noticeably Beta 1.8 has been taking a long time because of some "insurmountable walls" in coding difficulty and the shocking failure of modern search engines. It's terribly difficult to find any help resources on very basic things about modding Beta in ModLoaderMp, like how to make packets work or new custom mobs. Which is stupid because everyone and their mother seemed to be amazingly skilled at modding Beta back when Beta was the cutting edge vanilla version and the threads should still be around.

I also made something of a pact with myself that without adding "two specific new features" first so that me and my friend can unseal that Alpha 1.0.0 Nether Portal and go exploring them, I can't call Alpha 1.0.0 complete. Those specific features have been very hard to add. I'm not an expert at Minecraft modding by any means, and this whole time I've been punching well above my weight. I've been wondering this year if trying to get those features into the game before the completion of the first true alpha is something I should do and is worth it.

Lately, however, I'm feeling more confident. If I can figure out how to use Beta 1.8's infrastructure that was ultimately introduced in that version for a certain one of Minecraft's gameplay areas, I'll have very little work left to do before I have acceptable compromises on some of my vision for the time being, and can reasonably try to see if Modrinth approves it.

I feel I should also let people know that NBODE has some things about it that might not be satisfying for some Minecraft fans that have different tastes, even if they are Golden Age fans. In the interest of letting those people down easy, I've got some points to share. One of the first things I did was actually change Endermen a lot.

I didn't remove them, but I've been pissed off at Endermen for a long time and so I took away a lot of things that bother me about them that I think lots of people traditionally may have liked. I turned off their teleportation and removed that animation where their jaw opens and completely detaches from the back of their head for no reason.

On a potentially more agreeable note, I gave them more health than they normally get in Beta 1.8, and made it so that blocks they pick up are not removed from the world (less griefing that way) and an Enderman in the world can only place two blocks in their life each. They're also less like whatever an Enderman was before and more like fire demons, though they look the same as before. I also had to give them a discount sound effect because their usual tone is not in Beta 1.8.

Golden Age players may find this next one to be no biggie at all. It's the fact that NBODE is like Beta 1.7 in a lot of ways, the way I'll focus on here being that it's practically all about survival, gathering resources, and building. Big expeditions/journeys like you'd get in Minecraft Release 1.11 don't really come into it. Unless you want to find cool terrain. This is Beta 1.8 terrain on the other hand, so it's got famously subjectively bad landscapes and objectively over-huge oceans.

Hilariously, The Adventure Update of vanilla Minecraft in Beta 1.8 hardly had any excuse to go on "adventures" at all. It was pretty much all about extreme hills and abandoned mineshafts, which appropriately enough are terrains that partly brought me to choose this version for my mod. I also chose it because of its crazy-good mood/appearance (IMO).

After much struggling I was able to create a small structure on the surface that lets people know a Stronghold is below if they find it while playing the mod. But the point is that Beta 1.8 wasn't a very expedition-trip kind of game compared to Beta 1.7, and in Beta 1.8, and NBODE at this time, building stuff, mining, killing monsters that get in your way, and just being based is most of what you'll probably do. But a lot of people are fine with this, including me and obviously the modern-age retro gaming Minecraft Beta community.

Finally, I'll cut the "bad news" short here by finishing it with the doors. I worked very hard to change doors to make them make more sense, meaning that they are anchored on the hinges beside the door block, instead of Minecraft's usual thing where they break off if you break the floor. You can place any door against a cliff in this mod. There are already screenshots of that. However, when I added this many months ago I wasn't smart enough to make the block item activateable when right clicking on the ground, which means that some people may get confused or find it difficult to place doors. You have to stand in front of a couple of stacked blocks and place the door against their side, while "looking forward".

Since before this project even really started, I've been terrified of plagiarism of this mod. My ideas have been stolen or in some other way lifted before I could succeed before. That applies even just in Minecraft content itself. Luckily, my approach to NBODE was really smart and nuanced with the stuff I was doing. And I started documenting my development and showing that it exists pretty quickly. Because of that, I think the worst case scenario is that somebody pretends to beat me to the punch with their own bootleg Noticeably Beta 1.8, but this hypothetical person is also really stupid in addition to being a creatively-bankrupt thief and has no idea how to do all the big and little things I've picked up that make NBODE as carefully well-designed as it is, or how to do what makes it work so well.

I was also really upset in real life when I did a curious search and found out that I wasn't the first person to come out with a Beta 1.8 mod trailer or product in this decade. The mod I found is nothing like my mod, but I wanted to be the first to hit the road on Beta 1.8 bigmodding. I hate Beta 1.8.X for doing that. >:|

This is also the first answer of a Tumblr ask that I've done entirely on Linux. There's a bit of a technological disruption here, as I don't know how easy it will be to set up MCP and my mod workspace on this other computer, but maybe I'll finish the first public build before I get off my big computer. It's unknown. But I know I have to get everything backed up from my big computer and replace the operating system very soon. It's going to be okay, but it's going to be different.

[waytootiredstudent]

Working in the office today and gettin waylaid from trying to make my way though legal texts by how fucking awful copilot is.

(there's a push at work to use ai/copilot more and an equal protesting push against how it potentially could be used to spy on employees so I am doing some research on the side on that as well. I also sometimes like to ask ai assistants like copilot about topics I already know about. It gives me a picture about how bad the misinformation is, what to look out for to recognize ai information and what quick shortcuts there are to identify it (for example concrete numbers are easy to look up and it's nearly funny how bad most genai is with them given its you know. A machine. A giant ass calculator that's bad at math), and what information ppl might be walking around with. Know thy enemy and all that. Best way to argue against smth is actually knowing how it works)

Like I asked it for previous verdicts on my current topic and it's like 'oh here are three answers!' and the answers are:

1. Exists and copilot is correctly saying what it is about. Link functions.

2. Doesn't exist, link leads to a general 'here you can look up cases!' website, not the actual case. No mentions of that case can be found anywhere. (Trust me I looked)

3. Technically exists but it's just 1 again with a wrong docket number and a wrong date and a wrong summary of 1

I ask around for a bit until copilot tells me 'hmmm it seems I can't find a publicly available link to this, there might be a mistake somewhere whuupsi' despite confidently telling me a summary of said (fake) verdict one question earlier. In another case it leads me to three different cases, all who have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I ask the same question that got me those fake cases in the first place again. Same answer but this time the date of the cases is different. When pressed the same as above happens again.

Like I don't understand how people trust these machines so much. I am not even Anti AI in general (it's a complicated topic alright even before ppl started to go analytical AI=generative AI, and I am very much against the fuckening that is currently happening but that's a 'corporate greed bad' issue not a "technology is inherently evil" issue) but this is getting ridiculous. People are asking these things like they're actual search engines. They are not!

But the problem is that most people don't understand how they even work or the dangers of it. Every push for AI assistants is always ignoring the very real danger that they possess and is never accompanied by any real support or explanation.

The least they could do when they're already forcing that bullshit on everyone is to properly give guidelines on how to responsibly handle those AI assistants. They're not intelligent, they literally "generate" answers - they don't look them up! There's a huge difference between those things!

And that's not even touching on the whole privacy and data protection issue! You need to understand what happens when you feed that machine information! You need to understand that so know what kind of information is a security issue or a data protection issue when fed into the machine! Yes, even for when you ask one of those handy new tools to make you a presentation with the data you provide! We handle sensitive data! You need to be careful with that!

Most normal ass office workers don't even fully understand what those AI assistants are. How can you expect those people to know how to actually handle them? What to look out for in terms of bias and unreliability? How the databank these things are built on will influence the responses? How to identify it when the machine starts hallucinating? When it is quoting a reliable source and when it's just a random Reddit post?

There need to be courses about this! Informations, explaintions, guidelines! You can't just throw that at people like 'oh it's so easy to use you'll figure it out :)'! No they won't! Most of my co-workers are already overwhelmed with fucking excel and you want them to try and responsibly handle AI?? You are setting these people up for failure! And the rest who know how to handle it as well! Because actions of individuals have consequences for the whole!

But no. Instead you get messages like *sparkle* how can AI improve your life? It's so easy! No prior knowledge required! Welcome the future with us! *sparkle*

Bitch. Teach and inform people properly or stop shoving this shit down our throats. If you don't start taking this seriously I will start sitting in on your *sparkle* AI Taskforce *sparkle* meetings and make you read every data protection paragraph I can get my hands on until you're puking your fucking sparkles.

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 15: RACHEL MAKES A BAD DEAL

Will snapped out of his daze like a bad dream, right into the familiar feeling of someone needing his attention.

It was Nico, but to his surprise, the son of Hades had concerned eyes on him. A question in the tilt of his head.

Will used the back of his hand to brush Nico's cheek in thanks as he shook his head.

"If you need out," Nico whispered, trying to make him hear the urgency in his quiet voice-

He shook his head more forcefully and whispered back, "I'm, just, I don't want to dwell on this. I'm not proud of the fact that I, kind of still have some anger at Percy lodged somewhere in here about nobody telling me I was suddenly head of my cabin as I rushed off to save someone else," he gestured with his other hand to the back of his head with an uncommon frown.

Reaching over to take the book, he'd thought the matter was settled. He wasn't expecting the distance to be closed and Nico to take the moment to place a quick kiss on his cheek, right on the edge of his lip.

Nico looked as surprised as he did for the impulse, and both blushed as Nico hastily put the book in his hand.

"You two are dating?!"

Percy's blurted shout was just loud enough they all winced at the noise and he only felt a bit sorry as he tried to modulate his voice back down, "I've been here the whole time, when did you two..." he trailed off in maximum confusion and great relief Nico's crush really had apparently full blown faded. Either that or Nico's Italian roots had flared up at a strange time?! Or was that a French thing to kiss someone on both cheeks? But Nico hadn't kissed the other one-

"Oh, Percy," Annabeth sighed.

Will's voice was now squeaking as he flipped to his spot to start without responding and the chapter title came out like someone was plucking on his vocal cords. "Rachel Makes a Bad Deal."

"Get this girl a lawyer, stat!" Alex said as if nothing had happened.

Percy was still ogling the pair and then looking at his assortment of books, then to Annabeth; but was clearly going to be ignored by everyone else.

I grabbed Will Solace from the Apollo cabin and told the rest of his siblings to keep searching for Michael Yew.

The first time Will's name had even been mentioned on Percy's radar, and it was him he turned to for help, Nico noted with interest. It was no surprise to him, Will was the most helpful guy he'd ever met.

We borrowed a Yamaha FZI from a sleeping biker and drove to the Plaza Hotel at speeds that would've given my mom a heart attack.

Nico couldn't help a flinch of distaste at the mental picture of Will clinging to Percy's back for no other reason than fear for his safety. Percy might be able to walk off crashing that bike and keep running to get to Annabeth, but Will wouldn't.

Of course, Percy was more likely to fling Will over his shoulder and keep going, engine or not, but it was still a bad stint to envision.

 I'd never driven a motorcycle before, but it wasn't any harder than riding a pegasus.*

"It is nothing like riding a pegasus," Annabeth looked at him in her usual concern for his mental faculties. "The skill set is completely different seaweed brain, how you even think one relates to the other- no, how you're not dead is-"

She shut up as Percy gently kissed the back of her hand, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Quite time wise girl." The strain in his voice was unmistakable. He might have her here, warm and alive beside him now, but he still needed that security from his past like a blanket to feel like she'd stay that way in his memory too.

She nodded dumbly and squeezed his hand in understanding of that.

Along the way, I noticed a lot of empty pedestals that usually held statues. Plan twenty-three seemed to be working. I didn't know if that was good or bad.

"Why is that so accurate to every part of your life?" Magnus sighed.

Percy would honestly like an answer to that too.

It only took us five minutes to reach the Plaza—an old-fashioned white stone hotel with a gabled blue roof, sitting at the southeast corner of Central Park.

"Whoever picked that spot was trying to get in your good graces," Jason rolled his eyes, wishing he knew New York better to instead glean if that was a strategic place.

"I don't like something just because it has a blue roof," but Percy's protest sounded half-hearted at best. He had smiled at the building on more than one occasion as he passed for the color.**

Tactically speaking, the Plaza wasn't the best place for a headquarters. It wasn't the tallest building in town, or the most centrally located. But it had old-school style and had attracted a lot of famous demigods over the years, like the Beatles and Alfred Hitchcock, so I figured we were in good company.

"It's not the worst reason to pick it," Nico nodded along. Taking a moment to remember its historical importance and why other demigods had been drawn there was a motive he'd consider.

I gunned the Yamaha over the curb and swerved to a stop at the fountain outside the hotel.

Will and I hopped off.

Nico was a little surprised at the jealousy that flitted through him. Had Will once had a crush on Percy like he did? It wouldn't surprise him. He'd once had a mild panic attack at the idea of getting on the back of Mrs. O'Leary with Percy and him being that close, so he knew he had no right to begrudge Will if he'd had a bit of a thrill for this chance.

The statue at the top of the fountain called down, "Oh, fine. I suppose you want me to watch your bike too!"

She was a life-size bronze standing in the middle of a granite bowl. She wore only a bronze sheet around her legs, and she was holding a basket of metal fruit. I'd never paid her too much attention before.

Then again, she'd never talked to me before.

"That is the best way to get your attention," Thalia nodded. "Gods forbid you try giving the boy a silent signal."

Percy ignored her as he continued holding Annabeth close and watching the book intently. Or he really hadn't registered she was talking to him. They'd believe both.

"Are you supposed to be Demeter?" I asked.

A bronze apple sailed over my head.

"Great guess Percy," Alex gave him a thumbs up. "Hope you try again."

"Why do you want to hear her throw more apples at me?" Percy gave her an exaggerated hurt face.

"Your thick head can take it and I crave violence through physical comedy you don't get enough of," she shrugged.

"Yeah, no, I get that," Precy nodded in understanding while Magnus and Annabeth looked between the two in ever-growing concern.

"Everyone thinks I'm Demeter.'" she complained. "I'm Pompona, the Roman Goddess of Plenty, but why should you care?

"No, yeah, why should I care about a Roman goddess?" Percy looked around at Jason. "I have enough of my own to deal with!"

Jason held up a finger for each point he made. "They overlap frequently, you should be more respectful, and so she might actually care about you."

Percy didn't seem to hear a good reason yet as he kept watching him before shrugging and turning back towards the book while Jason studied his fingers with a stubborn frown of how he could do better next time.

Nobody cares about the minor gods. If you cared about the minor gods, you wouldn't be losing this war! Three cheers for Morpheus and Hecate, I say!"

"Watch the bike," I told her.

Pompona cursed in Latin and threw more fruit as Will and I ran toward the hotel.

At least Alex got a laugh out of that while Percy grinned along at least it was easy to please somebody around here.

"An apple a day keeps the Percy away, got to make note of that one," Jason huffed.

"It took two apples, gods Jason, thought you were the smart one," Percy smirked.

"I'm just glad he didn't decide to catch one," Thalia said saintly, "that's a marriage proposal in Greek culture."

Percy looked at her and spluttered in concern, but for once he didn't drop Annabeth's hand and act like a scared little kid embarrassed of the future. Just an average boyfriend put on the spot of such words being spoken in his presence.

Will didn't try to fight off a small smile for these guys, and gave Jason a silent nod when he threw him a look, having obviously dodged the real stupid quote that he was mocking.

I'd never actually been inside the Plaza. The lobby was impressive, with the crystal chandeliers and the passed-out rich people, but I didn't pay much attention. A couple of Hunters gave us directions to the elevators, and we rode up to the penthouse suites.

"You might not have paid it much mind, but somebody made sure you got the best view," Magnus's skin crawled at the idea of how much a carpet in that place would cost while his shoes went across.

Of course, Annabeth was in there, and he'd shove his way past any security guards to get to her side too, it just bothered his brain a little that somebody had taken the time to make a keycard for the top of the building instead of just utilizing the lobby that could fit two or three entire homeless shelters more conveniently.

Demigods had completely taken over the top floors. Campers and Hunters were crashed out on sofas, washing up in the bathrooms, ripping silk draperies to bandage their wounds, and helping themselves to snacks and sodas from the minibars. A couple of timber wolves were drinking out of the toilets. I was relieved to see that so many of my friends had made it through the night alive, but everybody looked beat up.

"Percy!" Jake Mason clapped me on the shoulder. "We're getting reports—"

"Later," I said. "Where's Annabeth?"

"So that she can be there for the sweet revenge of you dumping those in Chiron's lap and tell him to figure out the alphabet," Will nodded.

Percy laughed, a cautious noise of hope that if Will could joke at a time like this Annabeth's injury hadn't been to bad at all.

"The terrace. She's alive, man, but . . ."

I pushed past him.

"I would too," Thalia scowled. That boy was lucky he'd still had all his limbs attached, or hadn't gone through a wall while being in Percy's way.

Under different circumstances I would've loved the view from the terrace. It looked straight down onto Central Park.

It was the perfect height too, Will hadn't really the chance to look on with the kind of awe he'd wanted to. High enough that the people below were indistinguishable, just little specks of life around, but not to tall he felt above them like a god would, easily able to overpass the sight of them and just see around what they were there to do.

The morning was clear and bright—perfect for a picnic or a hike, or pretty much anything except fighting monsters.

'But that's what he and Annabeth did best,' the thought flitted through Percy's mind strangely. Not joyful, exactly, a bit of pride sure because that kind of skill was what kept them alive and what made them friends in the first place, working so well together.

It was more of longing. Not quite sadness, just that he wanted them to be able to do more than just be good at that.

He glanced down at her now comfortably melded into his side as if she'd never leave again, and gods he hoped she wouldn't even as his imagination ran wild in the world above of everything they could do together. Picnics and hiking and more, finally without a single bad thing happening to one of them.

It sounded like a pipe dream, and he should just settle for being happy his girlfriend was here with him too.

Thankfully for Percy, such similar thoughts were floating through her head, but she had more plans and schemes afoot to make sure they'd come true before the next problem.

Annabeth lay on a lounge chair. Her face was pale and beaded with sweat. Even though she was covered in blankets, she shivered. Silena Beauregard was wiping her forehead with a cool cloth.

Percy's hands ached for a moment like he needed to pop his knuckles. What he wanted was to shove them all away from her like he had on the bridge, scoop her safe into his arms and never put her down until she was at the feet of a god who could, and would heal her without a single hesitation. No deals, no posturing, no tit for tat. Just godly healing out of the goodness of their heart so she'd be okay again.

That kind of alternate reality just didn't exist.

Will and I pushed through a crowd of Athena kids. Will unwrapped Annabeth's bandages to examine the wound, and I wanted to faint. The bleeding had stopped but the gash looked deep. The skin around the cut was a horrible shade of green.

Nico vividly remembered Will once promising to show him a wound every color of the rainbow, and his mind wandered for a moment wondering what it would take for a wound to turn blue...no that was probably oxygen deprivation and bad. Or purple...maybe a rare kind of poison?... Percy's wound had once been green when Annabeth nearly died, what an interesting comparison...

