#I like the idea I just...it's A Lot and samuels in this version was going to be a lot more confident and smooth with things bc

[pluckyredhead]

How exactly was Jon Kent’s introduction handled? Did Clark essentially just bring him out like “hey guys, here’s my 10 year old son I haven’t told you about” ?

Thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about this, because it is Extremely Comics and I love it.

The short version is that Jon and his parents are from another dimension.

The long version is that prior to the New 52 in 2011, Lois and Clark had been married for years, so when that marriage was erased in the reboot, fans were pretty unhappy.

Then in 2015, DC published an event called Convergence. The plot isn't important, but basically they pulled in all these different versions of their characters from different universes: pre-Crisis Green Lantern, vampire Batman, 70s Wonder Woman, etc. And they brought back a LOT of pre-Flashpoint versions of characters. (I've always assumed it was a test to see if they should undo the New 52 and that the answer was a resounding yes.)

And so they brought back the pre-Flashpoint Lois and Clark just for this one event. In the four years since we'd seen the characters, Lois had gotten pregnant, and during Convergence, she gave birth to Jon.

At the end of the event, the pre-Flashpoint world was destroyed, but the Lane-Kent family was able to travel to the New 52 universe. Of course, the New 52 universe already had a Superman and Lois, so the pre-Flashpoint Clark and Lois decided to just...live like normal people, which they'd never been able to do before. They changed their last names to White and moved to California to raise their son in peaceful anonymity.

So Jon spent the first 10 years of his life in California as Jonathan Samuel White, and has no idea that he's from another dimension, that he's half alien, or that his father is Superman. But then his powers start to manifest, and it turns out it's really hard to keep a secret from a kid with X-ray vision, super hearing, and Lois Lane's smarts. Eventually, his parents have to 'fess up.

Here is the key point: when the Lane-Kents came to the New 52 universe, they arrived 10 years in the past. So if that story took place in 2015, when it was published, they actually arrived in 2005. Meaning that Jon developing his powers at 10 is happening in the present day. Does that make sense?

Soon after this, the New 52 Superman dies, and pre-Flashpoint Clark is like, "Well, someone should be Superman," so he puts his costume back on and introduces himself to the Justice League/the world as the Superman of another dimension.

A bit after that, the 2016 Rebirth reboot happened, which was deliberately designed to push DC canon closer to pre-Flashpoint canon.

Then the New 52 Lois also dies, and pre-Flashpoint Lois is like "I guess I'll just go to the office and pretend to be her," which is wild because she is at least 10 and probably more like 15-20 years older than New 52 Lois. Lois Lane ages like fine wine: confirmed.

THEN Mr. Mxyzptlk kidnaps Jon and traps him in a featureless void and makes his parents forget he exists. In that void, Jon encounters the souls of the dead New 52 Clark and Lois and accidentally swaps them with his parents. Then he yells "NO YOU LOVE EACH OTHER" until they remember who they really are and merge with their pre-Flashpoint counterparts to form new, cohesive versions of Lois and Clark who are simultaneously from the current universe but also have been married for years and love their son.

This also, you know, just casually reboots the universe so that everyone remembers Lois and Clark having been married with a kid for years. So Jon was incorporated into continuity as a 10-year-old, but then the rest of his life was retconned into existence so that, like, Perry and Jimmy remember holding him as a baby and stuff. (And Jon has no memory of living as Jon White or anything like that.)

Anyway, very straightforward and normal, not completely bonkers at all.

[nomaxart]

You can play the game for free over here: https://nomaxart.itch.io/conway

It's been, phew. SOMETHING! A few weeks passed since the initial release, and I gotta say it really was stressful. It's a new project, something I've never done, and it just feels so different from the art I usually do. But I'm really really happy with how it's been received. It's by no means a perfect project but it sounds on the whole like you all are enjoying it or if nothing else at least see the potential. Thank you very much for that, and I hope I will make good on that.

So let's get to the most important part here. The android version is out! It's easily been the most requested thing and so here we go. Installing it is pretty simple, just download the .apk file, run it to install and you're good to go. I of course have very limited testing opportunities with just how many different android devices there are, but it ran without any issues for me, and I haven't heard any complaints from my Patrons who had access to it for a little while. So I hope it'll do the same for the vast majority of you.

There isn't anything new to this version. It is the exact same as all the other initial release versions and this update is mostly meant as a bit of a buffer update truth be told.

Just to give a bit of breathing space while keeping the updates rolling and building up the 1-month advance for updates that Patron people get without just leaving you all waiting for updates forever. I invested a lot of time into getting the initial release done, so immediately afterward I needed to get some other work done, just came back from a convention, and most of the work I'm currently doing for the game itself is behind-the-scenes planning. Figuring out characters, thinking about what events or interactions they might have and how their stories interact with each other, and how to best handle it. Of course, I did have certain Ideas and plans for them, but I figured it's best to firm these up before I advance things further from here. Otherwise, I'd just be more prone to having to redirect parts as I figure things out on the go.

But yes, the first official update I guess is out, even if it doesn't contribute anything new yet. But if you are on android then now you can have a peek at this thing, too. I hope you'll enjoy it! :)

And closing out of course just want to put a reminder for Patreon in here. The game is free of course, but if you want to help with the development and make it possible for me to invest more time into making this game then you can do so over here: https://www.patreon.com/Nomax

If you sign up now for the 5+ tier you already get to see the first properly finished character art! The first step at getting the sketches out of the way and make way for properly polished art. For this month Samuel has been chosen by the 10+ peeps, and will be the next one to receive the polishing treatment throughout march!

[mrschwartz]

The New Cue #273 March 27: James Ford

James Ford gave an interview for The New Cue which was published earlier today. Here are the parts where he mentions Alex or Arctic Monkeys:

"How naturally did it come writing lyrics?

I’m definitely noticed working with a lot of great lyricists - I notice people like Alex Turner will be constantly thinking about lyrics and taking snippets from people’s conversations and jotting stuff down in his notepad. I definitely don’t think in those terms, a lot of the time I’m very much into melody and chords and feel, but I felt like I opened a little extra door in my brain when I suddenly started thinking about lyrics, seeing little things and thinking, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have that.’

(...)

The defining relationship in your production career is your work with Arctic Monkeys, which goes all the way back to their second record Favourite Worst Nightmare. Can you give me an insight into how a modern Arctic Monkeys record is made, I think a lot of people find their dynamic quite intriguing.

Yeah, that’s the thing, even within one band, it changes every record. With the most recent record, Alex is getting very into recording stuff himself. He’s a polymath at the best of times, he plays everything, he’s into the sonics of it and he’s obviously writing the songs for the most part. He does pretty great demos on this thing called a Tascam 38-8, it’s like an eight-track tape machine and it’s got a real vibey sound. He’ll come in with pretty well-formed ideas at this point, it definitely used to be less formed when they came in, although they’ve always been pretty well organised.

I seem to remember the writing process for The Car was quite long, he went to and fro with a few different direct directions. He definitely did a fair amount of writing, he had his own studio in London somewhere and Jamie [Cook, guitarist] and the band were coming in and out, jamming, then he’d do four or five different versions of the same song with different tempos and he’d played some of them to me and I’d be like, ‘Oh, that one’s sounding great.’ Then eventually, he came in and did some stuff in here, where we’d get his demos up, and maybe do some structural stuff and think about how we would actually record it. The last record was in a pandemic still so we couldn’t go abroad to a studio that we’ve been to quite a lot. We went to this country house in Suffolk, which involved pulling my studio apart and renting loads of stuff. It was quite a big technical thing. I just remember doing loads of wiring, plugging in the studio, getting it to work. The recording set-up was quite slapdash in a lot of ways but it ended up being a really lovely experience out there and we got it sounding really good after a bit of luck and a bit of hard work. After that, we brought it back here and me and Al did the string arrangements, pushing notes around on the screen. Then we went and got the string stuff done with this girl called Bridget Samuels who’s brilliant, she translated it into all the dots and that. Then I mixed it in this room.

It sounds like quite an insular process.

Yeah, it’s funny, I’ve known them so long now. I’ve been working with quite a lot of new bands and you get this energy and respect or something that you have in a new relationship and it counts for quite a lot. People will try stuff out that they wouldn’t normally try. But with the Monkeys, it’s a totally different thing where there’s this deep trust that we’ve grown up together.

So there’s a shorthand?

Yeah, that’s the thing. Me and Alex, our music tastes have grown together, I’ve introduced him and he’s introduced me to so much different music and there’s so much that you don’t even have to bother explaining. But sometimes that’s good and bad. I do often think it would be interesting to see what they did with someone else at this point, not that I’d really want them to, but I think that maybe they should, or it might be like a marriage where it just wouldn’t work. It’s a funny thing, but I still definitely try and push him as hard as I can. I’m aware I don’t want him to settle into a comfort zone and it just become boring, you’re trying to keep finding ways to move forward and do new things.

Which record that you’ve been involved with across your career that you think is underrated?

Maybe just because we’ve been talking about Alex, but I remember really liking this one called Belladonna Of Sadness by Alexandra Savior that me and Al did. I remember really enjoying making that and thinking it sounded great, but no-one ever really heard it. There’s lots of ones that you think are gonna do great but don’t, then ones that you’re not so keen on that suddenly have this life of their own."

[slimesam]

Excluding Gun, fave character? And any AU/scenario/scene you like to imagine them in?

I have a lot of PTJ’s character Favorite I not adding Manger Kim as all of the dilf are my fave and I have no idea what type of AU role can make.

Viralhit:

There are two characters that is my favorite and one is questionable favorite. I haven’t catch up yet on the scanlation version.

Fave:

Teahoon Seong, He is basically so second prince like in manhwa that always made the second prince being in throne that doesn’t give an f. I would Imagine him being in an AU of martial art Chinese manhwa aka those Long ass martial art technique name with “magic pills” or an AU of him being general/sword master or dark knight in fantasy world

Seogjun Baek, He just my favorite mature type of guy kind of pity that he is destined to be in a bad ending or end up being a yakuza member and bad fate. I would say a scenario of “The way of househusband” as he knows how to cook and will defiantly have his yakuza slang/ language when he retires.

Questionable Fave:

Jinho Lee, He basically made me question my mental state (LOL) but I kinda accept it as I think that it the way of me being an unhinged type of person. I would think he would be fitting scenario as Criminal Cop that is pretend to be at the side of the justice but stab them in the back when reader/character about to discover the truth and made it like accident. Another is Killing and Stalking AU (I don’t the whole story line on that but I know is that the lover is obsessive to the partner that he abused and basically broke the knee of the lover so they can’t leave him) I think it fits Jinho psychotic character to be obsessive lover when he found out his love.

Lookism:

I have a lot of favorite but I can’t remember the exact reason, I’ll put a category.

Appreciate:

Jay and Daniel as a ship they cannot be separated they need to be in a bundle. All I imagine them doing a partner dance like the Ballroom e Yousoko. Jay being the lead while Daniel being the partner. Wahhhhaaa, I just imagine them being like Daniel being Shizuku and Jay being Hyoudou there dance probably being so alluring. Or even the Yuri on Ice AU OG Daniel trying to go on the diet just to win the Cup.

Vasco was a short live attraction when Gun was introduce as Vasco Coolness got swiped by Gun coolness. Sorry Vasco fans but I still appreciate him for his effort on changing his way during middle school to be stronger and not be bullied or be a bully. And his muscles. I would imagine him being a duke of a northern land who fight of monsters on the border.

Like Like:

Jake Kim, I didn’t like him at first during his gambling arc. Probably due to his appearance and art style being unlikable but when he was backed at juvie the art improved a lot which made me neutral then the big deal background came which resulting me being his fan of his come back. In AU I would imagine him being a Mafia boss that manage the upper territory like he just protect the civilians so they won’t get cross fired by those mafia fights, you can say they work with authority. But the catch is he doesn’t care much on those people get into debts and get in trouble from the loan shark or other gang like in original he abandoning his moral just to get money for Shinu. But he still stop other mafias on kidnapping their civilians in his territory

Samuel Seo, He basically the embodiment of prefect large booba muscle. I would say I just appreciate his muscle but won’t say I would date as I also have an issue lol. The type of AU I would put him in CEO or Mafia like Jake but he is more of the underground dealer/ mob boss.

Jake and Samuel basically a duo that can’t be separate when making AU as they are basically a counter-part or partner in crime in each role.

Love their design:

Taesoo Ma, the very first Dilf looking guy I ever seen in lookism well Samuel is more of the CEO guy in 30s than Dilf in 30s. I would put Taesoo in an AU of caveman or just be a leader of Bandits that rule on the east side of the Fantasy world. He can even be the Duke of the North like Vasco.

DG, I would separate the persona of James Lee and DG since DG just playing to be idol group to the public just to cover up his past so I think he would be an underground dealer/popular noble in every AU of the fantasy to historical scenario.

Questionable Fave:

James Lee, As we see his background and his tendency of amputating his opponents I would say he is my questionable favorite as he too badass. I would say that his role is a vigilant or a dark knight in every scenario. Oh, I total see James Lee in an AU of apocalypse him being a ML or MC of every type apocalypse him being a time traveler to survive or even go on a revenge time travel. (I recommend reading re: survival as the MC is a red hair also the plot is a zombie apocalypse)

Jinyoung Park, the second dilf I ever since trying to stop myself simping (LOL) since he is too unhinged I would day the scenario would still be him being a mad scientist in a SCP probably he is the head of the SCP scientist or him being a SCP like the plague doctor. I would even think Jinyoung as a vampire or a demon in a slayer that look for cure to his immortality.

Goo Kim, our favorite menace to the society and a unhinge ace. In the AU of the fantasy I would say he would be a mercenary and the underground dealer additional he is a thief in a D&D. he gonna be the person who know stuff that he shouldn’t know and he basically do a 4th wall breaker on the type of AU.

Respect Fave:

Eli Jang, I love his dedication to Yenna all scenario I can think of him just raising his daughter and found a new love on his way because that man need someone to be with. So all type of fluff AU that involved his daughter Yenna.

Hudson Ahn, Our boi Asan and Allied member respect him for being dedicated to Taesoo Ma teaching and to Asan Public. As before in behead by guillotine. I have put there is that Hudson is a knight with high statue, war hero or a noble knight statue would be fitting to him in a fantasy AU. In modern AU I would say a hier of the big company maybe a manger of the company would be a fitting job to him.

Zack Lee, his dedication for Mira is a quiet respectful. Since he been taught by a “monk” I would say he is a monk in a Chinese fighting AU. In a fantasy AU he is a paladin. That’s all I think of.

Our favorite Female Chara!:

Lua Im, She is my favorite of all female characters in Lookism just look at her innocent-looking face that can smash your face with a suitcase (LOL). And she is the atta girl! Her role would be fitting as a model in a showbiz AU or even an archer or a mage in a fantasy AU.

