#What a way to remember you have an somewhat tech degree

[genrihgayne]

Less sexy math thing is that I know that the answer is not gonna be something thet you'd like, I'm afraid....

The Box is a cube, and a head of lettuce is some-what a sphere or just any amorph form *that is not cube* (so even if you put this lettuce inside THE perfect box it's still have CORNERS😔)

With what little left of my brain after not using it properly I know there's formula that can tell that the answer to that is a *liiiiittle* bit moooore that 1 head of lettuce

How much little? Like 1,002 or smth idk the correct numbers rn

Because if you want to fill this Box ALL the way (from the math POV) you're gonna add more of the leaves and press this poor plant together like the trash from W. A. L. L. E.

ok so math problem , let's say you have a box that is exactly big enough to hold one head of lettuce no more no less it is exactly big enough to hold exactly one head of lettuce and nothing more

okay so how many lettuce head can fit in the box show your work and no calculatorsI'll know if you use a calculator

[tossawary]

Hi! Just wondering, for you what is the difference between transmigrating in as an infant and regaining memories of your past life later, and transmigrating in as a character who a bit older but remembering the past of the character you’re in? I guess it’s kind of moot considering he still feels the weight of both those lives either way, but I was curious about your thoughts on it.

Hey! I think this is a pretty complicated and broad question. Overall, as with any story, there are different ways to write both of those things, different directions to explore, which could make them feel very different or functionally identical. My personal feelings on this can change wildly from story to story, and character to character. SPOILERS for SVSSS.

Let's say that Airplane Bro is the first case (reincarnated as an infant and gained his memories of his past life on the way) and Shen Yuan is the second case (transmigrated into an older character's life and later unlocked some of Shen Jiu's memories). Just to use their particular situations to look at some of the practical realities. I know that it doesn't fit precisely, but it's useful to have examples.

I think that a big element here is personal life choices and personal relationships. Airplane never has to feel like he replaced someone else. He's Shang Qinghua now, sure, but there was never an Original Shang Qinghua in this world. Being there from the beginning, he's been able to control his actions and responses, and build his own personal relationships. His relationship with Mobei-Jun, for example, is entirely his own.

(We don't actually know how much the System interfered in his life, but he does seem to have a degree of freedom that's much more significant compared to his fellow transmigrator. The vibe I got by the end of the Airplane Extras was that the System probably would have let him do whatever he'd wanted if he'd really gone for it, honestly.)

Shen Yuan, on the other hand, knows that he replaced someone else, and Shen Jiu had a miserable life and then made some cruel choices. Shen Yuan has to bear the burden of things he didn't do, even if other characters are willing to sweep it under the rug of amnesia, which has permanently colored his relationships with Luo Binghe, Yue Qingyuan, and Liu Qingge. (The System then forced him to do something terrible to Luo Binghe, whom he loved very much. At the very beginning, it temporarily controlled his every single interaction with any other human being during the OOC restriction period. That's just fucked up.) By the end of SVSSS, Shen Yuan fully inhabits the new Shen Qingqiu he's created and has made peace out of the story he's been given and the relationships he's inherited and made his own, even though he owns a life that partially belonged to someone else (Shen Jiu and the System). He has to live with that history.

Rambling on about Airplane Bro for a little bit to take a look at these two different approaches from another angle...

I typically imagine Airplane Bro slowly regaining his memories over the course of his childhood, because I personally can't fully suspend my disbelief over a fully conscious adult in the body of an infant. I mean, I've read that kind of thing before, and some of the stories have been good. But brains just don't work like that. Newborn babies are such little fragile aliens, barely able to see the faces less than a foot from their face. It's important to me to physically ground fantasy (and sci-fi) somewhat to make magic (and tech) feel both believable and compelling. This is a personal nitpick.

(You could have the reincarnated/transmigrated mind/soul being held mostly separate, slowly integrating, and essentially controlling the body remotely, I guess? But yeah, the "adult stuck in a child body" thing inherently has powerful horror elements (and political elements in regards to children's rights) that a lot of reincarnated stories seem to take on unintentionally and don't always handle well. When I'm writing reincarnation stuff, I usually skip over that backstory stuff in part because it's just so complicated, and also because there are other plots I'd rather explore that I find more interesting. Getting bogged down in early childhood stuff generally isn't really my thing, reading or writing it.)

If Airplane is essentially haunted by the memories of his past life for his entire childhood, I think it would make him strange, unnerving, and generally unpalatable to other people. I think it would be confusing and scary to know things without being sure how you know them. To remember things that seem to belong not only to another life, but another world. It would contribute to his isolation, his emotional detachment, and his choice to identify strongly with his previous life in terms of personality.

And if it's a more gradual process, then he doesn't have to feel like he replaced someone else. He knows (as much as anyone can know anything) that this body has always belonged to him.

If he suddenly remembered a past life, then that would also lead to his detached Airplane Bro personality. But if he suddenly remembered a past life, depending on how you write it, it might feel functionally identical to transmigrating in in that moment but still retaining the body's memories.

Of course, even if it was a gradual process, depending on how you write it, it could seem to him that it was a gradual transmigration and that he replaced someone else. Both approaches are cool.

Transmigration and reincarnation must be such a disorienting experience, liable to make a character doubt reality or their "sanity". When a character transmigrates in but has access to the body's memories, there's often some plot device dream sequence (the transmigrator briefly gets to meet the ghost of the person they're replacement) or System interference to let both the character and the readers know that there's been a switch. What if there's no System popping up to explain exactly what happened? What if the character just has to guess based on these vague memories that they may or may not be able to tell came from another person?

Either way, transmigrators are usually dealing with feeling like an imposter. But I think the transmigrator generally might feel guiltier over taking up or ruining any pre-existing relationships if they know for a fact that they replaced a separate person.

Back to some physical practicalities between our two transmigrators in SVSSS... Airplane Bro has just had... more time to get used to his life here. Coming in as an infant, presuming a gradual adjustment of awareness, he's used to his own body. He's at home in it.

SVSSS isn't fully interested in exploring this topic, so we don't really see Shen Yuan dealing with it, but... suddenly being in a different body would be a WEIRD experience. I can handwave away a lot of brain stuff on "magical System weirdness", so sure, Shen Yuan's mind is somehow his own while retaining some Shen Jiu memories, and he has special muscle memory and spiritual memory that allows him to continue being a powerful cultivation with only minor adjustment.

But... what about things like taste buds? The physical human experience is so wildly varied. Humans are incredibly adaptable, but surely it would be weird at first to potentially have different favorite foods. To like different drinks. To maybe enjoy different smells. To dislike things you used to love. To be a different height. A different weight. To be far more physically fit. To have different teeth. Personally, I move slightly differently and have slightly different mannerisms depending on the length of my hair, having to keep longer hair out of the way. Shen Yuan would adjust in time, sure, but that dysphoria must've been something else at first.

As someone interested in these physical realities of magic, I was a little disappointed when none of these came up more extensively when Shen Yuan switched into a body made out of a plant. I think that even little things like breathing and sunlight would feel intensely different. I'm now tempted to write something exploring Shen Yuan enjoying the sensations of his super magical plant body now.

Okay, I don't know where I'm going with my rambling now, so I'm signing off. I think the weight of different transmigration experiences can feel very, VERY different depending on what you're personally interested in exploring when you write.

[isntthatwrite]

365

my careful self-analysis from earlier only got me so far. and i really did search! it’ll really be 25 years on auto-pilot and then your new therapist in a new city asks you about your family history. screeching halt. most other years in therapy, i had more alarming and pressing personal issues i needed immediate attention for, but all of the extraneous material was stripped away this year. getting along with all of my friends, not dating anyone, work same as its always been - one of my first therapy assignments was to look for my grandma’s obituary. Something about googling your own first name + last name + obituary after therapy on a Friday night and parsing through results. Something about realizing she had my name - my name was actually hers first - i am, because she was. I wouldn’t be myself if she wasn’t herself.

A majority of my notable astrological transits (how the current planets interact geometrically with the planetary snapshot of your birth chart) at the time seemed to be centered around abundance and career growth/shakeups and hopefully finally being recognized for my work (financially, socially, etc) and instead i was searching for obituaries with my name on them while at a job that continued to not recognize me, no financial changes (in fact, taxes obliterated me this spring). There is something so mysterious and endlessly fascinating about the axes in astrology - when you’re looking into one particular transit, it will also be reflected somewhere else in your chart. In this example, both jupiter and uranus were conjunct my midheaven/10th house of career (hence my blurb above about career gains), but something i later came to remember was the fact that this meant it was also opposing my 4th house of home/family.

astro 101 moment: your birth chart is a big circle broken into 12 slices. these slices are referred to as “houses”. it’s really geometric. some of the slices/houses are directly opposite (180 degrees), some are at a right angle/90 degrees aka square, so on.

the general vibe of the axes (opposite houses in the circle) are of course:

1H/7H - self / partnerships + others (who we are alone vs who we are with others)

2H/8H - your possessions / the possessions of others (income/livelihood vs taxes/death)

3H/9H - small travel + shorter form comms / higher learning + religion (like new tech blog post vs philosophy thesis)

4H/10H - home and family / career + outward appearance

5H/11H - creativity + fun / community + friends

6H/12H - routines + health / subconscious + unseen

some axes are obviously opposite but inextricably linked: 2nd is about what you have and 8th is about what you lose, you owe taxes for any money you earn and dying is the only guarantee when it comes to living life. you can only lose something when you have it! given the exploration of the axes above, loss and gain are symbiotic lovers in the eyes of astrology in the same way that your home and family identity are tied to your career and public persona. you can’t be a public figure without a private self. the self you think no one will witness, because how could they, is on utter display. much like how becoming a parent is a job (and one of the few things that can get you somewhat out of work in the American Traditional workplace), work will publicly out you for who you are and who you were raised to be. how you show yourself to the public is a direct result of who you grew up as. you will accidentally seek mentorship from people who remind you of your family members, repeat the same career blunders as your parents (or come incredibly close), wonder why you’re stuck in the situation you’re in and then remember you’ve seen it modeled more times than you can count. parents overly focused on their careers/work life and being seen by the public likely did not make as much time for their kids. family and work are constantly being put at odds as though they are complete opposites. but they need each other! private and public self are more stunningly similar than we realize.

[miss-musings]

That's totally fair. I know you've written a lot about Tech, so you're more of an expert on his dynamic with Omega than I am.

I will say that, while they might've bonded pretty well in Season 1, the show definitely didn't emphasize their bond until Season 2. They definitely get a lot more one-on-one time in Season 2 -- they get to know each other more as individuals rather than just members of the larger group. We see her learning from him more, and we see him learning to teach her. (I keep thinking about that moment in 1.08 where she asks him what the war was like, and he basically gives her a Wikipedia synopsis. He did better after that. LOL.)

I never thought Tech didn't care about Omega in Season 1. In fact, I recall in 1.02, when he helps catch her in the Marauder after they were hiding from the clone troopers. He also helps her around the ion engine in 1.08.

I imagine Crosshair's dynamic with Omega in that AU scenario would've depended on how much and how soon they spent time one-on-one. I don't think he would've bonded with her very well as part of the larger group, as we see in 1.01 "Aftermath." He was content to let his brothers interact with her, while he sat back and watched.

From what I remember of S1 Tech, I think he was similar. He was content to let Hunter and to a lesser degree Echo and Wrecker take the lead. Tech definitely has his moments with Omega in Season 1, but the show emphasizes her bonds with Hunter and Wrecker more so while waiting until Season 2 to emphasize her bonds with Tech and Echo.

As you said, Tech also had to adjust to being around a kid. I think Crosshair would've been even worse at it.

He probably would've seen Omega in 1.02, literally touching dirt for the first time with an awestruck look on her face, and would've just rolled his eyes at her. Or made some sarcastic remark.

I think in S3, Omega won him over partly because she was so capable. He never really knew Omega The Kid like his brothers did; he only knew Omega The Tiny Badass.

She picks the food fight in 1.01. She shoots his rifle out of his hand in 1.01 -- he didn't have context that it was the first time she'd ever fired a blaster. She doesn't hesitate to confront him in 1.08 despite being surrounded by troopers. She saves his life (by shooting debris, btw) and helps everyone get off Kamino safely in 1.16.

When she breaks him out of the cell in 3.03, he automatically hands her a blaster. He had absolutely no qualms or questions about it. He knew she knew how to use one.

He also confirms that his brothers taught her all their plans -- because of course they would. And he doesn't hesitate to let her put herself in harm's way.

Now, granted, later on in the season, he definitely becomes more protective of her. But, he also never forgets how capable she is. It's perfectly encapsulated in his line:

Crosshair in 3.05: You're capable. But, you are still a kid.

It's not that he forgot Omega is still a child, and he definitely treats her somewhat differently than his brothers because of that reality.

But, he also doesn't seem to do too well with any of Omega's more "childlike" behavior.

In S3, any time she says or does something that makes her seem naïve, he criticizes her for it. He also struggles with her particular blend of impulsiveness and kindheartedness, like when she goes after Batcher in 3.04 or tries to go after her in 3.11.

He seems to be most comfortable around her when she acts, well, essentially like his brothers -- when she's capable, mature, and confident. So, I really don't think he would've done well with little S1 Omega who'd never seen dirt, who didn't know how to fire a weapon, and who was very naïve about the ways of the galaxy.

(S1 Omega certainly wasn't well-traveled, but she was quick-thinking and eager to learn.)