"Annabeth . . ." I choked up. She'd taken that knife for me. How could I have let that happen?

"You didn't let it happen Percy," Annabeth looked up at him with her eyes solid steel gray. "I did it, and I don't regret it."

Because she'd lived to not regret it, Percy still felt compelled to call Blackjack over and stampede him for this happening. What good was that curse if he couldn't protect what mattered most?

"Poison on the dagger," she mumbled. "Pretty stupid of me, huh?"

"Loving the correlation here that your hubris has no effect on you claiming idiocy on cleaning your own bunk for inspection, and saving Percy's life," Jason grinned.

"It's a very short and top-secret list my enemies would kill to get their hands on," Annabeth nodded seriously.

Will Solace exhaled with relief. "It's not so bad, Annabeth. A few more minutes and we would've been in trouble, but the venom hasn't gotten past the shoulder yet.

"You could almost die really isn't 'so bad' as you are about to die," Nico mock agreed that sounded like a great thing.

"See, this is why you'll do great work in the infirmary, making sure they hear the important details," Will nodded.

Just lie still. Somebody hand me some nectar."

I grabbed a canteen. Will cleaned out the wound with the godly drink while I held Annabeth's hand.

"She doesn't have to, drink it?" Magnus wasn't trying to correct Will, but up until this point that's how he understood it.

"No," Will kindly agreed, "it's preferable to ingest it orally to make sure it breaks down fully in the body, but in situations where they're unconscious, or worse some sort of poison is involved, better to pour it on the wound directly to let the healing kick in as fast as possible. Both are dangerous of course, we're always afraid of using to much, so you have to make that kind of choice on the fly."

Magnus and Jason both nodded in understanding, low levels of anxiety still circling the room despite Annabeth obviously being okay.

"Ow," she said. "Ow, ow!" She gripped my fingers so tight they turned purple, but she stayed still, like Will asked. Silena muttered words of encouragement. Will put some silver paste over the wound and hummed words in Ancient Greek—a hymn to Apollo. Then he applied fresh bandages and stood up shakily.

The healing must've taken a lot of his energy. He looked almost as pale as Annabeth.

His anger he'd been helping her instead of looking for Micheal had been well buried. He'd been professional and done all he could for her like any kid who passed through the infirmary any other day of the year.

After though, as he'd fallen slowly down the tacky patterned wall and sat alone in the hallway, he'd let himself cry softly for a while, letting it all have him before he made himself get up and go find his siblings. Memories of Micheal teaching him that hymn following him, trying to ask himself what Lee would say to them, to him as the oldest now.

It was a petty feeling he wasn't proud of as he'd glanced back at the door without a last prayer for Annabeth before turning away.

Nico rested his head gently on Will, causing Will's breath to catch softly as he stayed like that for several moments after Will kept reading, only pulling slightly back away again when his voice managed to get back to steady.

"That should do it," he said. "But we're going to need some mortal supplies."

He grabbed a piece of hotel stationery, jotted down some notes, and handed it to one of the Athena guys. "There's a Duane Reade on Fifth. Normally I would never steal—"

"I would," Travis volunteered.

Will glared at him. "Leave cash or drachmas to pay, whatever you've got, but this is an emergency. I've got a feeling we're going to have a lot more people to treat."

Will had known Travis was just trying to lighten the mood, but Will had found it far from endearing or funny. He'd felt five times his age. He'd felt very alone and frustrated beyond words to shout at even his dad, only a vague hope even he'd understand a fraction of what he was feeling and not even that was enough to bother trying to ask for a summons that would only be ignored. Obviously he was doing the most important thing in trying to quell Typhoon right now.

But having Nico here now really was like a missing puzzle piece he hadn't realized was needed in that picture back there. He fit so easily into the moment in Will's imagination, like he'd been standing silently off to the side and followed him out and just been a quiet acceptance for everything he'd been feeling. It really did make the memory retroactively bearable instead of a painful new twisting he'd been expecting.

Nobody disagreed. There was hardly a single demigod who hadn't already been wounded . . . except me.

'The obvious solution here was to throw everybody in the river Styx so nobody could ever get hurt again,' Alex shook her head as she bit her lip. She couldn't make herself say that even in jest. Even if they all knew she wasn't an actual idiot and nobody tried to explain why that was a bad idea, it just wasn't for anybody else but her.

"Come on, guys," Travis Stoll said. "Let's give Annabeth some space. We've got a drugstore to raid . . . I mean, visit."

"Really wasn't any funnier the second time," Nico grumbled too, giving Will another small moment to smile he wasn't the one to say it even if he'd been feeling it. It would have just sounded scathing coming from him right now.

The demigods shuffled back inside. Jake Mason grabbed my shoulder as he was leaving. "We'll talk later, but it's under control. I'm using Annabeth's shield to keep an eye on things. The enemy withdrew at sunrise; not sure why. We've got a lookout at each bridge and tunnel."

"Thanks, man," I said.

He nodded. "Just take your time."

He closed the terrace doors behind him, leaving Silena, Annabeth, and me alone.

She hadn't heard that, and a part of Annabeth wanted to smack Percy for not sharing such a thing with her while part of her mind had been running calculations and numbers and more plans of what needed to be done. Not that she didn't trust the rest of the campers to get it done without her, she just needed to be involved, she had been practically since she set foot in camp.

Silena pressed a cool cloth to Annabeth's forehead. "This is all my fault."

"No," Annabeth said weakly. "Silena, how is it your fault?"

"I've never been any good at camp," she murmured. "Not like you or Percy. If I was a better fighter . . ."

Her mouth trembled.

Thalia's fist formed tight, wanting to punch this girl in the face and then hold her tight and promise she understood. Gods did she understand what Silena had fallen into. She wished she could scream in her face for being pulled under Luke's charms, and she wanted to promise everybody who'd ever met him had been fooled too.

She'd never had the chance to act on any of it, and a part of her was selfishly glad for it. Silena had been drowning long before Thalia had known to help pull her out and maybe splash her a few more times to make sure she stayed awake the rest of her time at Camp.

Ever since Beckendorf died she'd been getting worse, and every time I looked at her, it made me angry about his death all over again. Her expression reminded me of glass—like she might break any minute.

Jason understood that feeling all to well, it's how he looked at himself every time in the mirror. Like even if all the pieces were found and glued back together, you'd always see the cracks.

I swore to myself that if I ever found the spy who'd cost her boyfriend his life, I would give him to Mrs. O'Leary as a chew toy.

Will was just to emotionally exhausted to read that as he should, the same tempo as his usual reading like he had not a single insight into how he should feel about that, the same way most of them had been getting along so as not to agitate Percy about the truth.

He was just a little off this time, and it made Percy flinch. His hand to his temple, his core shaken by the mixed emotions that were poured in from the truth creeping a little closer than it needed to right now. His stomach rolled violently, the only thing grounding him was Annabeth wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing close as she whispered, "it's okay Percy."

It wasn't okay, he felt feverish all of a sudden, then cold flashes before the world was forced to settle back and he looked down at her still swallowing convulsively.

"You're a great camper," I told Silena. "You're the best pegasus rider we have. And you get along with people. Believe me, anyone who can make friends with Clarisse has talent."

Annabeth had been hard-pressed not to lean forward and hug him tight, and judging by the look on Silena's face she'd felt the same. If it hadn't felt like someone had ripped her arm off and sewn it on backward she absolutely would have.

She stared at me like I'd just given her an idea. "That's it! We need the Ares cabin. I can talk to Clarisse. I know I can convince her to help us."

"I guess if anyone could, my money would be on her," Magnus agreed hesitantly, not that he had any money to be betting, so, what did that say?

Percy agreed, yet something about all this still set him on edge. Like if he could go back in time or give himself a dream he'd shut this down.

"Whoa, Silena. Even if you could get off the island, Clarisse is pretty stubborn. Once she gets angry—"

"She turns into a raging green monster?" Alex asked hopefully.

"Nah, that would be useful," Percy huffed.

"Please," Silena said. "I can take a pegasus. I know I can make it back to camp. Let me try."

I exchanged looks with Annabeth. She nodded slightly.

Percy exchanged a look with Annabeth now, still reeling just a bit from Chiron basically saying he was in charge, still wrapping his head around the fact that he and Annabeth were basically defacto leaders here. When did Silena need his say-so to do this? Gods, nobody was going to start trying to get him to do supplies counts next were they?! Camp didn't have the math budget for his attempts!

I didn't like the idea. I didn't think Silena stood a chance of convincing Clarisse to fight. On the other hand, Silena was so distracted right now that she would just get herself hurt in battle. Maybe sending her back to camp would give her something else to focus on.

Jason listened with an intense fascination at hearing Percy handle this situation. He had a sense in the back of his mind like he could have weighed in on a similar situation if he could ever unlock his own head, but for now he found himself nodding and feeling Percy was leaning in the right direction even if nobody had asked him.

"All right," I told her. "I can't think of anybody better to try."

Silena threw her arms around me. Then she pushed back awkwardly, glancing at Annabeth. "Um, sorry. Thank you, Percy! I won't let you down!"

Percy glanced from Annabeth to the book with a smile much less awkward this time. "Does everyone need to apologize to you when they hug me now?"

"I'll give you a list later," she chuckled.

Once she was gone, I knelt next to Annabeth and felt her forehead. She was still burning up.

Magnus shivered at how much necter she must have been given to be feeling so warm, how close she'd come to dying and he never would have known. He knew their magic healing wasn't instantaneous either, like with Percy's scorpion sting, or when they taxed themselves to much. She just needed rest. The question was if she'd let herself do that.

"You're cute when you're worried," she muttered. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together."

"You two are the worst," Thalia rolled her eyes in pain. "You only admit you like each other in life or death situations and I'm the one who has to hear about everything in between."

"Not anymore," Annabeth tried to protest from under Percy's arm.

"Percy was about to kill us all, again!, when he decided to kiss you instead! My statement stands," Thalia huffed.

"You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," I said.

"The important things in life," Will nodded.

"Duly noted," Nico chuckled.

"Why did you take that knife?"

"You would've done the same for me."

It was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a cold metal rod.

Alex looked a little to interested in that analogy, which gave Magnus the conclusion that she'd either A, done that personally before, or B, felt that personally. Neither conclusion was giving him the best feeling.

"How did you know?"

"Know what?"

I looked around to make sure we were alone. Then I leaned in close and whispered: "My Achilles spot. If you hadn't taken that knife, I would've died."

She got a faraway look in her eyes. Her breath smelled of grapes, maybe from the nectar.

"Mmm," Annabeth agreed fondly. "It had tasted like those jam tarts your mom mailed me last weekend."

For some reason Percy wasn't the slightest bit surprised his mom had done something like that and he hadn't known about it.

"I don't know, Percy. I just had this feeling you were in danger. Where . . . where is the spot?"

"More like why was the spot," Jason shook his head, he still couldn't get over that.

"Nobody ever asks how is the spot," Alex said seriously. "Let me know if you need a massage Percy."

"Alex is over there planning to kill me," Percy decided, only mildly kidding.

Annabeth nodded, like the thought had crossed her mind at least once too.

I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But this was Annabeth. If I couldn't trust her, I couldn't trust anyone.

"The small of my back."

She lifted her hand. "Where? Here?"

She put her hand on my spine, and my skin tingled. I moved her fingers to the one spot that grounded me to my mortal life. A thousand volts of electricity seemed to arc through my body.

This felt private in an awkward way, when they already knew such a thing. Magnus blushed and Jason averted his eyes to everywhere in the room while Will kept reading with only a slight change in expression of sweetness like he was reciting a poem.

"You saved me," I said. "Thanks."

She removed her hand, but I kept holding it.

"So you owe me," she said weakly. "What else is new?"

We watched the sun come up over the city.

Annabeth finally felt the urge to lean away from Percy and rub her cheeks from smiling so much. She didn't act on it, but the thought still crossed her mind that she'd finally managed a time to sit around, holding hands with Percy in the most romantic place possible for them.

Of course it finally happened after one of them nearly died, again, Thalia hadn't been wrong about that, but she'd take what she could get.

The traffic should've been heavy by now, but there were no cars honking, no crowds bustling along the sidewalks.

Percy had once tried to read this weird book of poems from a big white book, mostly for the cool art on every page. This morning felt like it would have fit right in, it had that other world vibe to it.

Everything was normal, the world was about to end as usual. Everything felt disconnected, his city at a screeching halt and holding its breath for what he'd do next.

He and Annabeth, at the center. Not talking, but finally, not a world apart.

Far away, I could hear a car alarm echo through the streets. A plume of black smoke curled into the sky somewhere over Harlem. I wondered how many ovens had been left on when the Morpheus spell hit; how many people had fallen asleep in the middle of cooking dinner. Pretty soon there would be more fires. Everyone in New York was in danger—and all those lives depended on us.

His mom was somewhere down there, Percy leaned forward anxiously in his seat to no one's surprise. Anybody in danger and of course his first instinct was to lean into it.

He hoped she'd stayed in, knowing the invasion was on the way. That she and Paul were anxiously watching the news and had ordered takeout that would be forever until it got there at this rate. They'd have the usual friendly argument about which pizza joint was better, but Percy couldn't be there this time to decide which sounded better, Famous Sal's with the crust or Original Sal's sauce, or both. Usually they never went for both.

"You asked me why Hermes was mad at me," Annabeth said.

"Hey, you need to rest—"

"No, I want to tell you.

"Don't ever tell Annabeth she needs to rest," Thalia sighed from experience. "She thinks that's the perfect time to find the end of pi or something."

"I'd be happy to help her with that one at least," Percy said with his trademark smirk, just to hear Annabeth call him a seaweed brain when she knew he knew which kind of pi Thalia meant.

It's been bothering me for a long time." She moved her shoulder and winced. "Last year, Luke came to see me in San Francisco."

Thalia startled, her bow appearing in hand with an arrow loaded on pure instinct as she looked around at Annabeth who didn't even blink as she watched with an apologetic frown.

No, she never had told anybody but Percy about this. She'd wanted to, after she'd slammed that door shut. Thalia had been the first person she wanted to call, then Percy, but she'd sat on her bed alone and done neither because nobody would have understood.

She'd heard her brothers playing outside, they'd been having a watermelon fight or something without inviting her as usual, and she'd wished she still had her cousin around. To be six again playing blocks with Magnus.

It had never strayed past the thought, fear had trumped the idea to quickly about getting yet another person in her life hurt and killed just by her proximity.

Annabeth watched him now, sitting across the room from her, watching her back with true concern in their shared eyes. The fact that he was down here and seemed to be mildly enjoying himself most of the time was not something she'd ever mentally prepared for in her life and was still cautiously trying to figure out how to approach.

But she flashed him a hopeful smile now, weary, and tired, but really looking at him in a 'yeah, this happened,' way just for him, and he instantly returned it.

Thalia had already tucked her weapons back away but still seemed shaken. Annabeth finally leaned out from under Percy's arm, her heart fluttering at his little throat protest but storing that away for later as she put a questioning hand on hers.

Her sister didn't push her away, but she didn't look happy either as she studied her silently while listening.

"In person?"

"Well, I'd hope if he sent her an Iris Message she'd just hang up on him. I assume this conversation was needed in person anyways," Will instantly started babbling unwieldy with his words at the sudden tension of Thalia's piercing look, more deadly to some than anything she could shoot.

Percy started cutting his hand across his throat and giving him an obvious look, and yeah, Will agreed, forced laughter never improved a situation no matter what Percy's impulsive mouth tried to say otherwise.

I felt like she'd just hit me with a hammer.

"Don't be ridiculous Percy, hammers are for children," Alex rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, use a better example, like mule, maul, muah, shit how do you pronounce that thing?" Will went crosseyed as he tried to remember the strange name of Thor's hammer.

"No, you got it man, mewmew," Jason chuckled, "deadliest weapon in the universe."

"Mjolnir," Magnus offered anyways. "Like, mule, near."

"We're never getting out of here," Percy sighed. They couldn't even shut up about which hammer to hit him with.

"Yeah," Annabeth nodded like she'd already accepted that. She seemed pretty comfortable though, all things considered, so he couldn't find it a bad thing in that moment either.

"He came to your house?"

"This was before we went into the Labyrinth, before . . ." She faltered, but I knew what she meant: before be turned into Kronos. "He came under a flag of truce. He said he only wanted five minutes to talk. He looked scared, Percy. He told me Kronos was going to use him to take over the world. He said he wanted to run away, like the old days. He wanted me to come with him."

Thalia felt an immediate sense of pride as she heard that. Her little sister finally learned her lesson, would finally stop running to him right into death's arms, but the feeling was rotten just under the surface. Just like a gift from her own dad. Of course Thalia finally got her wish, and the pain on Annabeth's face was her reward.

"But you didn't trust him."

"Of course not.

Percy had wanted to scoff right back at her scoff, but she'd looked to weak to take it. Having to be propped up in that chair, having her arm be supported by bandages, it made this moment of her finally calling him the idiot for the obvious in Luke have zero satisfaction.

I thought it was a trick. Plus . . . well, a lot of things had changed since the old days.

She hadn't changed as much as she thought she did, Magnus hid a wince well. Honestly, if he'd been hearing this any time other than past tense, he would have been just as convinced she'd have dropped everything to do what Luke asked too.

This sounded like it should have been a victory, he could have been hopping around with joy and wanting to go get ice cream with her to celebrate she was finally seeing this creep clearly. She might shove that ice cream up his nose, and he'd probably deserve it.

I told Luke there was no way. He got mad. He said . . . he said I might as well fight him right there, because it was the last chance I'd get."

Oh how the temptation had been there too. Annabeth had been to exhausted to cry in front of Percy, finally saying all of this out loud. The memories of her time with him from that first day had gone through her mind faster than even a god could beam them in. For one breath she'd been about to say yes. To run away with him again and make new memories. She'd take him somewhere safe, she'd do what the gods couldn't and help him, cure him of Kronos and all the wicked that had taken him over and he'd be there for her again just like he always was when she'd needed him-

But her thoughts had stopped cold right there as more recent times had come to mind. Percy holding her tight at the bottom of the ocean as the sirens played in her ear. Percy rushing to her side on top of Mt. Othry's. Percy following her into that Labyrnth without hesitation.

That's when she'd told him no. Because Percy wasn't perfect, but he was the one she truly needed more than Luke would ever be, even if he'd started her on this path.

Her forehead broke out in sweat again. The story was taking too much of her energy.

"It's okay," I said. "Try to get some rest."

"Not the bedtime story I'd use before naptime, but, it might work for some," Will muttered, jiggling his leg anxiously. He should have stuck around, made sure she wasn't over-taxing herself, or that Percy wasn't instigating anything. She was his patient at the time, he should have kept a better watch on this.

Percy whispered something in her ear. She shook her head, keeping her eyes on Thalia. He shrugged and turned back to the book, to Will, with an obvious 'get with it' look.

Will smiled and agreed. He'd left her in the best hands possible.