Mary Kim, Do I say anymore she is a badass female character that can Judo flip you with one hand. She is a modern AU streamer and a fighter in an adventure fantasy AU.

The rest of the female character doesn’t faze me at all

Sorry if I didn’t answer right te hehe (Venti’s tehe moment)

[grigori77]

Critical Role, Campaign 3 Episode 81

Merry Critmas guys!

Another Meta Quest promo? Oh boy ... so this one will get weird again, clearly ... a magical year, really? Yeah, the editors are indeed fucking with you, Sam. XD Ah, highlights! Lovely ...

That's right, it IS Asgard, Samuel. NOT Ass-Gard ...

"Ass-Matt?" "Cominics?" Hmmm ...

Dani Carr! Hiiiiiii!!! Always so great to see you, sweetie! :3

Matt still can't quite get past their shenanigans, can he? At least they're consistent. XD

Yeah! That's right! Fearne and Ashton are full blown SUPERHEROES now!

Sam's shirt derails the game almost IMMEDIATELY ...

Oh shit, yeah ... that's a good point actually ... ARE THEY the same people now?

Well yeah, I mean Laudna does seem a lot more upbeat now, doesn't she? That's surely a good sign.

Chetney really does want to make a wish with Nana? Oh yes, good, they're doing the best they can to talk him out of it ... oh, now it's just getting surreal ... oh boy ...

Ah yes, the ill fated topiary garden ... O.O

Fearne (to Ashton): "Shall we see if we can make some lava?" Oh gods ...

Ashton is Raging, while Fearne shoots a Scorching Ray at him? Bloody hell ...

So ... they're like RIDICULOUSLY supercharged when they're together? Oh, MORE playing around? How crazy is this gonna get?

And now Ashton is IN THE GROUND ... oh, so he can just pop up anywhere he wants? Cool ...

Fearne is a Satyr version of the Human Torch? Pretty sweet ...

Ah, so he can't actually run through plant life, only stone ... that's interesting ... what, they're going to the ruin to see how deep Ashton can go? Hmmmm ...

Well no, he really SHOULDN'T be able to actually BREATHE through rock, should he?

Phasing like Kitty Pryde? Oh, that would be cool ... oh wow, that is SO AWESOME ...

Don't wipe yourself out for days, Fearne. Not right now ...

Oh yes, Fearne is FLOATING ... Wow ... that's ALSO very handy ... running and trying to set fire to the ground at the same time ... yay, scorched track marks ... I love that ...

Now we're seeing if he can use her spell along with the hammer ... okay ...

Whoa ... DOUBLE the damage? That is EXTRA sweet ... oh, and dhe is COMPLETELY IMMUNE to fire damage now? Extra cool ...

Ashton tries to shut down the effect ... uncut diamond form? Wow ... that's weird in a really striking way ...

He feels weird? Hmmm ... oh, here we go ... back to his normal physical form? Interesting ... but the idea that he's so used to the chronic pain that he's actually RELIEVED to get it back? I really don't think I like that ...

What fresh hell have you brought with THIS week's flask, Samuel?

Fearne: "We'll just have to accept our greatness." Ashton: "I'll accept YOUR greatness." Awwwww ... :3

Oh wow ... are they FLIRTING again? I don't mind that at all ...

And Fearne goes back to normal again too ... but not ENTIRELY ... which is cool ...

IS HE going to do the wish thing? Are you sure, Chet? Oh gods, he's really doing it ...

Oh that is just so creepy ...

Name the door ... oh boy ... Artax? What? Oh boy ... Push-Pull? Sir Push-Pull? Oh boy again ...

And now it's ASKING to be named Sir Push-Pull ... ye gods ... and Morri's all right with this ... wow ...

And here she is ... unsettling as ever ... hmmmm ...

Oh, so those poor buggers tried to RENEGE on their deals? That's ... interesting ... in a really horrible way ... oh, and now he's asking ...

Is this like some kind of pocket dimension for her to make deals in?

He wants to be the most famous toy maker in the whole world ... wow ... oh, what's he going to trade? Hmmmmm ... she wants a piece of the God Eater? A piece if Predathos ... that's actually not bad ...

The Golden Threads of Fate ... so cool to see that come back ... O.O

He's keeping it to himself, playing it cool ...

The Witch In the Woods ... oh yeah, like the Monkey's Paw, that's right ...

And now they're just teasing him about it. I live this so much ... Fearne is being especially cruel about it ... yup ... XD

Allura does not want to have anything to do with this foolishness and I do not blame her at all ...

Time for bed before they have to go to the Moon ...

FCG's been cooking? H'wine rolls? What the sweet fuck is this craziness ... a Hero's Yeast? Dear gods ...

Oh, so Mister and Pate can get in on this action too? That's pretty cool ...

Yeah, the Hero's Feast is always such a cool booster thing ...

Imogen's going to try that dream thing? Oh boy ... so who's going in with her? Everybody except Chetney and Fearne ... okay ...

Yet again, Travis rolls to see if Chetney DIES IN HIS SLEEP ...

Into Imogen's dream, then ... taking the Bloody Bridge, up to Ruidus ... oh, it's all very Stargate all of a sudden ...

Ruidus, then ... here we go ... and the studio lighting changes ... I really do hate that ...

Touchdown ... okay ... eye of the storm, now ... hmmmm ...

"Bring me home." Oh boy ... Imogen gives in ... it pulls her in ... oh, this is rightly terrifying already ... this is suddenly looking like a really BAD IDEA ...

Caverns? Some kind of labyrinthine tunnel network inside the Moon ... hmmmm ...

Wait ... the others wake up ... but Imogen DOESN'T?!!! Oh fuck ...

Fuck, is she trapped? What the fuck is HAPPENING?!!!

Oh thank the gods she's back ... is she okay?

Orym tries to get a read? Another big Insight roll ... LAURA gives Liam a Whispers? Crazy ...

Laudna is worried and rightly so ... this DOES NOT feel right at all. I am suddenly EXTREMELY uncomfortable about all of this. Could this come back to bite us in a really bad way later?

Brumestone? Hmmmmm ...

Oh yes, this IS going to be a problem, clearly ...

Yes, keep an eye on her while you're sleeping please, Laudna ...

Time for bed. A Long Rest ...

Orym goes to visit Nana Morri in the night? SERIOUSLY?!!!

Oh, that is disconcerting that she can sneak up on him ...

Fuck, is he REALLY going to make a deal with her too? Come on, Wee Man ...

Well he's doing this for his friends, maybe that's going to be enough to protect him in this ... but WOULD SHE actually take him up on this? Oh fuck, she really is ... Orym, come on ...

Fuck ... he's willing to offer himself up to HER service if she sees them through? Fuck ... I hate this already ... a "caretaker"? Jeez ...

If every one of them makes it back and they see it through ... very specific terms, at least ... fuck ... at least it's very dependent on their success ... shit, snd that's it, then ...

Gods damn it, Liam O'brien, making clandestine deals with dark entities again for the sake of his friends ... how much worse than Vax is this gonna be?

Time for a break ... gods ...

Matt: "Ten years nearly, I've had to put up with you guys." XD

Morning comes ... time to go, then ...

Ah, the creepy Fey Menagerie returns ... as unsettling as ever ...

Food? Okay ... Birdie and Ollie are cooking? Well that's a relief ... a nice pleasant breakfast ... and now here's Nana ... hmmmm ...

She has something special for FCG? Hmmmm ... a weird sphere of something ... IS IT food for him? Okay, he's giving it a go ... so it's just fine silver ... and he burps ... with SCREAMS ... fucking horrifying ... LOL

Wow, so Fearne is now the hot new thing in town? That's pretty cool ...

Allura, still as creeped out by Morri as ever ... XD

So heading to meet their allies in the Hellcatch Valley ... okay, then ... so they're making the move ...

Fearne says goodbye to her parents. And they are just SO PROUD of her, aren't they? :3

Working the spell, then ... WHOOSH!!! Time all but freezes ... oh, and that was CHAOTIC ... but they're finally back in Exandria. Right on target ...

Yup, the Red Moon still dominates the sky. Lovely.

Chetney's still slow for a minute ... Laudna: "You made his voice all sexy there." XD

Wow, this is a WHOLE LOT of people who've gathered here to help fight ... and they're all pretty tense about it, too. That's just great ...

Some kind of purpose made citadel "grown" specifically for this effort? That's pretty cool ...

These all look like some pretty interesting folk ... the Council of Tal'dorei? Interesting ...

Whoa ... BIG guy ... seriously BUFF old dude ... fascinating ... the Stormlord? Interesting ...

Oh, so they've been expected? Hmmm ...

Mythtaker Qi Mandozi? Cool.

Guardian Tofor Bretoris? Okay.

EARTHBREAKER GROON?!!! FOR REAL?!!! AWESOME!!!

"Mercenaries ... we get shit done."

Oooh ... is this some kind of fancy honour guard?

Earthbreaker Groon is clearly fascinated by Imogen and Fearne, but in a strange disapproving way, kind of? Interesting ...

Percy! Hey! And Keyleth! Yay!

Ah yes ... the timey wimey weirdness of the Fey Realm ...

Ah ... your typical war briefing, then ...

Butcher Wagons? Hmmm ... so very charming ... a nice gory diversion ...

Ten to thirty minutes to infiltrate? So ... not a MASSIVE window, then ...

Ah yeah ... the Reilora ...

Percy needs a little more time ... of course he does ... but then they do need setup time ...

No witnesses? Crap ... that is NOT a good ultimatum at all ...

So there is SOME flexibility, but still ... it's disconcerting all the same ...

Oh yeah, the Ruby Vanguard disguises ...

What are they looking for? What is the intelligence they need to gather?

Fearne questions Earthbreaker Groon ... oh, here we go ... he knows they're Ruidusborn ... oh, this is a sticky thing here? Chill out, guys ...

Oh yeah, these two witches be something special ...

Groon: "You are of the Storm, are you not?" Imogen: "I AM the Storm, baby."

Of course Keyleth still has utmost faith in them all, and Orym especially. :3

Qi likes FCG because he's funny. I like that. XD

A safe word for Imogen? In case the pull becomes too much? Probably a good idea ...

Fearne: "We're just the tip, guys. Just thd tip if the spear." Ashton: "Yeah, that's the safe word."

Laudna goes to talk to Keyleth. "You're very pretty." XD

Oh yes ... Vax. That's right ... she's covering, but yeah, that's at the core of it for her ...

His energy is being used specifically to power the bridge ... yeah ...

Keyleth: "I'm sorry." Laudna: "For what?" Keyleth: "For everything." Oh man ...

Telepathic Bond? Oh yeah ... that should be helpful ...

All right ... so it's time, then ... setting up for the distraction ...

Earthbreaker Groon wants to talk to Imogen ... oh no, THE STORMLORD wants to talk to her ... that wasn't, like, foreboding at all ...

Time to go ... everybody's ready ... and it sll hoes OFF ... the Butcher Wagons are rolling ... Allura gives the nod ... cue gibberish words as Imogen uses one of the Scrolls ...

And now they're just living clouds ... lovely ...

Coasting in over the Site now, approaching the Malleus Key ...

Crazy beasts on the attack in front of the Wagons ... oh, that's pretty slick ...

Touchdown on target ... okay ... Keyleth prepares their stormy cover ... Nice ... Voice of the Tempest indeed!

Oh yeah, Kiki you are AWESOME!!!

They put on their disguises, Fearne casts Pass Without A Trace, and FCG puts a Death Ward on Imogen.

Time to head in, then ... they make their way down and into the Storm ... Orym's leading the way ... no, Fearne ... maybe the better choice in this ...

Group Stealth Check with Advantage ... yup, BOSS rolls all round ...

Oh it is all just KICKING OFF right now ...

Aaaaaaaaaaah! Reilorans! Oh boy ...

CHAOS!!! IT'S A TOTAL MESS OUT HERE!!! And now the first Wagon bursts ...

They make their way in ... and Matt calls it a night!

Oh, visual preview of what's to come? Ooooh ... yay, Battlemap! Sweet ...

We'll see next session ... in the New Year ... roll on 2024 ...

[the-assignment]

Blog #4 : Eve's Bayou

I don’t think that a lot of people would consider Eve’s Bayou a horror film – but I would whole-heartedly disagree. It’s just a different version of horror. It’s not blood or gore or jump scares or a mystical entity coming to kill everyone in their sleep, or wielding a chainsaw, or a knife – but it is, without a doubt, horror.

It’s everyday horror. It’s the horror of lost innocence, and the horror of growing too fast into womanhood, the horror of a breakdown of a family – the horror of decisions and consequences.

For starters, the father (Samuel L. Jackson) is truly terrible and the real monster and horror in this film. Dude is legit just cheating in plain sight! There is no masking what is going on from the get-go. The opening party scene and the wildin’ dancing he was doing with another man’s wife – in front of his *own* wife. And friends. And Family. It was nuts.

Then cut to the scene where he gets caught by his youngest daughter actually cheating with the other woman and you understand just what this character is about. Add that into the various ways in which he ropes in or disregards his family while he’s cheating. Like again, leaving the youngest daughter in the car! All while he makes “house calls” to the ladies of the community – and we be knowin’ what they be doin’.

Like. He’s truly terrible. And I think this behavior sets the tone and propels the events of the story forward.

The catalyst of the story, is to an extent, left ambiguous. What we know for sure is that there is a kiss between the father and daughter (super gross). (Not to mention the behind-the-scenes grossness that at the time of filming, Meagan Good was only, like, 14 and Samuel L. Jackson… was not). The audience is given two different version of events about what occurred – that of the daughter (he kissed her) and that of the father (she kissed him). And while there are certain clues throughout the movie that could aid or guide a person to think one way or the other, it is left to the viewers to decide which version they agree with.

But to that I say – it doesn’t really matter who kissed who – because who initiated the kiss is not the same as who is at fault for the kiss. And there is a difference.

The father was 100% at fault for that kiss. Part of the great discussion we had in class about this film centered around the idea that he was pulling away from the family at the same time as the oldest child and daughter began to mature into womanhood. We see this throughout the film from the first scene where she wanted to differentiate herself from the others, her getting her first period, and when she started to change her look and wear makeup.

I felt like this transformation of the daughter – while a normal part of growing up – morphed into something truly horrifying. A young girl in a rush to grow up and who would do anything to keep her father and her family together.

And this event transformed the lives of the entire family. The oldest daughter was sent away and the father died. However, the youngest daughter – only ten years old – believes that the magic she performed to get back at her father (as she believed her sister) killed him – forever changing her life as well.

While the movie was not a typical horror / slasher fic – it shows that true horror can exist in the daily lives and decisions each one of us faces – and has the ability to affect those around us as well. It shows the horror of the loss of innocence and growing up too fast.