Anyway, that was very long, but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts! As I said, you know more about Tech's dynamic with Omega, so I defer to your expertise in that area.

"The Bad Batch" Discussion: Did Crosshair Need to Bond with Omega Independent of His Brothers?

This might be an unusual take, but I don't think Crosshair would've bonded with Omega as intensely if he'd been with his family in S1-2.

I think he needed to spend a lot of one-on-one time with her first, partly because of his personality and partly because of his family's unique circumstances.

I imagine that, in an AU where his chip never activated and he left Kamino with his family in 1.01 "Aftermath", Crosshair's dynamic with Omega would've been a lot like Tech's. He'd generally care about her, but he wouldn't really bond with her until he'd spent a lot of time with her, especially one-on-one.

If Crosshair saw his brothers, particularly Hunter and Wrecker, bonding with her as intensely and as quickly as they did in S1, I think he would've just sat back and let them. No need for him to get involved too.

I mean, that's basically what happens in 1.01 "Aftermath." He didn't seem particularly interested in Omega, and definitely let Hunter and the others take the lead in interacting with her in the hallway, cafeteria and medbay scenes.

By the brig scene, though, Crosshair seems to have gone from general disinterest toward Omega to finding her full-on annoying. It's so bad that he openly mocks her:

Omega, to Hunter: No, it's like I said before. I want to go with you. Crosshair, bitter AF: How touching.

Granted, his attitude in the brig scene is definitely influenced by his inhibitor chip, but I can't be sure how much his attitude toward her in the previous scenes were him versus the chip.

However, after Crosshair regains his free will and reunites with his family in 1.15/1.16, he still doesn't like Omega and seems very bitter and resentful toward her. In fact, when she sits next to him in Nala Se's lab -- even though the others aren't paying attention to them at all -- he still tells her to go away.

It's worth noting that, until 3.03 "Shadows of Tantiss", every major interaction between them is 1) when one or both of them are trapped in a given space and cannot leave AND 2) initiated by Omega:

Their conversation in the brig in 1.01 "Aftermath"

Their conversation in Nala Se's lab in 1.16 "Kamino Lost"

Their conversation on the platform in 1.16 "Kamino Lost"

Both conversations in 3.01 "Confined" (and any that happened off-screen during the time-jump)

When she breaks him out of his cell in 3.03 "Shadows of Tantiss"

(NOTE: The one possible exception to this is the second conversation in 3.01. She initiated the conversation by going to his cell, but as she's leaving, he calls out to her. Not only is this the first time he ever says her name on-screen, but it's also the first time he willingly continues a conversation rather than push her away.)

Now, after they escape the base in 3.03 and when they're on Lau in 3.04, they're essentially thrown together as allies of convenience. They're not physically trapped, but even if Crosshair wanted to leave her, separating at that point wouldn't be prudent for a variety of reasons.

So that moment in 3.04 "A Different Approach" when Omega gives him the credits and tells him he can leave without her is pivotal.

Crosshair's presented with a choice: continue on alone or go back for her.

And his choice there is so significant because, for the very first time in the entire show, Crosshair freely chooses to reach out to Omega instead of the other way around.

When he finds her at the cargo docks, it's the first time HE initiates the interaction instead of her.

From then on, their interactions are more reciprocal. She still initiates some conversations and interactions, while he initiates others.

Likewise, their dynamic is more reciprocal too.

Before it was very one-sided, with Omega always reaching out to him to build/strengthen their bond and looking out for him and his needs.

But, arguably from 3.01 but definitely by 3.04, Crosshair starts matching her energy and looking out for her and her needs too.

It's clear that after spending five months imprisoned on Tantiss together -- where neither of them had any real support system but each other -- that Crosshair formed a very deep, personal bond with Omega.

It's to the point that he'd do things for her he'd likely never do for anyone else, like getting his hand examined and meditating in 3.08. Even Hunter seems to understand this, which is why he recruited Omega for the task. Crosshair also agreed to let her surrender herself in 3.11 "Point of No Return" despite all his concerns for her safety AND despite knowing he'd have to go back to Tantiss to save her (which he believed would result in his death or worse).

Overall, I believe it was also important that he bonded with her independent of his brothers, because the dynamic would've been different with them around.

Hunter, and to a lesser degree Wrecker and Echo, capitalized a lot of her time after the group first left Kamino. If Crosshair had been with them, he probably would've resented that his brothers were spending more time with her than him, because that's basically what happened in canon.

There's also a chance that, once he did start connecting with her, he would've resented that she was spending more time with them than she was with him. Mid-S3 Crosshair seemed mature ~enough~ to accept that Omega might be his No. 1 person, but he didn't need to be hers. That probably wouldn't have been the case for him in S1, though, when he was still an angry little shit 99% of the time.

Then again, I could be wrong and maybe he would've warmed up to her much sooner even with his brothers around.

If Crosshair had been with his family in S1-2 and things had mostly played out the same, I could see Hunter having Omega help Crosshair as lookout on their missions. That way, she'd still be part of the team and have someone watching her, but she'd be removed from the worst of the action.

(Side note: If that happened, I could totally see Crosshair initially rolling his eyes because he got stuck with ~babysitting duty~ LOL.)

So, maybe she would've spent a lot more time with him early on, leading to them bonding more quickly.

Regardless, in an AU where Crosshair was with his family through the events of S1-2, I do think he would've bonded with her eventually, just like Tech did in S2.

But I still don't think it would've been as intense as it was in S3, because his individual dynamic with her and their collective family dynamic would've been VERY different.

Those are my thoughts. Feel free to share your own in the comments/reblogs! I always appreciate fun discussions about TBB. :)

[emerald-chaos]

Insomnia

*gif not made by me, credit goes to the owner*

Hi Everyone! So it's been probably like...10 years since I wrote my last fic lol. Watching TFATWS has rekindled my undying love for Bucky Barnes and I just couldn't help but start writing again. I had to get my feelings out! I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I've been considering writing some more parts...so tell me if that's something you'd be interested in! I appreciate any and all constructive feedback or just feedback in general! Much love.

Pairing: Reader x Bucky Barnes

Word Count: 2533 (lowkey popped off...oops)

Warnings: Just in case...vague allusions to a dark past, struggles with mental illness, explicit language, and some suggestive conversation. Oh and some really bad jokes lol. Fluffy and angsty.

No matter how much you tossed and turned, how many sheep you counted, or how much you prayed and pleaded to any higher power that would listen – the release of sleep just wasn’t going to happen. You’re not sure why you were surprised, it’s not like this was the first time. You let out a heavy sigh and toss off the covers. This has been a nightly occurrence for as long as you can remember. When you were trying to rest, when there was no noise to block out the images in your head, it was a battle. A battle which you have always lost.

You flip on the bright florescent lights of the bathroom as you trudge in, dragging your feet in exhaustion. It takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the harshness of the light as you place your hands onto the countertop. The cool marble feels good against your palms as you close your eyes and lean your head back, another sigh leaving your lips. You twist your neck from side to side, trying to release some tension and maybe get a satisfying pop. No such luck. As you open your eyes and gaze upon the person staring back at you a small laugh tumbles from your chest.

Jesus, she looks awful.

The dark circles that permanently reside below your eyes appear more pronounced than usual. The corners of your mouth hang low and you just look…tired. Like you were rode hard and put away wet.

The bottle of melatonin tucked away on your counter catches your eye. You pick it up and twirl it as you inspect the writing. “Sleep Support” you read, “may help promote restful sleep”. What a load of shit. You place the bottle back down and inspect the orange one next to it. The pills inside were about as useful as the melatonin. Nothing seemed to quiet the voices or stop the scenarios that plagued your mind. You splash some cold water on your face and grab for a towel to pat it dry. Your eyes drift to the mirror again, as if though the water was going to wash away the dead look in your eyes.

Yeah, fat chance.

Before you know it, your legs are carrying you through the compound. The only sounds present are the whirring of various appliances and the soft patter of your feet against the tile floors. The moonlight casts shadows over the various pieces of furniture and lights your path. Your fingers curl around the handle as you pull the sliding glass door open. The crisp outside air kisses your skin as you step out and close the door behind you. You find yourself settling down in your usual spot on the balcony and you sink into the comfort of the chair.

Many a sleepless night has been spent out here, admiring the way the moonlight gleams off of a nearby pond. Before the compound and the balcony, it was a fire escape and a bottle of bourbon. You kind of missed that coping mechanism a little bit. You were thankful, of course, to call this place your home. Thankful to feel safe for once. Thankful to be a part of a team that felt like more of a family than any sorry piece of shit who had been in your life before. Not that you were bitter about that or anything. A little baggage builds character. However, life hasn’t always been kind to you and your stupid brain had a cruel way of constantly reminding you of that fact.

In all honesty, Tony rescued you. You absolutely hated to allow him to relish in that fact, but it was true. He took a chance on a royally fucked up kid out of college who managed to skate by and earn a mechanical engineering degree. If you were to ask him, he would say it was because the first words you said to him were fuck off. Apparently, something about that translated to, “hey, I would be a great addition to your tech and development team”. Although, you were pretty sure you just really meant that he should fuck off. I mean, the guy’s reputation does have a bit of moral gray area to it. Somehow, some way, your tenacity made an impression on the billionaire. Now here you were - living at the Avenger’s compound, sitting on a balcony at 3:30 in the morning because you couldn’t turn your brain off long enough to find some peace and sleep. What a life.

Even as you were sitting here in your special spot, reminiscing about some actual good memories – your brain still tried to drift into the darkness. Glass breaking; voices, thick with hate, engaged in a screaming match, and the cold nights spent trying to find a safe space to eat and lay your head. Your fingers gripped into the arms of the chair as you felt the heaviness in your chest increase.

“God damn it,” you cursed through gritted teeth.

The panic attacks were a second nature at this point, but you still really hated when you lost control. Your eyes closed tight as you tried to rack your brain to remember the bullshit your therapist had told you earlier in the week. Something about 5 things you can see?

“We gotta stop meeting like this, Doll”

The voice ripped you from inside your mind and back to reality. Your eyes opened and were met with a beautiful pair of cerulean ones. You blamed the skip in your heartbeat on your fading panic attack - although, you knew better than that.

“Well, it seems to me that the only logical conclusion is that you’re stalking me, Barnes” you quipped as a grin spread across your face.

“Could say the same about you,” Bucky retorted as he sank into the chair beside you, “besides, been doin’ this a lot longer than you’ve been around”.

You rolled your eyes, but the super soldier had a point. Almost each and every time, aside from the ones that happened when the team was away, you two would meet like this – here on the balcony, both searching for something to replace the sleep that neither of you could find.

“Yeah, we get it, you’re old” a laugh fell from your lips as Bucky snorted at your remark, a grin remaining ever present on his lips.

The familiar silence took over as he leaned his head back against the chair, closing his eyes. Meanwhile, yours were hungrily taking him in - tracing over the stubble on his chin, the soft pinkness of his parted lips. Recently he’d gotten his hair cut and even though you much preferred the long hair, you would rather die than actually admit that to him. Your crush on the 106 year old grumpy ass was one of your best kept secrets. At least, you thought you’d kept it from being painfully obvious.

The man sitting before you, he had a tough exterior and a horrific history, but you knew him better than that. You knew about the way his nose scrunched up when you made him laugh and the way his eyes looked as he listened intently to every story you ever told him. You knew the sweet melody of his laugh and the far off stare that meant he was also held captive by his own thoughts. This late-night rendezvous had become somewhat of a routine for the two of you and you would be lying if you said it wasn’t your favorite part of the day.

The first time it was a short nod and typical white person, thin-lipped smile as you left to find a different spot to suffer alone. Shortly after, it developed into cohabiting the balcony – staying on your own separate sides of course, only occasionally sharing words. Then, before you knew it, the two of you would be sitting beside each other, shooting the shit like you’d known each other for years. Just two, incredibly fucked up individuals, trying to make each other feel a little more human.

Bucky had always given off the quiet, brooding energy. Typically he kept to himself, other than with close friends like Steve, choosing to stand in the corner and listen to the conversation rather than be a part of it. Occasionally he would give a quip during a meeting that would catch people off guard, but mostly he just sat there and stared. The Bucky you had come to know was nothing like the person that others wanted to make him out to be. Sure, at one point he was a masterful assassin who killed like he got pleasure from it – but that wasn’t him. The Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes were not synonymous.

If only the world could meet Bucky at 3am.

“What’s going on in that empty head of yours over there?” Bucky’s voice once again brought you back to reality as you laid your eyes on the familiar grin plastered across his face.

“Please,” you huffed, cheeks tinted a light shade of pink at the thought of him catching you staring, “which one of us has a college degree again?”

His laugh was a symphony to your ears. Your smile mirrored his when he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at you.

“So, what is it tonight? That nightmare again?” he asked, voice dropping an octave as his facial features softened in a way you really hoped only you got to see.

“Mm, not quite” you responded, your voice a broken whisper.

Bucky wasn’t the type to pry, but with you he wouldn’t even have to. Talking to him, sharing your deepest secrets and fears, telling him about the nightmares that kept you awake at night – it all came easily. Too easily.

“This week it’s...it’s that image of my stupid mother. Standing there with her black eyes and busted lip, telling me that it was me that was the problem. That it was me who...” you swallowed hard, the heaviness creeping back into your chest and tears fighting to wet your eyes. God you hated that you let this get the best of you.