"You don't understand, Percy. Hermes was right. Maybe if I'd gone with him, I could've changed his mind. Or—or I had a knife. Luke was unarmed. I could've—"

Thalia swallowed the nasty comment she would've without hesitation. She also knew Annabeth never could have done it.

"Killed him?" I said. "You know that wouldn't have been right."

"Coming from a guy who actually did not just stab the guy in the face for stabbing you, I guess Percy does have some authority on this," Nico nodded casually.

"The only authority I should ever be given," Percy groaned as he sagged in his seat. He was already tired of being in charge of Camp, and it had only been one night!

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Luke said Kronos would use him like a stepping stone. Those were his exact words. Kronos would use Luke, and become even more powerful."

"He did that," I said. "He possessed Luke's body."

"But what if Luke's body is only a transition? What if Kronos has a plan to become even more powerful? I could've stopped him. The war is my fault."

Jason couldn't help biting at his lip, probably stretching his scar out another few inches. 'My fault,' left a hollow echo in his mind, words he knew had come from his own mouth. That part of him wanted to agree Annabeth should have done something about this instead of doing nothing, a choice in itself.

He watched though as Thalia gave a look of such anger it would have sent any other person running but Annabeth as she watched back, clearly bracing herself for impact as his sister told his would-be-sister, "You're still doing it! You're still putting everything he does on yourself! His actions and going through with it are not your fault!"

"You can't pretend I'm not at least partially responsible when I had the chance-"

"It's not pretend! It's not make believe! We've never played that because we don't need to make up monsters in our life to fight! I swear I'm going to kill your stepmom one of these days, what other people do isn't your fault!"

Percy, nor anybody was obviously going to intervene here, nobody was foolish enough to think these two couldn't handle their own fights. Jason couldn't stand to watch anymore. "Guys!" Both girls stopped and looked at him, them, like they'd forgotten anybody else was in the room. "Can you not put a pin in this like you've clearly been doing for years." Clearly not a long-term answer for a long overdue conversation, but even now neither would give ground that both were sort of right. He didn't know how long ago all this had really been, but probably not that long! He didn't know how much time or what it would take to make them feel at peace, but arguing about it now didn't seem to be bringing them much good.

Her story made me feel like I was back in the Styx, slowly dissolving.

Annabeth sighed she'd ever made Percy feel like that. She really only brought misery to everyone in her life. Gods knew why she fell back into Percy's side and he put his arm back around her at once, but she wasn't going to deny the comfort she needed right now as she willingly sank back into him.

I remembered last summer, when the two-headed god, Janus, had warned Annabeth she would have to make a major choice—and that had happened after she saw Luke. Pan had also said something to her: You will play a great role, though it may not be the role you imagined.

She repressed the urge to slam the book shut as she once again realized everybody in this room had seen that moment and she hadn't been able to shut it down then either.

I wanted to ask her about the vision Hestia had shown me, about her early days with Luke and Thalia. I knew it had something to do with my prophecy, but I didn't understand what.

Percy couldn't take his eyes off her head resting on his chest. He gently stroked her hair out of her face a bit, the feel of her gray bangs had no different texture than the rest of the golden locks though his brian half expected them too.

To his surprise, she somehow relaxed a tad, sinking more of her weight into him. So he kept doing that.

Before I could get up my nerve, the terrace door opened. Connor Stoll stepped through.

Thalia was admittedly disappointed a change of subject was coming as she chewed on the rest of her long overdue words to Annabthe. Luke had already accepted Kronos into his mind years before she or Annabeth could have done anything to make a difference, the Titan's influence ran to deep for him to change, there were any number of things she still wanted to shout in her face to make her drop this once and for all about this being anyone but Luke's fault.

"Percy." He glanced at Annabeth like he didn't want to say anything bad in front of her, but I could tell he wasn't bringing good news.

"Pretty sure if a poisoned knife couldn't finish her off, another hour of that day going as expected won't either," Alex said with way to much confidence over somebody's mortality who wasn't Percy.

"I think I'd rather have the poisoned knife than hear it though," she was mostly kidding as she rotated her shoulder exaggeratedly, but she had been pretty grateful at the time for the brief interruption of Percy's intense look on her being distracted. Maybe she should leave a few jars of shaving cream unattended when she got back in retroactive thanks.

"Mrs. O'Leary just came back with Grover. I think you should talk to him."

"I still hope she gets rewarded with more hotdogs," Magnus never would have thought he'd say such a nice thing about a dog in his life, but she really had earned it after doing so much for Percy.

"I'll find a way to hire a hotdog guy to follow her around as long as I can," Percy nodded.

Grover was having a snack in the living room.

"You mean he was snacking on the living room," Nico corrected mildly.

"Mmm, got to love that oak finish," Jason nodded with a fond smile.

"I always wonder if he likes the aftertaste of sawdust or if that's a drawback," Percy said. "Like, that shiny stuff they put on wood, does it make it taste smoother going down? Does he get the runs and doesn't care?"

"So this is why Grover started hanging out with Juniper over you," Annabeth finally nodded in understanding.

"Hey, he does not," Percy huffed.

She sat up from him with a teasing smile and would have happily weaved together the past months in a delicate half-truth to prove her point before Will decided to keep reading loudly before another of their arguments could get started.

He was dressed for battle in an armored shirt made from tree bark and twist ties, with his wooden cudgel and his reed pipes hanging from his belt.

The Demeter cabin had whipped up a whole buffet in the hotel kitchens—everything from pizza to pineapple ice cream.

"Why do I feel like that was some kind of peace treaty regarding Hawaiian pizza?" Annabeth chuckled.

"Katie's a great mediator like that," Will agreed.

 Unfortunately, Grover was eating the furniture. He'd already chewed the stuffing off a fancy chair and was now gnawing the armrest.

"Dude," I said, "we're only borrowing this place."

"I had no previous assumptions that would stop him," Thalia rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm just hoping nobody tried to book the room under my name," Percy sighed. It would be just his luck for the desk clerk to wake up and find Percy Jackson attached to the mini-fridge bill.

"Blah-ha-ha!" He had stuffing all over his face. "Sorry, Percy. It's just . . . Louis the Sixteenth furniture.

"Is he a furniture conisure?" Alex asked with interest. "Or does he gain knowledge of the chair from nibbling on it?"

"You mean like, if he ate a book he'd know it back to front?" Jason grinned.

"Yeah!" Alex smirked.

"No!" Jason's grin didn't dim anymore than Alex's as they snickered anyway.

Delicious. Plus I always eat furniture when I get—"

"When you get nervous," I said. "Yeah, I know. So what's up?"

He clopped on his hooves. "I heard about Annabeth. Is she . . .?"

"She's going to be fine. She's resting."

The fact that she hadn't barged past Percy to see what this was, and in fact had barely tried to sit up before practically nodding her agreement to sit this one out spoke volumes of just how worn out she was.

Grover took a deep breath. "That's good. I've mobilized most of the nature spirits in the city—well, the ones that will listen to me, anyway." He rubbed his forehead. "I had no idea acorns could hurt so much.

"What kind of wildlife has Grover been living in?" Magnus rubbed the side of his head with a little to much experience. "I've known that for months."

"Coins, apples, branches, squirrels, phones, honestly anything with enough gravety will hurt," Alex agreed.

"Alex, only one of those things is normal to fall on your head, and that's a bad day in itself," Percy frowned at her.

"You right, who stands around and waits for an apple to fall without their mouth open," Alex mock agreed, "must be why doctors are so afraid of them."

"Nope, we're moving on from this," Will sighed as Percy opened his mouth wearily.

Anyway, we're helping out as much as we can."

He told me about the skirmishes they'd seen. Mostly they'd been covering uptown, where we didn't have enough demigods. Hellhounds had appeared in all sorts of places, shadow-traveling inside our lines, and the dryads and satyrs had been fighting them off. A young dragon had appeared in Harlem, and a dozen wood nymphs died before the monster was finally defeated.

It wasn't mentioned how the dragon was killed, and Nico was very hard pressed not to ask for personal interest of how a bunch of nature spirits managed that. Did one of them manage to throw some belladonna down its throat?

Magnus went pale like somebody had just tried to get him with a poison dagger next. He was not pleased dragon's were just casually showing up in these armies still! He tried to take some comfort that they hadn't needed Percy around to get rid of it at least. Maybe they weren't as deadly as he kept imagining... yeah, and maybe Alex had a crush on him back. Time to get out of delusional land Magnus, he scolded himself.

As Grover talked, Thalia entered the room with two of her lieutenants. She nodded to me grimly, went outside to check on Annabeth, and came back in.

Annabeth had always been a side sleeper, so to see her lying prone on her back, her body trying to twist onto her side to get comfortable but then murmuring in pain and shivering to stay still had caused her to pull out her own vial of nectar and trickle a little more on just to help ease her a few moments more. Thalia had snagged a few extra pillows off more chairs and finally, hopefully gotten her comfortable by giving her legs some elevation and giving her just enough cushion to be partially in her natural way.

She listened while Grover completed his report— the details getting worse and worse.

"We lost twenty satyrs against some giants at Fort Washington," he said, his voice trembling. "Almost half my kinsmen.

Percy hadn't needed an empathy link with Grover to understand the pain in his voice for that. His entire Camp had been out risking their life last night and he hadn't even gotten reports back from all the cabins on how many kids died. He could already feel in his bones the long-reaching repercussions this battle was going to have on Camp if they even survived this, how huge the place was going to feel without so many satyrs running across the field, how quiet the cabins were going to be.

River spirits drowned the giants in the end, but . . ."

Thalia shouldered her bow. "Percy, Kronos's forces are still gathering at every bridge and tunnel. And Kronos isn't the only Titan. One of my Hunters spotted a huge man in golden armor mustering an army on the Jersey shore. I'm not sure who he is, but he radiates power like only a Titan or god."

I remembered the golden Titan from my dream—the one on Mount Othrys who erupted into flames.

Annabeth's eyes flickered to Jason, watching with his usual intent interest in all things, and deeply wondered herself at the other Titan that they'd never come across. She'd always theorized the rest must have gone into hiding, like Oceanus, crawled back to the shadows to scheme again; hopefully waiting another thousand years or so. Now she wondered what exactly other kids out there had been dealing with in all this.

"Great," I said. "Any good news?"

"Always get the bad news first, makes the good news linger," Will tried to say in his usual chipper tone of voice.

"Or just emphasizes there was no good news," Magnus frowned.

"Okay Debbie Downer, we're going to go around the room after every chapter now and say what the best and worst part of this was," Will mock threatened.

The fact that he got unanimous horrified faces from everyone else quickly destroyed that idea, but Will got a genuine moment to smile again at everyone agreeing on that.

Thalia shrugged. "We've sealed off the subway tunnels into Manhattan. My best trappers took care of it. Also, it seems like the enemy is waiting for tonight to attack. I think Luke"—she caught herself-

Annabeth made a small sigh of relief. The feeling of being understood came rarely to her. Whether Thalia wanted it or not, she couldn't stop her little sister from putting her arm through hers and leaning comfortably like that. Thalia's tense jaw clearly showed she wanted to snap at her again.

The fact that she didn't push her away meant she really appreciated the support.

Gods, Percy was getting a headache just looking at Thalia, he had no idea how she played jump rope with that line when he still had no clue how to deal with it either.

"I mean Kronos needs time to regenerate after each fight. He's still not comfortable with his new form. It's taking a lot of his power to slow time around the city."

It hurt Magnus's brain a lot to imagine how exactly he was doing that. Did he just, concentrate really hard on a clock taking an hour to move a second? Did he clench all his muscles and make some gross noises before brushing off his hands in triumph? Was there a magic potion with the blood of his enemies involved? And all in a borrowed body?!

Grover nodded. "Most of his forces are more powerful at night, too. But they'll be back after sundown."

I tried to think clearly.

"A tough act on any other day," Jason nodded seriously.

"One I usually don't manage unless I'm about to die," Percy sighed.

"Okay. Any word from the gods?"

"Which is really showing how desperate you are," Alex said, "you get annoyed when they do that."

"Special circumstances and all that," Percy groaned. He'd take Mr. D showing up to save their butts compaling the whole time. He'd take Ares showing up and yapping nonstop!

Thalia shook her head. "I know Lady Artemis would be here if she could. Athena, too. But Zeus has ordered them to stay at his side. The last I heard, Typhon was destroying the Ohio River valley. He should reach the Appalachian Mountains by midday."

"So at best," I said, "we've got another two days before he arrives."

Jake Mason cleared his throat. He'd been standing there so silently I'd almost forgotten he was in the room.

Nico mock jumped in his seat. "He's stealing my gig."

"Honestly though," Percy chuckled. "I'm so used to it being just my friends dealing with all this, not half the camp just hanging around for the end of the world with me this time."

"Percy, something else," he said. "The way Kronos showed up at the Williamsburg Bridge, like he knew you were going there. And he shifted his forces to our weakest points. As soon as we deployed, he changed tactics. He barely touched the Lincoln Tunnel, where the Hunters were strong. He went for our weakest spots, like he knew."

"Like he had inside information," I said. "The spy."

Will's voice shook with unease of how he was supposed to keep casually saying that. He'd never asked his dad to place a curse upon anyone like he had the person who ratted them out, but then when he'd found it was Silena...to put a name to the faceless person in his mind...the idea still made him sick what he'd wanted done to her. Obviousy his dad had been to busy to pay attention to do it anyways...

"I'm really starting to hope this whole spy thing is just a conspiracy gone way out of hand," Magnus grumbled, "and Deadlus just made Kronos one of those crazy shield vision things. Maybe Kronos just has a prototype not as good as yours he doesn't want to brag about."

"Yeah man, let's hope," Percy knew it was a joke, and yet some part of him hoped it was true. Especially after the horrible results of that bridge, he still didn't want to believe anybody inside Camp would conspire to kill the rest of them.

"What spy?" Thalia demanded.

I told her about the silver charm Kronos had shown me, the communication device.

"That's bad," she said. "Very bad."

"Thalia, with the most potent quote of my life," Percy waved grandly at her.

"Sounds like she's been taking lessons from Tyson," Jason agreed, Percy had beat him to saying that by one breath.

Thalia waved grandly from her seat with the hand that wasn't being held in a vice-like hold by Annabeth.

"It could be anyone," Jake said. "We were all standing there when Percy gave the orders."

"But what can we do?" Grover asked. "Frisk every demigod until we find a scythe charm?"

"And that comes with its own problems, not the least of which is how good the frisk will be," Alex tried to say snidely like the most innocent interpretation of that was someone keeping the charm in their mouth while Percy went through their bag, but they all twitched unpleasantly at how quickly that could turn into a shit show of distrust.

They all looked at me, waiting for a decision. I couldn't afford to show how panicked I felt, even if things seemed hopeless.

The thing was, Thalia smiled to herself, she was sure that Grover and Jake had felt the exact same way. She knew she had.

"We keep fighting," I said. "We can't obsess about this spy. If we're suspicious of each other, we'll just tear ourselves apart. You guys were awesome last night. I couldn't ask for a braver army. Let's set up a rotation for the watches. Rest up while you can. We've got a long night ahead of us."

The demigods mumbled agreement. They went their separate ways to sleep or eat or repair their weapons.

It wasn't the rousing comfort Percy would have liked to have given them, but it was the truth he'd needed to hear out loud. Just something to get them through another few hours.

"Percy, you too," Thalia said. "We'll keep an eye on things. Go lie down. We need you in good shape for tonight."

I didn't argue too hard.

"You called me a nanny and threatened to throw a baby bottle at me," Thalia accused. "I don't even know where you planned on getting one! You call that, not too hard?"

"I don't even remember that," Percy said with an apologetic smile. "I think I was just hangry."

"Fair, you did actually go to bed after some food," she chuckled.

I found the nearest bedroom and crashed on the canopied bed. I thought I was too wired to sleep, but my eyes closed almost immediately.

In my dream, I saw Nico di Angelo alone in the gardens of Hades.

"Nico's back," Will said with as much enthusiasm as ever.

Nico gave him the least begrudging smile humanly possible. "Of course I am you McNugget, I'm stuck in Percy's life apparently."

"And nobody said that was a bad thing," Percy shrugged.

Nico gave him a grateful smile as his dull surprise faded quickly. Of course Percy had dreamed about this moment, it made sense with the hindsight he'd been dreaming of the coming Oracle so frequently and this was tied in. It just bothered him a bit that the one time he'd been hesitantly willing to offer a part of his life voluntarily, that had been snatched away from him too. He was still half convinced his life was a cosmic joke to some god out there.

He'd just dug a hole in one of Persephone's flower beds, which I didn't figure would make the queen very happy.

"I could cure cancer and it wouldn't make her happy," Nico clearly said what he thought about that concern.

"Well yeah, more people, more people destroying plant walkers out there, I can see how she wouldn't appreciate that," Percy nodded like Nico had just agreed with him.

He poured a goblet of wine into the hole and began to chant. "Let the dead taste again. Let them rise and take this offering. Maria di Angelo, show yourself!"

"No McDonald's sacrifice this time?" Alex asked in surprise.

"I tried, multiple times," Nico sighed. "Nothing. I was starting to wonder if my dad was blocking me, so even though I didn't like it, I tried ditching the ceremonial aspect and just using my raw power."

"And how did that work out?" Will asked, still trying to get a handle on how much of Nico's powers he used casually and how much was pushing some limit.

Nico just grinned at his interest and pointed at the book. Will grinned back and turned away, but one of these days he wasn't going to get to use that excuse anymore. Will was looking forward to that.

White smoke gathered. A human figure formed, but it wasn't Nico's mother. It was a girl with dark hair, olive skin, and the silvery clothes of a Hunter.

"The one time you didn't try to summon her and now she pops in," Jason agreed with Nico's put-out look. "She's your sister all right."

"Hey-" Thalia muttered, narrowing her eyes at the pair and trying to figure out what was being implied here.

"Yeah, really miss conspiring with her to steal extra cookies from the cafeteria and tag teaming our dad for another hour to stay up," Nico's voice was dripping with sarcasm, but it didn't hide the hurt nearly as well as he thought it did.

"Bianca," Nico said. "But—"

Don't summon our mother, Nico, she warned. She is the one spirit you are forbidden to see.

"Why?" Magnus, Jason, Alex, and Will all said at the same time, Will admittedly because he was reading it and thinking it.

"I get a half-baked answer," Nico groused. He wasn't pleased at the idea it was his dad blocking her from him specifically, or perhaps her soul was being kept somewhere safe so vengeful gods or step-mom's couldn't do anything to his mother's spirit. Either way, he'd still never had a proper face-to-transparent-face with her, and it was a deep wound to him he didn't know what to do with any better than his crush on Percy. He was surprised he didn't resemble Swiss cheese more and more lately.

"Why?" he demanded. "What's our father hiding?"

Pain, Bianca said. Hatred. A curse that stretches back to the Great Prophecy.

Alex and Magnus exchanged interested looks. They hadn't been expecting that tid bit.

And more, how the heck did Bianca know that? What ghost gossip was she getting, and how reliable were her sources? Magnus couldn't help but think of an infinite line of whispers with ghosts and what got lost in translation there.