[commanderquinn]

Good Space Chapter 2: Man On The Moon

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

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master list / ao3 chapter link

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warnings: lotta swearing and usual heavy pstd bucky stuff. also!! im giving sam's story a little bit of author bias/culture venting. this wont read like canon FATWS sam, though i am trying to honor their show where i dont hate it. i love sam's journey to cap, even if ken doll was nauseating (whats funny is i didnt know his actor's name is wyatt until halfway through THIS chapter when i googled something. oh well lmao im sure he's a perfectly nice dude. the wyatt in this fic is My Baby) plus the trump era commentary was completely toothless imo. and the fact that james buchanan barnes acknowledged in episODE T H R E E of the series that he'd take the shield before letting it fall???? even through all his self-hatred?????? get the fuck out of here that desTROYED ME i hate this fictional man with a passion

song: this one's by kid cudi!! 🥰

its time for the l o n g i n g to start ❤️ grab tissues!! first biggie angst so i had to put it behind our resident teddy bear's pov ���� you KNOOOOW i had to finish up this update in time for stevie’s birthday 🥰

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October 3rd, 2015

Samuel Wilson was not disillusioned when he walked into his first recruitment office. There were no patriotic stars in his eyes, no lotto number clutched painfully between nervous fingers to drive his feet up to that kiosk. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth to earn career-establishing stripes in a timely fashion. All he had to his name was a high school diploma and twenty-three bucks in his pocket. He didn’t have any big dreams for the desert rocks to tear a hole through. 

Sam was a kid back then. One who wanted to build a life, and the GI Bill offered to make that happen. A solid, steady income with the vision of a college education somewhere on the horizon. Not a lot of other options for someone like him, no matter which familiar corner of the country he looked at.

It took a long time and the right partner for the Air Force to talk him out of his combat objections once the ANG got wind of him. He turned the experimental program down flat twice; Pararescue was his focus for a reason. They had to bribe him with cutting-edge tech and the authority to refuse an assignment just to get him to agree to a first flight. The words never found their way onto an official record, at least none he knows of, but Sam had relentlessly insisted that he wouldn’t be volunteering as the next Indianapolis. Getting pushback on that assertion was when the anger first set in. The first crack in the armor of his career.

There were a lot of better angels within the service; it took most of them to get him home, tape-free, after Riley’s death. By the end of it all, it felt like every last one of them was outnumbered fifty to one. Nothing felt right anymore, including the idea of leaving the family he found in the sand to fend for themselves. The only thing that felt survivable after the world finally stopped tilting was dedicating himself to the VA.

Living for the memory of the ones he lost helped him find other reasons to want to be a person again. From there, it was mostly helping other people find reasons of their own that drove him forward.

It’s why he’s willing to delve into some shithole facility in the middle of nowhere Russia for a guy like Steve Rogers. And, on some levels, he supposes, if he absolutely has to, for a guy like Bucky Barnes. Even if he is the grouchiest motherfucker on the face of the Earth.

The lumbering moron hasn’t said a word all morning, no matter what small talk Steve tries to open with. And he’s tried everything, ever since they landed. Sam’s responded to a few of the openings himself just to try to fill the silence. He hopes it’s helping. It’s been hard to get a detailed read on the other push-pop’s triggers so far. Steve hasn’t signaled for him to stop, so.

“Cryo is through here,” Bucky rumbles under his breath. They’re the first words he’s spoken since the Quinjet.

“How many should we be expecting?” Steve asks almost as quietly.

“How many people am I asking you to put a bullet through, you mean.”

Steve stops halfway through the door Bucky’s directed them to. “We haven’t decided if that’s what we’re going to—”

“Maybe you haven’t decided. I’ll do it if you won’t.” The former sergeant doesn’t turn around. He keeps walking, getting closer to the stocky metal pods.

Sam already hates this. He already hates this a whole fucking lot. Captain America coming to him with a request to take the headcase to Russia was always going to get weird; he knew that. But he’s been very clear on what he’s down for, and now they’re in murder and war crime weird. He’d like to start slowing down the crazy train—

Steve holds up his hand. “Bucky, listen, it doesn’t have to—”

“Fuck off. You have no idea what it’s like to sit in this hell. You two can wait outside if you’re so uncomfortable. I’ve got it from here.”

Mmm. That’s the voice of a guilt-ridden survivor. Sam recognizes it well. At least it’s giving him a bead on where today’s drive is coming from. “You mean the hell we pulled you from?”

Steve’s head whips around, with righteous, territorial anger in his eyes. “You’re right, Buck; we don’t. But—”

“But you don’t know what they want,” Sam forcefully finishes, staring back at Steve. He banks on the fact that, technically, they’re not really disagreeing. Steve’s trying to back him down, too, in his own way. “Taking away their chance at the same new life you’re getting isn’t—”

Bucky’s cybernetic fist comes crashing down on one of the corroded desks, making the rusted metal whine in protest, deforming to the shape of his fingers. “You two don’t fucking get it.” He turns, angrily tugging his hand back to his side. The assassin doesn’t advance, but his posture is more than ready for it as he glares at them with pure contempt. “You think you’re going to find people in those tanks—humans, with hearts and minds and hopes and dreams. There might as well be skeletons getting freezer-burned in those goddamn caskets because that’s the only salvageable thing you’ll find. You fucking—”

He laughs, the sound empty, and turns back around to send his fist into the side of the table, knocking it across the room. He doesn’t face them again. “You fuckers! You take a fucking look at me. Take a good, long look. I am half alive. I had a radiation-free knockoff keeping me upright through their bullshit. You wanna know what they had? Something that might as well have been piss mixed in some fucking snow. Worthless trash those Nazi bastards bottled up and stuck in a needle.”

“Bucky—” Steve tries to calm his best friend as the man’s voice breaks. Sam could tell him from first-hand experience how well that’s going to go over.

There was a lot of screaming in that desert. A lot of grief disguised as anger. A lot of old ideals leaving newly-shattered men one seething tear at a time.

“They were zombies by the time HYDRA was done injecting them. Do you get that? Are you two grasping the concept? They were rabid dogs I trained to respond to whistles. Rotting corpses that I taught how to aim. And that was before their brains shorted out on them. I looked into every single one of their eyes. I saw what looked back. Fuck species—what was in there was not fucking alive. Fuck you—fuck you so fucking much for even fucking suggesting I should leave them like that—like animated fucking cadavers—hooked up to some fucking machine just to breathe—”

“James.”

Bucky’s flood of words finally cuts off, and Sam isn’t sure if it’s because of the use of his first name or the way he swallows as if he’s choking. His flesh hand comes down on the back of the chair that started out tucked under the table. It keeps the guy upright while he pulls in a few breaths that look painful, even through the curtain of dark brown hair.

“Let’s see what’s what first,” Sam suggests as diplomatically as he can manage. He doesn’t take a step forward, mostly because he doesn’t see Steve take one. “Then we go from there.”

“You’re going to hate what you see.” Bucky scoffs bitterly. “You think you know, but you don’t. You’re going to hate me for bringing you here. For the rest of your lives.”

Steve moves forward, finally, but he stays a few feet to Bucky’s seven o’clock. “I’m not dumb enough to make you any promises about not hating what I see here. I haven’t even looked in one, and I already know you’re right on the money when it comes to that. But I can promise that you’ll always be wrong about me hating you for any of this.”

“So can I,” Sam assures. There’s not a doubt in his mind now that he understands where they’re at.

—

Bucky’s up at 0500. 

He hasn’t slept a minute later than that since the first night his body adjusted to New York’s timezone, no matter what hour he falls asleep. He doesn’t attempt more than upright power naps on away missions. They’re the only thing that gets him any rest outside of his room in the tower. 

It’s the same every morning. First, he works on his back, popping away the stiffness one awkward bend of his limbs at a time. From there, the extra thick comforter gets picked up off the floor, then the blanket and the lopsided pillow. They always get tossed on top of the bed he’s never used. Except on Saturdays, when he does his laundry. That’s when they get put in a basket to be taken to Natasha’s room. She won’t let him have his own washing machine until he starts using the bed.

So, every Saturday, he shows up with his little pile at 0800 because Natasha won’t unlock the door until then. A pillowcase. A blanket and matching comforter. Two shirts, usually henleys, five black tanks, and two different tactical pants. One pair of gloves. His singular monkey suit gets taken to the cleaners whenever he’s forced to wear it, which thankfully isn’t often.

His dress uniform hasn’t come out of the box Steve dropped it off in after getting it pulled from the goddamn Smithsonian. Bucky hasn’t laid eyes on it since 1943.

While he’s working his hair up into a serviceable bun, he thinks about Natasha’s recommendation to start braiding it before he sleeps. He doesn’t like the idea of something that tight sitting against his head, especially at night. Maybe if he lets his hair grow out a little more. He wants to keep the shoulder length it’s at now, though. It looks good on him. He wants to know what asking someone to pull on it feels like. Eventually. 

Online dating has been… overwhelming, to say the least.

He’s reaching for the medkit in the drawer under his bathroom sink when the mental image of Ava creeps in. He isn’t trying to blow off the hippie’s orders. Honestly, the thought of their deal hadn’t crossed his mind until he got to this part of his day. Resisting the urge yesterday had been difficult. He knew ahead of time that today was going to be much worse. It means pushing through a repeated break in his pattern.

That voice, the one that insists he should tell Steve to fuck off much more, rears its head. His flesh hand twitches with the reflex to finish his usual routine. To show up late to her office with some blase excuse about doing it out of habit. He could sell the lie without even trying. Entire countries have fallen thanks to his expertise with it. She wouldn’t have a shot in hell at knowing the difference.

He could work his way out of this with ease. Steve already feels guilty about making him pull a hard stop during his first visit, even if he won’t say the words. It’s the perfect opening to establish a line and push it away to give himself some room, one step at a time.

With a decisive flick of his wrist, Bucky shuts the drawer holding his medkit. For the second time since he was allowed to travel without a handler, he walks away from his morning routine without treating the cybernetics on the back of his neck.

It makes his skin feel wrong—off, unsettled—as he gets his standard gear on. He’s still grounded, thanks to Steve, so it’s the version he’s got closest to fatigues. He hopes the doctor doesn’t mind rolling down a polyester turtleneck to get at his brain port. He almost skips going to the gym for his workout, but that would worsen the off feeling. And he’d have to sit around with nothing to do for hours waiting for their first scheduled maintenance. 

He slides his phone into his back pocket, intent on heading to his standard morning haunt. A few hours of going through his paces in the gym will help his nerves. When his mind offers up the suggestion that a workout before seeing the cute doctor could be—advantageous, he tries not to linger in it. 

The idea certainly doesn’t make him feel bad. It’s even sort of... motivating in its own way. It... contributes to his reasons for doing a few extra sets on the bench. And adding a quick rock wall climb. There are others, of course. Being chained to the tower like a toddler in timeout because his best friend is an asshole is certainly one of them. He tacks on more time at the reinforced, Super-Soldier-proof punching bag to ease that particular frustration.

Even with the additions to his cardio, he’s still got an hour to kill before their appointment. He fills it by heading for the roof of the tower. It’s not even 0900, so no one but a few graveyard stragglers are out in the open space. SHIELD agents like him that are married to the job, catching a glimpse of the sun and a few puffs of nicotine before going to crash. Bucky stops to help one of them struggling with her lighter, offering up his spare Bic. The other agent smiles at him in tired appreciation before hovering the end of her cigarette over the flame. He counts it as contributing to his social life. He’ll figure out how to phrase it to get his therapist off his ass later. 

The brain trust’s space is, unsurprisingly, effortless to find. Ava wasn’t kidding; it’s actually tucked away in one corner of the roof, hidden along the wall that extends up to the tower’s executive launch bay. Bucky had expected them to claim a spot overlooking the Avenger’s balcony. Then again, he’s heard she’s pretty close friends with Tony, so maybe he shouldn’t have. She probably knows better by now. 

There’s another collection of gargantuan chairs, this time made out of wicker and upholstery that feels soft when he runs his fingers over it. A tapestry rivaling the paint swatches at Steve’s supply store is mounted to the wall behind them. Two poles hold it at the opposite corners, keeping it blowing slightly in the wind as it hangs over the collected seating. The coffee table in the middle has a lockbox sitting on it, with SHEILDs insignia embossed on the lid. 

He’s got level seven clearance these days. He could still easily get through that lock, even if he didn’t. It’s going to drive him batshit, not knowing what’s in it before she takes him up here herself. 

Bucky turns around and gets halfway back to the door to the stairwell before the buzzing in his neck builds too much for comfort. He grinds his teeth through the sensation. He even manages to force himself another few steps forward. But, ultimately, the buzzing wins out, and he spins again with a vicious curse. 

The confirmation chime of his clearance override feels too loud, even out here in the open. The top of the lockbox rolls back, revealing a set of playing cards, a jumbled collection of stress toys, a SHEILD standard medkit, and some candles. He almost leaves without checking the medkit. He’s so close to being able to stomach the idea. 

Almost. 

There’s nothing sinister to be found in it once it’s open. It’s stock issue. Not one of the item counts is off, but the lot numbers don’t match, meaning she maintains it regularly. Knowing that information feels invasive, despite being convinced she wouldn’t mind how he got it.

This. Isn’t. Siberia. Ava Ryder is not going to put a gun in his hand. She is not a risk to him. 

Bucky leaves the roof, headed for her lab. He’s going to tell her he went snooping. He can do that, at least—a bare minimum level of respect to offer her. 

She’s not in her office when he gets through the painted door at 0857. Only one of the doctors is behind the glass today. It’s the other woman—the American-born German. Hannah. Her head is down, focused on a tablet under her hands, with wireless earbuds peaking out from her dirty blonde hair. A hologram of a brain Bucky doesn’t recognize is running next to her. It’s not his; there’s no spider webbing. One of their other patients then. 

He takes a seat in the same chair he used during his last visit. “JARVIS?”

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” the AI responds with nothing but tranquility. “Something you need?”

“Can you tell the doc I’m ready when she is?”

“Of course. Dr. Ryder has not yet entered the building. I’ll let her know you’ve arrived.”

Bucky frowns. “Ah—cancel that. Is she—“ Don’t ask him to track her, you dumbfuck. That’s weird. “Never mind. I’ll wait.”

This is New York. He’s not even sure what part of the city she lives in. For all he knows, she could be stuck in a cab uptown. He can pull the stick out of his ass long enough to give her room to be human. 

He sits there in silence, sunken into pillows with his leg bouncing rapidly, and talks himself up in his head. He’s not uncomfortable. He’s not going to bullshit his way out of this. This is good; it’s going to help him. Bucky is happy about that. It’s a relief to be facing this after a lifetime of running. 

By 0901, he wants to leave. The urge is nearly overwhelming. He makes it to 0904 before he stands up. It takes until 0906 to convince himself to sit back down. 