Just as your mind started to bring you back to that dark place it was interrupted by the feeling of warmth spreading over your body. You looked down to see Bucky’s large hand resting right above your knee. When your eyes met again, he gave you a soft look that made your heart scream.

“I’m sorry,” you could tell he meant it as he gave your knee a soft squeeze.

A small smile flashed over your face and you had to resist the urge to reach out and cup his soft, stubbled cheek in your hand.

“Hey, we’re all a little fucked up, right?” you joked.

“Some more than others,” he replied, those beautiful wrinkles appearing around his nose as he scrunched it up with another laugh.

“Thanks, Buck... I’m sure you’d rather be doing anything other than listening to my sob story,” you reluctantly broke eye contact and looked down at the hem of your shirt as you fiddled with it in your fingers.

You were all too aware at the loss of contact as Bucky drew his hand back and leaned back into his chair.

“Doll,” he started as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes again - you could swear you almost saw a grin on his lips, “there are very few things I’d rather do than sit with you on the balcony at 3am”.

At that moment it felt as though time stood still. Sure, you had flirtatious banter back and forth occasionally and made a habit out of spilling your deepest regrets to each other during the wee hours of the morning, but this felt different. This felt like a confession.

You’d be lying to yourself if you tried to convince yourself, or anyone else for that matter, that you didn’t have a thing for him. I mean - who wouldn’t? The guy was a gentleman; he was soft spoken and caring, he was a dork who loved to crack jokes at the most inappropriate times, the type of person who would give you the shirt off of his own back if it meant you were taken care of.

He....well, he was Bucky.

And god damn it if you didn’t love him.

You’re unsure of how much time has passed, but one minute you’re sitting on your chair, chewing your lip and droning on about the man in front of you in your head. The next minute you found yourself on his lap, knees seated on either side of his waist as your legs straddle him and your hands connect with the skin they so desperately craved to feel. Bucky’s eyes opened slowly and met yours as you let the pad of your thumb gently run along the curve of his bottom lip. The uneven breaths leaving your chest hitched as you felt his hands grip your hips softly. Refusing to break eye contact, Bucky gently pressed a kiss to the pad of your thumb. You dragged his lower lip down briefly.

“Well,” he began. His voice was barely above a whisper but it’s thick, lustful tone made you shiver from head to...well, you know, “are you gonna kiss me, Doll? Or do I have to do all the work myself?”

He barely finished his sentence before your lips captured his. It was messy, almost all teeth and tongue. It was needy, as if it was the last time either of you would ever kiss anyone again. It was fucking incredible.

Bucky’s metal arm snaked up your back and found its way into your hair, curling his fingers gently around the strands at the back of your head, as his other arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you closer to his form. He was intoxicating. This whole situation was something you had briefly imagined months ago, but ultimately pushed out of your mind. There was no way that he would ever be interested in someone like you. Yet, here he was, tongue fighting for entrance into your mouth.

You aren’t quite sure who pulled away first. Both of you were gasping for air, chests heaving up and down as you both stared into each other's lust-blown pupils.

“You kiss pretty well for someone who hasn’t had a girlfriend since 1940,” you teased, laughing as he rolls his eyes at the comment.

“You just don’t know when to shut that mouth of yours, do ya?” he practically growled, ever so slightly tightening his grip on your waist, and you almost lost it from just the sound of his voice alone.

“Why don’t you make me, Barnes?” you leaned in close, warm breath fanning over the shell of his ear.

A yelp escaped your throat as you were suddenly jerked up to a standing position, locking your ankles behind his back as he effortlessly held you up by your thighs.

“Oh Doll,” he chuckled darkly into your neck, almost making you pass out from the sensation, “I thought you’d never ask”.

[carrion-carry-on]

Whumptober No. 11

“911, what’s your emergency?” - Sloppy bandages

Okay, drag me to the church, it’s the Bad Batch once again. This takes place shortly after that scene in Episode 01:08. I personally think this is the point where the chip had to be taken out. Probably cooked/subsequently fried that thing so it had to get removed.

AO3 Link

“You’re lucky this hadn’t been any deeper, or you may have had to go to the med ward,” one voice had said.

“Wait, I don’t get it. What do you mean, ‘deeper?’“ another had asked.

They sounded the dame. Somewhat the same. But they were slightly different. He would forever remember those differences. They would always plague him.

In his dream, his nightmare, his memory, the voices gain faces.

Tech. Knowledgeable, no-nonsense, someone he appreciated. “I am referring to the layers of the integumentary system.”

Wrecker. Steadfast, loyal, someone he tolerated. “Inter-what?”

A new voice, a new face. Maybe not so new. “Integument, Wreck.” Hunter. Competent, focused, someone he admired.

His own. “I’m fine.”

He is not currently fine. He is currently struggling to stay awake, drifting in and out of consciousness while wrapping a bandage and bacta around his own face.

Second degree, at least. Deep partial thickness, most likely. Epidermis and dermis have been significantly damaged. Thankfully, he doesn’t feel too much of it. Maybe that’s not a good thing. Crosshair doesn’t have to see it to know. The wound is likely weeping by now, blisters forming. He imagines it’s not a very pretty sight. Tech would have had it handled by now.

The growl deep in his throat becomes an angry, teeth-baring snarl. He doesn’t need them. Traitors. No, that’s not right - brothers? They are his brothers, why had they- why would he-?

He wanted the war to end. He’d been so tired, and his brothers were always in danger. The damned Republic and their idiotic war. Making them all, owning them, with the sole purpose of dying in their squabbles. But this is not what he’d imagined the end to be like. He had thought his brothers would see it, too, that this end brought stability. That’s all he wanted, for the longest time. For them to see, for the war to end, and for them to be right beside him when it finally did.

Then something had happened, something he could never have seen, even with his brilliantly enhanced sight. Hunter had... he had betrayed them, hadn’t he? He’d saved that jedi. Traitor. But, maybe there’d been a reason?

Why had they left him?

Because he had betrayed them.

No, that’s not right.

Back and forth his mind argued with itself. They were traitors, but they were brothers, too. Emotion welled up in his chest, coiling tightly to constrict his breathing. What is going on? Why has this happened? He’s in pain now, but not from his head.

He can feel tears trying to choke their way out of him. He can feel the pain in his chest as faded memories resurface. He can feel everything that has been dulled for subjective years, trapped down inside his own mind. He can feel again. And yet something whispers that feeling like this is wrong.

By the time they find him, and take him away, he is reduced to a near comatose state. His hands are wrapped up in the bandages he’d been trying to wind around his head. Stuck there. He is stuck here and his brothers are not there to offer a way out.

[tedturneriscrazy]

Another Saturday, another episode! Let's take a look at Keeping Up A-fear-ances!

(Good lord I'm starting to make myself sound like some sort of content creator)

Oh, okay, we're just starting at that level of intensity, huh?

Chest gem origins

Gwendolyn not being satisfied with managing the curse and determined to cure it? I'm sure this won't be a real world allegory in the slightest.

Oh, so Eda literally just stumbles upon the portal? I could call that contrived, but honestly it's not dissimilar to how Dipper found Journal 3. For that matter, the entirety of Lord of the Rings is predicated on an accidental discovery like this and nobody gave Tolkien shit about it.

Was the eye on the portal cracked in previous episodes? I don't remember.

Seems like Gwen is the "well-meaning but ultimately misguided" flavor of mom.

As an aside, I am now quite curious about how Eda's first trip to the human realm went. Maybe a future episode will cover it? At any rate, I smell a new favorite fic prompt.

The screaming alarms in the Demon Realm will never not be funny to me.

Also, that is a worrying number of hearts. Eda is straight up murdering these poor creatures.

For some reason the gold fang being removable never occurred to me as a possibility, and now I feel like a kid who's discovered that Santa isn't real.

Oh hey, the new outfit! I'm also impressed how close to symmetrical that tearing was.

I need to get a screencap of Luz sleeping on that stack of books because she is adorable.

Also, staying up all night researching? This season seems determined to completely eradicate the notion of Luz being dumb, and I am here for it.

I have a feeling the Hexside mug will be making its way to The Mystery Shack in the near future.

Lilith's first experience with transformation and she seems understandably horrified.

The curse acting stronger when stressed? That seems...important.

Ah, so the dismemberment is from the curse! A surprisingly useful side effect from what we've seen so far.

Can I just say that I appreciate how Eda's reaction to Lilith's first taste of transformation is immediate remedy, explanation, and reassurance? And doesn't make any snarky comments along the lines of "now you know what it's like?" Whatever happened in that week and a half must have been cathartic as hell.

"Always. Always curious." Luz is the TOH fandom.

(Also, Eda, you know she is, considering how much she went on about your "mysterious past" at the Covention)

"Magic bird tornado?!" Luz has a way with words that's just *chef's kiss*.

"Gwendolyn." Eda is already just fucking done.

"MOM?!?!" Jeez, Lilith, you're just now hearing all this?

I was charmed by how motherly Gwen was acting toward Eda, but then she kinda just...dismissed Lilith, and now I'm somehwat less charmed.

(Sweet flea as a term of endearment is kinda cute, though might have some unfortunate implications depending on how you want to interpret it)

"Who knows what they put in those nasty concoctions?" OH WE GOING FOR THE ANTI-VAXXERS NOW YESSSS

Luz and Lilith's reaction to that whole exchange is priceless.

Everyone's perspective here makes perfect sense for who they are and what they've been through.

Poor Lilith. Her cursing Eda is beginning to make more sense.

Ah, thus begins the collaboration.

"We'll be consulting someone very special." Why does that seem so...ominous?

Is there anyone who watched this episode for the first time whose bullshit detector didn't go off immediately when Gwen mentioned finding someone who promised a cure?

Heh, Palm Stings.

Nonbelievers will be blinded by the power of the tome? I'm sure they will be, Wartlop.

I must say, as something of a scientist myself (okay that's not true, I'm a QA tech for a food manufacturer, but I do have a chemistry degree), I am 100% here for the swings being taken at faith healing/"miracle" cures/anti-vaxxers in this episode

Oh, we Wile E. Coyote now, huh?

Also, interesting how much apple blood is being played up in this episode.

Lilith please you're projecting your mommy issues on a literal child

OH WE REALLY JUST WILE E. COYOTE HUH?

You're right, Luz, Gwen's bicep game is goals.

(Somewhat disappointed the scars are from questing and not beastkeeping, but eh)

Why do I get the feeling there's gonna be a future episode where everybody stages an intervention for Eda's apple blood problem?

"Those feathers mean we're driving the beast out" Gwen no

Hooty is holding the brain cell? Oh no...

If that ice cream came from the Night Market it would explain why Lilith sounds drunk.

(Side note: I can't be the only one getting flashbacks to Mermista's ice cream binge, right? Different context, but still)

"Abomi-berry" "Franken fruit" "Key slime pie" These are A+ flavor names.

Oh, there's the transformation...

I must say that whole segment kinda rubbed me the wrong way. The way King's opinion on his dad was changed seemed...I don't know how to describe it. I get that they needed a trigger for Lilith's transformation, but honestly if any part of the episode is contrived it's this.

"¡It really is that good!" So that's what an accent slip in written form looks like. (The upside down exclamation point is used in Spanish, in case anyone didn't know)

I keep half expecting Eda to say "Beep! Beep!" at this point.

Luz is finally asking questions. Took long enough.

Ah, the classic "moving the goal posts to extract more money from a desparate family member" technique.

Luz channeling Scorpion, we love to see it.

There is an exquisite irony in Eda's mom being scammed, I must say.

Ah, so that's where the elixirs went. Dammit, Gwen.

Luz is definitely thinking "Are you fucking kidding me right now?!"

Beast!Lilith is massive.

"Sweet flea?" Gwen just realized she done goofed.

"I can see you still need a little time." God Luz is so fucking smart.

The con revealed.

OH DAMN SCARY MAMA

(Also I am terrified of bees/wasps, so extra scary mama in my book)

The scam is revealed, goblins, getting back into the Wartlop disguise is kinda pointless.

She joined the Beast Keeping coven entirely to cure the curse? That's dedication. A shame you couldn't have spared some of that for Lilith.

Still, I do like badass scary mama Gwen. I'd be down to see more of that.

Owl Beast fight!

I am slayed by the fact that the portraits are now officially a recurring gag 😂

Aw, here's The Moment™️

"My turn to drive" Does this imply cars are a thing on the Boiling Isles after all?

Lilith crying almost immediately💔 She was holding onto a lot of pain.

Yes, King, she was trying to do her best. I mean, road to hell or whatever, but at least Gwen got there in the end.

WHAT?! YOU'RE BREAKING UP LULU AND HOOTCIFER?!?!?!?

Terrace, that's just cruel. (Worthless brownie points for whoever understands that reference)

No, seriously, you can't just give me my favorite inter-character relationship in the series after Lumity and just...take it away like that, come on! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I know I should remark on how Lilith told Gwen about the circumstances of the curse, how Gwen rightfully accepted responsibility for the whole situation, and how Luz finds the big hair aspirational, but...NOOOO DON'T END THE ADVENTURES OF LULU AND HOOTCIFER WHYYYYYYYYY💔😭💔😭💔😭

"BUT I CAN'T HOLD A PEN!"

I will never emotionally recover from this.

Okay, I think I got that out of my system. Anyway...

Not the only human, huh? Cue the "Belos is a human" theorists going into maximum overdrive.

That said, a tantalizing lore dump.

We certainly do have a lot of garbage. Some of it even holds office. HEY-O!

Setting up the next episode, too. Continuity!