"What do you mean?" Nico said. "I have to know!"

The knowledge will only hurt you. Remember what I said: holding grudges is a fatal flaw for children of Hades.

"I know that," Nico said. "But I'm not the same as I used to be, Bianca. Stop trying to protect me!"

Brother, you don't understand—

Nico swiped his hand through the mist, and Bianca's image dissipated.

Will was shocked at the cold dismissal. All he'd wanted for so long was to talk to her, to get just a piece of his family back, and Will had understood every bit of that. This was starting to feel more like revenge. Like Nico was slipping back down the slope holding onto something to tight, only now it wasn't so much a person as just an idea of how to make sense of something not even the Lord of the Underworld had full control over.

"Maria di Angelo," he said again. "Speak to me!"

A different image formed. It was a scene rather than a single ghost. In the mist, I saw Nico and Bianca as little children, playing in the lobby of an elegant hotel, chasing each other around marble columns.

A woman sat on a nearby sofa. She wore a black dress, gloves, and a black veiled hat like a star from an old 1940s movie.

"Maybe that's because she was," Thalia rolled her eyes at Percy managing to get a timeline from that of all things.

"My mom and Paul dressed up for a Halloween event one time in a getup like that," Percy shrugged why he even recognized it.

She had Bianca's smile and Nico's eyes.

On a chair next to her sat a large oily man in a black pinstripe suit. With a shock, I realized it was Hades. He was leaning toward the woman, using his hands as he talked, like he was agitated.

Jason couldn't help a mental mark of interest that was also a trait passed down to his kids. Like with Sally and Posideon, he found it deeply fascinating to note such things...only to glance at Thalia and think of the few things Zeus had done when present. He'd never really felt a connection like that to either parent mentioned, and while he understood why in theory, it still left something lacking in him he didn't understand why everyone got that except him.

"Please, my dear," he said. "You must come to the Underworld. I don't care what Persephone thinks! I can keep you safe there."

"Ooo, can I get that one in writing?" Alex demanded. Most likely only to wave it under the Queen of the Underwold's nose, but for a delusional moment, Will thought she also meant as proof the gods cared for their mortal lovers.

"You do," Percy sighed, "for a limited time now, and this offer expires until we get out of here, so act fast," he said in a false sponsorship voice.

"Deal of a lifetime I won't pass, no downpayment required, no interest," Alex chuckled.

"No, my love." She spoke with an Italian accent. "Raise our children in the land of the dead? I will not do this."

"Maria, listen to me. The war in Europe has turned the other gods against me. A prophecy has been made. My children are no longer safe. Poseidon and Zeus have forced me into an agreement. None of us are to have demigod children ever again."

"But you already have Nico and Bianca. Surely—"

"No! The prophecy warns of a child who turns sixteen. Zeus has decreed that the children I currently have must be turned over to Camp Half-Blood for proper training, but I know what he means. At best they'll be watched, imprisoned, turned against their father. Even more likely, he will not take a chance. He won't allow my demigod children to reach sixteen. He'll find a way to destroy them, and I won't risk that!"

"Certamente," Maria said. "We will stay together. Zeus is un imbecile."

"Okay, Nico's mom was kind of awesome too!" Jason threw his hands up in exasperation. He was mostly kidding, but it was ingrained a little to deeply to entirely just be a joke. "Thalia, how did we luck out of this!"

"Dad does not know how to pick um," Thalia reminded in exhaustion.

The others gave a soft laugh for their antics, Nico's sticking out the most for being able to look back on this moment with anything but a sob.

I couldn't help admiring her courage, but Hades glanced nervously at the ceiling.

"Percy's braver than a god confirmed," Annabeth managed a light joke about this, nobody in here had even glanced nervously at the ceiling. They'd really grown far to comfortable down here. They'd probably all be blasted to ashes the second they got top side again just for Zeus's pent-up anger with no obvious target.

Percy just grinned at the compliment without a care in the world.

"Maria, please. I told you, Zeus gave me a deadline of last week to turn over the children. His wrath will be horrible, and I cannot hide you forever. As long as you are with the children, you are in danger too."

The phrasing of that kind of bothered Will, and the way Nico flinched made him confident he'd gotten the same understanding from that. Hades seemed to care more about Maria than the kids. Gods, had anybody besides his own mother ever put him first?

Maria smiled, and again it was creepy how much she looked like her daughter.

Which Nico heard as, apparently he'd inherited more from his dad.

"You are a god, my love. You will protect us. But I will not take Nico and Bianca to the Underworld."

It really was just the greatest thing Nico had found a way to disappoint both of his parents at once, Nico mentally congratulated himself. That was obviously something all aspiring teenagers long to do in their lives!

Hades wrung his hands. "Then, there is another option. I know a place in the desert where time stands still. I could send the children there, just for a while, for their own safety, and we could be together. I will build you a golden palace by the Styx."

"Was it, of any comfort it wasn't just some random act that landed you in there?" Magnus asked in sympathy. "Got to mean something your dad wanted you there to be safe and out of the way."

"Yeah, I guess," Nico said lackluster. It didn't sound like there were any great options, but still, the fact that his dad had basically cast him aside would never feel great. He glanced around and wondered just how long Posideon expected them to be in here.

Maria di Angelo laughed gently. "You are a kind man, my love. A generous man. The other gods should see you as I do, and they would not fear you so. But Nico and Bianca need their mother. Besides, they are only children. The gods wouldn't really hurt them."

"Oh such sweet naivety I've never been blessed with," Alex genuinely tried to say without disdain but wasn't quite sure she hit it right.

"Can we rewind back to kind and generous?" Percy scratched at his ear. "Because I'm not entirely sure which god she thinks she's making googoo eyes at."

"Guys," Nico groaned, more tempted at every growing mocking comment to cast them into a black hole.

They actually shut their mouths, a rarity nobody was used to seeing.

"You don't know my family," Hades said darkly. "Please, Maria, I can't lose you."

She touched his lips with her fingers. "You will not lose me. Wait for me while I get my purse. Watch the children."

She kissed the lord of the dead and rose from the sofa. Hades watched her walk upstairs as if her every step away caused him pain.

Despite his jokes and his irrevocable grudge on Hades for taking his mom as leverage, there was a small part of him that felt bad for the Lord of the Underworld as he touched his lips for a moment and looked at Annabeth, knowing what was coming in a way he couldn't explain.

A moment later, he tensed. The children stopped playing as if they sensed something too.

Like a low buzzing in his ears, a feeling that started in the base of his skull and with practice he'd even learned to hone in on. Death had been approaching.

"No!" Hades said. But even his godly powers were too slow. He only had time to erect a wall of black energy around the children before the hotel exploded.

Will instinctively shifted closer to Nico at the display of power going on there. Nico had managed to hide him from a Titan with only a fraction of that energy. He couldn't help but wonder where in the continental US that explosion had taken place and what the Mist had manipulated the rest of the world to see, like if Zeus had just bombed Pearl Harbor or something.

The force was so violent, the entire mist image dissolved.

It probably had felt like the entire world had blacked out there for a second, Thalia shook her head in misery for what those mortals had just been caught in the middle of. They hadn't even the chance to catch their breath before her father locked in on his target, and of course, hadn't even managed to hit his target. She felt the need to apologize to Nico for what her father had done, but she tightened her grip on Annabeth's arm with no other idea how to convey to her that she didn't need to. Her father's actions weren't her choice.

When it came into focus again, I saw Hades kneeling in the ruins, holding the broken form of Maria di Angelo. Fires still burned all around him. Lightning flashed across the sky, and thunder rumbled.

Little Nico and Bianca stared at their mother uncomprehendingly. The Fury Alecto appeared behind them, hissing and flapping her leathery wings. The children didn't seem to notice her.

They had no reason to, she might as well have been a noisy cloud to them for all the threat she was.

"Zeus!" Hades shook his fist at the sky. "I will crush you for this! I will bring her back!"

"My lord, you cannot," Alecto warned. "You of all immortals must respect the laws of death."

Hades glowed with rage. I thought he would show his true form and vaporize his own children, but at the last moment he seemed to regain control.

"More than some gods can say," Annabeth gave her own soft, begrudging compliment amid the quiet of the room and Nico's set-in-stone face. There didn't seem to be any 'right words' any of them could have given right now, acknowledging what his mother had died wanting. Hades wasn't the boogyman of their lives like some believed.

"Take them," he told Alecto, choking back a sob. "Wash their memories clean in the Lethe and bring them to the Lotus Hotel. Zeus will not harm them there."

"Why?" Magnus asked hesitantly. He didn't want someone to think he was wishing Zeus had blown up that hotel next, but, you know, weird.

"That place is, outside of time," Annabeth grasped at old texts swimming in her head to explain. "Out of bounds for the gods, like entering one another's domains, except in this case no one has dominion over that place."

"Of course, once we came out, we're kind of free game again, so I'm not sure what's stopped Zeus in the meantime," Nico said acidly.

Jason and Percy were much more caught on the part where Hades had ordered his own children's memory erased of such events. Even Percy couldn't totally write off Posideon doing such a thing to him if he'd done something to far above his place as a half-blood.

Perhaps his guilt had led him into changing his mind and their current whereabouts? Reagrdless, the clear betrayal in Nico's hidden face as he sat far back in his seat, the shadows pulsing around him again as if itching to pull him in once more said all he wouldn't. Despite what he'd previously claimed, they both knew in that moment he hadn't fully gotten his own life back, and he'd been living with bits and pieces of his past for years now.

It left a discouraging feeling in the pair of them what they had to look forward to if they made it out of here.

"As you wish, my lord," Alecto said. "And the woman's body?

"Take her as well," he said bitterly. "Give her the ancient rites."

Alecto, the children, and Maria's body dissolved into shadows, leaving Hades alone in the ruins.

"I warned you," a new voice said.

"Well that person's dead," Percy shivered. Even he might not have walked up to a god and said 'I told you so,' after a thing like this happened.

Hades turned. A girl in a multicolored dress stood by the smoldering remains of the sofa. She had short black hair and sad eyes. She was no more than twelve. I didn't know her, but she looked strangely familiar.

"Errr," Alex cast her mind around trying to guess which god this could be, but she just didn't know the Greek pantheon well enough to make any wild guesses. This could be Hera, Persephone, Athena, or anyone else not even mentioned yet for all she knew.

"You dare come here?" Hades growled. "I should blast you to dust!"

"You cannot," the girl said. "The power of Delphi protects me."

Magnus shivered as that made a wicked kind of sense. The propchyes that tormented everyone who heard them were somehow 'gifts' from Delphi, weren't they? Somehow more powerful than even the gods could shut down, hence the stupid law that caused all this.

With a chill, I realized I was looking at the Oracle of Delphi, back when she was alive and young.

"Nope, don't like that," Jason shook his head, mildly considering curling into the fetal position for a second. This whole Oracle business had always sat with a weird taste in his mouth he'd never properly known how to define because the idea of Oracles didn't phase him, just the way they were delivered in Percy's life.

This started with that same feeling it was going to end badly, and he didn't think Percy's luck was going to be anything to do with it this time.

Somehow, seeing her like this was even spookier than seeing her as a mummy.

"I disagree," Magnus groaned as he raised his hand. "Mummies are ten times scarier than ghosts. Only powerful bad ghosts can hurt you, from what I've heard. This mummy has been sitting in her shell for how long?! Alive and, and- just stuck!" Percy had once said she wasn't malevolent, just present, but that didn't make him feel better.

"I'm going to have so much fun later just jotting down what Magnus's scale of top 100 scariest monsters are," Jason said absently.

"As long as you get his reasoning in why on each," Alex agreed.

"You've killed the woman I loved!" Hades roared. "Your prophecy brought us to this.'"

He loomed over the girl, but she didn't flinch.

His mom would have liked her, Nico had remembered absently thinking as he'd watched this the first time alone. She had guts, she'd looked Hades in the eye without fear and spoken to him with a calm sense of respect where most trembled in fear. It hadn't done her much good in the end.

"Zeus ordained the explosion to destroy the children," she said, "because you defied his will. I had nothing to do with it. And I did warn you to hide them sooner."

"I couldn't! Maria would not let me! Besides, they were innocent."

"Nevertheless, they are your children, which makes them dangerous. Even if you put them away in the Lotus Hotel, you only delay the problem. Nico and Bianca will never be able to rejoin the world lest they turn sixteen."

"Because of your so-called Great Prophecy. And you have forced me into an oath to have no other children. You have left me with nothing!"

An oath that he'd kept, the only one to do so, Thalia couldn't help some grudging admiration for Hades in that moment. As much as he resented his lot in life, he seemed to make the best of it, something she still struggled to do herself under Artemis's tutelage.

"I foresee the future," the girl said. "I cannot change it."

Black fire lit the god's eyes, and I knew something bad was coming. I wanted to yell at the girl to hide or run.

"Then, Oracle, hear the words of Hades," he growled. "Perhaps I cannot bring back Maria. Nor can I bring yon an early death. But your soul is still mortal, and I can curse you."

The girl's eyes widened. "You would not—"

"Oh, but he would," Will couldn't help but say in a smaller voice. Honestly, before he'd gotten to know Nico this was most of what he knew about Hades. His unique curses, his wrath more wild than Zeus's.

Around camp, children of Zeus were spoken of as good omens, many great heroes to come following in their footsteps. Children of Posideon were wild cards, causing the good and the bad. But children of Hades were rarely even acknowledged they existed at all, more a myth than the surrounding stories of why the Oracle was trapped in her fleshy prison.

He felt humbled by moments like this, getting to hear a piece of history through the greatest heroes of his time. This poor girl who deserved to have her story told through the children of the gods who had wronged her, the facts; not Travis's old joke she'd slept with the wrong ancient priest.

"I swear," Hades said, "as long as my children remain outcasts, as long as I labor under the curse of your Great Prophecy, the Oracle of Delphi will never have another mortal host. You will never rest in peace. No other will take your place. Your body will wither and die, and still the Oracle's spirit will be locked inside you. You will speak your bitter prophecies until you crumble to nothing. The Oracle will die with you!"

"That was a, surprisingly elegant curse," Alex said in fascination.

"Hades really said I'm sick of being singled out and somebody's going to remember it," Magnus agreed.

Percy shivered down to his core at what he'd heard, a sense of danger that always seemed to follow him he felt sickened over. The worst kind of pain. This wasn't a danger he was afraid of, but knew it meant something to someone else.

The girl screamed, and the misty image was blasted to shreds. Nico fell to his knees in Persephone's garden, his face white with shock. Standing in front of him was the real Hades, towering in his black robes and scowling down at his son.

"And just what," he asked Nico, "do you think you're doing?"

A black explosion filled my dreams. Then the scene changed.

"What, did Hades do to you for that?" Annabeth asked him quietly as Will caught his breath.

"Turned me into a goat for a while, sent me to my room, the usual," Nico shrugged to hide how his hands still shook slightly having that memory forcibly revisited. The empty echo of the emotions he'd felt back then, tied into the crazy mix of feeling it all again with an audience. Gods, was this how Percy felt all the time?

Will bit back the rather important question of how long he'd spent as a goat and how he'd gotten changed back. Pesky details that Nico obviously didn't want to get into right now.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare was walking along a white sand beach.

Percy's eyes burned like she'd kicked sand in his face. His skin twitched uncomfortably, that urge to get up and do something but he had no clue what. Sometimes his dreams were connected and wanted to show him something, but what exactly he was supposed to be putting together here he was fumbling as much as he did every quiz he'd ever been subjected to.

She wore a swimsuit with a T-shirt wrapped around her waist. Her shoulders and face were sunburned.

She knelt and began writing in the surf with her finger. I tried to make out the letters. I thought my dyslexia was acting up until I realized she was writing in Ancient Greek.

That was impossible. The dream had to be false.

Annabeth made a face that very clearly said she'd rather Percy be having a dream that was meant to lead him somewhere rather than an average old night seeing Rachel in swimwear.

Rachel finished writing a few words and muttered, "What in the world?"

I can read Greek, but I only recognized one word before the sea washed it away: Περσεύς. My name: Perseus.

Will hadn't quite realized he'd read over Percy's name the first time because they read through this so naturally. He only realized it when he noticed Jason was trying to crane his neck around Nico to get a look at the book so he could see the Greek on the page for himself.

Percy sighed indulgently as Will showed the book to him, and then Alex and Magnus so they could see some more Greek letters. He'd never been patient enough to sit through his writing class on getting a lowercase Q right, he didn't get the big deal personally.

Rachel stood abruptly and backed away from the surf.

"Oh, gods," she said. "That's what it means."

He didn't get the big deal of what that meant either!

"Has she been, plagued by dreams of what the original Perseaus got up to?" Jason asked hesitantly.

"She said she needed to talk to Percy about something, hopefully she literally meant you and not hoping you could summon ghosts of your name," Alex agreed.

"I feel bad for Percy that even in his native language he still can't read all the material before it's snatched away," Magnus said. Percy actually seemed to enjoy reading sometimes, he might get into it more if other books were magically geared for his brain.

She turned and ran, kicking up sand as she raced back to her family's villa.

She pounded up the porch steps, breathing hard. Her father looked up from his Wall Street Journal.

"Dad." Rachel marched up to him. "We have to go back."

Her dad's mouth twitched, like he was trying to remember how to smile. "Back? We just got here."

"There's trouble in New York. Percy's in danger."

"Did he call you?"

"No . . . not exactly. But I know. It's a feeling."

Mr. Dare folded his newspaper. "Your mother and I have been looking forward to this vacation for a long time."

"No you haven't! You both hate the beach! You're just too stubborn to admit it."

"Now, Rachel—"

"I'm telling you something is wrong in New York! The whole city . . . I don't know what exactly, but it's under attack."

Her father sighed. "I think we would've heard something like that on the news."

"I like that that's his protest," Thalia frowned. "Not, hey, if it's under attack, we're safe here my only child."

"Yeah, don't think anybody's safety has ever been this guy's concern," Percy rolled his eyes.

"No," Rachel insisted. "Not this kind of attack. Have you had any calls since we got here?"

Her father frowned. "No . . . but it is the weekend, in the middle of the summer."

"You always get calls," Rachel said. "You've got to admit that's strange."

Her father hesitated. "We can't just leave. We've spent a lot of money."

"Can not convince me this man doesn't know when to cut his losses," Alex said scathingly. She had a feeling Rachel was going to be one of them someday.

"Depends on the brand of stubborn asshole he is," Magnus scowled.

"Look," Rachel said. "Daddy . . . Percy needs me. I have to deliver a message. It's life or death."

"Can she though?" Jason asked with a raised brow. "Will she be slowed by the magic keeping everyone else out? Is Percy's mom and a handful of others actually awake in the city watching all this?"

"We'll have to put a pin in that one too Jason," Thalia reminded him in a tone only an older sibling can have, one part revenge, one part sympathy, as Percy shivered with distress for that jumble of questions and thoughts now in his head.

"What message? What are you talking about?"