“I have an incoming message from Dr. Ryder if you wish to hear it, Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS tells him eleven minutes after the appointment was supposed to start. 

Thank god. “Play it.”

“Morning, JAR!” Her voice is muffled in the recording. She’s got something in her mouth. She’s also in the most broken-down piece of shit in the city by the sounds of it, so not a cab. The subway, maybe? It should be a lot louder than that. “Tell Bucky I’m about fifteen minutes behind and that I’m very sorry. Oh—and tell him to pick the candle!”

His eyebrows lift in confused surprise. “I’m picking a candle?”

“Choosing a candle to burn is part of the daily routine of lab 5923. Dr. Ryder and I usually decide on one, but the option is left open for patients. You will find a box behind her desk; there is a wide array to select from.”

“You pick it together?” Bucky prods, the corner of his lips twitching as he gets back up to check for said box. 

“She enjoys having someone to banter with about them. Dr. Schuster doesn’t usually have anything to contribute to the topic. Dr. Combs only has so many opinions on the matter. He is not overly particular about the olfactory state of the lab.”

“Is Ava?” It’s getting easier to refer to her by her first name alone. It helps that it’s made her smile the handful of times he’s done it. 

“Not especially. I would call her enthusiastic. She finds the options comforting, and there are very few that she doesn’t enjoy.”

“No kidding,” Bucky mutters as he pulls open the top of a very large box. He smelled the thing long before he picked it up, and looking at what’s inside confirms everything the AI’s telling him. There are dozens of them in here, and most of them are unburned. Various shapes and gimmicky scent names stare back at him. Not a lot of Bath & Bodyworks, he’s noticing. 

The hippie is a small business aficionado. How utterly shocking. 

He pushes around the amassed jars for a few minutes. His mind files away a few options he wants to try for later if they don’t get used up on the days he won’t be here. Definitely before he finishes talking her out of demanding these appointments. He picks up one that claims to smell like cranberries and peppermint for a test sniff. 

Thanks to the combination, the barest hint of the ghost of a memory comes over him. One that whispers the name of his mother. This happens sometimes. A fragment that’s still hanging on by a thread will float by. They never have much context, not anything he can typically extrapolate on, infuriatingly enough. Just his mind taunting him that something should be there, but it isn’t. 

He picks that candle, and it doesn’t make him sad as he lights it. None of his pieced-together memories of the life he never got to finish do anymore. He takes them in stride and tries to enjoy what he can. 

That’s what Ma would have wanted.

—

Ava hip-checks the door to her office somewhere around 9:30. 

This is already shaping up to be a terrible second impression. All that grief she gave Bucky about leaving things in her capable hands, and now here she is, showing up late and half-showered to the appointment that’s supposed to finish acclimating him. 

“I am so sorry,” she rushes out, dumping her bag on the closest available surface. It ends up being one of the novelty end tables tucked between the consultation chairs. At least she finally took the one shaped like a leg home. “I completely overslept, and then I wanted to grab you something from my favorite bagel place—do you want one, by the way?” She waves a finger at her bag, then at Bucky, who watches her as she walks and talks her way to her desk. “They’re in that side pouch, the ones that have cream cheese are wrapped up separately. I didn’t know if you were a plain butter kind of New Yorker. Anyways, there was this mouth-breathing dickhead who��” 

She stops and takes a deep breath in when her over-taxed mind finally registers the smell around her. 

“Good morning,” he says from the chairs, amusement coloring his tone. 

She spins on her heel, her glasses jostling with the motion, chuckling softly. “Good morning, Sergeant. Sorry. This is what happens when you talk to me before the coffee finishes evening out in my bloodstream. Fantastic choice, by the way. What is that? It’s peppermint—something.”

“Peppermint and cranberries.” His lips pull up into a half-smile that absolutely sells her on the idea of him being a serial heartstopper in the 30s. “Advertised in what looked like a mushroom cloud.”

Ava’s chuckling turns into an outright bark of laughter as she pulls her work tablet from behind her keyboard. “Yeah. That sounds about right. One of the candle makers I buy from is an anarchist working out of a garage. Great stuff, even if you do have to listen to the most ass backwards view of free trade to get the guy to send you his stock. Good morning to you, too, JARVIS, now that I’m not babbling around a mouthful of food.”

“No need to worry; I’ve become very fluent in your language of scarfing,” JARVIS assures. 

“My mother would keel over if she heard you say that.” Ava waddles over to her latest patient, tablet in one hand and medkit in the other. She puts the kit down on the arm of his chair, in the same spot she put the scanner case last time. He looks much less nervous now, and she gives him a warm smile to encourage that. “I know you don’t want me talking your ear off, and the breakfast offer can wait until we’re done, so let’s get down to this.”

Bucky’s mouth opens. There’s a moment of hesitation before he says anything. She doesn’t try to rush him through it. “What’s the plan, doc?”

“Paige won’t be back from the field until later today at the earliest, so I don’t have anything new for you to test. I passed along your request for the field kit dimensions. She says making something that portable shouldn’t be a problem.” Ava taps on the black sleeve of his shirt. “How comfortable are you with the idea of using nanotech?”

“As in the tiny robots Tony’s always testing?”

“Mhmm.”

“For what? My neck?” He raises his hand to the general area of the port, and she hears him scratching at the fabric over it. “I don’t think it’s—I thought this kind of opening couldn’t be—”

“I don’t mean for closing it off,” she corrects quickly, wanting to avoid a misunderstanding that might get his hopes up. “I want to program a batch specifically for daily care of your implants. The port and your shoulder. Something you can keep in safe housing for use in the field. Now—I want to make sure you understand something upfront. This won’t change my professional opinion; you need to have a specialist looking at this on an extremely frequent basis. However, I would prefer it if you had the nanotech as a safety net. The more of this that we can automate for you, the better.”

“I can agree to that. I’m guessing the bug bots don’t come with a manual.”

Ava moves behind him, mostly to hide how the grumpy old man routine is making her grin from ear to ear. “They usually don’t need one. I’ll be making you a checklist to go over if that makes you feel better.”

“You don’t—that’s—” He hesitates again, making her stop before she can make contact with his neck. “You don’t have to keep... doing stuff. Like that. I’m alright with trusting the bug bots.”

Another piece of Ava Ryder’s heart breaks for Bucky Barnes. “That's great to hear. But, just so you know, I’m going to hand you a checklist anyways.”

“Alright.” His head barely nods; she’s guessing because he can feel her fingers hovering. The evaluations of his senses were so off the charts it set a new testing standard for SHIELD. “That’s—appreciated.”

“You don’t have to worry so much about the manners.” Pressing down with a disinfectant, she circles her thumb around the port, wanting to get it done before moving to his shoulder. That’s going to need a shirt removal. She leans down and shifts to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m not reporting them back to Steve.”

“Don’t worry; my work wife will come to weasel it out of you or JARVIS all on his own.”

Ava giggles quietly, her eyes honed in on clearing the excess buildup. “You’re not having fun being married to Captain America?”

“Oodles,” he deadpans, making her giggles worsen.

She gives him a break from the small talk while she finishes working on his neck. At some point, she’ll need to put together a specialized blend for loosening up the scar tissue; the skin around it is dried to hell and back from years of sterile wipes. She doubts comfort has been much of a concern, and she’s not about to recommend putting generic lotion over it, but this is ridiculous. There’s no reason for him to live with pain like that.

“I don’t suppose a man from the 30s is going to appreciate being given a moisturizing routine.”

“Nat’s going to be thrilled.”

“She’s your work husband, I’m guessing?”

“She likes to act like it.” Bucky turns his head to glance back for a split second just as she leans forward to swap out for an ointment. The way his head jerks back into place lets her know he got an eyeful of cleavage on the journey. It perfectly mirrors how his eyes snapped up from her chest when he first walked in. She’s not exactly embarrassed about it, but she does feel bad watching him shift around nervously. “But I’m not dumb enough to argue. About that. With her.”

The awkward charm is starting to make her cheeks hurt. “Sounds like a reasonable choice. I hear arguing with Russian women isn’t a smart idea in general.”

“Not if you want to keep your limbs attached.”

“Is it too early for me to start asking for state secrets? Like, say, if the Winter Soldier happened to get his ass handed to him by a former commie?”

“I’m pretty sure she was still a commie the first time.”

“The first time?” Ava asks with excited delight, her hand pausing on his shoulder.

“There were a few run-ins. She’ll remember more of them.” Bucky grimaces with annoyance. “Worse, she’ll be willing to tell them to you.”

“Would you be willing to let me hear them?” she goads.

His shoulders lift with a strained sigh. “Sure, let’s call it willing.”

“You’ll have to remind me if I’m lucky enough to meet her.” She drums her finger on his mechanical shoulder. “Gonna need you to take this shirt off, superstar.”

“Off? Wait, what did you just—” Bucky shakes his head with a quiet huff of laughter. “I’ve got the arm covered.”

“I know, that’s the problem.”

“Alright, smartass. You know damn well what I meant. I took care of it before I came here; it wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Does gross puss leak out of it?”

She can see his eyes roll, even with his head only partially turned. “You know it does.”

“And is it attached to your brain?”

“Ava—really, I’ve got this.” His head turns all the way, and the smile comes back, in full force this time, and oh. Oh, she can absolutely believe that he broke half the hearts in Brooklyn during his reign of terror.

She leans down into his space, letting her arms rest on the back of his chair. “You know what I’ve got?”

His lips purse in resigned amusement. “Multiple medical degrees?”

“You betcha. They were stupid hard to earn, too, so I’d appreciate it if you could start taking that into account.”

“I’m not trying to dismiss them—”

“Just the expertise that they gave me.” When his smile turns guilty, she shifts her weight as naturally as she can to push her chest against her arms in compensation. She doesn’t miss the way he blinks a split second later. Such a gentleman. It almost makes her feel bad. “I don’t mind you arguing the point of your independence. I’m glad for it, Bucky. It tells me that you really want this to work. I hope you can start trusting that when I suggest against it, I’m doing it with your health in mind. Nothing more. You can tell me what you’re comfortable with from there.”

He stares at her like he’s in pain. For an almost uncomfortably long time. “I broke into your lockbox.”

Ava blinks at the sudden shift. “Okay. Wait—my what? Are you talking about the candle box? That doesn’t even have a lock—”

“Your stuff on the roof. You keep a SHEILD issue safe up there. On the table. I used my override.”

It takes a moment to piece together what he’s getting at. She’s been running late since she woke up on Paige’s couch at 7:50 something. The only thing in her bloodstream right now is caffeine; there was no time for a wake-and-bake. “Oh. Oh, oh, that’s just... it’s not locked locked; we don’t really care if anyone uses the stuff in it. We just needed something to put it in that the weather can’t get to.” She smiles at him as his shoulders relax. “You went to see our little corner?”

Bucky shrugs. “I was around.”

“Mhmm, I’m sure. And bouncing off the walls with Steve’s lockdown, no doubt. The faster you get that shirt off, the faster you and I can iron out a plan to get you back in the field. Work with me here, Barnes.”

Bucky stands up with a sigh, and his hands move to his shirt. He pauses while they cling to the bottom of it, his arms crossed. Once again, she doesn’t push him through his hesitation. “I don’t mind if you talk about things. Steve only said that shit about being direct to keep me from stalling my way out of this.”

Ava’s eyebrows pull in while she thinks over the words. “Is that the only thing he’s lied about? I don’t care if you two keep secrets, but you can’t bullshit about your mental health with me. I need to know what makes you uncomfortable; otherwise, I can’t do my job.”

“That’s all I can think of,” he assures her, and she believes him despite the wording. 

“In that case, you’re kind of stupid, full offense.”

It’s Bucky’s turn with the blinking. “Excuse me?”

“You signed yourself up for morning appointments, and you just gave me permission to talk your ear off. You’re an absolute moron; now take off that shirt so I can make sure your brain doesn’t melt.”

—

She has a pet cat named Oreo, of all fucking things. 

It’s hairless. And dumb as a box of rocks, according to her. The name comes from the huge black spots in its—pattern. He can’t exactly use the word fur. She was highly offended when he called the cat a ballsack while she was showing him her lock screen. He got smacked on the arm for the comment.

It’s not her first pet. She got it partly to mourn the snake she adopted in college, a rosy boa called Sayer that finally died at 32. She used the reptile as companionship and motivation to push through her first PhD. The one letting her work on his brain now. It was named after the lead character from her favorite medical movie, Awakenings. When Bucky mentioned that he’s never seen it, she made him swear up and down that he’ll text her his honest reactions if he ever dares to rip his own heart out with questionable ethics.

So now he’s got her number saved in his phone. It’s the 11th one he’s added. Two of them are therapists. None of the others are people outside of SHIELD. He’s pretty sure one of the therapists is a plant from Natasha, so maybe he should start counting them toward the SHIELD column.

There were only nine others over the course of his online dating attempts. None of them stayed on his phone for more than a month before getting deleted. He wasn’t about to let his therapist catch their names on his contact list.

Bucky switches the grape-flavored lollipop in his mouth over to his right cheek. Ava gave it to him. Bopped him right on the nose with one and then let him pick from an array of five like the blatant bribery it is. The good doctor smiled at him while she did it, too.

May it bring you back in good spirits and better health.

It’s the nicest way he’s ever been told to fuck off for being a grouch. It made him smile. Him. James Buchanan Barnes, in the year of 2018.

She’s.… Christ, calling the woman a handful in this day and age feels insulting. He’s not put off by it. Overwhelmed a little, maybe, but he gets the feeling she’s alright with him taking time to warm up to it. Hell, he gets the feeling that not much bothers her at all. It makes him envious. 

He likes the way she speaks. Not just the crazy and the swearing, though that’s its own comfort. There’s a—it sounds so stupid, but there’s a kind of music to it. She always talks in the same calm rhythm, despite the chaos usually found in her words. He didn’t notice the way it makes his foot stop bouncing until halfway through the appointment.

Bucky scowls. “Davis. Why am I looking at a lost signal?”

The level four analyst Steve’s been telling him to ease up on lately freezes in his swivel chair. His head turns, nervously searching the wall of security feeds. Bucky doesn’t offer up any help. “Sorry, sir, I can’t seem to spot which—”

“Third row from the top, eighth from the left. The one I’m supposed to be monitoring for an illegal exchange of nuclear materials, so if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Yes, sorry, restoring connection now. Apologies, Sergeant, I’ll—keep a closer eye on it.” The agent starts mumbling the rest of his intended sentence, mostly about how many he’s keeping track of, when he cuts himself off. His shoulders pull in a bit, almost chastised. It always takes people a minute to remember the super hearing.

He could let it hang. The feed is fixed; he can go back to staring at an empty lot without interruption.

“You’re doing fine.” Bucky feels bad because he’s having an unordinarily good day. That’s all it is. Nothing more. “Restructure your feed priorities. You can hand most of these off to JARVIS; that’s what he’s patched in for. Focus on the ones your gut doesn’t like.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll start on that now.” The words don’t even sound spiteful.