Camp's over, huh? That means it's been three months.

Way to misdirect with Camila, guys. That said, we have now seen Camila cry and I HATE it. (In the right way, I think)

WHAT THE FUCK

HOLY SHIT

CREEPY LUZ IS REAL WHAT

OWJEIWHQGIWWOPQ

(It's hard to keysmash on a phone, even with autocorrect off)

That wraps it up! The flaws in this episode seem more pronounced than any others in the season so far, but the good stuff was really good! Overall a solid episode! I know everybody's looking forward to library Lumity in the next one (so am I), but I'm personally eager to see what they do with Gus. His part is the A plot, after all.

Anyway, I'll be back at this next week! Still hard to believe this is a thing, but that's life, I guess.

[moxfirefly]

I come bearing the gift of Angst™️ like yall this took for fucking ever and this is some sad af shit here so I’m sorry but it was an idea that hatched and I wanted to do it.

Rated Mature (18+ and up only)

TW: Blood, mentions of alcohol, death

Tagging a few Lee fans, my apologies already lol @southernblossoms @aurora-the-kunoichi @ray-jaykub

“Now I'm trying to wake you up,

To pull you from the liquid sky,

Coz if I don't we'll both end up,

With just your song to say goodbye.”

Leonardo sees the night sky above him, the hard rain falling down on him and a vision of something he finds so beautiful.

You.

He smiles at the image. He welcomes it and allows himself to be whisked away.

The cold night slips away in hues and as the rain falls down in harsh drops he refuses to give the cold pavement beneath him much thought. He sees something shiny fly across his vision and the only sound he surrounds himself is the sound of your laugh.

“I-I’m... S-“

_______________

You wake with a startle and a gasp. The coldness in the room too intense for the usual New York winter. You wrap yourself in the duvet and patter towards the heater, it’s clearly not working for some reason and you contemplate freezing and forgetting.

Sitting on the carpet, legs crossed and wrapped up you try your best to not let your thoughts stray. The cellphone in your hand is warm and your finger hovers over Donatello’s number.

There’s a large duvet on the living room window. Your eyes have refused to land there, to linger and allow for the icy sensation to run through your veins. Every so often you wonder about moving, not just from your apartment but from New York. To leave everything behind and forget that this was your reality.

-Don’t think about it-

The sentence echoes and echoes and echoes.

You press down on the number.

________________

Leonardo secretly enjoyed being babied. He emphasized secretly, even if he knew that you knew to some degree. Your eyes trail bruises that tell a story of violence but Leo was always vigilant of never dragging you down that road.

It’s a horror show.

You press a frozen bag of peas to his eye, the swelling and black ring angry. “You can’t keep this up” You whisper against the top of his head.

“I have to, nobody is going to end this. Not the cops, not nobody that ain’t us... or me” There’s leftover adrenaline in his voice and if you weren’t sure you could command him to stay he’d probably haul ass and go out again before the sun decided to rise once more and ruin plans.

Leo is convinced that only he can bring down Shredder. Only he can save everything and everyone. It’s a stupid thought you think to yourself, that only one mutant such as himself could even pull it off.

But a huge chunk of himself doesn’t want his family involved like this. He doesn’t want the risk. “Your need to control everything is really annoying” You let go of the bag, he manages to catch it and place it back. You exit the bathroom and contemplate just how much bleach you’re going to need to get all of this blood out of your carpet.

You stare and feel your eyes begging to fog. The image of Leo climbing in a mess of cuts and bruises. Something within you wants to scream and never stop. You hear Leo get up, heavy steps approaching you as you stand like a ghost in the middle of the living room.

“Y/n...” Leo’s voice is soft but that hint of guilt stabs the end of your name. “Just leave with me, why can’t we go somewhere else? We can take your family and just leave, Lee” You turn around, fingers digging into your scalp. The manic feeling rises inside of you and your tears have to spill. Leo’s eyes look broken because he wishes he could give you this and everything you’ve ever desired.

“You don’t owe these people your life, Leo” You press a hand to your mouth as a quiet sob escapes you. “Please just-“ Your tears spill and he’s there in an instant to catch you and hold you so close it almost hurts. He soothes you with kisses and caresses even as you angrily want to shove him away for making this so difficult you fall against him.

The worry eats away at your insides. Why can’t he just understand that the world will never be rid of evil? It’ll find a new host to use and bring more chaos and death. Leo holds you close, even as you collapse against him in anger and fear, he holds you and tries to quiet the loud voice in your head.

The voice that bellows, ‘This isn’t going to end well.’

_____________

Leo’s eyes flutter open, an urge stuck in his throat that chokes him. The inherit need to cough pushes him somewhat upwards but as he tries he feels copper in his mouth, the taste of pennies too strong, god he wants to vomit. Warmth spills from his mouth as he looks about, eyes scanning but the rainfall blurs his vision.

He hears screaming.

He knows Shredder’s down, the monster hasn’t moved.

Leo keeps hearing his name in the distance, his side feels a pin prick when he tries to roll over the pain shoots all over his body and liquid spills from his mouth.

It’s blood.

______________

“Sorry for calling so late but it’s either that or freezing to death” You prepared coffee as Donatello eyed the heater. “I hate winter so I understand” He picked up a wrench when you came into the room, mugs in hand and the blanket still wrapped around your cold body.

“How are you holding up?” He took a sip making a face, the harsh taste of whiskey hitting the back of his mouth. “Went too hard on the added flavoring?” You chuckled, sipping from your mug without hesitation. Donnie placed it next to his tools, his eyes had scanned you when he came over and you could see the worry.

It was safe to say you weren’t looking your best, but then again you hadn’t slept right in the last six months and the clutter of bottles in your trash bin spoke of how you’d been spending your evenings. “Miss seeing you coming around, Mikey misses you a lot” Donnie started to fix the heater, occasionally taking a sip from the spiked coffee. You held the mug tightly, it had been a few months since you stopped going mostly because you always found yourself stepping into his room...

-Don’t think about it-

“How’s everyone?” You asked avoiding the question. Donnie’s shoulders shrugged, pulling apart pieces of your dingy old heater. “Mikey’s doing okay, he’s going on solo patrols really matured you know?” The youngest turtle had changed, there was still a spark of his mischievous ways but he had taken his duties more seriously as of late. “...and Raph?” You weren’t too sure if the subject still remained sour, the brute had a falling out with the tech genius around the time of...

“Raph stops by once in a while, for Mikey’s sake and well since Dad hasn’t been too well health wise” You hang your head, the light brown liquid in your hands still in the porcelain. Splinter was old, it was understandable, maybe you should stop by and see him.

“Splinter is strong, Don” You took a generous gulp, the burn of the whiskey dulling you. “He’s gotten older Y/N, he’s frail... I’m keeping him comfortable” He dug through tools, pushing aside things he didn’t need. You couldn’t help take in Donatello’s features, he had bulked up a little more, more definition in his arms but his eyes still spoke of the little sleep he was allowing himself. Your eyes landed on his wrist, a small piece of blue fabric wrapped around it.

Your eyes burned, so you chased it with another sip of your coffee. Rest hadn’t found you either.

“You two should make up, you need each other” Donnie sighed at your retort, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Getting through Raph isn’t as easy as getting through a firewall, you know how fucking stubborn he could be” He shook the heater, it tried whirring back to life but no luck. “He’s stubborn but he’ll listen even if you think he doesn’t-“ Donnie smacked the heater, hard enough something dented, hard enough for you to flinch.

“He doesn’t comprehend that we lost him too, Y/N, he wants to blame me or himself or... but no okay? He doesn’t get to act like a fucking child because it’s been half a year and it still hurts” Donnie gripped the machine, eyes shutting tightly, all you could do was remain quiet. Your chest felt too tight, you didn’t want to hear it.

Please, don’t say it.

_____________

The rain always brought an unpleasant smell. It’s probably due to how polluted this god forsaken city is. Aside from the smell of shit, there was that coppery scent in the air too and you smelt it as soon as you got to the roof via the fire escape. The guys had been chasing Leonardo and Shredder, April and you on car the others on the truck. This solo vendetta of Leo’s had gone too far and while he had tracked down the bastard it didn’t mean he had to take this on by himself.

The rain fell in hard drops, each resonating as it smacked down onto you. You looked about the roof trying to spot anything, the calm too eerie. The blood almost swam by you, meeting your sneakers, a proverbial map to your destination.

And what a awaited you...

There was no feasible way to prepare yourself, even the small prayer you whispered under your breath not enough to silence the gut wrenching dread that befell you alongside the rain. Your knees hit the pavement hard and you couldn’t seem to see clearly enough where to press down and hold the life slipping out of him.

It’s all mute from there, you remember the sobs mixed into his name. The slow way his eyelids fluttered and the shallow breaths he took, he wanted to move so badly to hold you close and tell you it’s alright. The part of his mind crashing, slowly but surely losing light just saw the image of you as a comforting sign.

That while he laid there feeling darkness overtake him, he’d at least have the image of you above him. You begged nevertheless, telling him to remain awake that the others would be there soon, even going so far as to try and move his heavy frame but you were too small and Leo would simply just not budge. Trembling hands pushed on Raphael’s name, something akin to ‘hurry’ escaping your mouth but your shaking hands couldn’t hold the phone long enough before more blood gushed out and you tried to hold it all in for Leo.

His hand landed on your cheek, thumb caressing the spot.

“I.. I’m s-sorry” He heaved out, hand slipping, blue eyes suddenly too dark.

He wasn’t breathing.

Leo wasn’t breathing.

_____________

You felt hands on your shoulder before you snapped out of that terrible memory. Donatello’s concerned gaze on you.

“Y/N? Hey, are you okay?” You couldn’t quite catch the image of Donnie, he was distorted as your eyes welled up with tears and you fought back the urge to let them drop. Because for six months you had been crying your eyes out for him, for six months you had not known the word peace, for six months you had stared at a window that yielded no end to your pain. In one manic night you had thrown up your comforter and nailed the damn thing over that fucking window, you had contemplated tearing up the carpets that had so many specks of Leo’s blood, you had tried to quiet the urge to burn your bedroom because every corner of it had some essence of him in or on it.

Some days you were so furious that he had done this. That he had died for a cause that would go unmerited, leaving his friends, his family and you to hold on to unamended pieces.

That very night he had been taken back to the lair, each brother having a moment with him, April as well. You were given one last moment with him, to be around him, to hold his impossibly cold hand.

At some point Splinter had stepped in and sat down next to you, his hand came to rest on your shoulder. It had to be admired, even if his eyes spoke that his world was crashing before him, he remained the rock that protected against the crashing waves.

“He loved you... with everything he had” Splinter had said and while there was comfort in there, the pain was far too great. You don’t remember stepping out let alone getting up, in fact most of that night had been a blur. At some point Raphael had supposedly picked you up and laid you down on the cot April used when she stayed over. Somewhere between that you had stumbled to Leo’s room and you had stayed there for a week.

That week had turned into a month.

For thirty days you stayed among his things, among his scent, on a bed you had been countless times on in countless ways. In the misery of it all there was comfort there, even if each night you dreamt of him, even if you swore that at times you heard your name being called by him. It was worse when you woke startled feeling as if he had ran his hand down your hip.

Around the end of that first month Mikey had stepped in with some food (much like he had done everyday) but this time he had placed it on the the night table and climbed into the bed with you.

He was crying.

You both held onto each other, anchoring one another to remain in the tough currents because this storm wouldn’t go away anytime soon.

You give Mikey credit for pulling you out of that room, even if you left a good chunk of your heart there, the other portions on that forsaken rooftop, the rest with Leo. You hadn’t been to the lair every since.

Donnie cupped your face, thumbs drying the tear tracks on your cheeks. “I’m sorry” You spoke out, not really sure why but all Donnie did was pull you close and hug you and you’re sure you haven’t hugged him in six months and while his scent is nowhere near that of Leo’s and his body lean muscle the contrast of his eldest brother, you still fell apart against the familiarity of it.

You sobbed against him quietly, dropping your mug, the shattering not jarring enough to bring you or him back.

And why come back to the present? To a cold home? To a place where Leo only existed in memories and lucid dreams?

Donnie held you close, his own tears falling and whatever fortress he had built up in this time had shattered like glass.

Leonardo was dead and there was simply nothing the two of you could do.

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[marigoldbaker]

in the spirit of giles and jenny getting seduced by dracula's vampire brides, hee!: what are, let's say, your top five (or top however-many!) post-s2 shenanigans that happened in canon that you would've loved to see jenny around for? we as a society of course muse over what it would've been like to have jenny around in general, but it feels like a fun time to specifically imagine how jenny might have been part of all the NONSENSE.