"I can't tell you.

"Then you can't go."

Rachel closed her eyes like she was getting up her courage. "Dad . . . let me go, and I'll make a deal with you."

"Oh, no," Percy said at once, his gut in such painful knots with his stomach even his mom couldn't untie them.

Mr. Dare sat forward. Deals were something he understood. "I'm listening."

"Clarion Ladies Academy. I'll—I'll go there in the fall. I won't even complain. But you have to get me back to New York right now."

"Rachel, no," Percy said again, knowing full well she couldn't hear him, but still having half a mind to somehow storm out of here right now and convince her she was being nuts! He would know, he was an expert on impulsive plans!

He was silent for a long time. Then he opened his phone and made a call.

"Douglas? Prep the plane. We're leaving for New York. Yes . . . immediately."

"That moment where he finally accepts his daughter's brand of crazy and it's still with a string attached," Annabeth said in sympathy Percy heard clear as day in her voice. He licked his lips nervously as his sense of nausea increased like someone was trying to flush his system the wrong way.

Rachel flung her arms around him, and her father seemed surprised, like she'd never hugged him before.

"Oh, gods," Magnus frowned. Why was that easily in the top ten depressing things he'd heard in here?

"I'll make it up to you, Dad!"

He smiled, but his expression was chilly. He studied her like he wasn't seeing his daughter—just the young lady he wanted her to be, once Clarion Academy got through with her.

"Yes, Rachel," he agreed. "You most certainly will."

Rachel wasn't the kind of person to back out of that either, Percy knew without question. Assuming the world still existed up there and wasn't some wasteland of destruction.

Heck, even if it was! And Rachel had somehow been one of the few survivors on earth! She would have honored her promise and still gone to see the stupid building to at least throw a brick at it.

The scene faded. I mumbled in my sleep: "Rachel, no!"

I was still tossing and turning when Thalia shook me awake.

"Something I will always be happy to do for you Perce," Thalia said way to casually, but Percy couldn't even deny he'd like to be awoken from his nightmares more often. Even if it was by her worried expression.

"Hey, if you throw water at Percy to wake him up, does it work?" Jason asked in delight.

"No," Thalia sighed, "I tried that first."

"Of course you did," Percy scowled, he knew he didn't drool on his pillow that much!

"Percy," she said. "Come on. It's late afternoon. We've got visitors."

I sat up, disoriented. The bed was too comfortable, and I hated sleeping in the middle of the day.

"Visitors?" I said.

Thalia nodded grimly. "A Titan wants to see you, under a flag of truce. He has a message from Kronos."

"I need you to tell him very specifically," Alex took a breath, then released a wild raspberry.

She held it too, as long as she could, while Will passed the book to Jason.

"Hang on, stop going to fast," Percy was mock digging through his pockets, "I got to jot this all down!"

She finally ran out of breath and they both started laughing. Annabeth smiled at their antics, she'd been desperately wanting to shake Percy out of his rut of usual pain in knowing something important with Rachel was coming but still unsure what to do without hurting him more by bringing something else up. Alex seemed to have the magic touch for that.

Thalia squeezed her arm again in mutual understanding of that feeling too.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

*I have in fact ridden horses (not pegasi sadly) and motorcycles and they do feel and move completely differently, proving to me that RR has likely not ridden at least one, likely either.

**I would be totally guilty of picking a building for nothing more than the aesthetic. There's a rainbow building in downtown Dallas I've already decided will be my headquarters during the zombie apocalypse. My brother thinks I'm nuts, but he'll regret not thinking ahead like me when he's scrambling for a cool building to stake a claim in.

[obii-wan]

"Worth all this" - Bucky Barnes x f! Reader (Angel Salvadore) / requested by anonymous

This takes place after Cap: Winter Soldier and before Civil War, I know her character doesn't live but she's still alive in this.

Word count: 2.1k

You arrived at the SHIELD base in the midst of chaos, as you saw countless agents running in different paths, in addition to the high security that inspected the place. Of course Bucky Barnes would be responsible for installing his own Armageddon on HYDRA's biggest rival company. When you got the call from Steve Rogers, you didn't expect to hear about the Winter Soldier again, or at least, not in that way.

Captain America was waiting near the entrance next to Sam Wilson, who kept an unfriendly expression, considering that what he had in mind was not exactly trying to save Barnes, but killing him to avoid another massacre.

When you got closer, Rogers handed you a comm to keep in touch, and Wilson introduced himself as you have never met them before. Until then, you only knew about the Avengers from the TV and from all the conversations you heard. You greeted them both as the base crumbled around the three of you.

“So, what's the plan?”, you asked, your wings were ready for the battle that would begin in search of Bucky, who was out there nowhere to be found. Steve sighed, a shadow of regret flitting through his eyes as he spoke about the man who used to be his best friend during the 2940s, and before the super serum.

"Bucky wants to destroy SHIELD, he's in contact with HYDRA", he replied with disgust. You already knew about the feud between the two, you knew that during the last decades, the soldier has been in charge of working in the organization's operations. Especially because, not much more than three years ago, you faced him during an assassination attempt before definitively joining Magneto.

“Do you have a plan?” When you questioned the two men, they were getting themselves ready. Wilson explained he planned to keep the agents busy and away from Barnes, who was on one of SHIELD's ten floors.

“To capture him and maybe keep him in cryo. The only way to stop him, for now, is to freeze him," Rogers sounded bitter. It wasn't exactly what he wanted to do with his former friend, but his brainwashing made it impossible for anyone to get that close. And you knew that.

As you walked through the aisles, you started focusing on a plan that wouldn't involve killing him or even getting yourself killed, which was most likely to happen. You spent almost over fifteen minutes looking for Barnes, when Wilson warned you and Steve that the soldier was in one of the rooms, getting some drive and documents for HYDRA.

Watching all around yourself as you had the impression of seeing his shadow through a door and lowered your pace, you decide to slowly walk as you reached a door on the other side of the aisle. You got a pocket knife out of your combat boot and traced his metal arm.

If you could hit one of the engines, it would slow him down a little. Your tattoo from your back turned into wings, giving you more time to figure out how you could stab his arm in silence. The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, would notice any noise from a certain distance, so that would make him become way more alert than the usual, but you didn't know until you aimed the knife and shot it against him.

The robotic arm calmly reached the object and, in a sharply sudden movement, he threw the knife back. You looked to your left side, the sharp device taped to the wall still quivering. Barnes kept you a machiavellian glare, and ran when he saw the elevator open.

"Shit", you thought, wings nimble in an attempt not to let him get away. Inside the cubicle, you grabbed him around the neck with your legs and pinned him hard against the wall, throwing punches at his face and, unsuccessfully, at his shoulders. He was rock hard, and his left arm kept an almost crushing pressure on your leg. He didn't want to kill you, you could tell, at least from the way he held you.

Until that moment, that was what you tried to rely on, but he threw you against the elevator's wall and pressed his metallic hand against your neck. Bucky still had the same murderous look, the blue eyes sporting a paler, less vivid color. As you panted trying to get all the air you could into your lungs, you tried to hold it together on him, both hands wrapped on his collar to keep it from being choked. You had, you know, a greater weapon than any other object. Acid saliva would be a great ally, but you didn't want to use it to solve the problem.

"Bucky, it's me. Angel, remember?", you asked in a sincere tone of voice, keeping your eyes on him. For a second, his eyes flickered, his pupils dilated and on the back of his mind he could tell he saw you before. The soldier didn't show any emotion when you explained who you were.

"I don't know who you are", he replied in a thin voice, his left arm removing the space in your glottis, making you feel suffocated.

"Oh, but you'll remember", you used the moment to your advantage and dispersed him hitting your knee into his stomach, pressing the button for the elevator door to open. Barnes hesitated for a few seconds, but he pulled himself together as soon as he saw you, while you were running to take him to where Sam would be waiting for him.

"Angel, do not engage," Steve snapped into his earpiece, but you were too busy getting out to avoid being forced to death by the Winter Soldier.

"Too late, Captain. Do any of you know the code with the letters? I'll speak in different words with a letter between them. He's got a ultrasonic ear", you asked. The way you had of communicating with the two of them without Bucky knowing what it was about was strange, but it might work.

"What?" Cap didn't seem to understand, but Wilson got the message.

“Oh, she's going somewhere,” he said. "What's the plan?".

"I'm trying to get you to the helicenter," you explained, as you took a deep breath. "He's very difficult to engage, but I'll try to do it my way".

"If it's necessary, use that acidic saliva on his face at least once", the Falcon said it in a playful way and you laughed. Rogers was worried about his friend's attitude, but he found out it was only a joke to try to break the tension.

"Okay, I'll use myself as bait. Try to track me down."

Sam managed to use one of his mini drones to reach you, since you were five floors above them and the helicenter was two floors away from you.

You used your wings to keep yourself in the air as you were throwing several kicks and punches, while he tried to get rid of the attacks. Barnes was never able to control the brainwashing, and as much as he was trapped inside himself with no way to get rid of the Winter Soldier, he had no other option. What he could do, though, was hold himself out and control his mind to not kill you.

While shooting kicks and punches at him, you brought him to the nearest floor, guiding Steve and Sam, who have already followed the way to find you. Bucky used all his strength and the suspension down with the metal arm, knocking you to the ground.

"For God's sake, Bucky, it's me! It's me, Salvadore," you mentioned when you noticed him keeping the pressure around your neck tighter. The man's grimace frightened you, and you thought about giving up and abandoning him to run away. But if he ran away, countless people could die and you would be the one to blame. He stood millimeters away from your face, one hand still around your neck, while the other one he used to search in his holster for his own weapon.

"I. Don't. Know. Who. You. Are", he repeated the words, as he slammed your body against the ground.

"So I'll help you", you were thinking for a few seconds, but used his distraction to your advantage, while you tangled your legs around his robust body, forcefully taking the gun from his hand. Already loaded, you fired the gun beside Barnes' ear, who recoiled just enough for you to collide with the man's head, shoving the gun on him. You got rid of his weight as he fell beside you unconscious, and you saw Rogers and Sam running towards you.

"We heard a gunshot, is everything ok?", Cap asked as soon as he crouched down, in a protective tone, checking on you. Sam studied the unconscious Barnes and celebrated.

"It was either that, or my acidic saliva," you playfully explained.

Bucky woke up feeling a huge weight on his head, his ear was ringing, and one of his arms was trapped in a vibranium cuff. He looked around, the room quite distinctive compared to a standard hospital room. SHIELD had their eyes on him, but at that moment, the three of you were alone with him with the help of Sharon Carter. The soldier let out a grunt in response to the throbbing pain in his head. He looked to the left side and saw you sitting in an uncomfortable chair, while looking at the full moon through the window.

He sighed, he was tired and he knew he remembered her from the first moment she appeared. On the other side of the room, Steve and Sam approached him, both with their arms crossed.

"Bucky?", the blonde asked, he nodded with his head down. Steve stared at Sam, both looking at each other, and Salvadore got to her feet, getting closer to the bed.

"You wore newspapers in your shoes," he replied, amused but still bitter. Rogers knew that no one would know as much about him as his former friend.

"Good to see you again, Bucky", you looked at him and received a pleading look. Your faces spoke to each other. "Do you remember me now?"

"I remember everyone," the tone that came out of his mouth couldn't almost be heard. His face was still staring at the floor. "All the ones I killed and the ones I almost killed."

He glanced at Steve and Sam, the last time they saw each other was at the assassination attempt with the Hellicarriers in Washington. At the time, Barnes brought Cap back from the water, where they both nearly drowned.

Both Steve and Wilson noticed you would like to talk to the soldier in front of you and left the two of you alone in the room. You dragged a chair next to him and sat down.

"Next time you don't cooperate, I'll do as Sam said", your hand reached the shoulder of his bionic arm, where you deposited a suggestive slap, he laughed softly.

Barnes looked up and stared at you, blue eyes sparkling, flickering. You noticed how different he is when he's brainwashed. His pupils, hiding the ocean behind all of that darkness he had. When he's James Bucky Barnes, you're able to see through them, as clear as water.

"Thanks for saving me. I don't know if I'm worth all this," he said. You understand that living inside a head like his leads to endless questions about life, getting second chances, receiving your redemption.

You bit your inner lower lip and placed your hand on the man's chin, lifting his neck in a demonstration that he cannot lower his head and bow down for HYDRA to control him.

"That's not you, Bucky. You're here and now we're going to help you get out of this whole thing."

"All they have to do is say the damn words, I have no control over that", the taste in his mouth was bitter, and so was the tone in his voice.

"You'll be fine," you assured. With his free hand, he took yours. "I'll let you rest".

On an impulse, as you made your way to place a kiss on his forehead, he pulled your neck up and laced your lips with his in a lingering, wet kiss.

The air in the room seemed to have dissipated and it seemed increasingly difficult to breathe during those few seconds. With his forehead against yours and his hand tangled in your hair, Barnes let out between his lips on yours: "I can't thank you enough."

You knew you did the right thing when you decided to agree to help Steve and Sam capture Barnes. You knew that there was an exchange of energy before that had been there for a long time, bound to happen at any moment.

The first time around, things didn't work out the way they should have, but you knew the man behind the Winter Soldier, you knew that behind that stout body, that metallic arm with the imprint of his long past, he was worth all that.

[larrythefloridaman]

Rewatch notes, Dr. Order arc edition! My notes are getting longer and longer as the story gets denser. I fear what comes when we start hitting The Big Ones. Pray for me. These are just notes for 15 and gaiden 2, and this post will be updated as i make my way through.

CPUK15. goggle……………

Representing Calibur, Google, the green roy! Google being created from the base of Bing after she lost to him last tournament 'with Bing's weaknesses buffed out,' is established out the gate as a strong local theory. Comona believes in Google's potential, praising his pedigree and ability to analyze data and general knowledge base about combat, being that he's a search engine.

Cash Money, Instajennifer! Instajen is on a quest to become the biggest influencer on the planet, and film a sponsored makeup tutorial between her matches. Here to show up and show off. She will beat you to death and take a selfie with your corpse.

Team Cones, the Red Shadow. A funny prankster type. A greninja with the prankster ability. Puts whoopee cushions on benches and replaces sugar packets with salt and such.

Team Clutch, Alabaster Uppercut <3 funny punch man

Team Chonk, in his first solo debut since death, The Gruuuuuunk, back and better than ever! Comona: "im going to kiss home md on the mouth for bringing him back." Ryan: "its what he deserves."

Team Charm, described here as a team of positivity and niceness and such rather than the usual very explicit do-gooder description, represented by Prism. Hi prism. here to right crimson's wrongs :)

Team Cracken, Patchman! The pac is back. Man of the earth.

Team Cross, a celebration of all things crossover, today we have the one the only Miles Edgeworth. Or so he claims.

Exhibition match, Minecraft Steve vs. Therapuppy! Guess steve didnt get kicked out like i thought, forgot this match happened. I forgot a lot of exhibition matches. Therapuppy makes simple work of him.

TWOOOOOOO bamamas

Google vs. Prism. First match of the night. Comona thinks Prism has an edge in this match by her command of her lil creatures, but based on bing's performance and what hes heard about Goog being more reliable, Goog won't be going down without a fight. Prism lays down a LOT of damage very quickly but Goog takes first stock with a good edgeguard and dashdances on her for good measure. Commentators note Google is very different from bing in terms of combat behavior- strong reliable momentum and much less reliant on comeback factor. Google gets good damage on her and spikes her with a viciousness for the second stock before prism can even take his first. Google doesnt want to let you live past 70%. Prism manages to take it to last stock with some careful comboing. Google takes round one after a nailbiting match.

Ryan: "Spoiler Alert, can't wait for the round three." Comona: "you say that as though you know its already going to happen." Ryan, smugly: "hmmmmm."

They discuss how Google does his best taking stocks as early as possible, when he's fighting from a position where he doesn't have to be afraid to commit to an action, and so if Prism can survive until Google starts getting nervous, she can win. Prism has advantage on the second match stage, and makes quick work to combo him to death, dragging him down to last stock before she even has 50% on her second. Google is trying So hard to spike her and its not working. Prism baits google offstage at just the wrong time and he SDs, using up his jumps and upsmash trying to make it back up to the stage as it moves upwards away from them, Prism's squirtle able to make it back where he can't. The prophesied third round comes and Prism keeps firm control of the stage, losing one stock but taking all three of google's, the last stock with a vicious spike to match the one Google landed on her in their first match, sending Google to Loser's.

Alabaster vs. Red Shadow. Commentators comment on the big color theme going on at the moment. Ryan: "fortunately none of them are crimson specifically." Comona: "just regular ol red." Ryan: "just normal red. crimson is gone." lol. lmao. yeah he sure is

This match is so silly-goofy. Red Shadow a pride and joy of team cones with regard to getting funny with it. Goes stock for stock, until the Red Shadow dominates the last stock with a viciousness. Hes getting silly with it but he still doesn't want to lose to Al. Game 2 Alabaster is taking things more seriously too, the commentators plead with him to remeber who he is, to not lose sight of it, and hes doing good, aaaaaand he sds right on time for it to be a last stock situation. and then shortly after Al chokes again. Ryan: "now he's gonna have to fight Google in losers, thats not gonna be fun for him!" Lives are about to be changed 👍

Team Clutch and Team Cones are described as having an interesting specific sort of rivalry- Salt of the Earth training buffs and tricksy bitches.

The Gruuuuuunk vs. Patchman. Patchman is going to lose and the commentators know it. Grunk takes round one as predicted. Patchman did better than expected but the grunk cant be stopped. Patch manages to take first stock in the second round but, as predicted, the Grunk aint losing this one.

'Miles Edgeworth' vs. Instajennifer. Weird ass matchup. Commentators have nothing to say about it its weird. The commentators DO comment on how odd Miles' general willingness to scrap is. Comona comments on how weird it is that 'Edgeworth's' using some sword from the evidence room. Ryan points out how illegal that is "but its fine." Instajen is parrying for the clout. She was in the lead for a wild amount of time before 'miles' took it. Instajen's taunts are tiktok dances. 'Miles' is being Cruel in the second round. I do not know how jen took round 2 but it did piss 'edgeworth' off enough to threestock in round 3. Instajennifer #autopsyreport

Ryan: "I dont know if we're gonna have a fun character arc this week like we did last but we've got plenty of fun matches on hand regardless." He says during a break, immediately before Google vs Alabaster,

Google, a creation made to be perfect but already in losers bracket vs Alabaster, a guy who's never made it past 5th place but intends to make a name for himself regardless. Comona and Ryan discuss the idea of doing a 'worst of the worst' tournament featuring the most shameful, embarrassingly bad fighters immediately after introducing Al. Mean to him. Not wrong but mean to him. Anyway theres no faith in Al's chances against goog. Goog's peeved and has something to Prove. This desperateness to prove himself makes him easier to rattle, and Al does pretty damn good right up until google fucking Gets him at the end.