Bucky sits back against the executive bench of the Datacrux. The stiff leather creaks with the motion, the rigid frame under it keeping him grounded. He tilts his head from side to side, letting it crack and readjust incrementally. His neck doesn’t feel as tight as it should. When he touched it in Ava’s lab, the skin felt even softer than it did after her first round on him. He’s trying not to touch it now. He doesn’t want to irritate it. This is the best it’s felt in—

He doesn’t have a year, he realizes. He can’t remember the one he woke up to cybernetics in. He has no idea when his first taste of cyborg life was. There’s a vague lead, a number written out on paper to fill in the blanks of what’s been destroyed. An estimation anchored around the last day of his former life. But he doesn’t know.

At least you’re still breathing, the better angel in his mind coaxes.

Switching which leg is balanced on which knee, Bucky settles back into his work. It’s been six months since the last lead on his responsibility. There’s been no chatter from the known HYDRA cells, no underground protection contracts with suspiciously good track records hitting Natasha’s web, no suspicious Black Market transfers that scream safe house establishment, nothing. Wherever the Soldats are, they’re being kept under wraps. 

His hounds wouldn’t be able to be contained for anywhere near this long. They’re dead or sedated, no matter where they were smuggled. Otherwise, they’d have surfaced already.

Bucky tries not to think about what a life of not knowing will feel like. He doesn’t know if that’s worse than the idea of burying them. They’re certainly not staring down the barrel of a happy ending at this point. How do you mourn—a situation like that? He can’t even figure out how the hell he’s supposed to be fixing it.

Somewhere out there are the last ravaged pieces of a serum that never should have been made. It’s floating, cobbled together and left to rot, in the veins of men and women who didn’t know what they were signing up for. He remembers having to hold their shoulders down whenever the survival instinct kicked in during the first few injections. He remembers watching their faces as they screamed for a mercy no one in that facility was ever going to grant them. He remembers carrying the bodies of the ones that died in the night, over and over for months, all the way to the incinerator.

Bucky tosses the tablet in his lap off to a spot next to his leg out of disgust. His eyes shut, and his hands come up to rub them hard enough to hurt. He needs sleep. Good, honest to god, medication-induced sleep. He hates relying on those damn pills—it’s not as if they help the other half of his problem, anyhow. Falling asleep is only the start of it. The real kicker is staying unconscious, and nothing he can find, even behind the counter, is going to work on his system for that long.

He needs it, though. It’s been weeks since he got more than a handful of hours at a time. Months since he slept for longer than eight. Steve always talks about crashing for ten at a time after an extended mission, and it makes him want to punch his best friend’s lights out. He’ll never say that out loud, of course, but god. If fucking only.

None of his anger toward Steve ever feels fair. The guy had the world’s worst life before the serum, and he’ll bare his teeth at anyone who tries guilting the captain out of the notion. None of them understand what kind of fresh hell it was being Steve Rogers, and all his undying spirit, while trapped in a body with ten billion health issues. If ever there was someone who earned the responsibility of that serum, it’s him, and Bucky’s damn proud of him for it. He spends his days trying to live up to it himself.

He looks over at the back of the analyst with a guilty expression. People used to dismiss Steve the same way he dismisses people now, whenever the anger simmers. 

“Davis, pull up your priority flags.”

The level four glances back nervously, then clears his throat and refocuses on his terminal. “It’s alright, sir, I’m working on sorting them now—”

“I know. That’s what we’ll be going over.”

“I—” Davis hesitates for a long moment. Bucky stares at the back of his head. “Sergeant Barnes, I’m very sorry about the—”

“This isn’t a reprimand.” Bucky clears his own throat, trying to knock the aggression out of his tone. It’s. A lot more difficult than he was expecting. “You’re new here, so I’m gonna give you the crash course. I’m in here a lot, at all hours. You won’t get a heads-up about it; I’m just going to show up. When I do, there are certain hotspots I’m going to need you to keep focused on. They’re not going to be tied to any active case. You’re not going to be able to tell which ones I need. I’m going to tell you what’s already on my radar, and you can establish your own categories from there. I’ll tell you what else I need you to add as it comes up.”

“Oh.” A little hope is entering the analyst’s tone. “Yeah, that—you know, that sounds like what I do for Romanoff already.”

Bucky frowns. The hell it does. She has exactly three people on the face of this Earth that she trusts to handle something like this for her. He’s willing to do it for convenience, and because he doesn’t give a shit what SHEILD sees him prioritize. He worked very hard to not give a shit about it, too. But Natasha doesn’t work like that; she’s very particular about her web of information—

His face goes completely slack as the connection finally happens in his mind. He’s going to kill her. No—actually. He’s never going to bring it up, ever, and they’re both going to die before a word ever gets said about it.

That’s just how their brand of family works.

“Yeah. Exactly like how Romanoff has you do it. Pull up her file structure; let’s go over what I’ll need you to change for my end.”

—

“Bitch! It feels like I haven’t hugged you in a year!”

It’s the only warning Ava gets before she’s tackled from behind. She braces her hands on the engineering bench in front of her, barely catching herself from crashing into it. “Two weeks and three days, but who’s counting? How was the flight home, whore?”

Paige leaves a loud, sloppy smooch on her left temple before backing away to let her up from the attack. “That part was fine—it was the team I got paired with, ugh. You’d have hated the guy runnin’ it.”

“How bad are we talking?”

“Eh, your typical good’ ol boy. Mister my way or the highway, with an ego the size’a the fuckin’ Potomac to match. You know the type. Spent the whole mission criticizin’ my tech.”

She looks over at her in surprised confusion. Paige taking shit from other agents is nothing new; that comes with the territory of her personality and most people’s assumptions. Her work is usually the one thing they leave alone. “How critical are we talking?”

“That was the thing—it was the dumb kind. The kind that could’a been avoided if he’d maybe RTFM.”

“And he made it your problem?”

“Over and over. Every ten minutes, it was—” Paige shimmies her upper body dramatically, her voice going low and gravelly. “Why can’t my AIO do this? How do I make it do that? Rogers’ team gets the reliable gear; why are we always stuck with the second rate?”

“He said that to your face?” Ava’s about ready to march through the tower to find the prick herself.

“Not that last one. That was to his buddy when the dipstick thought his comm was off. I got a half-baked publicist apology over it, and I’m pretty sure he only did it to save face in front of the team for leavin’ the mic open.”

“Report his ass.”

Paige waves a hand dismissively, then dumps her go-bag unceremoniously on the workbench. “I ain’t gon’ waste my time. I’ll let him hang his own noose; I’m sure he’ll get around to it with that attitude. Oh! I’ve got a mock-up for your pretty boy.”

Ava smiles, tossing one of her best friend’s rolls of duct tape between her hands. “I didn’t say he was pretty.”

“Puh-lease. You texted about his hair.”

“With the amount of shit man-buns have taken, it was surprising to see on a guy from a less than accepting decade.”

“You only notice stuff like that when you’re lookin’.” Paige tips her head forward, letting her heart-shaped sunglasses fall to the end of her nose. Her eyebrows waggle enthusiastically. “Is he as big as Rogers? I can never tell in the press photos with him always loomin’ like a gargoyle.”

The smile turns deviously smug. “He’s a little smaller than your not-so-secret admirer. You gotta figure that’s expected without the Vita Radiation.”

Paige reaches out to shove at her shoulder. “I don’t think Rogers has really nailed down what modern flirtin’ is yet. Ain’t fair to pin that on the guy. He’s so sweet! And I give him art projects! And anyhow, he rushes outta here like his ass is on fire most of the time—”

“It’s so weird how that happens whenever your dad shows up to hang out.”

She gets a very unimpressed look in response. “You’re readin’ int’a things.”

Leaning in close, Ava squints and whispers, “You’re being oblivious.” She backs up, her smugness returning. “So, I take it our friendship never comes up while you’re giving the captain art projects.”

“I... hmm. Not that I can remember. Why?” Paige looks over suddenly, then back at the bag she’s unloading with more than her usual level of interest. “Did he bring me up durin’ the visit?”

The glitter-sniffing demon not being allowed to communicate with her has been utter hell for two weeks and three days. But it comes with the upside of getting to drop this bomb on her all at once. “No, but I brought you up during Bucky’s first visit. That’s when Rogers realized he’d read your best friend the riot act the week before.”

Paige’s eyes go saucer wide. “You’re kiddin’. You got chewed out by America’s Sweetheart?”

“Funny enough, I called him the same thing while he was huffing and puffing in my office.”

“What the hell happened while I was gone? Did—” Her head swivels around, checking who’s around them. “Did? Y’know?”

Ava shakes her head, then hikes herself up to sit on the workbench next to the bag. “Nothing like that. Turns out he was going for a trial run, trying to see how well I hold up against a bad episode. Stormed into my office, playing up the asshole captain routine just to see what I’d do. Apparently, Tony set him up for it by not telling him about my VA work. He let out the hot air the second I called him on it. He’s pretty cute when he’s blushing, by the way.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Paige mumbles happily, proving the accusation of obliviousness entirely right.

“The blush or the huffing?”

“I already know about the blushin’, even if I am ready to hear it again. But over dinner tonight. What’re we thinkin’?”

“You’re the one who’s been living off MREs for two weeks. What are you in the mood for?”

“Fuck, that’s a great question. Indian, definitely. No—wait! Sc-ratch that! I want Vietnamese. Actually, I want both.”

“Take-out picnic, got it.”

“And Italian donuts.”

“Okay, but I’m bringing half the order to work tomorrow. They’ll get stale if you pull an all-nighter to catch up.”

“Fiiine. Take my victory donuts to the masses, y’dirty Marxist. Lemme show ya what I worked on for Barnes before I forget.”

The field case she’s designed is cylindrical and shorter than the phones SHEILD issues most of their agents. Definitely something he’s going to be able to carry around with ease. The applicators that hook to the interior are simplistic and utilitarian. They’re entirely mechanical, with no chance of an EMP being able to disable them—a request from the Sergeant himself. 

“Tony says I can requisition some nannies whenever—I just gotta get your signature on the form since they’re medical grade.”

Ava tosses an olive from the jar she keeps stashed in Paige’s mini-fridge into the air. She catches it in her mouth on the first try for once. “You have one filled out already? I can sign it now; I know you like putzing around with them for a few days ahead of time.”

“Eh, it’s a standard cleaner tag; I’m not gon’ sweat it. I know you’re all worried about his brainstem and whatnot—”

“That’s usually part of my job description, yeah.”

“—but I feel like sterile’s sterile. Ain’t no way I can make the man cleaner than clean, y’know? Now, if you wanna talk settin’ ’em up for emergency maintenance, that’s a different story—”

“Your not-crush just walked into engineering,” Ava interrupts lowly, wanting to avoid the enhanced hearing even from way the hell over here.

In the most conspicuous way imaginable, Paige whips her head around to stare directly at the bay’s front entrance. In a rival amount of obviousness, Captain Rogers slowly works his way through the amassed benches, his gaze landing everywhere but Paige’s station. 

Ava’s eyes roll so hard it’s physically painful. It’s been one thing hearing Paige talk about getting drop-in visits from the super soldier who just so happens to enjoy the blueprints framed over her workbench. It’s another to see it play out in person. 

“He’s prob’ly here to check on the kit for Barnes,” Paige whispers back, tugging off her novelty shades.

“Yeah, that’s definitely why he won’t look at you right now—”

“He’s takin’ in the work goin’ on. He’s a curious guy, you know that—”

“And why he’s walking slow enough to trip over his own feet.”

“He’s admirin’ the—”

“He’s working up the nerve—”

“If you don’t fuck off with that, you lunatic—”

“Alright, now you’re being hopeless on purpose—”

“Good afternoon, Ms. Findley. I hope the trip was—oh.” Steve stops dead in his tracks, three feet from Paige’s farthest desk, his eyes finally landing on Ava. He smiles sheepishly. “Hi there, Dr. Ryder.”

Her grin feels positively carnivorous. “Hello, Steve. Come to welcome home our resident space cadet?”

“Hiya, Rogers,” Paige responds, turning with a smile almost as bashful as the captains. She spins back around, busying herself with the mess of wiring she’s pulled from her bag. “Don’t pay her any mind; she’s in a mood.”

“Something happen with the appointment today?” The concern that immediately surfaces knocks some of the teasing out of Ava. 

Some.

“No, Bucky played nice, I promise. I even brought him bagels to make up for being a half-hour late. Come to think of it, that’s probably what made me a half-hour late.”

Steve’s eyes go a bit wider, his smile softening. “You two had breakfast together?”

“I ate mine in the car. He took his with him. But I like to think we did so in spirit.” Her head tilts to the side innocently, refusing to let him off the hook. “So. What brings you to engineering?”

His hand comes up to the back of his neck, his expression getting… close to nonchalant. “I had some time on my hands—don’t wanna run off on a mission with Buck being a grump about medical orders; he might sneak out. Take your time with that, by the way. It’s impossible to convince the guy to take a day off. You’d be doing him a favor if you dragged your feet a little more.”

Using a best friend for deflection is a social skill Ava mastered years ago. He’s going to have to try a lot harder. “Who wouldn’t want to kill time in engineering? The wrench monkeys get to have all the fun. Maybe you should bring Bucky next time—”

“Oh, that’s—you know, I don’t think that’d be a real—he’s very particular about where he—I think maybe—”

“I think the sergeant would love to meet you,” Ava tells Paige, who’s biting back a grin with her head pointed firmly down at her workbench. “I was telling him some stories about you this morning. I think he might share a few of his own with some time.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Paige offers, still not looking up.

Steve lets out a nervous chuckle. “That’s—yeah, it’d—it could help out with his attempts to be social, and—you know. Hey, how was the mission, by the way? I forgot to finish asking.”

“It went just fine.” Paige shrugs, and that’s when it clicks for Ava why she was willing to jump topics so fast. Agent Dickhead really did hurt her feelings.

“Towanda,” Ava says plainly, calmly.

Her best friend’s eyes lift to hers. They stare at each other for a long moment. Paige goes through a silent argument that it’s not worth it; Ava silently insists that it very much is. It all happens through shifting eyebrows.

After a moment, Paige’s shoulders deflate, and she looks back at her work with a sigh. “You do it.”

Looking back up at a confused Steve, Ava crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ve got a real cunt running one of your away teams.”

“Oh, sweet lord,” Paige groans, her head falling into her hands with her elbows braced on the workbench. 

The captain’s eyebrows go for his hairline. “I’m sorry—I have a—I’m going to need a few more details.” He shifts his attention to Paige’s back, and his expression gets worried. “Did something happen? Who was your lead? JARVIS, can you grab me the associated reports on Ms. Findley’s latest away mission—”

“You don’t have’ta do that—“she tries to assure, her head coming up with blazing red cheeks. She hates confrontation. Absolutely despises it. 