THIS IS SUCH A CUTE ASK. OKAY. 

so giles right after being fired from the council is so bitter and angry in canon, but i kinda think that had jenny been there, it would have been SO different tonally speaking! i have many many thoughts on giles’s arc and how it would’ve been altered by jenny’s presence, and one of them has always been that were jenny there, he would no longer feel the need to rigidly carry out his watcherly duties and drug buffy -- because he does not have to constrain himself to what Being A Watcher means when he is literally dating the poster child for saying “fuck you” to destiny and creating a hugely positive outcome for everybody involved. so he does NOT cooperate, he gets VERY fired, and while there is still a degree of bitterness and snark, it’s tempered by the fact that giles and jenny are trying to build a new way forward together.

literally every god damn day of my life i think about how much i want jenny’s take on the initiative. like that’s magic and tech and lots of questions about morality. she NEEDS TO BE THERE. she would initially REALLY get along with maggie walsh and this would drive a huge wedge between her and giles, right up until walsh insults giles and jenny’s like. yeah. no. she would steal lab tech from the initiative and take it back to the scooby gang and spend a whole bunch of time tinkering with it in the back. honestly i think the initiative might even hire her for like two seconds but she’d see what they’re doing with demons and start an actual screaming match with maggie walsh about morality and very nearly get herself locked up in one of the cells. (maybe spike breaks her out as an attempt to utilize a scooby bargaining chip. that would be HILARIOUS.)

on that note: if jenny was alive in season three, spike would have kidnapped her to do the love spell instead of willow (she’s an adult who he knows is capable of resouling angel. it just makes sense.). i made a post a while back about this but like....the potential of spike and jenny BOTH having relationship drama and being very upset at their exes, and then a panicked giles & co. busting down the door to find spike and jenny very wasted with spike crying on jenny’s shoulder about how they Always Leave (jenny is nodding emphatically and somewhat drunkenly).

season six! such a delicious angst fest. i kinda always thought that jenny would stay and giles would go to england and that would create this very new and interesting dynamic between jenny and buffy. like, buffy finds out that giles is gonna go and automatically assumes that Of Course jenny is leaving too, and then she finds out that ms. calendar has potentially tanked her long-term relationship for the sake of trying to provide adequate support to the kids. (jenny moves in and spends a lot of time trying to get buffy to go to therapy. they have a lot of fraught and very confusing arguments that eventually make it very clear that buffy is lowkey starting to see jenny as a mother figure & jenny has NO idea what to do about this. dawn meanwhile is starved for attention and has latched onto jenny like a barnacle. season six is a mess.)

i would be remiss to go this entire post without mentioning jenny and faith. like......how could i not mention jenny and faith. i managed to infuse my jenny and faith agenda into the entire fandom subconscious and created the jenny and faith tag on archive of our own. i’m kinda up in the air about how much jenny would be able to change wrt faith’s heel-turn (and i think it would be really interesting if she DIDN’T change anything despite trying her hardest), but i do think that there would be a really special relationship there. they’re both kinda outsiders who have to deal with the fact that they’re only barely connected to the scoobies. i’ve been playing around with a season seven au where faith comes back after absolutely fucking jenny over at the mayor’s request and they have to figure out how to mend what was a genuinely loving connection. there’s so much to work with there!!!!!

honorable mention is just the entire vibe of giles and jenny as a long term on again off again fixture of the buffyverse. i want that so badly. can you IMAGINE the energy of like....season seven giles and jenny getting back together after the drama of season six and then having a stupid fight over the dishes and calling a scooby meeting to announce their Official Separation As A Couple. there is this dead silence. xander hands willow ten dollars. buffy very slowly buries her face in her hands and says “for the millionth time. nobody here wants to be called over to your house every time you two break up. do you remember that one week in my freshman year of college when we were here every day?” dawn, of course, is genuinely upset. (”oh, sweetie, it’s okay!” says tara. “it’s mr. giles and ms. calendar, remember? they’ll be back together by saturday.” this very visibly cheers dawn up.)

[robbyrobinson]

Separate Tides (Review)

Hooray for the pirate episode. After waiting months, the Owl House is officially back to start its second season. In it, we learn the aftermath of Luz destroying the door and stranding her in the Boiling Isles. Without the door, Eda can no longer sell human garbage thus forcing her to take up bounty hunting. Worse, Luz can no longer get into contact with her mother due to the door's destruction. Lilith goes to live at the Owl House obviously no branded a traitor and given disrespect. We also get to learn how bad conditions are in the Boiling Isles: really, there isn't much food there that Luz could digest (which makes me wonder where Gus got that PB & J sandwich from back in "I Was a Teenage Abomination" with the only edible food being griffin eggs, but those are expensive. Feeling guilty for putting Eda into that situation, Luz decides to take part on a ship and hunt for selkiedomuses. Unfortunately, the ship was actually one of many owned by the Emperor. Overall nice setup for how vastly different the second season is in comparison to the first. Luz is without a way home; Eda and Lilith are next to powerless and have to resort to using glyphs, which will set up Luz teaching them. Lilith had been disavowed and is now nothing short of a peasant. And Belos had already completed the portal door. Oh...oh no. As for new characters...we have the Owl Spy, or better known as the Golden Guard. I had initially expected the Golden Guard to have been some deathly serious threat without a hint of comedy to his name likely a British accented monotonous voice. Instead, when we are finally introduced to the Golden Guard...it turns out that he is nothing like my head canon had determined. Which is a good thing. I love this guy. The Golden Guard is introduced as some teen prodigy that is given special treatment by the Emperor himself. He is a 16-year-old who is refreshingly entertaining. While malicious, he is playful and conniving. When he kidnaps King, he trolls him by repeatedly lifting the blanket over the bird cage for his own amusement; he playfully holds Eda and Luz over the boiling seas while giddily explaining that the sea's steam is enough to cause third-degree burns and then eagerly says "Bye!" in a chipper tone. So you have someone who is unambiguously evil, but he is also in a near-constant easy-going mood. At the least he shows that he can be negotiated with handing King back when he thought that Luz killed the selkiedomus. He's almost like a male version of Eda showing what Eda would have been like had she joined the Emperor's Coven. As for his relationship with the Emperor, I have already seen several theories suggesting that he is the son of Belos: in the episode, it is revealed that Belos has long, graying blonde hair, and if you happen to notice the Golden Guard briefly removing his mask, he too is blonde. While it is reasonable, I'd take it a step further and speculate that the GG is a clone. While that may sound crazy at first, considering how Belos was able to finish constructing the door to the human world and his high-tech looking staff (and even how the GG performs magic in unconventional ways), it looks more and more likely. We all know that fifty years ago Emperor Belos arrived and ended the savage ages which led to the establishment of the coven systems and how witches could only perform one type of magic for the rest of their life. So it is no unreasonable to say that Belos is OLD. Very, very, unbelievably, inconceivably old. As I am pretty sure that Belos did not have a love child with anyone (because it is a Disney show after all, and I don't want that visual of the Emperor getting it on with anyone), the likelihood of having an heir succeed him in the events of his death would be near impossible. Remember when he tasked Lilith with retrieving that flower for him back in season 1? I'm personally thinking that once he realized that the flower was fake, he used his technological knowledge to create a clone of himself that way so he could somewhat "cheat death." With how much he talks about

the Day of Unity and its inevitability, Belos likely created the GG as a contingency plan in the events that he doesn't live to enact the Day of Unity. I mean why else would he show favoritism over this one subject if not for their close ties? Overall, a great way to start the second season. Can't wait for next week where we get to formally meet Momma Thiccalia.

[cocochannel00]

No Sympathy

Harry gets injured and (Y/n) shows no sympathy.....

Kids: Connor (18), Becca (17), Grayson and Riley (15), Victoria (10), Casey (5)

You had been working as a nurse for over 18 years now. It was true that you had been on and off between kids and other events, but you had always been fully committed to the idea that you were going to work regardless of Harry’s ability to support your family financially. You didn't go to school for all of those years to get a degree and pursue your passion just to give it up after having kids and marrying the love of your life that also happened to be a millionaire. You admired stay at home moms and the hard work they do but you were a busy body and having too much free time made you slowly go insane so you decided to get back to work. 

Your kids were more or less grown up with the eldest, Connor, being 17 and your youngest, Casey, being 5. Harry had decided to stay home and watch the kids that Friday (the ones that were hanging around the house at least) as you covered one of your coworker's shift. It had been an overall quiet day except for the few patients that were being stubborn and a couple of fans that were visiting family that occasionally came in to ask for pictures. Since you and Harry had been married things had settled down fairly well as you not only lived in the outskirts of London but the locals also got tired of seeing you. Sometimes the tourist would come to see if they could catch a glimpse of Harry at your home but with the giant fence Harry had built there wasn’t much they could see.

You had just finished taking a chest x-ray of a little boy who had come in with what you thought was bronchitis when you heard some commotion coming from the ER wing. Doctors were chatting loudly as the nurses raced around looking for empty rooms. Why they were so worried about getting a private room you had yet to figure out but it didn't really matter to you.

As you dropped off the little boy and continued to walk through the hallway getting ready to check on your other patients your coworker Jasmine came running down the corridor screaming your name. Startled you looked up from your clipboard waiting for the news to come.

"(Y/n) you need to come down to room 203d" she said slightly out of breath.

"Why?" You asked as you carefully closed the clipboard and tucked your pencil behind your ear.

"Harry's been in a bit of an accident of sorts and he won't stop causing a commotion. They’ve just started him on a morphine drip to get him to calm down," she said quickly.

You sighed but abruptly began to jog down the hallway towards the elevator to go meet your wailing husband. It had been a while since Harry had injured himself to the point of needing the hospital. The last time you could remember was when Connor was learning to parallel park an accidentally ran over Harry's foot. He was in a boot for a couple of weeks but other than that he had been relatively ok.

The elevator sounded as you reached the second floor where Harry was. You could hear muffled groans and screams as you approached the room. Two doctors stood outside the room as you saw Becca, Casey, Vicca and Riley sitting in chairs across from Harry’s room. Casey was sobbing as Becca held her on her lap. Vicca and Riley were wincing at each groan from their father but didn't overt their eyes from Riley's phone.

Walking up to them quickly you greeted them all with a kiss on the forehead before picking Casey up from Becca's arms and cradled her to your chest. Harry's groans had subsided to whimpers for now and you took the opportunity to calm Casey down before sending her to the vending machine with Rebecca to buy some candy. You gave Riley and Victoria a dollar too a told them to follow them and wait outside once they get back. 

Once they were gone you greeted the doctors and walked in to see your husband on the hospital bed, one arm over his face the other twisted in an odd position. Amy, the oldest and meanest nurse you knew, had just finished cutting his shirt off his body in hopes of better assessing his injuries without causing more pain.

"Oh, would you stop your shouting your gonna scare the fish in the waiting room" Amy scolded as she walked around the room.

"Well, Amy I hope this gives them the opportunity to escape like in Finding Nemo" Harry retorted, slightly disoriented from the morphine that was starting to kick in.

You chuckled in the corner as you slowly approached his bed.

"I'm glad you're all for saving the fish, but I think they're just fine where they are. Thank you, Amy, I’ll save you the trouble and pop it back in my self. Send a tech to take his vitals in 10 minutes please " you said.

“Alright darling, don’t know how you married such a dramatic man” she laughed as she left the room.  

“I ask myself that every day” you replied with a grin.

Harry lifted his uninjured arm away from his face before grimacing at you sheepishly.

"Hey honey what brings you here," Harry asked as you glared at him. He groaned slightly as he attempted to lift his head, moving his shoulder in the process.

"Oh you know I could hear my husband’s screams two stories up and I thought maybe he was in a life-threatening situation like a bullet wound or something but no he's here yelling about a dislocated shoulder," you stated with an eyebrow raised as if challenging him to say something.

"(Y/n) I'm in immense pain ok! I don't need this" he replied as he looked at you with tears swarming his eyes.

"Ok, ok calm down a bit form me, baby, ok? let me pop it back in real quick. It's going to hurt." You stated

"Oh sweet Jesus, pray for me at the hands of this merciless woman" Harry mumbled as he stared up at the ceiling.

You need to find a way to distract him in order for it to pop in properly so you decided to question him about his day so you could assess the problem properly. 

"What on earth did you do today that you managed to pop this out?" You asked.

"Well you see it started with lunch, Casey wanted Mac and Cheese and we didn't have any upstairs and I was climbing the stairs and you see I was about to-" he started but before he could finish you quickly popped it back in causing Harry to scream at the top of his lungs. You hoped he wouldn’t faint as Harry had a tendency to do that when he was in severe pain (like when you broke his hand while giving birth to the twins).

Just as you predicted he began to tense up and hyperventilate. his heart monitor began to beep rapidly as you cursed at your husband. You quickly grabbed his face in your hands and forced him to open his eyes and look at you. 

"H deep breaths. Come on you can do it" you encouraged but Harry only became less cooperative.

You decided that this was going to go downhill quickly if you didn’t act now so you did the only thing you knew would get your husband to calm down. You smashed your lips to his and held his face in your hands hoping that the kiss would help his body calm down like it usually does. It felt as if you had held your breath for hours before you released him and rested your forehead against his. Harry's breath had returned to a somewhat normal rate as you sat on the edge of the bed staring at him. 

You could sense the doctors' gazes and awkwardly smiled at them. You were never one for showing affection in public and much less in the hospital. They both cautiously walked out and left you two alone.

"I hope you don't do that with all of your patients" Harry whispered as he smiled up at you. You pecked his lips quickly before laughing.

"No, just on the really hot grammy winners. I’m hoping to test it out on Stormzy soon" you replied smugly as you went to grab a sling from the cabinet.

"Haha very funny, I’m going to let the comment slide because I’m on a lot of drugs and I’m a bit drowsy. Oh, I also forgive you for crushing my hand with the twins. If this is just a fraction of the pain you felt during childbirth then I don't even want to know how you did it five times."

"Well someone always said they wanted to have a big family and could never keep it in his pants." You retorted as you wrapped the sling over his now swollen shoulder.

"So how did this happen again?" You asked as you walked to the door to let your kids in.

"Well long story short Riley left his skateboard in the kitchen and I tripped and fell on it while I was playing a game on my phone and well, now we're here." He replied.