Comona says what ive been thinking since season one and forgot they said, that being. Again. Al is very strong hes just not up to par with insane battle freaks. Hes yamcha or tien or krillin hes good! Hes good as fuck! he just cant fucking keep up with superhumans! Hes a star member of team clutch not for his record, but for his spirit. Al takes stock one in round 2 with Pinball Variation. They're trading blows and it's all very anime. Al keeps a lead for a while in the second match until Google pinballs his ass right back and then takes his last stock at 200%.

Field report: Al laughs off his loss with a respectful thumbs up and starts to walks away. Google: "I don't GET IT. You always come back for more despite the fact you've never put up a performance befitting that of a competitor- what brings you BACK, alabaster uppercut?" Alabaster: "take a look around, google. Take a look around this great world we live in. Maybe then you'll see why I keep coming back." iconic moments in kerfuffle history. Comona's goog voice is so funny its so growly and anime-arrogant compared to what Holly does with him later that sticks, the whole 'a bit odd and softspoken but fiery' vibe he gets later

Google, starting to have his identity crisis: "do you think i was born yesterday?! I mean, it was last week, technically…" and then gets real quiet. 

Patchman vs Instajen. Comona anticipates a long set. CPUK provides coca cola as refreshments to workers like the social media interns who are not allowed to leave their desk while a tournaments running. and if you want pepsi theyre giving you coke and you have to be okay with that. you have to. Patchman is described as one of the more particularly intelligent salt of the earth types here

Patchman dominates a bit first match but, instajen, always dedicated to style, after taking patch's first stock, almost zero-to-death's the second. Doesn't pull out a win though. Ryan: "I will point out that in this tournament every fighter except Alabaster Uppercut has won a game. F." Second match is pretty close and goes to instajen with a decisive stomp Ryan says her stans would be envious of. Third match goes pretty similar, sending patchman home downtrod and disappointed.

Corn is an instajen stan. and freaked out about her dad getting to meet her in bracket. funny to me.

Prism vs. The Red Shadow. :) prism is built different and is not intimidated by some romhack'd red greninja. Red shadow canonically laughs like tim curry pennywise. Prism fights vicious and red shadow struggles hard to find a kill. Prism wins match one and she's white woman smiling at a glaring Red Shadow. The Red Shadow is 3-stocked on Dracula's Castle and becomes The Prismatic Shadow, after Prism has a little conversation with him :)

Ryan: "he's joined the prism club." Comona: "yeah, prism has that effect on people. I wonder if this means he'll- not FULLY take a step back from, still team cones, right-? But try to keep the prankster mischief to more of the tactical use rather than trying to be tricky at every turn." Ryan: "less about being unexpected, and more about being unexpected EFFECTIVELY." Comona: "when you can expect the unexpected its not really unexpected anymore." :)

The Grunk vs. 'Miles Edgeworth!' Pikachu weight. Goes very very close, but the grunk keeps a strong lead until last stock of the first match where 'Miles' takes it. 'Miles Edgeworth' lives in northern crater. Ryan: "where was this sauce when we actually introduced sephiroth?" Comona: "maybe its because its red sephiroth?" Ryan: "maybe. its that crimson magic*. *not actual crimson." Next match progresses much more evenly, with miles taking the lead at stock two. The Grunk pulls out the win in the end though, as predicted, and does so for the last match as well.

Chat Member: "Miles was the prosecutor in the Grunk's murder trial before he got revived and he's salty because he didn't get paid because the trial was canceled when The Grunk came back." The commentators laugh and roll with it, canonizing it. Ryan: "and the defendant was just an interdimensional demon! Whatever." Okay I just want to pick this scenario apart for a second because holy god its so. Its just so. Every time i remember this and that the Grunk's death was an accident i lose it all over again. Captain Crimson just standing over the Grunk's crimson-melted corpse while Val and Crimson do that one scene from one tree hill people animate their morally bankrupt ocs to (crimson, realizing uncomfortably its taking a weirdly long time for the grunk to arise anew as a Cool Evil Corrupted Beast: "well. I guess he could be dead by now." While Valentine panics about a body in a soundstage, HIS SOUNDSTAGE,) in his head. Captain Crimson got dragged into detention and might've plead oopsie daisies. The Grunk presumably canceled his own murder trial and pursued no other charges??? Valentine is the only person in this scenario probably having a relatively normal emotional reaction to being made an accomplice to manslaughter because this whole thing is a goof and a bit. Valentine brings up very pointedly the grunk's own murder charges in cpuk23, presumably either shortly before or after learning they're all fictional characters given its around this time he starts more officially becoming a full part of staff and not just an event emcee, and is understandably Fucking Stunned by Grunk's 'wheres my trophy?' response. Crimson, who has known this is comedic fiction the whole time but doesn't tell anyone that because it would be 'more trouble than its worth', as of CPUK Orange, does not appear to understand why his manslaughter accomplice doesnt want to hang out anymore when he's like, pretty sure there were no LASTING consequences. its all, just SO MUCH,

'Miles edgeworth' vs. Google. Ryan: "imagine trying to sue google." Googles described as having kind of an introspective air about him, thinking on his conversation with Al. Google SD's first stock, and never quite gets the momentum going enough to manage more than one kill, 'miles' capitalizing on his distraction. Comona: "somethings fried his circuits a bit." Ryan: "somethings Up with google." Comona: "definitely not feeling the same as he was at the start."

Miles is taunting him. "Fool. You consider yourself to be an antagonary force? You're such a fool to think so- you don't even have the power to take down someone like myself! After all, who else have you lost against- that Prism fellow? Please. If you wish to be an antagonist, and see the world as truly dark, you have so much to go. Dr. Order created you to be the perfect being- and look at you. You're nothing. Trash." Google: "Listen… here, 'Miles.' I was made to be the Ultimate Fighter. I was made to win. But now I'm realizing- theres more to this than winning, theres more to this than kicking your ass! But thats not going to stop me!" And round 2 commences.

Comona: "are we even sure this is miles edgeworth-? I know he can be cold but-" this thought is interrupted by some Sick Plays. 'Miles' does some serious damage to goog, but goog takes first stock and Fast. 'Miles' takes it right back. Goog is getting fiery and 'Miles' stays cool under pressure. Ryan and Comona describe how quickly Goog's flipped from antagonism in his match with Al to more antiheroic behavior. The match is fast and frenetic and Google just barely survives offstage and manages to take 'Miles' last stock. 'Miles': "Finally acting like the competitor you're supposed to be." Goog is silent. They go to warioware. Goog demolishes the first stock. Miles Edgeworth has a bad history with elevators. Goog keeps a firm two-stock lead and completes the win. 'Miles,' after losing, pulls out a phone: "Doctor? The deed is done." And walks out.

Miles picked that stage. Miles Edgeworth Would Never Set Foot In An Elevator. Thats Not Edgeworth. Thats just sephiroth with a red coat.

Google shows a 'return to form' with that match, by the commentators observation.

Prismatic Shadow vs. Instajen. If instajen wins shes gotten farther than the person who three-stocked her. Instajen fumbles round one hard and shadow takes it. Instajen zero to deaths shadow for the first stock of round 2. Instajen's the kind of person that doesn't take flops hard, Instajen: "just make another post girl. Just make another post." Instajen pulls out a win for round two, taking it to game 3.

FUCK spectrum. Commentators are venting about the internet provider. Comona: "the only spectrum I care about is the spectrum of colors these fighters bring to the stage. Round three!" The shadow drops stocks way too early, and ultimately Jen takes it.

Prism vs. The Gruuuuuuunk, winners finals. The connection starts getting Crunchy and Prism loses her first stock Very early. Grunk bodyblocks her off the ledge to take stocks twice, and the third Prism loses all on her own as frames continue to drop. A chat member suggests shes throwing on purpose because she wants to meet Instajennifer in losers. Second Round is on Prism Tower, PURE homecourt pick, but to the Grunk, Everywhere is home, and it doesnt take long before he crushes Prism's first stock. Prism takes the lead before last stock, but again as the frames are dropping, she fails to recover. She do be performing worse when the connection is weak. 15 is sliced into two vods due to technical difficulties.

Ryan: "spectrum iiiis dead. im killing spectrum personally, actually. Spectrum is the final boss of CPU Kerfuffle. The crimson is spectrum." All of these statements are hilarious in their own ways with time

Google vs. Instajennifer! Insta fumbles round one pretty hard. Ryan: "round one goes to google in a heartbeat of a match! I dont know what that means." Chat suggests the stage was bad for jen because it was a bad environment for selfies and such. Round 2 gets off to a better start for Jen, the two of them dancing around eachother and Jen landing her smash attacks much better, and this match looks considerably more even, but goog still takes it, beating Insta 2-0. She takes one more selfie in front of the stadium and makes her exit.

Goog vs. Prism- the runback. Google doesn't do too hot against Prism's charizard in particular, losing two stocks before taking one of hers. Google's so off his game at this point and cannot seem to find an opening against her. Prism seems to favor her Charizard, Fuschia, somewhat, throwing out flare blitzes like candy, taking first match. Goog's composure between his and Prism's first set and the runback has changed dramatically- the first angry, standoffish, but this time, he's laughing off his loss. Chat Member: "hes reading the results page for how to beat Prism." 

Prism keeps a lead on Goog throughout their second match as well. Ryan: "if im google, im going in on this second match. Granted, I'm not Google. Maybe he knows something I dont." :)

Google, slowly standing up after getting 2-0'd by Prism: "...huh. Thanks Alabaster." And he walks out. Ryan: "not sure how well thats gonna go over with Dr. Order, but I guess we'll see."

Grand Finals! Grunk vs. Prism again. Ryan points out how hard Prism threw in their last match, so anything's possible here. He suggests that maybe the reason she threw was wanting to see google again for some reason, but he's not sure. She sure did take both his sets.

Squid Jenny's investigation of 'miles edgeworth's' identity is still ongoing, but its looking like he IS in fact sephiroth from sephiroth- and while saying this ryan gets a dm from sephiroth asking if there's a purpose for followers only chat.

Grunk and Prism on Pictochat, Prism loses first stock before the Grunk even has 40% and Prism's Ivysaur comes charging out in defense of their funny turtle friend. Perhaps Prism's pokemon do have personalities and feelings and such; she just ignores them because they're tools and extensions of her as a fighter. Would make sense. Prism manages to put damage on the grunk fast enough to take his first stock before he puts much on her second, but the Grunk takes her second stock with a viciousness and her third with a footstool.

Thank you Sephiroth For The Follow!

Round 2: Pokemon Stadium. Funny lizart fight. Grunk SDs, but takes Prism's first stock right back pretty quickly. They scrap, Fuschia and Grunk fuckin. Beam struggle with their fire breath before Prism finishes Grunk's second stock with a flare blitz. Last stock is pretty even right up until Prism pulls out Viridian and Grunk sends her straight to hell. The Grunk is our First Place Winner of CPUK 15! The Grunk's feeling the thrill for combat is extra special now after he spent a bit being dead. The Grunk only lost one match the whole tournament to miles. came back Strong.

Title Match! Ryan: "imagine dying and coming back just to become champion. Absolute zombie madman. Love him." Grunk vs. Captain Valentine! All things considered? Pretty awkward. There is no comment made on it before match start, however. Capn Val always a people pleaser, keeps it stylish, keeps it even, keeps it a show. Ryan: "I wonder if Captain Valentine's ever faced the Grunk- back when he was Captain Crimson, I know, but I wonder if any of those memories were retained from the experience." Does that happen? Does getting possessed by Crimson fuck with your memory? Do crimson'd bitches got partial amnesia? It doesn't seem like it with his other hosts, and Val's characterized later as just. Really Not Wanting To Talk About It with regard to the whole Crimson debacle so it honestly wouldnt stun me if he lied about not having much memory of the whole ordeal to. Again. Avoid Talking About It.

Last stock situation. Chat: "Wasn't Val kinda the one to kill him?" Ryan: "well, it was the crimson specifically, not sure if he was the one it was possessing at the time but it was, again, the Crimson specifically." Huh. I guess mayhaps Val Could've been the one in control of his body when appraising the potential candidates for moving forward with the distaste for ICEE and Dadondorf, while Crimson himself was off elsewhere doing a Corruption, in theory. when he's not in crimsonaut specifically and healthy enough to manifest physically he Can operate separate from a host, after all. Buuuuuut, the Grunk seems to be not particularly happy with or fond of Val- described as being particularly irritated with his loss to Val in this championship match but walking off reminding himself that 'at least hes not Dead this time,' which i think is. Strong enough evidence for me that Val was Physically Present for and Part Of that interaction. oofa doofa

After a chat member asks Ryan to stall for time while they finish their fanart, ryan pulls up a grudge match he'd meant to do earlier and forgotten- Outside the arena. Squid Jenny's catching a live feed. Google shouts for someone to come out, because he knows they're watching. And, out from a bush, Dr. Order appears. Order, who apparently either wasn't watching or is checking to see if he'll lie: "so. did you succeed?" Google, laughing: "you think it's all about winning, huh?" Order: "you were supposed to win the tournament and become the champion." Google: "yeah, well, I didn't. What the hell are you gonna do about it?" And so the match begins. Order takes first stock and Fast, but google puts on damage real fast too, uppercutting her AND sending her soccer ball back at her at the same time for a very funny series of hits. funny ball classic. 

Goog takes her second stock before she can take his, but she takes it to even last stocks shortly after, but Order cant put damage on as fast as goog does and takes it. Google: "I'm done with you." Order: "Good! I don't want losers on my side." And the live feed cuts. Ryan: "soooooo. Google might need therapy. But that's okay, that's what therapuppy's for."

Its gaiden time bitch!!!! This ones gonna be fuuuuuun to make notes for what with the whole point of Gaidens being expanding on The Lore.

Order offered Comona a pastrami bagel sandwich from the 'concession stand' (the fridge.) Ryan Does Not Trust The Food Here. They're recording live from the labordertory for, not a kerfuffle proper, but an inhouse tournament. The commentators were invited both to keep things entertaining, and show off her fearsome creations to the world.

Ryan: "Dr. Order's got one goal- well, a lot of goals but the main thing right now is that she wants to create the ultimate fighter, a being capable of winning CPU Kerfuffle." 16 person single elimination tournament, because Order's got a lot of bastards to evaluate and she doesn't tolerate losers. She wouldn't let her champion be someone who'd proven themself capable of failing.

Order, in order to set up this tournament, set off a 'biological amber alert,' placed in every one of her creations' bodies that recalls them to the lab. Ryan: "not ALL of the creations answered the call to come back- if you recall google from last tournament, he isn't here- but there are other creations who didn't bother to come back due to, y'know, just general dislike." This is one of those little lore bits thats so fucked up. So fucked up. Dr. Order can and will just ping a fucker's brain. Imagine being traumatized by a fucked up science lady and finding out she can just ping your Fucking Brain whenever she wants. No ignoring her! No pretending she can't hurt you anymore! She's in your Fucking Brain Now! Between this and things like the nccts' remotely triggered perfect spriteman transformation and Larry and J0hn's whole Bit. 'someone has done something to your body. A violation. A permanent damage. You might have agreed to it in theory, you might not have, but it doesn't matter. it wasn't supposed to be like this, and either way, things will never be the same. you don't have the same control over it anymore. All you can do is manage what comes in the aftermath.' hits. sci-fi flavored medical malpractice trauma

Also between this ping system and Quad's fucking bio-signature radar shit for finding her that led him to susan (which her other creations potentially also have, assuming theyre not One And The Same Function, given Larry's vague comment of 'also getting the vibes' from Susan when Quad and the tests came back positive for a match, the arrogance is on full display. Woman with SO many experiments that hate her: 'i will give them all an innate radar for finding their all-important creator. Surely they will not ultimately unionize and kill me' its more shocking that they mostly didnt than if they would have. Im not even ten minutes into this episode,

First up- the Dimensional Bus. Jay usually takes it to get here for commentating, being from another dimension and all, but he's not here because the bus is busy with this. Chat member: "is this just the magic school bus?" Ryan: "kind of, it is a living, breathing bus, except this one can go between dimensions while that one could only really go through Arnold."

Returning fighter, Dan in his miserable new job as a lab assistant! Allegedly got fired from his ICEE job because he uppercutted an ICEE machine and busted it, so now hes here. People's champ! 

Another returning fighter and fan favorite, Machiavelli! He was excited for this! His first tournament was so fun!!! He's excited for this!

Mach 2! A supposed evolution upon Machiavelli's floorplan, created as a backup in case Machiavelli ever defected, and, due to this and how beloved Machi is, (and by design, as we later learn when CPUK Orange rolls around,) Mach 2 has developed a bit of an inferiority complex and intends to prove himself the better of the two. According to the submission, not exactly a clone of machiavelli, but made from the same core genetic base but with alterations, taking loose inspiration for the shape of him somewhat from Machi's friendship with genfour, previously genwun, hence the pokemon-ish appearance. I think Mach 2 brought this up in 23, i don't remember the exact words but I recall him taking offense to the label of Clone and going 'im not a clone! Im not a clone! I read my file Im Not A Clone!'

Perfect Spriteman! The commentators were surprised to learn Spriteman's new and dreadful form had been the Doctor's doing. He has been a plant for months please god someone help him

Winston Overwatch fell from the moon and got taken in by Dr. Order in exchange for his collaboration and Winston's fine with this as long as he gets some ankles out of the deal. Winston, audibly smiling: "Im only going to be using my ultimate in this game! Because Im Mad As Fuck!" His guns and such are not allowed in the lab because Dr. O doesn't trust him not to break anything.

Google Plus. She just made another one. partly out of spite, partly just to even her roster back out after his defection, with what she deemed Google's biggest flaws removed. 'It doesnt feel, think, or grow- just a series of if-then statements that does nothing of its own volition.' Ryan: "I think Order's goal here is to just. Not get the shit beaten out of her by a web browser anime boy gijinka this time." Comona: "never again." Ryan: "I mean. We'll see what happens."

Hackerbot J0hn! Ryan talks about j0hn like a fully robotic, fully artificial guy who can just disguise as being realistically human if so desired for much of this episode, although this is later determined not to be the case. Dr. Order's primary goal in modifying john was apparently exactly what was technically achieved- to create a machine that appears human in every way- finding means of emulating emotion and appearance and everything through machinery- and is capable of modifying and improving upon itself. she just apparently achieved this by extensively cyborg-ing a hacker and roboticist who already knew how to do that stuff to other robots. with ryan later implying she did very little to ensure his survival of the process of getting cyborg'd, and how her creations keep wising up and ditching her, boy howdy j0hn really was just a trial run in every way for her. She was a total lamo to j0hn's entire body indeed. With how much monitoring she did of all her creations and the tournament overall, I wonder if she ever attempted to plagiarize any of j0hn's self-modification or did he and larry rip the spyware type shit out of themselves first and foremost. Could larry even safely remove that stuff given hes much more uh. Flesh-y? questions questions questions. 

Anyway. j0hn can in fact switch freely between -bot and -man form without issue so again, the sweating and discomfort described from his intro ep switch is Interesting, especially considering other instances of what can be retroactively ascribed to some level of script-awareness.