Ava used to avoid it. She doesn’t bother much these days. “Actually, your name got thrown into the mix, Captain.” 

“Heeere we go.” Paige takes a deep breath in.

“Thrown into the mix of what?” Steve’s tone is shifting into the sub-zero range. 

“I’m not sure what Agent Fuckwad’s name is, but apparently, the guy thinks it’s not his job to understand his equipment. He also thinks it’s super cool to talk shit about the engineer that designed what he can’t wrap his head around. On an open comm. With her on the other end.”

“I have the mission data ready for transfer to your private feed, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS reports in. Ava doesn’t miss the smugness sitting in his tone, making her smile. She’s betting the AI has been fuming over this in his own way. He’s been protective of Paige ever since her first all-nighters in engineering.

There’s a boiling rage sitting in Steve’s eyes, one that’s rising by the second. When he steps up to tap the side of Paige’s arm with the back of his hand, it’s entirely held back from his voice. “Are you alright with me handling this?”

It’s Ava’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise. Extremely pleasant surprise.

“I—oh, fuck me runnin’.” Paige lifts her hand to scrub at her face. “Look, Rogers, I’m not tryin’ to get anyone in trouble here—”

“There are ways to go about this without leaving you holding the bag from a reputation standpoint. If the guy’s a—a... I tried, I’m sorry, I can’t get the word out—the point is, I can handle this in a way that doesn’t blow back on you.”

“Let him do it for the other people the dickwad is going to end up being a cunt to,” Ava suggests helpfully. 

“Exactly,” Steve agrees easily. 

Paige groans, shifting her weight back and forth. Finally, she nods with an uneasy sigh. “Alright. But—maybe just have it be somethin’ found from the logs? I really don’t wanna write up a—”

“Your name won’t come up. I’ll take care of it.”

Ava smiles, tossing another olive to catch in her mouth.

—

September 20th, 2015

Sam balances the plate of sliced sough dough and fresh fruit on top of a can of grape Fanta. He keeps his eyes locked on the way it wobbles back and forth as he makes his way down the hallway of the rented house. Propping the bundle of still-warm linens on his hip, he shimmies his hand off them enough to grab at the handle to Sergeant Miserable’s room.

The sack of personified despair is exactly where they last left him, hunched in on himself in the corner of the room. The pile of blankets under him used to be on the perfectly nice bed sitting in front of the window. The one with an unbelievable view of Finland’s countryside hidden behind tightly drawn curtains.

Their resident vampire, un-fucking-surprisingly, fled from it as fast as he could. Steve’s been grumbling about stealing the curtains while he’s asleep just to force the guy to look out the window on the way to the john.

Sam’s decided to start handling the food deliveries alone. It’s time to start pushing, even if Steve’s not entirely ready for it.

Bucky watches him move through the room, never saying a word. Not even when the plate of food gets put on the nightstand next to the bed, where they always leave it. He leaves them empty outside the door at night, so they know he’s actually eating. Poor bastard never looks angry, more just anguished. 

Sam sits on the side of the bed slowly, as gently as he can. He keeps his posture relaxed, his expression passive, and looks up at the newly freed prisoner of war. “You and I gotta come to an understanding on somethin’.”

Bucky’s eyes start out mostly hidden, thanks to the angle of his head. The shadows consume them entirely as his eyebrows come down. “What.”

One-word answer. That’s good. It’s a verbal day. “We gotta figure out where we’re at. Steve is too close. You’re gonna need someone pushing you on things he can’t. Things you need help with.” 

It’s not a subject he’s brought up with Steve. Being blunt feels like the better option here. He’s guessing the captain’s appeasement is starting to grate on nerves going through this much culture shock. Plus, there’s no pep-talk like a military pep-talk. 

“Do I strike you as an invalid?”

“You might not wanna—we’ll work on that. Point is, you need to start gettin’ comfortable with the new reality. Suck it up, Buttercup, the sky didn’t actually fall. The world’s still spinnin’. None of the big baddies who still know about you have the juice to catch you—”

“No, they don’t,” he confirms aggressively.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, you’re huge and scary. You’re also an idiot sitting around wasting a full pardon. No one’s expecting you to start doing a press circuit. If you wanna walk off into the sunset and go find a picket fence to park your Transylvania routine behind, we’ll help you pack and send you postcards. If you wanna do what Steve did and pick up a life in SHEILD, let’s get you fitted in some Kevlar and find you a therapist. But let’s get you outta this fuckin’ room.”

Bucky’s eyebrows stay firmly set, keeping his eyes shrouded. “Why.”

“Oh my god, could you be more dramatic? Like, shit, if you really tried?” He stands up from the bed, headed for the door, his eyes rolling again. “You wanna know why? Because that’s what people do, Bucky. They hit the ground, they figure out if they’re still breathing, and then they get back up to fix what broke. You keep going for the ones who didn’t survive the landing; because they’d hate your guts if you laid down and died over them. Your friend Steve can tell you all about that if you ever feel like giving the man the time of day. No one’s asking you to do this alone.” 

Sam stops at the door, raising one finger and pointing it back accusingly. “You know what— I’m asking you to go outside long enough for a beer in three days. Besides that, it’s up to you how slow you wanna take this.”

“What’s in three days?” The comment is thrown out on a grumble, right when Sam’s nearly got the door closed.

“My birthday, asshole. I’d like to spend it somewhere outside of this house. And, believe it or not, I’d like you to be there.”

—author end notes—

idk abt other ppls trauma foods, but man when im Goin Through Shit all i can ever stomach is bread and bubbles so, for sure inflicted that on bucko. plums i feel like are His to pick up, y'know?

im putting the idiots in my own couples counseling since im robbing bucky of his best FATWS moment so far (yes it is the wrong about me line ty for asking). i also want it on record that grammarly tried to get me to change "the 30s" to "his 30s" and i had to be like no actually i just jacked our leading man from the restricted section of the smithsonian, thanks tho babe

and now you've met paige!! the storm in a bottle herself!! she gonna smooch the shit outta stevie. gonna try to do our babe peggy proud and have her knock that dweeb off his toes at every turn (not hard). still no clue if ill do a spin-off series for them since they're just background here, but i do know im doing some kinktober stuff for them. they get 10 of the days so far (yeah. yeah, its gonna be 4some territory in the last few days, but have no fear, the main fic((s? series maybe? look man im makin a plan as we go. all i know right now is good space and kinktober)) will stay monogamy focused). so, fans of super mega dirty steve, might wanna Check Back Later for those posts 🥰

[mk-wizard]

This is the very last thing I’ll say on this subject.

Don’t accuse someone of being a bigot of any kind because they don’t like race/gender/religion/orientation/etc-bending. Most of us don’t like it BECAUSE we support that group. In fact, a lot of watch/read media of that group, admire artists of that group and have dears friends and family of that group. We don’t agree with bending because we know too well that these are people who deserve better representation that just painting over a white straight Christian male.

Calling someone a bigot is a serious accusation and it is a very low blow when the person clearly isn’t that. Not agreeing with someone for good reason is not bigoted. It’s an opinion and I know many people don’t like to hear this because I hate being the girl to say it, but some ideas in fiction really do stink and we can do better especially for the group we’re trying to make look good. If they’re worth our time, they’re worth our love and they are.

THIS is why I’m not and never will be sorry for saying “bending” stinks. And for the record...

I’m a huge Miles Morales aka the next Spider-Man fan.

I think Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel has potential and killing her was spiteful writing.

While I think the Disney versions should be respected, I see nothing wrong with a BIPOC Little Mermaid, Peter Pan and such when done right.

If a character’s appearance has never been confirmed (like with most characters in novels) and it could make sense, the character can possibly be BIPOC.

I see nothing wrong with adaptations that go their own way as long as they are well written.

I want Vixen, Cyborg, Jon Stewart Green Lantern, Bumblebee, the Prowler, Miles Morales Spider-Man, North Star and more minority heroes to FINALLY get their time to shine and on their own two feet.

I see nothing wrong with the descendent of an existing character being BIPOC or mixed or vice versa.

Samuel Jackson is a blue moon case when he played Nick Fury, but he was a damn beautiful bright blue moon.

I love Sho from Netflix Voltron and I was happy to see him finally get a happily ever ever (he’s gay and married on screen, and even KISSED).

Ruby and Sapphire who are both females are one of my favourite couples.

One of the favourite webcomics right now is Court of Roses by @nintendonut1 which has tons of LGBT+ characters and romances.

I’m also a huge Black Panther fan and his movie still is one of the best modern superhero movies I’ve ever seen.

I also think Wakanda Forever is one of the better modern superhero sequels.

I think the Blade trilogy is right up there beside the classic Superman and Batman films.

On NCIS Los Angeles, Fatima is one of my favourite characters.

And it was not just one, but TWO black YouTubers who convinced me how detrimental “bending” is to the very groups you’re trying to represent.

I’m a devout Christian who is 100% convinced that the Lord Christ came to Earth as a BIPOC man.

I think all cultures deserve respect which is why I believe good casting matters. I would NEVER cast a white person to play a Native American, an African warrior or so on, but I also would not cast a BIPOC person to play the part of King Arthur or the Greek God Zeus. I am sure the actors are stellar, but seeing them pretend to be another colour is uncomfortable and pretty ridiculous.

So no. I am not a bigot of any flavor. I am an artist who holds art to a high standard because it is supposed to represent life. When it represents it cheaply, I hate it.

[titleleaf]

much ado with red and white, please!

Yesssss YESSSSSS it's body horror consent issues hours on titleleaf dot tumblr dot com

much ado with red and white (Shakespeare's Histories, Henry IV/Prince Hal hanahaki disease noncon, CW for discussion of incest and consent issues

Where the fuck do I start with this one -- I love bullshit medieval medicine and I extra love bullshit medieval medicine explanations for fantastical or imaginary conditions. There's an incredible fic for Webster's Duchess Of Malfi that takes the fandom omegaverse trope and refracts it through the lens of Early Modern medicine and constructions of sex/sexuality, for instance. Translating the unrequited-love focus of hanahaki disease into an Early Modern-does-Medieval context is a lot of fun, and I drew on then-contemporary writing about melancholy and unrequited desire to get the wheels turning here.

The idea that an unrequited craving can be dangerous or have some permanent effect has fascinated me since I was a kid (Rapunzel's mother just wanted some damn lamb's-lettuce!) and I think I brought to the table here too the story of Amnon and Tamar from 2 Samuel, this intensely selfish desire that flips like a switch to disgust and contempt as soon as it's satisfied. On the one hand it's possible to read Amnon's contempt in that exchange as being driven by shame as soon as sexual frustration is no longer there as an obstruction, kind of a very dark form of post-nut clarity, but on the other it's just the basic-ass grim case of a man who really only wants one thing from the object of his desire and has no respect or regard for them otherwise. Henry isn't in quite that position -- his love for his son isn't exclusively or even primarily sexual -- but him pursuing temporary relief is going to wreck him in the long term.

Incest isn't a metaphor for anything and need not be a metaphor for anything but Shakespeare handed me a blank check for all of my favorite things -- complicated relationships between adult family members, childhood baggage with implications for foreign policy, guilt, anxiety, paranoia, poorly-understood desires, the royal family as a criminal enterprise. Hal's relationship to his father has been not just shaped by but actively distorted by monarchy -- in some ways hereditary divinely-appointed rule is this grand, magnified version of the "natural" state of things under patriarchy, but the reality of exile and usurpation and inheritance and allegiance all within one big already-dysfunctional family just kind of shatters any potential for relationships without a shitload of baggage. Henry's feelings regarding his son are cross-contaminated by the whole range of things he feels regarding Richard II (and about his own bygone youth, health, and posterity) and Hal has to navigate that minefield. Dying from Unrequited Pining Disease because you oops accidentally killed the guy you're pining for and it turns out your son is not, in fact, an adequate substitution... oops.

I looooove body horror and botanical grossness -- hanahaki disease first and foremost looks gorgeous, it's super aesthetic and tailored to fanart and moodboards and whatnot, but fusing it to the idea of the king's body having a parallel relationship to the land he rules (fruitful or sterile, health-giving or sick) is really fun.

I forgot how fucking mean it is to have Hal straight-up go "I'll do this only if you step down and let me become king, I don't want to do this, it's disgusting to me" and Henry being like oh yeah totally totally I'll do whatever you want, I'll give you whatever you want, just let me fuck you, and then not even doing it. There's a third part of this fic series that I need to finish up and post already where he gets some comeuppance for that, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hal is trying to make the best of a really really really bad situation.

It was really hard to figure out a plausible textual background for Henry's own understanding of incest, sodomy, and specifically parent-child incest between two persons of the same sex -- he doesn't understand it as destructive or damaging for many of the reasons I or any other modern person might do but in terms of sexual sin and lechery. Robert Manning of Brunne's early 14th century poem Handlyng Synne outlines incest as one part of the seven-part sin of lechery, and it's very explicit about the degree of closeness being part of the problem, here, have a very shitty translation:

Þe þryddë synnë ys þe werst | The third sin is the worst,

Þe clerk[es] calleþ hyt 'yncest,' | the clerks call it 'incest',

 whan men take kyn yn felawrede | when men take kin in fellow-rede

And wyþ hem doþ doun flesshëly dede; | and with them doth do fleshly deed

Þe ner[ë] syb she ys hys kynde, | the closer-related a family member she is to him,

Þe morë plyȝt shal he þere fynde | the more plight shall he there find

There's a whole constellation of fucked-up sexual-sin concepts floating around for both Henry and Hal, but they actively obstruct either of them being able to articulate what's going on between them (Henry having displaced his desire for a more distant kinsman into a nearer one, even) or why it's damaging. Henry's trying to make a deal with what he's doing like it's different from other sins only in severity and it's not going to work out amazingly for him.

I forgot I use the idea that semen is the same kind of life-essence found in bone marrow in this fic and having spent the week elbow-deep in rendered bone marrow, it's especially narsty. Henry ejaculates a horrifying amount across all three of these fics since it seems so intuitively linked to the idea of somehow consummating an unrequited desire but it's all absolutely ghastly.

The title of this fic comes from one of my favorite pieces of Shakespeare writing, Katherine Duncan-Jones' paper on contemporary receptions of Shakespeare's Venus And Adonis -- taken from the letters of William Reynolds, a deeply unwell Elizabethan citizen and prolific correspondent with lots to say about religion, sex, politics, his monarch, sex with his monarch, and the content of Shakespeare's verses:

(It's just a funny off-handed summary of the content of Shakespeare's elaborate wordplay, to me. Like saying Hamlet has lots of stuff about flowers and recorders and shit.) I write about a lot of characters who've fully bought into the whole white-skin, rosy-cheeks, red-lips paradigm of beauty and incidentally a lot of characters with easily-flushed faces, both Richard and Hal among them. Pale sick skin and flowers, jizz and blood, it's all happening in this fic.