You heard a knock on the door before it opened slowly. Casey came running in followed by Connor who you assume had come from football practice along with Gray as they both still had their padding. Casey jumped into your arms as the rest of your crazy family shuffled into the room with their various snacks and crowded around the bed Harry was currently sitting up in.

The rush of questions and shouts was enough for you to quickly let out a loud whistle which caught the attention of everyone in the room.

"Your father was stupid so I want zero sympathy for the man in the bed. He brought this upon himself and he knows it” you stated as Harry gave you a loopy grin and blew you a quick kiss causing Victora and Casey to giggle.

“Daddy is very sorry for being clumsy. I guess Mommy’s going to have to take extra good care of me when I get home” Harry replied with a winkle that made your older kids groan in discomfort.

You shook your head with a smile and got up from the edge of the bed, placing Casey on the bed next to him.

“I need to go check on my other, more important patients upstairs. I’ll have Amy bring you some water and find a couple of extra chairs. I get off at 7 so I’ll stop by with your discharge papers and we can all go home for dinner. See you soon babies.” you shouted as you blew them a kiss and walked out of Harry’s room. 

 The rest of that afternoon was spent with you stopping by his room in between patients and your kids laying around Harry's room messing around and watching tv. Nothing like a hospital visit to bring everyone together. 

Masterlist 

[lickingyellowpaint]

Alright, because at least one anon was curious, here are some thoughts based on, admittedly, a very brief foray into the world of sales. I'll speak only to what made my gut instinct do a confused puppy head-tilt, and obviously this is opinion, from someone on tumblr, and therefore not the end-all, be-all of advice on this...

Red Flags of Possible Scam Employers and/or Services

1) The first red flag was that the company threw me into the internal chats - chock full of pep and others' successes - before I was actually physically at work and able to understand their utility. Perhaps it’s easier from a tech perspective to fling new employees into every digital system at once. And sure, there was useful information and good insight into how the company uses those chats - lots of newbies asking questions and getting relevant good answers whilst on the floor, which IS nice - and if you're like me and unfamiliar with the tech or apps being used, it's great practice.

For the most part, though, two of the main chats were just hyping up their salespeople as they met their goals. I suspect they want you to see how much money everyone's making, how they're meeting their goals, and make you want to succeed similarly. There was already a little too much constant enthusiasm bouncing around the place for my goth ass, but hey, can't say the culture was negative! Still somewhat a nefarious psychological move, though, imho. The intent is likely to boast, dazzle, entice, overwhelm and make you envious enough to be competitive, as much as it is to inspire and inform. Just a guess.

2) The second red flag was similar in nature. In a lot of the e-meeting training sessions, there was a LOT of time spent on praising the success of those present in video meetings, a LOT of time spent on explaining the tier system of salespeople, the incentives, the commission system, cool trips you can earn... and I get that, to a degree, okay, you have a job, you wanna know how much money you can really make. Fine!

But if as much or more time is spent on those types of things than the actual training on what you need to learn to do the job... hm. Hm! I suspect more headgaming. (And no, this wasn't an MLM targeting suburban moms to employ and get all their friends onboard. This is a big company with good stock and trusted affiliates.) Anyway, this is about when my gut started to do that quiet hrrrr-uff dogs do when they wanna bark but aren't sure about it yet.

3) Language and words are key. Obviously, most people are sharp enough to know that phrases like "no out-of-pocket upfront cost" is a codeword for We Can't Legally Say It's Free But Want You To Feel Like It Is, and means there'll be payment involved at some point. It's one thing to know that, and quite another to parrot the phrase at an elderly potential customer, or one whose grasp of English isn't quite perfect. Could you, in good conscience, do that for a commission and feel good about it? Turns out I couldn't.

And that's not necessarily indicative of a scam company altogether - sales is sales, and sales language has probably been a little deceptive by nature for as long as it's been around. But could you do that for a paycheck, while being new to the job, thus not being entirely sure what it's gonna cost that little old lady or that immigrant family down the line? Could you? You may not really know for sure until you hear yourself say it, and your gut starts barking in earnest, because you don't know what their next step - that you just convinced them to take - will be.

4) I didn't know, so I tried to find out. While my followers here know I was pretty diligent with my required training stuff, you can see from points 1 and 2 that those materials weren't really meaty and informative enough for me. I tried to seek further clarification not just on my tasks, but the next steps - could someone explain them to me better, in a way that assured me I wasn't pitching a scam? Could someone send me videos or content relevant to the next step in the process, just so I understand it better for my own edification and peace of mind?

Well... maybe they tried to. I was sent a link to a video of one of the next-step-in-the-process sales guys at work... only to be denied access to that video, and though I requested access, nothing in the system ever granted it to me. A glitch? Perhaps. But when I mentioned wanting access, wanting a few more questions answered until I felt right with things, most of what I heard was:

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that."

"Don't overcomplicate things for yourself."

"That's a little above your role. Keep things simple, say you don't know, and it'll add value to the expertise of the next-step sales guy!"

"We tend to save that for more advanced training, since not all of our new people have your emotional intelligence, and might not have as good a brain-to-mouth filter, and say more to the customer than they need to."

Well... I wasn't asking in order to answer a customer's questions, I was asking to answer mine. I won't speak to what I don't know to be true, and I won't sell what I'm not sure is legit, no matter how much I'm paid to do so. And that gut-dog? Now it's a pack of dogs, and at least one of them is starting to howl.

5) It's howling kind of loudly, actually, and my (delightful, friendly, funny) managers aren't helping me quiet it down. So if they can't answer my questions to my satisfaction, I have to seek answers elsewhere.

Arguably, obviously, I should have done this from the start, but - that's when I sought out customer reviews.

And I don't mean clicking Google Reviews and just reading those.

I mean spending most of an afternoon on a deep dive into the following search terms:

"[Company Name] reviews" "[CN] scam" "[CN] Better Business Bureau reviews" "[CN] reddit" "[CN] class action/lawsuit" "[CN] Yelp/any other well-known review site you can think of”/Twitter tag/FB search

You get the idea.

Now, of course some bad actors (rival companies, annoyed ex-employees) can write bad reviews to make the company look bad. Equally, anyone who felt like it could write good reviews to make the company look good. (I wasn't about to search every good reviewer's name in our email database to see if any matched up. But a couple did include words or phrases that might be included in customer-facing marketing and mission statements and thus parroted naturally, but were definitely included in internal training vids. Just a very slight few, but they popped out at me.) Another thing to keep in mind when wanting to take all reviews into account equally is that when people are happy with a product, they don't always remember to leave reviews, so most reviews are written by the vaguely-to-deeply dissatisfied to begin with, and may not be an accurate representation of what's really going on.

Let's be fair here. As a thought experiment, look up the reviews for a company/service/product you truly love, and see if the bad ones reflect a concern you can understand, or one you'd brush off, or one that just doesn't reflect your experience at all. What works for one person/locale/reason for another, might not for someone else, and that’s understandable.

Also ponder:

Out of, let's say, 200 reviews, how many would need to be positive to get you to buy something, especially if it was something you wanted? Would a lot of negative ones make you second-guess the product or service?

How would you gauge the seriousness of the problems presented in the negative ones?

Would a company responding to the bad reviews with apologies and customer service numbers, on that same forum where all could read their empathy and solutions, be enough to convince you that the company had handled the issue by the time you're reading them?

Ponder, ponder, ponder...

aaaand, moving on.

Let's say that out of 200 reviews from a plethora of sources, 40-50 are five-star happy with the company.

Another, eh, 30 or so are two- or three-star, because something went wrong, wrong enough to leave an iffy or downright bad taste in the reviewers' mouths.

The last 110-120? One-star reviews. With at least 10-20 of those saying they'd have left zero stars if the review forum allowed it.

Some of those one-stars may be several years old. Some may have since had their issue truly resolved, and never bothered to update their review or add to it. Some have issues that boil down to, "Okay, the customer clearly didn't understand the terms", or, "That's a crazy problem but I can't relate to caring about it because [insert personal preference/reason] here."

But if a whole load of those one-star reviews tend to speak up about the same types of problems, serious ones, ones you'd find bothersome or downright tragic, ones that would cost you money in some way or another, ones that make you further doubt the integrity of the company altogether, and many of them are as recent as the last few months...

Do I need to finish that sentence?

Hold up, BRB, I have to let the gut-dogs out, they're going absolutely batshit crazy. Must be a full moon!

Or just a disorganized, neglectful, or possibly purposely deceitful company.

The old saying says there’s a sucker born every minute.

Would your conscience be cool with being paid to be one, or to prey on them?

Advice:

My advice is pretty basic: before joining, signing, buying important things, do your diligent research and trust. your. gut.

I hope the above list of experiences helps guide you in doing both.

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

The Definition of Anything-happyaspie [2020-2-27]

The heater in Peter's apartment goes out on the coldest day of the year and the landlord seemed to be overrun with maintenance requests. Calling Tony to help him out seemed like the next logical solution. After all, he had told him many, many times that he should call him if he ever needed anything.  The man had never really specified what 'anything' meant but he figured that by definition, 'I'm cold and you know how to fix things.', fell into that category. Right?

                                    ❄----❄----❄----❄----❄

--Anything--

Pronoun: Any thing whatever; something, no matter what.

Noun: A thing of any kind.

Adverb: In any degree; to any extent; in any way; at all.

Link to AO3-The Definition of Anything-happyaspie

It was the middle of February and the temperature had decided to take a sudden nose dive into the negative numbers.   Not that those kinds of things would stop Peter from patrolling.  Seeing as Tony had helpfully provided him with an in-suit heater, he was sure he would be fine and for a while, he was.  Though once the sun had completely set, the wind started to become so bitter that, eventually, the heater could no longer keep up.

Seeing as the icy negative fifteen-degree weather seemed to be enough to detour any major crime from taking place in the borough, Peter began to swing him towards his warm bed. The first thing he noticed as he stood inside his closet shimmying off the suit was that it wasn't particularly warm in the apartment.  It wasn't cold... it just wasn't as warm and cozy as he'd imagined it would be.  So, once he was in a pair of joggers and t-shirt he walked down the hall towards the thermostat.  He wasn't surprised by the display saying that it was sixty-one degrees in the house.  The entire system was old and a little touchy.   It wasn't unusual to have to knock the desired temperature up a few degrees in order to get the unit to kick in.  Therefore, he hit the up arrow a couple of times, went back to his room to crawl under the covers and fell instantly asleep.

A few short hours later, he woke up to the sound of May getting ready for work.  Though, having not gotten to bed until late he didn't bother to climb out of bed.  He did instantly realize that his room was still cold and looked towards his window to make sure that he'd remembered to close it.  When it was indeed locked shut, he sighed and pulled his comforter up a little more tightly under his chin.  He wasn't worried.  If it was really that cold in the apartment, May would turn up the heater before she left.  

Except, the next time he woke up he could no longer ignore the chills that were dancing up and down his spine.  He lay there for several minutes waiting to hear the hum of the heater begin to blow warmth into his room but it never did.  So, with a huff, he pulled the blankets over his shoulders and sat up.  May was long gone for her first shift of the day and he was going to have to finagle the stupid thermostat himself.  However, once he placed his socked foot onto the laminate flooring, he sucked a hiss in through is teeth.  The floor was so cold that it burned but he powered through and hurried towards the thermostat in the hall that showed the temperature to be a balmy forty-six degrees.  

As he stood there hopping from foot to foot to avoid having any kind of prolonged contact with the floor, he tapped the arrow to send the desired temperature up well past eighty.  Though he knew it wouldn't do any good.  Something had finally given in and it was broken. There wasn't much he could do outside of requesting maintenance and he could do that from his bed.  

After leaving a message with the landlord, Peter tucked himself back down under his covers.  It crossed his mind that maybe putting on his Spider-man suit and swinging across the city with the heater running might warm him up but one look at the outside temperature had him changing his mind.  Even with the sun up, it was still below freezing.  Besides, he was already back to warming up under the blankets and the Spider-suit was all the way on the other side of the room.  

For quite a while, Peter patiently waiting for someone to come to fix the heat but they never arrived.  In fact, between the thin walls and the drafty windows, he could feel it becoming even colder in his room.  His nose was frozen and he could feel it starting to run as a result.  To make matters worse, his stomach was starting to protest his lack of breakfast.  However, rather than get up, he grabbed at his phone with his suddenly uncoordinated fingers and attempted to leave another message with the landlord, only this time it seemed that the message box was full.  Clearly, he wasn't the only one being affected by the cold snap.

Groaning in annoyance, Peter opened and closed his hands a few times to try and warm them up as he tried to decide what to do next.  He considered trying to call May but there was no reason to do that, really.  He'd already called to request the repair and it wasn't like she could do anything else.  Calling her would just make her worry.  Then he thought about going over to Ned's house because surely it was toasty warm in there but then he remembered he wasn't even home.  Unlike him, he was still in the Robotics Club and would be spending the weekend at the school working on all the last-minute programming.  Then, as he was flipping through his contacts list, his thumb landed on Tony's name... and that had him thinking.

The man was a genius.  He knew how to do everything from fixing old car engines to creating an arc reactor and an Iron Man suit out of a box of scraps.  Surely he could fix a broken heating unit.  That and he had told him many, many times that he should call him if he ever needed anything.  He'd never really specified what 'anything' meant but he figured that by definition, 'I'm cold and you know how to fix things.', fell into that category.  So, with only slight hesitation he decided to send him a message.  If nothing else, but to feel out the situation.