My Grunk! Its zombie! Mean-spirited parody of Home's revival of the grunk. Comona: "not only poorly executed, but tasteless!" Ryan: "yeah, dr. order, wheres your ethics? Your Hip Of Cratic Oath?"

Subzero Amalgam- this one was just order fucking around. She was curious about the experience of sustained extreme cold, and so she made a guy who is always extremely fucking cold. She, apparently, just found other uses for him and his nature later. Its interesting to me that subzero is one of the doctors' only creations that remains loyal to her and probably the only one that remained loyal that isn't being naive as of the nccts and is also one of the only ones that wasn't made with a particularly restrictive goal in mind- he was made to be cold. Hes cold. Hes succeeded by nature of birth and cannot fail her because that was all he was meant for in the first place, everything else is just a bonus.

The Carrot Collective! Was supposed to be an olimar. lol. According to the submission information, a psychic hivemind of carrots grown by patch farms in collaboration with Dr. Order. Each individual body's life is very short, but more sprout up to replace them and the collective mind lives on unaffected. The fighter bodies we see are little mechas the carrots pilot for smash purposes because its difficult to have a traditional and fair 3-stock game against an army of regeneratively immortal psychic carrots. Likes to be called C.C. for short. 

Crimsonaut. Little guy!!! Beloved!!! Dr. Order launched this little dude into The Crimson (location) to research it's nature and he came back from that little expedition Perfectly Fine, aside from some very permanently dyed gear. Totally uncontaminated otherwise, he was carefully screened upon his return. (lol. lmao.) Does have a bit of a personal bone to pick with the doctor due to the overall inhumane and scary nature of said forced research trip, though. The carrots like him, so some of them have a tendency to follow him around too.

Zapmouse! Angy rat that hates the doctor so so so much. so so so so so so so much. Dr. Order subjected him to Fuckt Up Experimence and he showed up to the tournament looking for an opportunity for revenge.

Nuke Suit! Somewhat unstable robot suit powered thoroughly by nuclear energy.

Recon Riley! Dr. Order's intel specialist, modified for stealth and acting as her spy on kerfuffle since the tournaments started. If Dr. O needed to know something about any given fighter, Riley's on the job. Genderfluid and uses any pronouns interchangeably.

There was one last open position that the doctor expected someone to arrive to fill- specifically Not google- but they never showed up, and so Sephiroth stepped into that empty placement in the Doctor's tournament. Think the implication with the twist grudge match at the end of this gaiden is that this spot was meant for Larry.

Dr. Order and Sephiroth fight for the exhibition. Sephiroth takes the win as expected.

First match- My Grunk vs. The Carrot Collective! Ryan: "I think Dr. Order's operating on a misled hypothesis- I think she thinks what's made The Grunk so strong is being brought back from the dead, but i think its more complicated than that. the grunk has a spirit that doesn't really… translate. My Grunk is very Zombielike. No life in him. No spirit. Now the carrot collective? I see spirit there." funny

My Grunk struggles with KOs, a single carrot surviving to almost 200% on first stock. Ryan: "My Grunk being this archetype of character requires a lot of micromanaging and planning the original grunk was not slowed down by. The Grunk was not and did not need to be… cunning." Comona: "theres a difference between a natural raw fighting instinct and battling with a spartan mind. and the grunk is not the latter." The match keeps close, but the carrots take it. Ryan has to fix the overlay and almost accidentally puts captain crimson in trying to put up the carrots. Comona: "that man is never allowed back in here again. That man is banned. From Life, even."

Chat member: "dr. order is just recording everything you guys say commentating, are y'all like… okay with that?" Ryan: "shes been monitoring everything thus far already and she hasn't gotten anything from our commentating so far, I don't see what difference it makes." Comona: "we broadcast on public channels, the information's already out there regardless." Ryan: "its about as much our fault as anybody's." sure bud.

Grunk WOULD play minceraft. But not hardcore mode he'd last all of seven minutes

My Grunk manages to take it to a game 3, munching on some nerfed meat. Comona: "NEVER NERF GRUNK'S MEAT!" Ryan: "I had a bit of discussion with Dr. Order about the Carrot Collective- we dont know a lot about these fighters, a lot of these guys are new- and while my grunk is pretty self-explanatory, just kind of mindless, yknow, like a zombie, Carrot Collective actually, is a collaborative effort with patch farms and is a relative to Corn on the Cob and the like." Comona: "I like that, its nice." Ryan: "just a nice little happy family!"

The carrots have a very funny SD and do not successfully climb out of the deficit it puts them in, and theyre first out of the tournament to the commentators and chat's disappointment. Dr. Order mentions disinterestedly the Collective's interest in joining up with Team Craken, so its not like they're going away. Ryan almost gave the win to the carrots by accident and the commentators reassure us that they would Never alter the results of a tournament in their own interest because theyre a respectable, upstanding establishment. Somewhere plum sneezes 

Round 2, the unstable nuclear suit, vs. Machiavelli! Comona: "a lot of people arent gonna want to fight that, theyre gonna be like 'oh no, i dont know, what if something goes wrong-' Machiavelli does not care about that." Ryan: "Machiavelli's here to have a good time even if that means endangering everyone." Machiavelli LOVES to smash nuclear weaponry with comically oversized looney tunes mallet

Nuke suit was designed for anti-air capabilities and Machi loves to float, so round one is mostly a learning experience. I wonder how, with how order is, that Machi's so thoroughly decided 'fighting is for having fun and playing <3' moreso than winning. particularly in ncct 1 that interaction where they excitedly say they think larry's closer to the ultimate fighter because he's so versatile, 'shifty all the time!' even though he lost, and all.

Machi does a silly little happy dance when he takes nuke suits second stock in the second match. Machi's playing baseballs with Rockets. Machi, lets nuke suit take it to last stock for fun, for the Excitement, and eats a 2-0 for it. Nuke suit moves on. Order doesnt particularly react to this, just keeping a close eye on the nuke suit's instability. Machi and the Carrots leave to hang out in the lab's breakroom.

Zapmouse vs Winston Overwatch. A haunted rat in a haunted lab, seeking the most violent sort of revenge… and a funny monkey also. Winston wants to use zapmouse like a gun and zapmouse is Not Having It. Zapmouse plays careful and smart and gets a solid damage lead at the start in the first match but unfortunately, his opponent is A Fucking Gorilla. Zapmouse prevents a 3 stock but Winston wins handily. Winston has made an enemy today. Second match is much more even. Zapmouse loves zapping people off ledges. Winston swats him like a fly for last stock, winning 2-0. Zapmouse wanders off snarling.

Sephiroth taking the absentee spot and subzero amalgam is introed with Hey Ya- WHATS COOLER, THAN BEING COOL. Ryan: "so, we dont really know much about subzero amalgam personality-wise, but we do know subzero was only made to make a guy that knows what itd be like to be very very cold. So judging from that I cant imagine subzero's a very big fan of doctor order." Comona: "Subzero's actually so cold, its vocal box doesn't work properly, so it all just comes out as beeps. If Subzero was able to be warmer he would sound like a relatively normal man." nccts said 'lol. lmao. subzero's actually one of her only creations thats loyal to her still and is probably one of the most eloquent of them all when those beeps are translated <3'

Puzz asks in chat if subzero amalgam has any connection to ICEE and ryan says ICEE might be willing to eat him if you artificially flavored him. if he weren't sentient making that effectively cannibalism, of course. but there's no connection. awesome

Commentators keep ascribing a deathwish to subzero due to the horrors of being cruelly made just to be so very VERY cold. Subzero loses and Ryan says subzero's mostly just upset he isn't dead yet. Also that Subzero and Zapmouse are suffering buddies. Subzero left pretty much immediately after losing 2-0 to sephiroth, wandering off for whatever reason. 

Spriteman vs. Hackerbot J0hn! Comona praises J0hn and Spriteman's professionalism, and Ryan says the report from the field is that J0hn will swap back to human form if bot form proves disadvantageous. It proves disadvantageous. Perfect Spriteman is vicious and playing honest with the projectiles is NOT helping, and Bot form is going in his pocket for now as we get a scene, heard through the Copious Amount of Recording Equipment in the lab, Because the Dr. Is A Freak About It. J0hn: "you… you bastard. You used to be just like me- what happened? Why did you abandon who you were?" Perfect Spriteman, trying to speak and failing: "sprite… sprite…" J0hn, clearly disturbed: "....what the Fuck? Okay??? Alright??? I mean I went with this form because I was expecting a pushover, but maybe I was wrong. Let's do this motherfucker."

Comona speculates Dr. Order doesn't really like or want J0hn hanging around the lab in -Man form because that hacking sword is Worrying for her. Also suggests J0hn can hack opponent's minds to read for what they're going to try next, which... thats an application of script awareness/sensitivity ive wondered about before- if you can read the script and someone's current thoughts are important enough to get logged in it wouldnt that make you effectively Slightly, Incidentally capable of reading minds, if only usually for the Narratively Important ™️ bits, and communication over the script in a telepathy-like form is smthn that happens a few times during the nccts between people capable of percieving and manipulating it, particularly cosmic with the other non-cobalt gods. Certain workings of the script appearing to function like supernatural psychic phenomena to the unknowing eye. Chartreuse and Crimson have had unsecured script-based twin telepathy and known they were fictional characters since they were like. born probably. and just. never directly told or explained any of this to cobalt ever and still havent. Im rambling this tangent's barely relevant to the gaiden at hand

J0hn takes first stock with an effective usage of glass cannon protocol (smash art.) Sprite is dissolving the plant's brain and he is playing DUMB this match, j0hn taking it to a round 3.

Perfect Spriteman is just gasping and sputtering 'sp-sprite…' and J0hn looks on. "Jesus Christ, what'd Doctor Order do to you…? Looks like I gotta get you back to the way you used to be, my man." Ryan sets the rule as: if J0hn wins with two stocks or more, spriteman will be cured. J0hn is decidedly doing considerably better in -man form, but alas Spriteman is still a vicious battle freak. J0hn, after losing: "wish the best for ya, my man. If you ever feel like coming back to reality, I'll be right here for ya."

Crimsonaut vs Google Plus! Crimsonaut described as being of a nervous disposition, but again, Ticked Off about Dr. Order abandoning him in an alternate evil dimension that he 'barely made it out of with his life' and Google Plus as not really… having a personality yet. Just if/then statements. Crimsonaut, to Dr. Order and about Google Plus: "I want to destroy you, and everything you stand for, and I'll start with your little pet project here!" Considering the slimey hiss of a voice Comona gives him here and how Crimsonaut stands guard during the raid and how Crimson attempted a coup in the bad timeline and calls the doctor a freak when orange rolls around this bit is fun. This bit is fun.

Their first match has Plus in the lead to start with, but Crimsonaut evens out the damage and although plus takes first stock, Crimsonaut takes them back to even shortly after. However, an unfortunate offstage fumble Plus takes advantage of costs the little man an early second stock, Plus having a little throwback to Bing in terms of enjoying those offstage dunks. Crimsonaut takes it to a close last stock anyway with a lot of careful play, but Plus takes it. Ryan: "Crimsonaut's been working with the Doctor for a long time. if you trust a guy to take your stuff into a different dimension you probably trust them with a lot- he's probably been familiar with her if/then programming pretty long, granted he's been away for a while now, but he still knows her style."

Crimsonaut embarrassingly early first stock in round 2 😔 but crimsonauts got good momentum and puts enough damage on fast enough to even things out again. Plus appears to begin… malfunctioning somewhat. Having some weird reactions intermittently. The match goes down to last stock, evenly high damage playing ledge games until Plus throws out an illogical move that Works, taking Crimsonaut's last stock and winning 2-0. Comona: "i hate to bring this up, but… d'ya think google's gotten into Google Plus's head? That didnt seem like an if/then scenario." Ryan describes Dr. Order looking worried about the situation unfolding and covering the window she's watching the combat from when she noticed him looking. Ryan looks at Orders cybersecurity monitoring setup and can't See any outside influence causing the apparent disruption, but he's not sure, they'll have to wait and see. Comona describes how if they were Order, they'd be keeping a close eye on their creations because yet another rogue element could be dangerous for her.

The Dimensional Bus who abandoned Jay at the station, vs Mach 2! Mach 2 is mentally locked on doing better than his predecessor, who got out round one, by taking this chance and kicking the bus's ass. The Dimensional Bus was with Crimsonaut when they ventured into the Crimson and made it out just fine. Unclear if this means the Bus was stranded with Crimsonaut and came back with him or ditched him there by himself at some point to return to its job of ferrying people between worlds, but the latter seems more likely as it sounds like Crimsonaut only got back really recently and the bus was In Use in previous episodes. The Bus was also thoroughly screened for Crimson contamination and came back clean, but considering Crimsonaut smuggled Crimson in unnoticed through the same screening process, the only reason I trust that is because Dan beats the hell out of the Bus later and not a thing comes of it crimson-ways.

Mach 2 takes round one, but in round 2 as the commentators completely fail to pay attention to the match discussing music tastes instead, he does markedly worse, feeling even more inferior that the people being paid to be here to commentate on his fight could not give a shit less because theyre more concerned with talking about Nickelback. Pour one out for Mach 2's round 2, run over by the vengabus.

Round 3 opens STRONG with mach 2 footstooling the bus into a pit, but the bus takes mach 2's first stock and pineapples him for the second, creating a reversal of the lead that mach 2 cannot climb out of the pit of. Mach 2's absolute nightmare scenario. He loses. 

Mach 2, very upset, calls out Machi to come settle a score. Machi: "Okay! :D" its grudge match time! Comona: "I know this is probably a fairly even match but i can't help but get like, yamcha vs. the saibamen vibes." Ryan: "yeah, mach 2's about to get yamcha'd." Chat member: "vegeta level complex, yamcha level winstreak." The match IS actually quite even, although Machi keeps at least a small lead the whole time. Machi, in his littol baby voice as he closes last stock: "nothing personal, Mach 2!" and teleports behind him kicking him into the blast zone. Mach 2 is left facedown in a crater yamcha posed while Machi gives his limp, motionless body a hug before walking off.

Chat member asks if mach 2's like, actually dead and ryan clarifies no, he doesn't like killing off characters for anything less than big stakes and even then he brought the grunk back, they didnt even kill crimson really, just banished him. Chat Member: "except light pit." Ryan: "oh SHIT i forgot, light pit DID get canonically killed by palutena."

Lab Intern Dan vs Recon Riley! Ryan intros Riley with a homestuck reference. Recon Riley is the ninja, the secret agent, the silent watcher thats so hard to come to terms with the presence of this whole time due to their skill in moving unnoticed and untouched. Dan and Riley are both employees here, but Riley's the one with the status, that actually gets to sit at the meetings that Dan brings coffee to. Comona: "Dan's not an avaricious man, but he probably thinks 'man, it'd be cool to be the one that gets a seat at the table.'" Riley is stated to be genderfluid here because Ryan noticed he was playing fast and loose with the pronouns in regard to them so hes deciding thats because she uses any/all of 'em. 

Despite TWO self-destructs from fumbled kill attempts, Dan takes Riley to last stock, and then he SDs again. dan's said to put so much time into 9-5ing that he has almost no time for doing or practicing things he actually enjoys. Feel that buddy 😔 Riley's only real combat strength is being a mosquito. Being fast and hard to hit and unmerciful. But that wont help when dan has the Giant Fist. Get uppercut'd nerd its game 3 time. After that uppercut kill dan's feeling CONFIDENT and he gets out to a strong strong lead. As things go to last stock and dan has a dramatic damage lead, Riley's only beginning to panic about losing to the rank and file employee right as its about to happen, and Dan socks riley with a jab for last stock

My Grunk vs Nuke Suit! Comona praises that nuke suit is just a learning combat ai suit with no sentience at all whatsoever and that's what Dr. Order's stuff works best as. Ryan reminds that Nuke Suit is potentially very dangerous due to its nuclear nature, and also compares its robotic nature to Google Plus's. First match between these two- if you get distracted for even a moment you will miss nuke suit losing its first two stocks. My Grunk takes it. Nuke Suit shifts to what the commentators call an 'unstable form.' Ryan: "my grunk? Sweetie? Be Careful."

My Grunk, immediately: (makes a dick shaped dirt sculpture between bullying nuke suit with fire, trying to blow it up with dynamite and taking apart a plane with his bare hands)

Commentators start considering evacuating the building before getting messaged by J0hn that they can relax, nothings gonna blow up the nuke suit's full of shit. He was monitoring the situation and it was just in Intimidation Mode, using the appearance of instability to try to get an edge in combat by making its opponent panic. Dr. Order: bad person, interesting ideas!

Sephiroth vs Winston Overwatch. Sephiroth hates this fucking ape and wants to prove he can get further than midway into a tournament. Winston yeets sephiroth's twink ass like an empty can for the first stock and its VERY funny. Most of this first game is vine jokes, match commentary and very silly kills. Funny Monkey GETS him. Round 2 is more in sephiroth's favor, and a lot of the commentators begging for winston to fucking GET him with the funny donkey punch in his very punchable face. Winston ALMOST reverse 3-stocks. but sephiroth HAD to rob us of it. Sephiroth: "how could you take me to my limit?!" Winston: "Hehe, hi there, im a funny monkey." Sephiroth, responding to the audience: "...how do they know… about the weights in my shirt?" And goes shirtless. Winston wonders what he'd look like with pink hair (due to a silly skin misclick), completely disengaged from the anime dramatics.

Sephiroth: "This Is More Of A Tits Out Kind Of Look." Chat Member: "sephiroth now weighs as much as a pichu." Winston overwatch sends him straight to hell with a stomp. Hell is said to be in paris but i think this is just ryan making an overwatch map joke in context. This being said it would be very funny. Sephiroth wins with his shirt off in an electrically close down to the wire match. Winston then immediately raids Dr. Order's breakroom for its stock of peanut butter and immediately dips. Ryan: "respect the grift, my man." Winston overwatch becomes accomplice to war criminal for some fucking peanut butter

Spriteman vs. Google Plus! Spriteman's still lost in that sauce called sprite. Perfect Spriteman takes advantage of Plus's general predictability to read him again and again. Google Plus is still behaving a bit erratically- possibly due to outside interference, possibly not, it's unclear yet, but it could be contributing to why Plus is losing here. Ryan: "both of these people are… very very damaged by Doctor Order and need to come to terms with it- Plus being entrenched in pure objectivism and Perfect Spriteman is just all about… obsession." I know what ryan Meant here but hearing 'Google Plus is into objectivism' took a year off my life never imply Plus reads ayn rand ever again even on accident please and thanks (lighthearted)

After losing to Spriteman and after certain weird aspects of his match with Crimsonaut, Plus questions the effectiveness of the if/then logic format he's been acting based on due to it returning inconsistent results despite being based on consistent reasoning, and decides to reformat his thought processes and seize control, 'becoming sentient' in his words. He just sort of decided "ok this isnt working perfectly 100% of the time. ergo clearly i have to be at least enough of a person to figure out what actually DOES work.' Doesnt make him do any better fighting perfect spriteman in though. Plus checks his database for what to do about failure, finds nothing, decides next action based on newly acquired 'sentience' and wipes both his queries and an unnamed External Force from mind and demands a battle with the Doctor.