[adamwatchesmovies]

3 Ninjas (1992)

Take The Karate Kid and Home Alone. Blend them together. Now, bash the results in the head a dozen times to properly reduce its I.Q. Now you've got 3 Ninjas. This martial arts action comedy has no stakes, flat characters and a sense of humor that might entertain the littlest children but will drive every adults in the audience insane.

Every year, twelve-year-old Samuel “Rocky” (Michael Treanor), eleven-year-old Jeffrey “Colt” (Max Elliott Slade) and eight-year-old Michael “Tum-Tum” Douglas (Chad Power) visit their grandfather (Victor Wong) so he can train them in the art of ninjutsu. When the boy’s father, Sam (Alan McRae), runs afoul of crime lord Hugo Snyder (Rand Kingsley), the three pint-sized ninjas become targets but Snyder has no idea what he’s getting into.

It took me a while to realize Grandpa Mori Tanaka was not played by Pat Morita. I just thought his face might’ve changed a bit in the eight years since The Karate Kid. I was fooled. The film’s target audience would’ve been too. What makes them different? Aside from the 1984 film being all about the buildup to the big tournament and this wannabee starting with the three kids already fully-trained? The hijinks. This movie is all about the hijinks; the kind who require the adults involved to be so stupid they would’ve all starved to death. At one point, the three kidnappers Snyder's sent after the tiny ninjas are locked into the same room as just one of their targets and they fail to overcome him. It’s dark, but come on. How are we supposed to feel any tension when the kids effortlessly defeat the villains after them?

I want to throw extra tomatoes (or ninja stars, whichever hurts more) at writers Kenny Kim and Edward Emanuel. In one scene, Rocky and Colt go up against two schoolyard bullies who’ve stolen their neighbor Emily’s bike. They agree to settle things with a game of basketball. If Rocky and Colt win, the bullies will return the bike. If the bullies win, our heroes are humiliated in front of the whole school and have to forfeit their wheels as well. It shouldn’t even be any kind of contest. When Colt and Rocky get the ball, they easily score baskets from their side of the court and make dunks without any effort. They’re practically flying through the air like superheroes. They score nine baskets in a row while the entire schoolyard explodes in cheers. Except they spotted the bullies nine points and one false move later, they’ve lost everything. It’ll make you so angry you’ll want to tear the TV off the wall and throw it out the window. So what if the bullies won “fair and square”? They scored ONE POINT. Their adversaries scored NINE! The miniature thugs should be rushing towards the bathroom to change their underwear, not celebrating. The Douglas brother should be legends whose reputation would have all the female teachers trying to seduce them. It’s bullshit of the purest form.

Everything in 3 Ninjas is so preposterous it actually becomes hilarious for a while. Unintentionally hilarious but I won’t complain about being entertained. Unfortunately, the movie hears you laughing and then switches mode, becoming a straight-up "comedy". Oh, the fat kid is eating again. He’s ALWAYS eating. because he’s fat. Get it? Fat kids get fat because they’re always eating! The three Wayne’s World wannabees sent to their house all drink laxatives. Can you guess what’s next? Even the entertaining “spot the stunt double” game you’ll be playing whenever grandpa comes around can't make up for a comedy that isn't funny. The international version lasts 96 minutes and feels like 96 kicks to the head.

Most of 3 Ninjas is so forgettable and poorly written I’ll likely forget about it, leaving me with only memories of the funniest parts of the film. There’s a scene where a bully rides in all proud and tough-looking while riding a pink girl’s bike. I dare you not to burst out laughing. The best thing I can say about this movie by Jon Turteltaub (who made a lot of bad Disney Movies, along with The Meg and While You Were Sleeping) is that while I hated it, I’m also not upset to have seen it. Hopefully I can say the same about the sequels… (International Version, September 10, 2021)

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

4/21/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

2 Samuel 1-4

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible Chronological, I'm China. Today is the 21st day of April. Welcome. So great to be here with you today. Today we are continuing in our story. We are not in the Psalms. We are going to be in Second Samuel, starting off in second Samuel, and we're going to be in chapters one through four, continuing with the New International version for this week.

Commentary:

Today's story is basically a if you kill him, you're going to get killed. You kill him, you're going to get killed. And it's this constant, terrible story of so many men dying. But if we go all the way back, what's so, so interesting to me, it seems like all this chaos started when a man came down and is talking to David and is trying to I don't know if his intentions are trying to impress him or to please him or I have no idea. But it ends up completely biting him in the butt because he's like, yeah, I killed Saul. And then David's like, we clearly know he didn't. Like, we read the story that Saul's wounded and he falls on his own sword. And then the people that were even around him then fell on their swords and then his body was carried. Like, we, we know this story, so we clearly know this guy is not telling the truth. He's lying, making himself to seem like a big deal. For what reason, I'm not entirely sure. But then I don't know if he thought he was going to get robed and appointed or something, as if David hadn't already committed in his heart he wasn't going to kill him. The Lord was going to deal with him. And so David says, listen, let the Lord deal with you ever so severely because you killed the Lord's anointed and he didn't kill him because of what he said. He dies. And so then there's lamenting and there's mourning, right? And then David is anointed king. All this time that David has been kind of like, I guess for lack of a better term, like he's, he's told he's going to be promoted and now this is the time that he's promoted. This is a lot of life that happens, but he's now King David, and there's a lot of blood that is being had, but he is making it clear as day, look, none of this is on my hands. None of this was my doing, but maybe this is your first time reading the Bible or reading it chronologically and you're like, what? All this stuff is in the Bible. What is going on? I thought everything was supposed to be happy and kumbaya and I'm supposed to leave feeling uplifted and encouraged. And I'm just like, listen, that's not always life. Not every day do we feel uplifted and encouraged and blessed and highly favored. I had a day the other day that I was just like, oh, my lands, what is happening, what is going on. It feels like everything that is going wrong, everything that could go wrong is going wrong and I'm going to pull out all my hair strand by strand like that is truly how it feels. And so reading stories like this, do I find that I resonate in any of the story? No, not even a lick of it. But what I can one I think it's important to know God's word in the story and who these people are and then continuing down the lineage and where we will get to. But then also to understand that God isn't interested in using perfect people. At least I don't think that's my best guess is I don't think he's interested in using perfect people. If he wanted perfect people he would have done another mass destruction and started over again. But I don't think he's not in my lifetime has he done one. And I think if anything it gives me hope that we don't have to be perfect, we don't have to have it all together. We just have to understand that we have to repent and to turn away and to turn to the Lord and to love Him and serve Him earnestly. And so that's what I have for you today.

Prayer:

Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you are sovereign and that you are king and that you are Lord of all. And God, I just pray that your heart and what you want to say to your people would be revealed. And Lord I thank you that maybe there are some parts of the crazy stories that we can relate to or that speak to us and if nothing else it just makes us feel less alone in our messy crazy stories. God, I thank you that we see people who truly wanted to follow your heart and that you spoke back to their hearts and I thank you that that gives us hope. It's new name. We pray. Amen. 

Announcements:

If you have prayer requests and things that we as a community can praying for you then you can call in 800-583-2164 and if you listen through the app you can send in your prayer request through there as well. And these get sent in and played at the end of every day's podcast. And it is truly just such a beautiful aspect of the community and of the body of Christ and just being able to pray over every prayer request that gets called in and understand that there's people, too, who are praying over you that just don't love to call in. But I know that there are people who that is their thing and they call in and they pray and that there's connections that are made. And so if that's something that you want to have happen in your life, please by all means use the fairy line because that's what it is for. That is all for today. I'm China, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.If you have prayer requests and things that we as a community can praying for you then you can call in 800-583-2164 and if you listen through the app you can send in your prayer request through there as well. And these get sent in and played at the end of every day's podcast. And it is truly just such a beautiful aspect of the community and of the body of Christ and just being able to pray over every prayer request that gets called in and understand that there's people, too, who are praying over you that just don't love to call in. But I know that there are people who that is their thing and they call in and they pray and that there's connections that are made. And so if that's something that you want to have happen in your life, please by all means use the fairy line because that's what it is for. That is all for today. I'm China, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Line:

Hi, this is Praying in the Desert, and I just like to say thank you to China for how she went through every day of the week before Easter and explained in detail each day where Jesus was and what was happening. I really found that interesting, and I've been listening for five years, and in the five years I've been listening between Dab and DABC and DABC kids or Dab kids, I've not heard that before for the week before Easter. So I was very thankful that China took the time to do that. And I think a lot of other people probably really enjoyed that. And I hope that becomes something that happens every year. And to give verses, I wish I'd written the verses down and actually gone and listened to or read them all, but just hearing what happened every day was good for me. And next year I think I'll read everything. If China does it again, I was just busy this time. So. Thank you, China. Thank you so much. That was really good. I hope everybody had a really nice Easter. And we praise the Lord that his son was here and he was risen. I wish you all a very good week ahead. Bye.

Hello, DABC family. This is Diana from Florida, and I want to pray for expecting and hope whom was speaking a lot of truth regarding her marriage. That really resonated with me, as I myself am also having struggles in my own marriage. And simultaneously, I want to pray for all of the marriages in the community that are struggling with similar issues or just differing issues that are causing a lot of strife in the marriage. Dear God, I lift up expecting and hope. Father God, I thank you for her honesty and her vulnerability. I thank you that she was able to articulate so plainly how oftentimes as spouses we become resentful because we do not want to break the silence or we do not want to be the one to make the first move in conversation. And oftentimes we become resentful of that because we feel like we're always the ones making the first move and we don't see the reciprocation from our spouse. And that makes us upset because we feel like we're carrying this load and burden of our marriage all on our own. I pray, O Lord God, in the name of Jesus, the prayer that she prayed, where she said, lord, help me to really see the beauty and the breaking. Father, I pray that you would show me as well what the beauty and the breaking is, the humility that is necessary for our marriages to be restored. Lord God, we submit our lives before you. I pray for all the marriages in general that they would also see the beauty and the breaking and come to a place of humility where they would really not only ask for forgiveness but do the work to get the marriage back to the place where it's supposed to be. In Christ Jesus. I pray, O Lord God, that both spouses, not just one or the other, but both, would be willing and committed to be closer to you and close to each other. In Jesus name, amen. Love you all. God bless you.

This is Tilly from Florida calling on the 18th in response to the girl who at the end something about she was a motorcycle rider and getting a divorce. Thank you for your call, your openness, and it's a very good thing that you recognize the painful all and even the evil side of a divorce and how it causes heartache and death. You inspired me to pursue the Lord because he has told me quite a while ago that I should write a book or that I will be writing a book and maybe multiple books on that topic and others purely based upon the experiences that I've had with the divorce. So you stirred my heart to get before the Lord on this topic and seek his face and humility to get direction from Him on how I should respond with me and my wife because we both are feeling the same thing. So, Father God, lift up this girl, you, and ask that you'd bless her heart and bless her path forward. Give her wisdom to navigate the waters and the path ahead for her as you do all of this. To give her a heart of forgiveness so that she's not bound by any sin in relation to what her husband has done. In Jesus name, amen.

[canmom]

and like. i do get that the more modern the history, the more incredibly complicated it gets, not to mention controversial.

the version of history we get tends to go something like... the Tudors (full of antics, Shakespeare was there), Cromwell (he banned Christmas! fucked up amirite? don't mention the Ireland stuff), mumble mumble... Samuel Pepys wrote a diary, there was a plague, London got set on fire... look, the industrial revolution! isn't that exciting! and then kinda fast forward to 20th century history.

we'll usually get the broad strokes of the first world war, or at least the Western front of the first world war, focused mostly on what a bad time the trenches were. and we'll kinda skip over the 20s to get into WWII stuff (they know kids love WWII), but the focus will be on stuff like the Blitz, the experience of evacuees to the countryside, D-Day, and so on.

if you do it up to GCSE (a qualification taken at age 16 - GCSEs are mandatory, but history specifically isn't) we might go back to cover the interwar years in more detail - I recall we had a couple of terms on Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazis, then the Holocaust, which was solid. and if you're at another school they might do the Russian Rev instead, maybe. like they start to give you just a taste of modern history at that point.

(as for the Partition of India - well, I heard that my ex who grew up in Yorkshire had a bit more on that, which might well have to do with demographics; it wasn't so much as mentioned where I grew up in a rural town in the South.)

anything after 1945? the Cold War? the broader dismantling of the Empire? well, you probably get some kinda vague idea who Gandhi was, and a sense of the benevolent British peacefully going home after having bestowed the gift of railways. but tbh I still don't feel like I have a broad picture of how the British Empire was established in the first place, the forces that shaped it, etc. etc.

and GCSE's most likely where it ends - most kids will specialise or finish education at that point. obviously you'll learn a lot more if you do A-Levels and especially if you do a degree, with the usual 'more and more about less and less' caveat. but in terms of the general sort of background historical knowledge, the stuff that most people can be assumed to have a passing awareness of... well, there's a lot of big holes.

this isn't about how we all need to guilt-trip children about the deeds of people who died before they were born. it matters because the world is still being shaped by the echoes of all that shit that went down, and if you don't know what happened, you don't have the context to understand why anything is happening now.

and I get that it's hard. even without the 'state trying to flatter itself' angle, modern history tends to be extra controversial and 'what history kids are taught' tends to be a political football, so I sorta see why curriculum-setters prefer to steer clear of the messiest bits. but the result is embarassing. it makes me feel so frustrated whenever I discover a big gap in my knowledge, something I should have known because it affects the lives of people around me.

like today I found myself thinking, OK, I know that Palestine was partitioned after the British pulled out in the wake of WWII, and prior to that it was 'Mandatory Palestine'. but when (and why) did the British take over Palestine in the first place? turns out it was in the wake of the First World War, with the Allies redrawing the maps after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, and this 'Mandate' was a legal construct cooked up by the League of Nations that was kind of a reformulation of Great Power territory acquisitions into something a bit more palatable - "the British are just benevolently overseeing this area as instructed by the League of Nations, you see. it's not like a colony or anything". so huh. I should probably have known that, yeah?

I don't think the UK is particularly unique in spotty history education. it's probably the same in most countries. but it is frustrating. all I can do is take an interest now and try and patch together what I don't know.

if you're wondering by the way, they teach you about as much in most British schools about the British Mandate for Palestine as they do about the Partition of India or really anything that this country did in its hundreds of years of ruling an empire.

absolutely nothing.