'Hey, Mr. Stark.  Are you busy?', he typed out knowing that he probably was and that he'd just asked the stupidest question of all time.  The man was a superhero who owned a gigantic tech business.  Of course, he was busy.  Then, just as he was about to retract the question he received an answer.

Tony, who had been in his workshop all night, literally knee-deep in a new Iron Man suit, smiled down at his phone when the familiar contact popped up on his screen.  Peter rarely texted him before noon and he found himself curious as to what the kid was up to.  'I'm always busy.  Why? What's up?', he typed back in return before his brain filled him on at least three thousand reasons why the kid could be texting him at nine o'clock in the morning.  Especially on a weekend.  Those were the days the teenager spent the majority of his time Spidering all over the city.  'Are you okay?', he added while simultaneously pulling up the information from the Spider-suit.  

Still feeling, slightly apprehensive about asking his mentor to come over to his house, of all things, he decided to once again remain somewhat vague. 'I was sort of hoping that maybe you could come over to my apartment and help me.', he replied not realizing that by leaving out all context he was sending his mentor's heart rate through the roof.  

A glance at the tracking information on the suit verified that it was inside of the Parker's apartment as Peter had indicated.  However, the suit didn't seem to be on and the last activity that had been recorded was from the night prior.  Upon further inspection, he saw that all of the vitals were within a normal range, short of a slight drop in body temperature and that there was no other indication that anything calamitus had happened.  That was all well and good but at the same time, he knew that the teenager had been known to mess with the coding to prevent him from getting certain kinds of notifications.  However, what was most worrying was that he'd straight-up, asked for help.  He never asked for help.  He could be bleeding out in an alley and would still insist that he had it all under control. He wouldn't put it past the kid to lay in his bed overnight, nursing a life-threatening injury, on his own, and then casually text him when he finally decided that maybe he didn't have it all under control, after all.  That was all it took for him to call in a functional suit so that he could take off towards Queens.  'I'll be there soon, kid.  Hang Tight.'

Being utterly relieved that help was on the way, Peter threw the comforter over his head completely and inadvertently drifted back to sleep.  He never once considering how odd it was that his mentor had so quickly agreed to come over help him, despite having no idea what he needed help with.  

While Peter was curled up in a tight ball, sound asleep in the little pocket of warmth he'd created for himself, Tony was flying towards him.  He'd spent the first few minutes of the trip having FRIDAY go over the Spider-suit's video monitoring in an attempt to narrow down what he would be dealing with upon his arrival but the AI found nothing.  He was trying to decide if that was more or less concerning when the familiar building finally came into view.  

Deciding that it would be suspicious for Iron Man to go running through the halls of the Queen's apartment, Tony ditched the suit on the roof and began to climb down the fire escape that led into an alley, cursing himself the whole time for not thinking to put on a coat before he left.  However, between the fridged air and the nagging worry, he managed to make quick work of the ricketty ladders and was soon inside, taking the stairs two at a time all the way up to the Parker's seventh-floor apartment.  

Once he was outside the door he didn't even bother to knock, instead, he took the key that May had entrusted to him for emergencies and walked right in.  He was unsurprised at the lack of activity in the large open room.  Peter hiding an injury from his aunt would be a given.  He wouldn't want her to worry.  The fact that she'd already left for work was to be expected.  Then, rather than announcing his presence, Tony bounded down the hall and threw Peter's bedroom door open steeling himself for the worst, only to end up face to face with a wide-eyed, sleep disheveled teenager looking back at him in surprise.

Having been abruptly pulled from his sleep by his bedroom door squeaking open, Peter rapidly sat up and pulled the light blue comforter off of his head while being careful to keep it tightly wound around his shoulders. "Mr. Stark!", he half croaked in surprise when he saw that it was his mentor and not his aunt standing in his doorway.  He didn't know how long he'd been asleep but apparently it had been long enough for Tony to dive all the way there from Manhattan.

For several seconds Tony stood there and took in the kid's appearance.  Well, what he could see of him anyway.  Which wasn't much.  All that was exposed was his head but his hair was a tangled mess, his nose was red and he could see him shivering where he sat.    Upon further scrutiny, he realized that there were no signs of blood anywhere in the room and that all in all the kid didn't seem to be in any kind of distress.  With that realization, he allowed himself to relax and it was then that he realized how cold it was in the room and involuntarily shivered himself.  "Do you always keep your room this cold?", he asked as he crossed the room, carefully stepping over the various legos and school books that were strewn across the floor.

"N-no.", Peter replied through chattering teeth.  "The heater's broken and the landlord hasn't sent anybody by to fix it yet.", he added before running his hand under his nose with a loud sniff.  "I'm f-freezing."

After standing there for several more seconds the dots slowly began to connect and Tony huffed a laugh. "Is that why you called me?", he asked with amusement.  "You're cold?", added, though he realized it was more than a little chilly in the apartment.  It was near frigid.

"Well...", Peter replied with a small, although it be a bit sheepish smile tugging at his lips.  "You said I could call you for anything, right?"

"I did.", Tony replied seriously.  He'd been trying to drill it into the kid's thick skull for months that he not only could but defiantly should call him whenever he needed help with anything.  Whether it had to do with Spider-man or not.  Though, he'd assumed that whenever that first call for assistance came in, it would be over something a little more... detrimental.  Not that he minded in the least but that wasn't going to stop him from giving the boy a hard time.  "I just wasn't expecting it to be because you needed me to put an extra blanket on your bed and tuck you in."

"Actually I was kind of hoping you could fix the heater, Mr. Stark.", Peter replied as another violent shudder wracked through him.  "...but an extra blanket would be nice too."

Tony then crossed into the room and patted Peter's leg so that he could sit down beside his shivering form.  As he did so, he was more surprised than he probably should have been when the kid immediately leaned over onto him in an attempt to sap up his warmth.  "Are you really that cold?", he asked with a chuckled as he wrapped an arm around the boy's blanketed shoulders. "How long has the heat been out?"

"I've been cold all night.", Peter replied with a contented hum, as the man started to run his hand up and down his back.  "The heater in the suit, which is super awesome by the way, thank you...  wasn't keeping up once it got really, really cold so I came home and I think the heater was already broken then."

"So, you never warmed up?  Geez, kiddo.  Come here.", Tony replied with genuine sympathy as he opened his arms up so that Peter could fall fully up against his body. They sat there for several minutes, Peter trying to absorb as much heat as possible from his mentor's warm embrace and Tony trying to come up with a plan that didn't have him sitting there acting as a human heating pad all day.  "Alright, here's what we're going to do.  We're going to move you out to the couch so that I can make you something warm to drink and then you're going to point me towards your tools so I can take a look at what's going on with the heater, yeah?"

"Mm-hmm.", Peter replied though he made no effort to remove himself from the comfortable position he was now in.  That is until the man stood up and begin to pull him to his feet.

"Come on Linus Van Pelt, get your blanket and start walking.  I'm too old to carry you.", Tony said once he had Peter standing reluctantly beside the bed.  

"You're not that old, Mr. Stark...", Peter said in return, though he'd meant it as a compliment and not as a request.

Tony laughed as he continued out of the room shouting, "Still not carrying you.", over his shoulder as he went.

After a very quick stop in the extremely cold bathroom, Peter was settled on the couch and being handed a mug of hot tea.  He took one small sip and then another, sighing as the warm liquid coated his throat and began to warm him from the inside out.  "This is really good.  Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"You're welcome.  Now, where can I find some tools.", Tony asked and once Peter had pointed him in the right direction he got to work.  First looking over the thermostat and then moving on to the heating unit its self.  He had it apart in no time and was quick to diagnose the problem.  "Looks like the capacitor's blown. That's why the fan won't cut on. Other than that, it looks okay."

"You can fix that, though, right?", Peter asked as he craned his neck around to where Tony was standing at the sink washing his hands.

"I can, but we need to get a new capacitor.",Tony replied with a casual shrug of his shoulders.  "They should have one at the home improvement store around the corner.  You coming with?"

"Sure.", Peter replied because that sounded better than sitting, cold and alone, on the couch while he waited for the man to get back. He was also sure that whatever fancy car the man had driven over would have seat warmers.  Then before anything else could be said, his stomach grumbled so loudly that he was sure they could hear it three apartments over.  "Can we get some food too, please?"

"Of course.", Tony replied with a chuckle. "I already messaged someone to bring me a car.  It should be here any minute.", he then said.  He'd actually done that the second changing the batteries in the thermostat hadn't done the trick and he was sure he would end up needing to go to the hardware store.  Then he glanced over to see the look of confusion on his mentee's face he rolled his eyes.   "What are you looking at me like that for? I didn't drive over this time."

"Then how did you get here?", Peter asked with perplexity.  There were only so many ways one could get to Queens from Manhattan and he couldn't imagine the man taking the bus or subway.

"Before I answer that...", Tony began as he pointed an accusatory finger in his mentee's direction. "...let me make it very clear that you were being oddly cryptic and I thought you were dying...", he said with seriousness but rather than looking any kind of remorseful, he saw a smile spread across the teenager's face.

"Mr. Stark!  You flew here in an Iron Man suit?", peter squawked with delight.  While he felt just a tiny bit bad that he'd scared the man enough to make him think that he needed to rush to his side in an Iron Man suit, he was also extremely amused.  It was sort of nice to know that his mentor cared that much about his well being.

Rather than playing into the kid's obvious enjoyment of the situation, Tony placed his hands indignantly onto his hips. "I repeat... you led me to believe that you were dying.", he stressed but even he could admit that maybe he'd overreacted just a little.  It wasn't like he'd taken any amount of time asking what was wrong.  The kid had said he needed help, his brain had demanded that he jump into action and his body had followed through.

"I'm sorry.", peter said though he continued to practically cackle at the mental image of Iron Man busting through the Tower's ceiling, jetting full speed across the city and landing on his building's rooftop.  

Tony took a moment to wait out the teenager's continuous giggling, before even attempting to reply and when he did it was with playful sarcasm.  "Yeah, you look it."

The trip to the store was quick, the fast-food was warm and soon the two of them were back in the apartment in their previous positions.  However this time, Peter had a small electric heater sitting on the coffee table in front of him, blowing warm air in his direction.  He'd been hesitant to accept the purchase when Tony had picked it up but now that it was there and cutting through the chill in the room, he was happy to have it.  Even if it did take the man no more than twenty minutes to replace the part.

"Thank you for coming and fixing everything, Mr. Stark.", Peter said once, Tony had successfully turned on the heater with a celebratory, 'Yay.', and was sitting down beside him on the couch.

"You're welcome, kiddo.", Tony said before leaning back on the couch and watching whatever nonsense show the kid had turned on while he was doing all the work.  Not that he was upset about that.  He was just glad that the kid, who had buried himself in his side the second he'd sat down, was finally starting to shuck some of the blankets that had ended up piled on the couch and was no longer sniffling every three seconds.  It wasn't until another thirty minutes had passed and he was really starting to feel the rise in temperature that he said anything to the kid who was still pressed tightly up against him.  "You do know that the heater's been running for the last half an hour and it's no longer cold in here, right?", he questioned as he poked the boy's side in an unsuccessful, though admittedly unenthusiastic, attempt to get the boy to get off of him.

"I know.", Peter replied before happily scooting just a touch closer making Tony smile.

"Alright, just so long as you know."

[amostheartman]

Be honest with me. (us? The TP/BotW community? idk.) What do you think of the BotW2 trailer, and do you think there's even a sliver of potential for the Twili to return? I've been dying to know your answer, Amos. By the way, thanks again for the Midlink art piece. Doing a smart here by being off anon for this ask lol.

My My, Quite the question 

*TP Link

First off I’m pretty sure Twilight Princess Link is done as far as canon in-game appearances go. Wolf Link was a pretty dope add-in for Breath of the wild and could be added in for BOW2, but that’s really all were gonna get I’m afraid. :/

well sorta at least.

I mean we got TONES of Amibo and in-game TP stuff like the Twilight tunic, TP Epona (the only Epona in this game mind you), TP Zelda’s Light bow, TP Ganondorf’s Sword, Midna and Zant’s helmet, mention of Prince Rails on the path to Zoras Domain, the somewhat homage to the Bridge of Eldon and of course the famous side quest “A Fragmented Monument” being an obvious nod to the Mirror of twilight.

but even with all this TP stuff It’s no indication that Nintendo has any plans to bring TP Link into the mix.

...

That said... Between you and me, Nintendo just won’t let go of Twilight princess Link.

TP Link got the hi-rez treatment a few years ago for promotional stuff, and as much as I love it and want posters of the full version there really isn’t a reason for Nintendo to be using him to promote things.

They could have use any other Link, but they picked him specifically.

 I mean, Skyward Sword Link was technically the latest in the usual green tunic design(although it was basically a simplified TP tunic), Ocarina of Time and Toon Link are the “fan favorites”, and Breath of the wild Link is the brand spanking new one that broke records.   

Yet, TP Link is still getting promoted.

Whats even more interesting is the the rest of the Nintendo Tokyo banner.

Breath of the Wild Link and Zelda are both there, but so is TP Link and Ganondorf!

 And get this, TP Link is the one in the smaller more common banner!

I love it, but I can’t explain it!

*This is from the 2019 Nintendo Tokyo game show btw*

So as much I have my doubts about TP Link showing up in BOTW2 or ever having a real return of any kind Nintendo sure isn��t making it easy for me to keep believing that.