Doctor Order's head is in her hands. She doesn't know why this keeps happening. (My money's on 'cant make a thing Detect spectrum if it cant understand what spectrum is at the baseline, that being art and connection, something that requires complex nonliteral thought and the ability to process communication and emotion to thoroughly get. Not to Philosophy of Art but elephants can slap abstract strokes of paint on a canvas and AI can recombine assets to make a new image but far as im concerned without communication and interpretation its not really anything grander than the blunt sum of its parts by itself, and while you can interpret both those examples if you feel like it you cant feel a communication of intent bc to an elephant the paintbrush might as well be a stick with mud on it thats fun to smear on things and to an ai its just data because it doesnt Think like we do. There isn't the same Artistic Intent in the action because it couldn't begin to process art the same way we do. We can make it art through interpretation but it was not created with intent of making art by what made it, even if the zookeepers and the users of the AI or the people who had their data scraped to train it had artful intentions, because art is a Human Thing, so there is something always just. Missing. anyway.) Plus is kicking her ass. Stop making animeboy web browsers. You only have yourself to blame doc. 

There's the suggestion made in this episode that maybe there's something special about Bing thats lead to Goog and Plus's awareness, but honestly Especially in hindsight i don't buy it he's just a guy to me. No amount of Technique (nccts) can convince me otherwise. I think Bing could do that where Dani couldn't because he is simultaneously so relevant (by extension of goog and now dani) and irrelevant that he could both enter the void and not be claimed by it and no other reason. I think making him special is unnecessary and would be distracting, although he'd probably disagree with me. The idea that goog and mac have to be made from someone special to be special is rey palpatine logic to me

Comona: "i think that Google Plus playing reactively now instead of distracting himself trying to process a bunch of different scenarios all at once bodes well for the mechanical being that he is." Ryan: "yeah, for a guy made of flowcharts hes reacting very well, abandoning the flowcharts is probably the best decision hes made." Doctor Order loses to an uptilt and goes back to her viewing box grumbling irritably about it happening again, and snaps that it doesnt matter, Plus might not have emotions or whatever but he still lost the tournament, so if he wants to leave then go AHEAD, because she won't be using him anyway. Plus: "Victory achieved. Seeking further victory." And marches out of the lab to go pick some fights like an unbothered king

Dan vs The Dimensional Bus! Dan can, should, must and WILL demolish a FUCKING bus. He did get tazed in the ass in the process but its fine its fine its fine. Dan prints out memes and puts them on the fridge in the breakroom and is also good as fuck at peggle. Thoroughly destroyed that fuckin bus in both rounds. Ryan: "if you told me at the start of this tournament that dan would be in top 4 i would have laughed you out of the room."

My Grunk vs. Sephiroth. Sephiroth fought grunk proper last tournament so thats funny. Ryan: "oh god, i've just realized that of the 16 people here only a few of them weren't created by doctor order and two of them are in top four. I think Dr. Order kind of sucks." Sephiroth, stuck in a minecart: "i will show this minecart despair." Alas the zombie cant compete well with Sephiroth From Sephiroth, and round one is Cruel. Chat asks if Riley is a creation of Dr. Order and Ryan replies yes, but only in the sense that Riley was Modified for stealth by Order, they were born a regular person.

Perfect Spriteman vs. Dan! Perfect Spriteman takes first round pretty easily and handily, but someone gets sent down to let Dan know how many people are cheering for him. Dan: "...What? They're cheering for me? What? I'm just a Guy. You sure? You're not confusing me for someone else? Me? ME? I feel like you've gotta be messing with me here, but I win, I lose, its for you guys, aight? Stay frosty, motherfuckers." Commentators discuss how cpu kerfuffle true ending is Dan getting to be champ and how he should be in charge actually as Dan takes first stock, and the match is fun and tense as dan works hard to successfully pull it to a round 3. 

Dan apparently knows and feels next to NOTHING about what's specifically going on with the labs, he's just here for the paycheck. He doesn't even know Perfect Spriteman used to be a guy. which i mean yeah makes sense his first fuffle was already after Spriteman transformed. Ryan: "hes just here to punch." Comona: "hes just like 'oh theres a monster? I mean thats kind of normal for kerfuffle so whatever'" Ryan: "I was here for like. kerfuffle 5 to fight hamburger helper. this is nothing." Ryan makes a comment on the match about CPUs not being smart enough to make a particular play a human could go for and Comona shushes him and Ryan goes "oh yeah i forgot." Match is tense enough the commentators dont comment on much else. Ryan: "The pressure is on- but I don't think Dan's feeling it because he doesnt realize just how many people are watching and rooting for him, and I dont think perfect spriteman even realizes he's in a tournament right now hes just acting on base instinct." Spriteman takes last stock, winning 2-1.Dan pushes Spriteman out of center stage a little bit to say something. Dan: "that guy on the side said there were people watching this and… cheering? for me? So I still don't know if this whole thing is a bit, so I'm gonna preface this whole thing with that because if I'm being played for a goddamn idiot right here and like, you're gonna put this in a cringe compilation or something thats some Bullshit- but to all you people out there cheering for me… thank you so much. Im not sure if you all know it, but god DAMN does that mean so much to me. To know that like- even though my life's been Failure after Failure that like- theres still people out there chanting my name- APPARENTLY, according to that guy- so uh- if this is a cringe compilation you BETTER not post that shit- but if it isnt… thanks you guys. I'm gonna hit up steak and shake." I want to hug him. I want to hug him so bad it makes me look stupid. 

Sephiroth vs Perfect Spriteman, Grand finals! Fast and tense set. Sephiroth takes game one, directly demanding to be taken seriously as an antagonist and like, with the metanarrative element grand kerfuffle and the nccts introduced with time that's Funny. Commentators reiterate how funny sephiroth doing so well is when he wasn't even supposed to BE here, someone just didn't show up. During the second match, the commentators hear something go off somewhere in the lab- some kind of distant siren or alert. Second match goes to a last stock situation, and Spriteman clinches it, taking it to a game 3. The shirt comes off, theyre on new donk and sephiroth is leading and hes being scary scary scary and then he sds, choking in the silliest way possible and never recovers. The tournament's winner, and calibur's representative for the next tournament is Perfect Spriteman! 

But before the commentators can finish announcing that, Dr. Order arrives on the scene with an urgent announcement: "Listen, everyone, theres been a break-in, and we need to lock down and take care of the problem, every stay where you are and once the intruder has gone away-" and shes interrupted. "Ho ho, you want to stop NOW huh? Maybe you should've stopped when you gave me all of this… bullshit! Don't get me wrong, I love the bullshit, but I still think you've gotta pay!" And Larry appears, first as himself, and then as his 'true form' melts away to get set for a random roll: "Listen, you made this bed, time for you to lie in it!" Dr. Order: "I've had enough of this shit anyway. Doesn't matter what happened. I will have Perfect Spriteman as my champion, and you'll see, in the next tournament, Perfect Spriteman will-" Larry, cutting her off and starting the match: "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Comona, as Larry: "Pull up those yoga pants and come for a fight, 'cause I'm looking for one."

Larry rolls ryu. This does not bode well. Ryan, now looking into the Doctor's files, determines Florida Man was once just a joker, but after interacting with Dr. Order, became what he is now with the powers of shapeshifting. Dr. Order takes first stock. Order: "you think I couldn't best my own creations?" Larry: "yeah, I talked to google!" Dr Order keeps a strong lead, but Larry IS out here playing street fighter. Larry, comboing her: "hey doc Google Plus showed me how flowcharts work Check This Shit Out!" Alas, while Larry does Pretty Damn Good for a Ryu, he gets footstooled and loses his last stock. Doctor Order, looking down on him: "you really thought you could come back, and you could defeat me? After all this?" Larry laughs, on the ground. "Yeah, its called making it past seventh in a tournament. But hey, you know the curse you gave me. You win some… you lose some. I'm getting the hell out of here. I know you're so PROUD of ~Perfect Spriteman~ but you aren't so proud of yourself, are ya?" Dr. Order tries to snap back "I dont NEED to be-" but larry, not letting her finish, turns into meta knight and teleports away with his cloak, and Squid Jenny delivers the finalized cast list for the next episode.

[okwritingandpain]

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: The Beatles x Reader

Chapter 14

"I can't believe that happened." Y/N muttered as she looked around frantically outside. George and Ringo looked at each other and whispering behind her. 

"Y/N." George said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "John told you that he and Aunt Mimi didn't get along very well, right?" 

"He very much implied it." She replied, watching Ringo and George exchange another glance. 

"This happens...almost every time we come here, but...I never seen him...have this reaction and definitely not with Paul involved." George explained.

"You're bloody blind, George. He was getting defensive. You saw how he reacted to you and John. He's obviously jealous." Ringo snapped.

"Of what, Ringo?" George hissed turning to glare at Y/N. The three stood in silence for what felt like forever. Ringo finally made a deep sigh as he walked up to one of the windows to check on the commotion.

"Of Y/N. I should have known it would go like this. I could just tell that Paul was bursting at the seems. It's almost like he just knew something about you, Y/N." Ringo muttered. George didn't seem to be listening to Ringo as be paced the grass angrily.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, walking over to where Ringo stood.

"Paul always talked about this song. Yesterday or something and he remembered you playing the piano with him." He explained, watching John and Paul yell at each other. The two looked absolutely furious. So in the end she had messed it all up. The whole point of her being there was that she was supposed to prevent everything and now...it was worse somehow.

"How do we fix this?" She asked, heading back to the door.

"I don't know if we can. They have to talk this out." Ringo tried to reason with her. George came up behind the two.

"Yes, give them time. They obviously aren't in any mood to be in a relationship of any kind. Maybe Y/N should look for someone better, hm?" George put on a smug look. She couldn't believe it. She had messed up everything and now everyone was different. They changed...Ringo and George were arguing their brains out and it all became so overwhelming. She couldn't take it as she ran from the house and down the street. Her senses overwhelmed her until tears flowed from her eyes. There was nothing she could do. Nothing. She had failed Paul and everyone else! Running across the street, one of Y/N's hairpins fell. Going to pick it up, the brightest lights flashed in her eyes. Then everything went dark.

"What did you do?" A familiar voice asked. Y/N's eyes slightly opened as she tried to get a sense of her surroundings. She was on something black like a piano. Wait she was on a piano. A very modern piano. Sitting up, she was shocked to see the Paul McCartney that had put her in the past in the first place.

"What?" She asked, not quite understanding what was happening.

"Now your awake, huh?" Paul's face was stern and cold. "Do you realize what you have done?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to--"

"There is nothing to apologize for...except for breaking up our bloody band!" Paul snapped as he pulled out his phone. Strange enough, the search engine said that the Beatles broke up in 1962.

"That really sent you all over the edge?" She asked, scrolling through the articles.

"Yes, your death. That's what sent everyone over the edge." Paul hissed, snatching his phone back from her. Her death? She must have been hit by a car sent back here.

"What happened to everyone?" Y/N asked, confused as ever.

"One thing you did do right was that everyone is alive." Paul explained, "None of us reached any crazy popularity except for...believe it or not Ringo."

"You've got to be kidding." She replied. Ringo of all people. He was talented that's for sure, but the most popular out of the four of them? Now that was a stretch.

"Honestly, I'm shocked too, but now we have a more serious issue. Getting the band back together." Paul muttered.

"Are you sending me back in time again?" Paul shook his head.

"We're going to make the biggest comeback in history." Paul smirked.

"And you still need me?" She asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Now more than ever, Luv." He said. "You are going to bring everyone together. They all think that you are dead, but we know the truth and now...and now everything can be fixed." 

"Why do you want this to be fixed? What is there to fix? Life played out the way it was for a reason and now you want to change it!" She snapped, getting off the piano to confront Paul. 

"You went along with it!" 

"I had no choice! You blasted me into yesterday or whatever and now you expect me to work with you. You're Paul flipping McCartney and yet you can't even be what people loved." She frowned.

"I play music and give people the joy of music. I've never heard of anyone who looked up to be for anything but my music!" 

"They look up to the fact that you never gave up and took the easy road. You and the rest of the band got through so much together! Now you're just trying to fix something that can mend what's broken, but that's not how life works, Paul! Life happens and yes it hurts for the longest time but one day it all changes because you realize that there is no point in dwelling on something that can't and won't change!" Y/N grabbed anything that she could remember leaving there and she stormed out. Paul didn't know what to say as she left. What was he supposed to say to that? He just wanted the glory days back. He knew what he had to do to fix something that could be mended. His relationship with the one person he didn't even realize he had screwed over. 

"You say I can't mend anything when I know I can mend our relationship. Just like the others, this can all change." Paul opened his phone to call someone. 

"Hello?" 

"Hi, is this John Lennon. I'm sure you know who I am..."

[linuxgamenews]

Announcing Dawn of Defiance: Mix of Survival, Crafting, and Mythology

Dawn of Defiance is a new Geek crafting survival game is due to evolve onto Linux with Windows PC. Thanks to the skilled team at Traega Entertainment for making this happen. Due to make its way onto Steam Early Access this year. Exciting news from Traega Entertainment! They've just announced Dawn of Defiance, a new adventure that mixes survival and crafting elements with a dash of ancient Greek mythology. Due to release the game in early access later this year on Steam, this adventure promises to be a unique title. Plus there are also plans to expand platform support as well.

I do not believe we will be supporting Linux when releasing into early access, but ideally during that period of development we will expand our support for different platforms. As for which engine, we’re on UE5.

Although a Linux version won't be released immediately, there's promising news: the developers are already considering support for it. Plus, there's a great chance it will work well with Proton, especially since it's being developed with Unreal Engine 5.

Dawn of Defiance - Official Announcement Trailer

In Dawn of Defiance, you step into the shoes of the Defier of Gods, starting as a mere soldier and growing into a powerful force against the divine. You'll explore the barren Isles, build grand temples, and defeat followers of the gods to harness their mythical powers. So whether you're gathering resources, crafting gear, or facing legendary challenges, there's plenty to do either solo or with up to three friends. The plan is for Dawn of Defiance to stay in early access for about two years. During which the team will roll out new features and upgrades. They're also keen on using feedback from players, which could extend the timeline to three years. If needed, they might speed up the process to polish what's already available and move out of early access sooner. Here are some of the key things you can look forward to:

Survive the Isles: Starting with nothing, you’ll need to search for resources and defend yourself against numerous threats.

Explore the Ruins: Travel across the Isles, uncover hidden treasures, tackle divine challenges, and grow stronger with each victory.

Customized Crafting: Design your weapons and create a variety of items. In Dawn of Defiance, build structures that are as grand as the halls of Olympus.

Defy the Gods: Confront the fierce followers of the gods and overcome altar challenges to prove your mettle.

Band Together: Take on this tough journey alone or bring along three friends to help in online co-op multiplayer.

Dawn of Defiance crafting survival game is available to add to your Wishlist on Steam. Since its early access release coming up later this year. Don’t miss the chance to embark on this epic journey of survival and defiance

[miloscat]

[Review] Avatar: The Last Airbender: Quest for Balance (PS5)

This show deserves better than this cheap and sloppy tie-in.

Peru-based studio Bamtang are the latest to be granted the Avatar licence, after making some decent kart racers for Nickelodeon. Quest for Balance is the result, and although it’s functional this revival game struggles to live up to the predominately Australian-made tie-in games that were contemporary with the show (and movie).

My expectations were quite high for this given the advances in technology since 2006-2010. But there are always other factors at play in game development, like budget, time, and the experience of the dev team, that are potentially lacking here. What I'm saying is the game feels cheap, from the bland level design to the simple combat to the abundance of rough edges.

Quest for Balance covers all three books of the original show... more or less. The six levels in each try to hit the major points while some episodes and events are skipped over; if you're lucky these will be summarised with a cutscene. But even the significant stuff is dealt with perfunctorily. I did like the side quests in the more hublike levels, with named NPCs and items to find that expand on the world a little bit, although it doesn’t amount to much.

The core gameplay isn’t too different from child/family games we have known such as the Traveller’s Tales Lego games. You explore a level, break objects and interact with interactables, get into fights, and solve some puzzles. Locking the fights into little battle arenas reminded me of the first two Avatar DS games, while the puzzles (maybe the strongest part of the game) recalled the third DS game. I still think I liked those better though.

These gameplay elements are often sectioned off, and the levels are mostly a flat and uninteresting sequence of rooms. There’s an inventory which I barely touched, and an upgrade system that incentivises finding goodies by improving your combat powers. I did get through most combat by just mashing with the most effective characters (Sokka and Toph as far as I could tell) but there is some depth when you’re not just getting stunlocked. Like most of the game it’s just let down by a pervasive clunkiness.

Co-op is available… most of the time. A fatal flaw is not letting a second player participate when the story requires a solo character’s involvement, as well as being unbalanced. That is, when the maximum three-character party is present, player 1 can swap between two of them while player two is locked to only one. These choices hamper its viability as a multiplayer experience (also, my spouse just thought the game in general was subpar and so left me to it).

I’d like to circle back to the cutscenes, as they represent the ramshackle feel of how the game is put together. A mere handful are in 3D, using the game models with some decent animation, which despite being prerendered can chug heavily when a lot of stuff is happening. Some are in 2D, going for a motion comic look but with distressing animated png warping. This includes a cute framing story where Iroh, Bumi, and Pakku are recounting the tale to a Ba Sing Se playwright. Others are brief in-engine dialogue scenes where the characters stand motionless. Or you might just have one of the aforementioned three recounters summarising exposition over a paragraph of text. Even with these various methods of varying levels of effort, they will at times neglect to properly set up the next gameplay portion. It’s frankly a mess.

I also have to mention the voice acting, which ranges from decent soundalike performances (eg. Katara or Toph) to… “an attempt was made”. As far as I can tell from a quick search of Behind the Voice Actors, the only VA that returned was Dee Bradley Baker for creature noises, and even his mastery in the field is undermined when you play one of the dull Appa autoscrolling segments and notice that they appear to have forgotten to apply any pitching down or treatment to his voice?? It sounds bizarre and unfinished. I do have to give the game credit for casting a higher proportion of actors of Asian descent though which is nice to see.

Let it be known that I 100%d Quest for Balance… minus some trophies like the one for completing boss battles hitless. In this janky combat engine and with the bosses as boring as they are, I couldn’t face it. But the game is just competent enough and revisiting stages is streamlined such that I didn’t mind going back for the side stuff, which is my favourite aspect anyway. On the whole though I can’t really recommend this game except to superfans; the old tie-ins are frankly of a higher standard and by virtue of having dedicated instalments for each season, do a better job covering the material on top of having more depth and variety. Plus the first one has an original story! This could have been a triumphant revisit of a beloved story, but it ended up a cheap cash-grab. Oh well.