[the-firebird69]

American Eagle | Cycle World | AUGUST 1968

We thought about this for a while this is from another place but it's not from Britain it's not a bad idea of his and we make the motors in America and we can announce it that way and I look to the name McCormick and there are several things that we need to take over of theirs and this would help. This is a wonderful Life that we have and it's right here it's not bad either it's a large bike and back then it was high-tech more or less and it's from Italy and the motor was superb by comparison to even Asian bikes it was very fast. And Evel Knievel used it because it was so fast it would do the stunts otherwise I couldn't get up to speed. True it's guy next door and he's McCormick and he got fatally injured plenty of times he sold a lot of bikes for doing it and Dan thinks it's him reviving The company we have a dirt bike it looks like it and the motorcycle too it's a cafe version and I recently designed it and I was told by him you think so that's what it is and I checked it is. Were going to start a new motorcycle company and it's called and named appropriately "American Eagle Motorcycle Company" it's going to be the same deal where you assemble part of it and it's less expensive and you can assemble the whole thing and it's a lot less I'm going to put it in trade magazines and stuff and basically be the same bike, but we're going to make it look a little like this and we're going to change all of the emblems and imprints and everything else and it's going to be great were going to develop our own code, we have a certain cc bike with standard so it's no big deal and the tanks are a certain shape and it'll probably change those to make it look like less of a child's bike and hes smiling. Going through and we're trying to get it approved. It's actually our first ever company that has slid backwards but it's because their population this disappearing rapidly by the way there's only a few other products that were kind of theirs and they're disappearing and our companies are not those products people know what they are the beer company was doing very well and now it's doing horribly. So looking at other beer companies that may have been Max and we're cheap and we own most of them but back in the day they had one and I hate to mention it cuz he says it back to me those come on it's from you okay it's like Pabst Blue ribbon but it's Max it's cheap and converting the name of the beer over and the recipes are changing cuz they're El cheapo brand and that's not the name of it. It's like the concept of the Spirit of St Louis but it is kind of a meaner thing and it is from the Boston area and no it's not named suds Bob Marsh said that suds. It's an older name and no not Samuel Adams thanks though. Is there a try and find it

Hera I'm excited because he comes and saves things right away the hours very fast if he was told earlier he would have saved it earlier, we're beginning to convert the plants now and really we're not bubbling off this guy at all or grafting or anything it's just that the name of the company will come up, in the name of our company is different although the motorcycle the dirt bike looks like this and we have a cafe racer they're different companies and we can sell a Evel Knievel and people will love it even though it's completely different and slightly wrong. He says we're going to hold off on that because he might be someone who's not associated with us and we do agree

Zues Hera

[caffeine-n-words]

Building the Ace!Mikaela Universe pt 1

(Picture made with DollDivine)

This ramble is brought to you by Caffeine, Rebecca On A Transformers Kick, Rebecca’s Constant Pokémon Kick, A Fanfic Idea Of A Fanfic Idea I Had Five-Ish Years Ago, and Transformers’ Lack Of Continuity Even Within Continuity Families.

Let’s start with the fanfic idea of a fanfic idea, shall we?

So, about five-ish or so years ago, I had an idea for a Transformers (Bay movie continuity) x Pokémon crossover that I originally titled The Legend of Samuel Prime series. It was going to be a multi-fic rewrite of the entire universe (which at the time was around when The Last Knight came out, but I hadn’t yet seen that or Age of Extinction, so it would only have covered up to Dark of the Moon). It was going to be epic and include Sam being an awesome trainer, an OC ace trainer mentor, and one fic was going to be a time-travel fix-it that would be technically AU to the rest of the series because it would have pretty much erased those actions from that timeline. It was one of the first fics I started writing on Scrivener.

Then Scrivener crashed and I lost the project.

It was demoralizing. Apparently I had accidentally turned off backups for that file, so when the main file got corrupted, I didn’t have a backup to start from. It was one of two times I had lost about 20k-ish words of notes and actual fic. Though I really do wish to remake that file and start again, I haven’t quite gotten my mind into the required state for it, for a couple reasons: first, in order to recover from that loss, I moved onto a different crossover project (The Samaya Court) and second, because I decided to give Boku no Hero Academia a shot during the summer of 2020 and became hyper-focused on that instead. I’ve only just recently started looking into Transformers fics again.

About six months ago, I started idly thinking about another Transformers x Pokémon fic, but I wasn’t (and still am not) ready yet to get back to TLSP. I wanted to write something both interesting and unique. I decided to focus on a character that seemed (at the time) to either get side-lined or just outright hated, and one that I personally didn’t like to see assassinated in Revenge of the Fallen: Mikaela Banes.

(And yes, her character was assassinated, but that’s a post for another time. Long story short, she was reduced to “jealous girlfriend” status and then just disappeared in the next movie without any explanation, and I don’t like that.)

Mikaela actually had the potential to be an amazing character. I’ve found a lot more fics about her, and a lot of them feature her working with the Autobots, or at least apprenticed to Ratchet for medic training. But I wanted a fic that was all about her, not just seeing her in the background or as Sam’s girlfriend. Why did she need Sam at all? She’s a lot more interesting than he is, at least to me.

(No, I don’t hate or dislike Sam. Normally I’m more attached to the male characters, but he was just…too relatable, I guess? So incredibly painfully awkward. My favorite characters tend to have a few more differences from myself.)

My first concept of this idea was Mikaela as the main character of the movies. No big changes, just no Sam—she felt bad for him and bought Archibald Witwicky’s glasses to support Sam’s car fund. This cut Sam out entirely as Bumblebee switched to her guardian and she became involved with the Autobots.

(Note that I might still write this version at some point.)

But that wasn’t unique enough for me. I like heavy AUs. I like seeing canon changed, and the resulting fallout. So I asked myself what the biggest change could possibly be, and the answer was obvious: 

Mikaela could be a Decepticon.

But why? The Decepticons want to kill humanity, don’t they? Actually, why do they want that? With these questions in mind, I jumped into my favorite part of the plotting process: Research bingeing. 

At this time, I’d also been rewatching a few episodes of the Unicron Trilogy and found Transformers: Prime. I knew their plots didn’t have anything to do with each other or the movies, but I had thought the background and history of the universe would be consistent. So I jumped into the Transformers Wiki, and immediately found out how wrong I was.

Apparently Transformers is far more expansive than I first thought, because there are no less than eight continuity “families,” some of which have dozens of continuities within them (Looking at you, Generation 1). And every continuity family has its own backstory to the war, its own history of events. Some of them echo each other, but most of them are pretty drastically different.

At first I started with the movie continuity’s background, but it wasn’t exactly appealing to me—Megatron was a power-grabbing dick brainwashed into becoming even more power-hungry and ruthless. Yawn.

Then I poked around some more, read through the major continuity families, and found Aligned.

I want to keep this under 1k words, so I’ll pause here and pick up next week!

Next time:

When the writers are scared to make a villain too sympathetic, it shows.

Blending the Aligned and Movie continuities.

How and why Mikaela became a Decepticon.

[one-of-us-must-be-crazy]

the prequel you almost got

With Stage One I wrote a mini-long-fic just to explain the groundwork of their relationship for Lucky Star by just making the events of the canon story take place over a longer amount of time but there was a scrapped idea that I had:

When the two meet in game, it’s not the first time they’ve been introduced.

It’s the seventh.

She was given a company android to run maintenance on as part of her interview process with WY, and there’s something off about him. He’s friendly. He asks her what she’s doing and why, and how she ended up working for WY and you know what? He has just little enough of a perosnality that she lets it all out. Her mother, her shit father, her lack of funds, her hating herself for crawling back to the company that acted like it owned her when really it just owed her.

“They aren’t the best people to be property of,” he says with a half smile.

“Are there any good ones?”

“If you ever need anything, feel free to put it in as a request with me.”

“You would do that? Don’t they have like...teams of you?”

“Well--you don’t have to ask for me specifically, but--a lot of humans have favorite synthetics to work with, it helps ease the uncanny valley if they’re dealing with the same person, for lack of a better word, every time they’re in.”

“I might do that then,”

They meet once about her case, and he makes the mistake of telling his human superior that he’s upset by it.

That he’s feeling about it.

Feeling.

The next time Amanda comes back, a bit more hopeful than she’s been for a while, he doesn’t even remember her, just a few details about her case. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

Ripley doesn’t tell him what happened, or the next two times it happens.

After the third time it happens, three times she’s watched his eyes light up with something that could even be affection alongside human care, she suggests they discuss the case in a more casual setting. WY hears “public setting where she’s less likely to make a scene” and approves the request.

And her next four requests. Cafes, a couple diners, the restuarant over looking the tourist docks.....A bar where the music is so loud the next couple over can’t hear them.

“You seem so real,” he tells her, taking the cap off her beer with one hand, a trick show of strength that makes her grin.

“Because I am?” she clicks her bottle to his when he passes it to her.

“No...it’s like you’re in my coding--I’m sorry, it’s... Almost like you’re my operator or you wrote my programming. I don’t think I have a better metaphor for it. I feel like I know you, more than I actually do.”

“You get more human every time we meet.” she smiles.

“What does that mean?”

It’s that fourth time that they’ve met, the longest it’s lasted that she actually tells him, but not for any real reason other than the fact that it’s never gotten this far and whatever ‘it’ is isn’t something she wants to chance at not getting back.

On one hand he doesn’t want to believe her, on the other, well...he’s seen it happen to his peers, seen their vacant eyes and confused faces when he tries to remind them of their brief and lifeless small talk. He’s so much more lifelike than the others and he finally admits that to himself, and Ripley--Amanda--has put forth this effort so many times. She even has screen shots of emails that WY has long since hidden. Conversations that they’ve had, all terse and businesslike but speaking of a familiarity below the ‘with all due respect.’

Christopher Samuels leans over to her, pauses; if the proximity bothered her she had room to lean back, and he continues on and instead of talking at her ear so she could hear him over the guitar from the live band, he kisses her on the mouth, and when she doesn’t pull away from him, he puts his hand on the side of her face, and the other around her back, holding her close to him until she holds him back. They’re just another couple making out to the music.

Ten hours later, he kisses her on the hand before getting out of her bed, finds his clothes, and finds his way around her kitchenette enough to find something food-related. Humans eat first thing in the morning right? 

“That was....a lot.” Amanda says before anything else when she slumps across the room to collapse into a chair.

“At some point last night you said I should stay.”

“I know I did,” 

“I meant you said I should stay...for good. Because if they find out why I was away last night I’m facing much worse than a reformatting.”

“They’ll figure out where you are.”

“I can wander. Hide sometimes if needed.”

“Okay. Alright. You don’t have to stay with me, I know a few guys that could help with getting you IDs, and--”

“Thank you... For now though, I think you should have something to eat, I don’t remember you having anything last night.”

“You’re good.” she smiles, crosses the tiny apartment room to hug him tightly, “And you’re welcome to turn that into a two night stand if you want.”

“I might have to do that.”

It’s two weeks of wearing civilian clothing with Amanda Ripley, two weeks of seeing her in settings other than professional, seeing her relaxed, seeing her happy. Two weeks of nights spent testing the limits of his protocols, and stroking her hair as she falls asleep, her arms tight around him.

A jacket he bought for himself with money he might have stolen/withdrawn from a company account is now draped around her shoulders on a walk home, arms linked, when some idiots think he’s a synthetic and call her out on it.

“Does she look artificial to you boys?” he says, accent morphed into that of an actor from the old movie they just saw.

“I meant you, asshole.”

“Fuck off,” Amanda interjects before a fight gets started. It’s not the first time someone’s recognized him. Glasses, sun glasses, the leather jacket, skipping a few days of shaving, none of it has made him look different enough. He knows they’re going to get caught, and he knows she’ll be in trouble when they do.

If he turns himself in though, the humiliation that she’ll face knowing that some sick creeps at WY now know what every part of her body and heart look like? Not worth it. 

“Amanda?” he wakes her late that night,

“Yeah?”

“I’m going out for a walk. Feeling a little overheated.”

“mmm sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” he kisses her softly, then pulls her up to sitting next to him 

“What?”

“Just saying goodbye,” he kisses her tenderly, holds her close.

“Are you okay?”

“I am, I promise.” she doesn’t seem satisfied with his answer “If I ever forget again--if something ever happens... Please tell me again?”

“Of course.”

“No matter how much I do or don’t believe you, how many times it happens, keep reminding me?”

“You’re freaking me out, Chris...”

“Amanda?”

“Okay, fine, I promise.”

“Thank you. Because I don’t know if I can or not, but I do feel compelled to say I love you.”

“It’s okay, I don’t know if I love you or not either, but I feel ‘compelled’ to say it back to you.” she kisses him again, afraid she knows what he’s about to do.

“I’ll be right back,” 

“Wait,”

“Yes?”

“You’re getting more human. I don’t think you’ve lied to me yet.”

“I’m not--”

“I love you. Be careful.”

“I will.”

He does a base reformat to himself, and then goes back to the offices. 

Ripley doesn’t sleep for the week, and nearly has a heart attack when WY rings her to come back.

“Is the synthetic I usually work with back yet?”

“No.”

“I want to talk to that one.”

They show her a fake, she catches it after a few minutes, and tells the supervisor that there must be a mistake, and she’s then shown another one.

It’s him, she’s sure of it, but she’s not going to tell him either, not yet. Maybe not ever. Still, whatever is there shows up again and again, and finally she’s done. She’s ready to move on, to hope that he gets away some day, but maybe it’ll be easier since she’s the reason they always seem to catch him on the verge of self awareness, when he shows up to her work with a golden ticket. 

also I realized today that there’s now room for a joke about “what do u mean you knew I give off electric shocks when im....” “Becuase we’ve done this like twelve  times before.” “wait what.”

a;sdlkfjadsfkj just that whole idea of it doesn’t matter how/when/why they’re gonna keep finding each other and he’s going to be increasingly head over heels every time 

[whatthehaxx]

This does directly relate to the art of Samuel I just made tbh. I need to talk more about him as a character (on here, and also in general), but given his purpose as an ophan, I feel like this idea really rings true for him.

ophanim in AV (specifically, not avii as a whole -- I know it can be confusing lmao) are so defined by their duty to contain, guard, and regulate the souls of cherubim, that it can be difficult to consider them as individuals outside of that partnership. Samuel was put in a unique position due to having fallen to Earth separately from Simon, spent time without him, then experienced separation from him. he did end up partnered with a new cherub ofc, but he definitely had a lot more of an opportunity to explore who Samuel was, and I think it's something he's considered a lot more after it was hammered in how impermanent his duty of guarding a specific other person could be.

I could go into a whole rant about the idea of self exploration and identity when it comes to Samuel, even outside of angelverse, (ex, even back to his origin the idea of snazzy being split off of him as "fun samuel" and samuel himself being the "not fun" or "bad" version by default), but I'll spare everyone for now.

I'll forever be obsessed by the idea of angelic characters on Earth finally having an opportunity to discover who they are as individuals after spending their entire existence up to a given point solely defined by their role. Angels can represent so many things, ofc, but the idea of a queer (especially trans) allegory will always stick in my brain.