 Almost like they're toying with me. :(

Is TP Link gonna show up in Breath of the wild 2? probably not. at most heel be a non-cannon amibo wolf companion like in the first one.

Is there gonna a new game with TP Link in it? doubt it.

Is there gonna be a port of the HD Version of Twilight princess to the switch? Could be... but highly unlikely.

Will they do a complete remake of Twilight Princess with these dope re-rendered models with a gameplay style like the Wii U tech Demo of the spider boss!!??? GOD I WISH BUT I KNOW IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!!!!  ( ͡ಥ ͜ʖ ͡ಥ)

But logically it’s probably that TP Link is the best looking and most Marketable out of the Link bunch.  :/

Anyway, you were asking about Breath of the wild 2 right. lol

*BOTW2

the trailer is interesting... like really REALLY interesting.

Its looks waaaaay darker and shaping up to be the Zelda story we never knew we wanted.

I mean com’on whats not to love about dark Zelda stories!? Zelda is always at it’s best when its pushing the edge a bit.

I even did my own break down of it.

  I think I posted it here already but I can’t remember so here it is anyway.

This is pretty much what I gathered from the trailer.

Dark, mysterious, somewhat hopeless and tragic, our heros are in over their heads, everything is on the line, I love it!

Sadly, I really don’t wanna think about it too much because I got my hopes up last time and Nintendo has a bad habit of playing it safe when they should go all out. :/

Straight Up though we’re gonna be seeing Zelda in a much more involved role so that much seems apparent. to what degree? I have no idea.

She might be playable as a character you switch off to for puzzle solving or Goddess powers since shes using the sheikah slate.

All I ask it that she not be an exclusive cutseen character. I wanna see my girl doing things in game.

that said, I know people want Zelda to be the the main playable character but she really isn’t suited to fill Links role as the adventurous warrior type. 

She’s really more of a sage type character on top of being a book worm and not really fit for direct combat.

Ironically enough playing as Zelda would change things so much it wouldn’t be a Zelda game. lol

Or heck, she just might be the playable character its hard to tell honestly.

but what about Link?

Link on the other hand (no pun intend) is still gonna be the player character I think.

I imagine the thing going on with his arm is going to replace the sheikah slate’s function with some added combat stuff.

Kinda like Nero’s arm from DMC or the Shinobi prosthetic from Sekiro.

It would be pretty cool to see Links combat and exploration open up because of a nifty arm. :)

or it could be killing him and we gotta find a way to cure him so he can defeat Ganondorf. (that would be rad!!!)

All-n-all that just depends on what the arm is doing and waht the game wants to be like.

I hope and pray for a combat system like in Twilight Princess and a return to the Temple / Dungeons puzzle and bosses system from the other 3D Zelda’s with a breath of the wild spin.

Golly, just picture exploring a Dungeon with Zelda doing logic puzzles and switching off to Link to handle the combat segments doing a back and forth between the 2 leading up to a boss fight they have to work together to defeat. 

THAT WOULD BE SO RAD!!!!!

Man this is getting long.

 I’ll just say that I have high hopes for BOW2, but going in with zero expositions is always the the way to go.

I trust Nintendo took the feed back from the first game and is adjusting t something that will hopefully satisfy the fans.

I apologize if this was all over the place, I had to do work in between.

I had others ask me slimier questions if you’re that curios and want a fresher take on my thought for BOTW2.

* thoughts about that BotW sequel trailer

* how much Hyrule has changed 

thanks for the question, hope I answered it properly! lol

-Amos :)

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Five

Will we make it off the Citadel in this update??

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Flux is my favorite bar in all of the first game, I know there’s not many to choose from, but I like the music best, everybody’s clothed, everyone’s having a good time, there’s slots upstairs for entertainment, there’s dancing, and plenty of space to chill out in.  Also the color scheme is great.  It looks particularly great now with the graphics mod improvements.  

Doran gets a nice glamour shot here.

I’m a tattle tale who always turns this guy in.  I agree with Kaidan...

Also I really love Rita’s quest with her sister.  She loves her sister, Jenna  wants to be helpful, even Doran’s like “Hey I’d love to give her her job back.”  Everyone here is pretty wholesome.  And Jenna gets one of the best surprise appearances in ME3 if you do things right.  ME1Recalibrated fixes the bugs with her quest, too!

Speaking of bugged quests, Hello Conrad!  ME1Recalibrated fixes Conrad’s bug, and even if it doesn’t, ME2Re does.  The only bad thing about that is it makes his apology for accusing you of something you maybe didn’t do make no sense.

Everyone else was sure Conrad would turn out to be evil, too, right? Instead making him into just a big lying dummy with an advanced degree was a great move.  I was kinda hoping he’d show up in the Citadel DLC.   

Harkin is JUST the FUCKING WORST.  I’m always tempted to let Garrus cap him in ME2 because what a waste of air he is and doesn’t learn his lesson.  

This is also maybe the most overt place where FemShep experiences sexism.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty shitty sexism sprinkled throughout the games (as discussed a bit last post) but ugh this guy, if I could shoot him this game, I might.  At least on renegade playthroughs.

Speaking of Garrus...

Finally, an alien who wants to hang out with us.

As primarily a Kaidan-romancing gal, who tends to keep up with the Kaidan Alenko tag, especially back in the heyday of tumblr, for a while, loving Garrus was... difficult.

In October, when I was finishing up my latest ME3 playthrough and also cleaning up my blog, and also rewatching Doctor Who and thinking a lot about Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, I posted a long thing in a post about Kaidan and Garrus and badly behaving fanbases, which I don’t feel like typing again.  Here’s the whole thing, but I’m going to pull a part of it into here.

I love Garrus, so much.  And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective… overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters.  The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to regularly check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile.  But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of Doctor Who, or actually playing the ME games, those characters are awesome.  

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.  

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this.  It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing.  I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.  

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.  

It’s sad that even thirteen years past the release of ME1 and eight years past ME3 some people still need to have this fight online.   It’s basically impossible to enjoy like, any non-curated Mass Effect space online because of pissing contests or people spouting the same boring opinions.  Which they’re entitled to.  I’m just real tired of “Kaidan is boring!” “Ashley is a racist!” etc with no further depth of thought being given.

The ability to mute / block people and get away from the worst of it is one of the reasons I’m still on tumblr.  Especially always mute/block “confessions” blogs.  Yeesh.

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I’m glad Garrus is here, and I’m glad he’s on the team.  What’s funny though, is that people tend to forget that Garrus like, wasn’t really all THAT popular of a character before ME2.  I know I was only in the fandom for a year before ME2 but I dug in pretty deep in that time.

It wasn’t until he gets his face blown off and starts talking about Old Times that a lot of people started to REALLY like him.  He’s still great in ME1, but not like, elevated to god-tier that so many people did post ME2 release.  But in ME1 he IS neat because he’s really malleable.  Probably the companion who can have the biggest personality shift depending on your choices.

Also, I remember a time when the people who wanted to romance Garrus were like... outliers?  I remember thinking “GARRUS?  As a romance?  That’s... weird.  Who would do that!?”

OH HOW I WAS WRONG.  But that was before reach and flexibility.

Hey I even have a Shep that romanced Garrus in ME2 and ME3.  And I loved it!

Were I to replay a different Shep, she’d be my first choice.

So yeah, I love Garrus, I keep Kaidan in the squad all the time in ME1 and the other spot I try to rotate everyone else somewhat evenly, but you’ll see plenty of him.  Then ME2 he’s by my side most of the way.  And an awful lot in ME3, too.  But I’m happy for him to get crushed on by Dr. Michele and glad to see him and Tali find happiness in ME3.  SO that’s the path we’ll be going down if we get that far here.

I love the Destiny Ascension flyby moment on the Citadel, and it’s so easy to miss.  Also really hard to get good screenshots of.  Thanks Flycam.  Don’t pay attention to the untextured wall in the first pic, just look at the pretty lights!

Let’s go get another squadmate!  This time, a not-as-initially-friendly alien!

What an amazing entrance for Urdnot Wrex.

“Do you want me to arrest you?”

“I want you to try!”

Hell.  Yeah.

Here’s where the somewhat in somewhat evenly comes in.  I probably do favor Wrex and Ashely in the squad in ME1 a little because... well you know what’s coming for Ash and Wrex you get the least amount of time with by far of the other companions.  Also, he’s just... great?  A tank, with some biotics and a shotgun... okay well so am I as a vanguard, but Kaidan has just enough tech powers for us to muddle through where we need to when Wrex is in the squad and he’s so much fun to have around.  His “Fuck you, I don’t care” attitude is great, and his growth story throughout the trilogy is one of the best arcs a character gets, imho.  I just really love Urdnot Wrex.

This is a real nice flight control office you’ve got here, C-Sec.  It would be a shame if someone planted a bug in it later, since literally anyone can just walk on up here uncontested.

This entire area really is so pretty though.

I always pump points into Paragon as much as possible from as early on as possible, and saving these poor guys’ lives is one of the big reasons.  They don’t need to die.

Ash usually still stays in the party up to this point, though sometimes it’s Garrus.  Fist is still a dick in ME2 but he doesn’t need to die here, sorry Wrex.

...raise your hand if you still occasionally forget to pick up Emily Wong’s evidence and have to reload.  I remembered!  ...once I was almost out of Chora’s Den and had to turn around this time.

Kaidan?  Kaidan my love?  My darling... perhaps YOU shouldn’t be the one standing in the middle of the corridor with no barrier or protection?  (I suppose I could scooch over but then I’d look less badass for these screenshots.  Naaah.)

It’d be a shame if someone properly lit the corridor so we could see what’s going on.

But hey... TALI!  Tali Tali Tali!  The first quarian we see, and only one for... awhile?  Is there another quarian in this entire game? I’m trying to remember and seriously can’t think of one.

Anyway, I love Tali, but another character you really need to ignore their most rabid fanbase portions of.  Yikes, Talimancers were really something back in the day.  The biggest problem I have with Tali being in the squad is that normally she’s REALLY useful against Geth and... not so much against just about anything else.  She gets sidelined on my team more than I wish she would.  Especially since she doesn’t show up until very late in ME2 and late-midway through ME3.

Finally, the proof we need.  And the game continues to introduce new concepts to us with the Conduit and we hear the word Reapers for the first time.  We also get a loredump on the quarians and the geth.  

Tali’s voice doesn’t have quite as heavy of an accent in ME1 as it does in 2 and 3.  I guess we can assume she’s lost part of it while on her pilgrimage?  Picking up the local dialects a bit?  The next two times we see her she’s just spent a lot of time with her own people.

Tali’s suit and omnitool look SO GOOD with the updated textures.

I swap Ash out and Tali in at this point, and usually finish up a few more quests along the way.

Ah, Septimus.  You lovesick fool.

Honestly, the very best thing with Septimus is to bring Garrus here if you’re gonna romance him, have Garrus laugh at him for coming undone for love and then... well, ME2 and especially ME3 happen.  But still.  Septimus... always needs a kick in the pants but will get around to doing the right thing.

Hey here’s a cool thing ME1Recalibated does -- Morlan carries a Squad Iconic Armors stock, so you can always find tier-appropriate default look armor for you and all the squad.  Very cool of you, Morlan.  You are currently my favorite store on the Citadel.  Now stop sending me spam, I didn’t sign up for your mailing list.

Look, I have questions about what exactly Xeltan told the consort and how... all that... works... but... I don’t think I actually want to ask them.  Just.. let’s all shut up about all of it, it’s over now.

BTW, according to one of the novels, Councilor Anderson finds Ambassador Cayln super annoying.  I need to re-read that book.

OK fine... I’ll go talk to the Council.

Coming at ya with Actual Proof and a quarian tagging along to back up the claims, the Council is ready to listen.  And while not surprising that it’s finally time to become a Spectre, the actual ceremony is really well done.  With the swelling theme music blaring, and all three councilors stressing what a big deal this is and what will be expected of you, you really feel the weight of this moment.  People take notice.  Although apparently later, Kaidan or Ash get an entire televised event around becoming a Spectre, I guess there’s no time for that right now.

It definitely feels like the game so far has been building towards this moment, not only with POUNDING it into your brain about who Spectres are and why they’re so important and letting you know you’re being evaluated... but it feels like there’s been a shift in the game after this moment.  It’s A Big Deal.

I didn’t finish all the sidequests on the Citadel yet, they can wait, I’ve been here long enough.  Let’s go check out the new cool stuff we can buy.

ME1Recalibrated adds in this Spectre Armor.  Eeehhhhh... no thanks.  We’ll stick with Onyx.

I did cheat myself in a bunch of credits and picked up Spectre weapons though. This ain’t no tryhard playthrough.  

Well OK, we can finish ONE more quest.  Thanks, startlingly loud and triumphant music queue that’s never used again!

Man, this would be SUCH a good pic of the Normandy if... the airlock didn’t go straight through the ship.

We’ve got a ship of our own!  And most of our squadmates to put on it!

Sucks for Anderson to be sidelined, though.  We already love you, Anderson!

It’s cool to get a bit more of the Saren & Anderson backstory here for real.  Still, I enjoyed the book more.  Maybe I’ll do a re-read of all the ME books here soon.

Udina... just keep being you, I guess.  

WE HAVE A SHIP!!!

Okay, whew... we made it off the Citadel.  Now I gotta actually play some more to have more updates to post.  Might be a few days.  Have to actually go back to work tomorrow. :p

Let’s probably do like one sidequest then go get us an Asari!!